This chapter closes the second grand division of our book. In it we
have a most solemn appeal to the conscience of the congregation. It is
what we may term the summing up and practical application of all that
has gone before in this most profound, practical, and hortatory
section of the five books of Moses.
"These are the words of the covenant, which the Lord commanded Moses
to make with the children of Israel _in the land of Moab, beside the
covenant which He made with them in Horeb_." Allusion has already been
made to this passage as one of the many proofs of the entire
distinctness of the book of Deuteronomy from the preceding section of
the Pentateuch; but it claims the reader's attention on another
ground. It speaks of a special covenant made with the children of
Israel in the land of Moab, in virtue of which they were to be brought
into the land. This covenant was as distinct from the covenant made at
Sinai as it was from the covenant made with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
In a word, it was neither pure _law_ on the one hand, nor pure _grace_
on the other, but _government_ exercised in sovereign mercy.
It is perfectly clear that Israel _could_ not enter the land on the
ground of the Sinai or Horeb-covenant, inasmuch as they had completely
failed under it, by making a golden calf. They forfeited all right
and title to the land, and were only saved from instant destruction by
sovereign mercy exercised toward them through the mediation and
earnest intercession of Moses. It is equally plain that they _did_ not
enter the land on the ground of the Abrahamic covenant of grace, for
had they done so, they would not have been turned out of it. Neither
the extent nor the duration of their tenure answered to the terms of
the covenant made with their fathers. It was by the terms of the
Moab-covenant that they entered upon the limited and temporary
possession of the land of Canaan; and inasmuch as they have as
signally failed under the Moab-covenant as under that of Horeb--failed
under government as completely as under law, they are expelled from
the land and scattered over the face of the earth, under the
governmental dealings of God.
But not forever. Blessed be the God of all grace, the seed of Abraham
His friend shall yet possess the land of Canaan according to the
magnificent terms of the original grant. "The gifts and calling of God
are without repentance." Gifts and calling must not be confounded with
law and government. Mount Zion can never be classed with Horeb and
Moab. The new and everlasting covenant of grace, ratified by the
precious blood of the Lamb of God, shall be gloriously fulfilled to
the letter, spite of all the powers of earth and hell--men and devils
combined. "'Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a
new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah;
not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the
day when I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of
Egypt; because they continued not in My covenant, and I regarded them
not, saith the Lord. For this is the covenant that I will make with
the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord: I will put My
laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts; and I will be to
them a God, and they shall be to Me a people; and they shall not teach
every man his neighbor, and every man his brother, saying, Know the
Lord; for all shall know Me, from the least to the greatest. For I
will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their
iniquities will I remember no more.' In that He saith, 'A new
covenant,' He hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and
waxeth old is ready to vanish away." (Heb. viii. 8-13.)
Now, the reader must carefully guard against a system of
interpretation that would apply this precious and beautiful passage to
the Church. It involves a threefold wrong, namely, a wrong to the
truth of God, a wrong to the Church, and a wrong to Israel. We have
raised a warning note on this subject again and again in the course of
our studies on the Pentateuch, because we feel its immense importance.
It is our deep and thorough conviction that no one can understand,
much less expound, the Word of God who confounds Israel with the
Church. The two things are as distinct as heaven and earth; and hence,
when God speaks of Israel, Jerusalem, and Zion, if we presume to
apply those names to the New-Testament Church, it can only issue in
utter confusion. We believe it to be a simple impossibility to set
forth the mischievous consequences of such a method of handling the
Word of God. It puts an end to all accuracy of interpretation, and to
all that holy precision and divine certainty which Scripture is
designed and fitted to impart; it mars the integrity of truth, damages
the souls of God's people, and hinders their progress in divine life
and spiritual intelligence. In short, we cannot too strongly urge upon
every one who reads these lines the absolute necessity of guarding
against this fatally false system of handling holy Scripture.
We must beware of meddling with the scope of prophecy, or the true
application of the promises of God. We have no warrant whatever to
interfere with the divinely appointed sphere of the covenants. The
inspired apostle tells us distinctly, in the ninth of Romans, that
they pertain to Israel; and if we attempt to alienate them from the
Old-Testament fathers and transfer them to the Church of God--the body
of Christ, we may depend upon it, we are doing what Jehovah-Elohim
will never sanction. The Church forms no part of the ways of God with
Israel and the earth. Her place, her portion, her privileges, her
prospect, are all heavenly. She is called into existence in this time
of Christ's rejection, to be associated with Him where He is now
hidden in the heavens, and to share His glory in the coming day. If
the reader fully grasps this grand and glorious truth, it will go far
toward helping him to put things into their right places and leave
them there.
We must now turn our attention to the very solemn, practical
application of all that has passed before us to the conscience of
every member of the congregation.
"And Moses called unto all Israel, and said unto them, 'Ye have seen
all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt unto
Pharaoh, and unto all his servants, and unto all his land; the great
temptations which thine eyes have seen, the signs, and those great
miracles; yet the Lord hath not given you a heart to perceive, and
eyes to see, and ears to hear, unto this day.'"
This is peculiarly solemn. The most astounding miracles and signs may
pass before us, and leave _the heart_ untouched. These things may
produce a transient effect upon the mind and upon the natural
feelings, but unless the conscience is brought into the light of the
divine presence, and the heart brought under the immediate action of
the truth by the power of the Spirit of God, there is no permanent
result reached. Nicodemus inferred from the miracles of Christ that He
was a teacher come from God; but this was not enough. He had to learn
the deep and wondrous meaning of that mighty sentence, "Ye must be
born again." A faith founded on miracles may leave people unsaved,
unblessed, unconverted--awfully responsible, no doubt, but wholly
unconverted. We read, at the close of the second chapter of John's
gospel, of many who professed to believe on Christ when they saw His
miracles; but He did not commit Himself unto them. There was no divine
work, nothing to be trusted. There must be a new life--a new nature,
and miracles and signs cannot impart this. We must be born again--born
of the Word and Spirit of God. The new life is communicated by the
incorruptible seed of the gospel of God, lodged in the heart by the
power of the Holy Ghost. It is not a head-belief founded on miracles,
but a heart-belief in the Son of God. It is something which could
never be known under law or government. "The _gift_ of God is eternal
life, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Precious gift! glorious source!
blessed channel! Universal and everlasting praise to the Eternal
Trinity!
"And I have led you forty years in the wilderness; your clothes are
not waxen old upon you, and thy shoe is not waxen old upon thy
foot."--Wonderful clothes! wonderful shoes! God took care of them and
made them last, blessed forever be His great and holy name!--"Ye have
not eaten bread, neither have ye drunk wine or strong drink; that ye
might know that I am the Lord your God." They were fed and clothed by
God's own gracious hand. "Man did eat angels' food." They had no need
of wine or strong drink--no need of stimulants. "They drank of that
spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ." That
pure stream refreshed them in the dreary desert, and the heavenly
manna sustained them day by day. All they wanted was the capacity to
enjoy the divine provision.
Here, alas! like ourselves, they failed; they got tired of the
heavenly food, and lusted for other things. How sad that we should be
so like them! how very humbling that we should so fail to appreciate
that precious One whom God has given to be our life, our portion, our
object, our all in all! How terrible to find our hearts craving the
wretched vanities and follies of this poor passing world--its riches,
its honors, its distinctions, its pleasures, which all perish in the
using, and which, even if they were lasting, are not for a moment to
be compared with "the unsearchable riches of Christ"! May God, in His
infinite goodness, "grant us, according to the riches of His glory, to
be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man; that Christ
may dwell in our hearts by faith; that we, being rooted and grounded
in love, may be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth
and length and depth and height; and _to know the love of Christ_,
which passeth knowledge, that we may be filled with _all the fullness
of God_." Oh, that this most blessed prayer may be answered in the
deep and abiding experience of the reader and the writer!
"And when ye came unto this place, Sihon the king of Heshbon, and Og
the king of Bashan"--formidable and much-dreaded foes!--"came out
against us unto battle, and we smote them." And had they been ten
thousand times as great and as formidable, they would have proved to
be as chaff before the presence of the God of the armies of Israel.
"And we took their land, and gave it for an inheritance unto the
Reubenites, and to the Gadites, and to the half tribe of Manasseh."
Will any one dare to compare this with what human history records
respecting the invasion of South America by the Spaniards? Woe be to
those who do so! they will find themselves terribly mistaken. There is
this grand and all-important difference, that Israel had the direct
authority of God for what they did to Sihon and Og; the Spaniards
could show no such authority for what they did to the poor ignorant
savages of South America. This alters the case completely. The
introduction of God and His authority is the one perfect answer to
every question, the divine solution of every difficulty. May we ever
keep this weighty fact in the remembrance of the thoughts of our
hearts, as a divine antidote against every infidel suggestion!
"Keep therefore the words of this [the Moab] covenant, and do them,
_that ye may prosper in all that ye do_." Simple obedience to the Word
of God ever has been, is now, and ever shall be the deep and real
secret of all true prosperity. To the Christian, of course, the
prosperity is not in earthly or material things, but in heavenly and
spiritual; and we must never forget that it is the very height of
folly to think of prospering or making progress in the divine life if
we are not yielding an implicit obedience to all the commandments of
our blessed and adorable Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. "If ye abide
in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will, and it
shall be done unto you. Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear
much fruit; so shall ye be My disciples. As the Father hath loved Me,
so have I loved you; continue ye in My love. _If ye keep My
commandments_, ye shall abide in My love; even as I have kept My
Father's commandments, and abide in His love." Here is true Christian
prosperity. May we earnestly long after it, and diligently pursue the
proper method of attaining it.
"Ye stand this day, _all of you_, before the Lord your God; your
captains of your tribes, your elders, and your officers, with all the
men of Israel, _your little ones_"--touching and interesting
fact!--"your wives, and _thy stranger_ that is in thy camp." How
exquisite, how deeply affecting, the expression, "_thy_ stranger"!
What a powerful appeal to Israel's heart on behalf of the stranger!
"From the hewer of thy wood unto the drawer of thy water; that thou
shouldest enter into covenant with the Lord thy God, and into His
oath, which the Lord thy God maketh with thee this day; that He may
establish thee to-day for a people unto Himself, and that He may be
unto thee a God, as He hath said unto thee, and as He hath sworn unto
thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob. Neither with you only
do I make this covenant and this oath, but with him that standeth here
with us this day before the Lord our God, and also with him that is
not here with us this day; for ye know how we have dwelt in the land
of Egypt, and how we came through the nations which ye passed by; and
ye have seen their abominations [that is, the objects of their
worship--their false gods] and their idols, wood and stone, silver and
gold, which were among them." (Ver. 10-17.)
This earnest appeal is not only general, but also intensely
individual. This is very important. We are ever prone to generalize,
and thus miss the application of truth to our individual conscience.
This is a grave mistake, and a most serious loss to our souls. We are
every one of us responsible to yield an implicit obedience to the
precious commandments of our Lord. It is thus we enter into the real
enjoyment of our relationship, as Moses says to the people, "that He
may establish thee for a people unto Himself, and that He may be unto
thee a God."
Nothing can be more precious. And then it is so very simple. There is
no vagueness, obscurity, or mysticism about it. It is simply having
His most precious commandments treasured up in our hearts, acting upon
the conscience, and carried out in the life. This is the true secret
of habitually realizing our relationship with our Father and with our
Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
For any one to imagine that he can enjoy the blessed sense of intimate
relationship while living in the habitual neglect of our Lord's
commandments is a miserable and mischievous delusion. "If ye keep My
commandments, ye shall abide in My love." This is _the_ grand point;
let us deeply ponder it. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." "Not
every one that saith unto Me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom
of heaven; but he that doeth the will of My Father which is in
heaven." "For whosoever shall do the will of My Father which is in
heaven, the same is My brother, and sister, and mother." "Circumcision
is nothing, and uncircumcision is nothing, but the keeping of the
commandments of God."
These are seasonable words for this day of easy-going, self-indulgent,
worldly profession. May they sink down into our ears and into our
hearts. May they take full possession of our whole moral being, and
bring forth fruit in our individual history. We feel persuaded of the
need of this practical side of things. We are in imminent danger,
while seeking to keep clear of every thing like legality, of running
into the opposite evil of carnal laxity. The passages of holy
Scripture which we have just quoted--and they are but a few of
many--supply the divine safeguard against both these pernicious and
deadly errors. It is blessedly true that we are brought into the holy
relationship of children by the sovereign grace of God, through the
power of His Word and Spirit. This one fact cuts up by the roots the
noxious weed of legality.
But then, surely the relationship has its suited affections, its
duties, and its responsibilities, the due recognition of which
furnishes the true remedy for the terrible evil of carnal laxity so
prevalent on all hands. If we are delivered from _law-works_--as,
thank God, we are, if we are true Christians--it is not that we should
be good-for-nothing self-pleasers, but that _life-works_ might be
produced in us, to the glory of Him whose name we bear, whose we are,
and whom we are bound, by every argument, to love obey, and serve.
May we, beloved reader, earnestly seek to apply our hearts to this
practical line of things. We are imperatively called upon to do so,
and we may fully count upon the abundant grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ to enable us to respond to the call, spite of the ten thousand
difficulties and hindrances that lie in our way. Oh, for a deeper work
of grace in our souls, a closer walk with God, a more pronounced
discipleship! Let us give ourselves to the earnest pursuit of these
things!
We must now proceed with the lawgiver's solemn appeal. He warns the
people to take heed, "lest there should be among you man or woman or
family or tribe whose heart turneth away this day from the Lord our
God, to go and serve the gods of these nations; lest there should be
among you _a root_ that beareth gall and wormwood."
These searching words are referred to by the inspired apostle in his
epistle to the Hebrews in a very emphatic manner. "_Looking
diligently_," he says, "lest any man fail of the grace of God; lest
any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be
defiled."
What weighty words are these! how full of wholesome admonition and
warning! They set forth the solemn responsibility of all Christians.
We are all called upon to exercise a holy, jealous, godly care over
each other, which, alas! is but little understood or recognized. We
are not all called to be pastors or teachers. The passage just quoted
does not refer particularly to such; it refers to all Christians, and
we are bound to attend to it. We hear great complaints on all sides,
of the sad lack of pastoral care. No doubt there is a great lack of
true pastors in the Church of God, as there is of every other gift.
This is only what we might expect. How could it be otherwise? How
could we expect a profusion of spiritual gifts in our present
miserable condition? The Spirit is grieved and quenched by our
lamentable divisions, our worldliness, our gross unfaithfulness. Need
we, then, marvel at our deplorable poverty?
But our blessed Lord is full of deep and tender compassion toward us
in the midst of our ruin and spiritual desolation, and if we only
humbled ourselves under His mighty hand, He would graciously lift us
up, and enable us, in many ways, to meet the deficiency of pastoral
gift amongst us. We might, through His precious grace, look more
diligently and lovingly after one another, and seek each other's
spiritual progress and prosperity in a thousand ways.
Let not the reader imagine for a moment that we mean to give the
smallest countenance to prying officiousness or unwarrantable
espionage on the part of Christians. Far away be the thought! We look
upon such things as perfectly insufferable in the Church of God. They
stand at the very moral antipodes of that loving, holy, tender,
diligent pastoral care of which we speak and for which we long.
But does it not strike the reader that, while giving the widest
possible berth to these most contemptible evils to which we have just
referred, we might cultivate and exercise a loving, prayerful interest
in one another, and a holy watchfulness and care, which might prevent
many a root of bitterness from springing up? We cannot doubt it. It is
quite true we are not all called to be pastors, and it is equally true
that there is a grievous dearth of pastors in the Church of God. We
mean, of course, true pastors--pastors given by the Head of the
Church--men with a pastor's heart, and real pastoral gift and power.
All this is undeniable, and for this very reason it ought to stir the
hearts of the Lord's beloved people every where to seek of Him grace
to enable them to exercise a tender, loving, brotherly care over one
another, which might go a great way toward supplying the need of
pastors amongst us. One thing is clear, that in the passage just
quoted from Hebrews xii. there is nothing said about pastors. It is
simply a most stirring exhortation to all Christians to exercise a
mutual care, and to watch against the springing up of any root of
bitterness.
And oh, how needful this is! How terrible are those roots! How bitter
they are! How widely spread are their pernicious tendrils at times!
What irreparable mischief they do! How many are defiled by them! How
many precious links of friendship are snapped, and how many hearts
broken by them! Yes, reader, and how often we have felt persuaded that
a little judicious pastoral or even brotherly care, a little loving,
godly counsel, might have nipped the evil in the bud, and thus
hindered an incalculable amount of mischief and sorrow. May we all lay
these things to heart, and earnestly seek grace to do what we can to
prevent roots of bitterness springing up and spreading abroad their
defiling influence.
But we must hearken to further weighty and searching words from the
beloved and venerable lawgiver. He draws a most solemn picture of the
end of the one who caused the root of bitterness to spring up.
"And it come to pass, when he heareth the words of this curse, _that
he bless himself in his heart_, saying, I shall have peace, though I
walk in the imagination of mine heart, to add drunkenness to thirst."
Fatal delusion! Crying, Peace, peace! when there is no peace, but
imminent wrath and judgment. "The Lord will not spare him, but then
the anger of the Lord and His jealousy shall smoke against that man,
and,"--instead of the "peace" which he vainly promised himself,--"all
the curses that are written in this book shall lie upon him, and the
Lord shall blot out his name from under heaven." Awful warning to all
who act as roots of bitterness in the midst of the people of God, and
to all who countenance them!
"And the Lord shall separate him unto evil out of all the tribes of
Israel, according to all the curses of the covenant that are written
in this book of the law; so that the generation to come of your
children, that shall rise up after you, and the stranger that shall
come from a far land, shall say, when they see the plagues of that
land, and the sicknesses which the Lord hath laid upon it; and that
the whole land thereof is brimstone and salt and burning, that it is
not sown, nor beareth, nor any grass groweth therein, like the
overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah, Admah and Zeboim, which the Lord
overthrew in His anger and in His wrath:"--Soul-subduing examples of
the governmental dealings of the living God, which ought to speak with
a voice of thunder in the ears of all those who are turning the grace
of our God into lasciviousness, and denying the Lord that bought
them!--"even all nations shall say, Wherefore hath the Lord done thus
unto this land? What meaneth the heat of this great anger? Then men
shall say, Because they have forsaken the covenant of the Lord God of
their fathers, which He made with them when He brought them forth out
of the land of Egypt; for they went and served other gods, and
worshiped them, gods whom they knew not, and whom He had not given
unto them; and the anger of the Lord was kindled against this land, to
bring upon it all the curses that are written in this book; and the
Lord rooted them out of their land in anger, and in wrath, and in
great indignation, and cast them into another land, as it is this
day." (Ver. 19-28.)
Reader, how peculiarly solemn is all this! What a powerful
illustration of the apostle's words, "It is a fearful thing to fall
into the hands of the living God"! and again, "Our God is a consuming
fire"! How important that the professing church should give heed to
such warning notes! Most assuredly, she is called to learn much from
the history of God's dealings with His people Israel; Romans xi. is
perfectly clear and conclusive as to this. The apostle, in speaking of
the divine judgment upon the unbelieving branches of the olive-tree,
thus appeals to christendom: "If some of the branches be broken off',
and thou, being a wild olive-tree; wert grafted in among them, and
with them partakest of the root and fatness of the olive-tree; boast
not against the branches. But if thou boast, thou bearest not the
root, but the root thee. Thou wilt say then, The branches were broken
off that I might be grafted in. Well; because of unbelief they were
broken off; and thou standest by faith. BE NOT HIGH-MINDED, BUT FEAR;
for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest He also
spare not thee. Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God; on
them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, _if thou
continue in His goodness_; otherwise _thou also shalt be cut off_."
Alas! the professing church has not continued in the goodness of God.
It is utterly impossible to read her history in the light of
Scripture and not see this. She has grievously departed, and there is
nothing before her save the unmingled wrath of Almighty God. The
beloved members of the body of Christ who, sad to say, are mingled
with the terrible mass of corrupt profession, will be gathered out of
it and taken to the place prepared in the Father's house in heaven.
Then, if not before, they will see how wrong it was to have remained
in connection with what was so flagrantly opposed to the mind of
Christ as revealed, with divine clearness and simplicity, in the holy
Scriptures.
But as to the great thing known as christendom, it will be "spued out"
and "cut off." It will be given over to strong delusion, to believe a
lie, "that they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but
_had pleasure in unrighteousness_."
Tremendous words! May they ring in the ears and sink down into the
hearts of thousands who are going on from day to day, week to week,
and year to year, content with a mere name to live, a form of
godliness, but denying the power, "_lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God_." What an awfully graphic picture of so-called
Christian England! How appalling the condition and the destiny of the
pleasure-hunting thousands who are rushing blindly, heedlessly, and
madly down the inclined plane that leads to hopeless and everlasting
misery! May God, in His infinite goodness, by the power of His Spirit
and by the mighty action of His Word, rouse the hearts of His people
every where to a more profound and influential sense of these things.
We must now, ere closing this section, briefly direct the reader's
attention to the last verse of our chapter. It is one of those
passages of Scripture sadly misunderstood and misapplied. "The secret
things belong unto the Lord our God; but those things which are
revealed belong unto us, and to our children forever, that we may do
all the words of this law." This verse is constantly used to hinder
the progress of souls in the knowledge of "the deep things of God,"
but its simple meaning is this: The things "revealed" are what we have
had before us in the preceding chapter of this book; the things
"secret," on the other hand, refer to those resources of grace which
God had in store, to be unfolded when the people should have utterly
failed to "do all the words of this law." The revealed things are what
Israel ought to have done, but did not do; the secret things are what
God would do, spite of Israel's sad and shameful failure, and they are
most blessedly presented in the following chapters--the counsels of
divine grace, the provisions of sovereign mercy to be displayed when
Israel shall have thoroughly learnt the lesson of their utter failure
under both the Moab and the Horeb-covenants.
Thus this passage, when rightly understood, so far from affording any
warrant for the use so constantly made of it, encourages the heart to
search into these things which, though "secret" to Israel in the
plains of Moab, are fully and clearly "revealed" to us for our profit,
comfort, and edification.[25] The Holy Spirit came down, on the day
of Pentecost, to lead the disciples into _all truth_. The canon of
Scripture is complete; all the purposes and counsels of God are fully
revealed. The mystery of the Church completes the entire circle of
divine truth. The apostle John could say to all God's children, "Ye
have an unction from the Holy One, and know _all things_."
[25] 1 Corinthians ii. 9 is another of the misunderstood and
misapplied passages. "But, as it is written, 'Eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things
which God hath prepared for them that love Him.'" Here, people are
sure to stop, and hence conclude that we cannot possibly know aught of
the precious things which God has in store for us; but the very next
verse proves the gross absurdity of any such conclusion. "But God
_hath revealed_ them unto us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth
all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what man knoweth the
things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the
things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we [that is,
all the Lord's people] have received, not the spirit of the world, but
the spirit which is of God; _that we might know the things that are
freely given to us of God_." Thus this passage, like Deuteronomy xxix.
20, teaches the very opposite of what is so constantly deduced from
it. How important to examine and weigh the context of the passages
which are quoted.
Thus the entire New Testament abounds with evidence to prove the
mistaken use that is so constantly made of Deuteronomy xxix. 29. We
have dwelt upon it because we are aware that the Lord's beloved people
are sadly hindered by it in their progress in divine knowledge. The
enemy would ever seek to keep them in the dark, when they ought to be
walking in the sunlight of divine revelation--to keep them as babes
feeding upon milk, when they ought, as those "of full age," to be
feeding upon the "strong meat" so freely provided for the Church of
God. We have but little idea of how the Spirit of God is grieved and
Christ dishonored by the low tone of things amongst us. How few really
"know the things that are freely given to us of God"! Where are the
proper privileges of the Christian understood, believed, and realized?
How meagre is our apprehension of divine things! How stunted our
growth! How feeble our practical exposition of the truth of God! What
a blotted epistle of Christ we present!
Beloved Christian reader, let us seriously ponder these things in the
divine presence. Let us honestly search out the root of all this
lamentable failure, and have it judged and put away, that so we may
more faithfully and unmistakably declare whose we are and whom we
serve. May it be more thoroughly manifest that Christ is our one
absorbing object.