A
LAMP TO THE PATH:
OR,
THE WORD OF GOD
IN
THE HEART, THE HOME, THE WORKSHOP
AND THE MARKET-PLACE.
BY W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D.
WITH A PREFACE
BY H. L. HASTINGS.
[Illustration: company seal]
BOSTON:
COPYRIGHT 1884.
H. L. HASTINGS,
SCRIPTURAL TRACT REPOSITORY,
47 CORNHILL.
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| TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES |
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| This book was written in a period when many words had not |
| become standardized in their spelling. The author's |
| spelling has been maintained unless indicated with a |
| Transcriber's Note due to: |
| Obvious spelling errors |
| Words with multiple spelling variations standardized |
| with the most common form. |
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| Punctuation and hyphenation has been standardized. |
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| Footnotes are identified in the text with a number in |
| brackets [2] and have been accumulated in a single |
| section at the end of the text. |
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| Transcriber Notes are identified in the text with an |
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| end of the book following the Footnotes. |
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| Italic text has been denoted by /forward slashes/. |
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| transliteration: |
| 'oe' ligature --> oe |
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| WORKS BY W. K. TWEEDIE, D.D. |
| |
| /Of the Free Tolbooth Church, Edinburgh[*1]. 3 vols. |
| Uniform in size and style of binding./ |
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| GLAD TIDINGS; or the Gospel of Peace. A series of |
| meditations for Christian Disciples. With a preface by |
| H. L. Hastings. 75 cts. |
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| A LAMP TO THE PATH: or the Word of God in the Heart, |
| the Home, the Workshop and the Market-place. With an |
| introduction by H. L. Hastings. 75 cts. |
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| SEED-TIME AND HARVEST: or Sow Well and Reap Well. A Book |
| for the Young. With a preface by H. L. Hastings. |
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| [asterism] /Address all orders to H. L. HASTINGS, |
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CONTENTS.
Page
PREFACE v
CHAPTER I.
RELIGION IN THE HEART.
The Heathen--The Jew--Jonathan Edwards--John Albert Bengel
--Thomas Halyburton--Pascal. 9
CHAPTER II.
RELIGION IN OUR HOMES.
The Father of the Faithful--Parents and Children--Eli--A
Mother's Power--Alfred the Great--Master and Servant. 36
CHAPTER III.
RELIGION IN THE WORKSHOP.
The Christian Workman--A Workshop--Its Occupants--The
Sabbath--Counsels--Infidelity--Its Root--Secularism
--Harlan Page--John Pounds. 68
CHAPTER IV.
RELIGION IN THE MARKET-PLACE.
The Merchant Princes--Mammon--Counsels--The Perils of
Business--True Enterprise--Its Limits--The Prevalence
of the False--Financial Crises--Joseph Hardcastle. 99
CHAPTER V.
RELIGION IN THE MARKET-PLACE--CONTINUED.
Mercantile Mania--The Tulip Marts of Holland--The
Mississippi Scheme of France--The South Sea Bubble. 136
CHAPTER VI.
RELIGION IN THE PROFESSIONS.
I. THE PHYSICIAN:--Boerhaave[*2]--Harvey--Hey--Jenner
--Dr. John Cheyne. II. THE LAWYER:--Lord Bacon--Sir
Matthew Hale--Sir William Temple. III. MINISTERS OF
RELIGION:--Dr. Dodd--Other Illustrations. 156
CHAPTER VII.
RELIGION IN OUR SOCIAL INTERCOURSE.
The Scriptural Rule--Marriage--The Heroes of Truth
--Luther--Calvin--Knox--Chalmers. 199
CHAPTER VIII.
RELIGION THE CROWN AND GLORY OF MAN'S LIFE.
Its Director--Its Ornament--The Prelude to Life Eternal
--Voltaire--Sir Walter Scott--Conclusion. 216
PREFACE.
An intelligent and skillful physician, vigorous, athletic, and
courageous, used to pursue his professional duties by day or night
without anxiety or apprehension. Often he was desired to use a
lantern in his nightly journeyings, but he laughed at the idea of
danger, and went his way. One night, walking in some slippery path,
he fell; an injury resulted, followed by long months of weariness and
pain, and finally ending in his death. It was a sad fall, and all for
want of a lamp. Bitterly did he regret his self-confidence when it
was too late to remedy the mischief which it had occasioned.
There are multitudes to-day who are wandering in darkness and
walking in unknown ways. They are full of strength, and hope, and
courage; they do not think that /they/ are in danger; though caution
is commendable in others. This world is full of darkness; clouds
and shadows curtain it on every hand; the glooms of the present, the
uncertainties of the future, and the shadowy mysteries of the great
Beyond, teach us with emphasis that we have need of light, and light
which men can never give us. We may draw wisdom from the experience
of the past, but what we /need/ is a knowledge of the future. This
knowledge is not attainable through any human intelligence; it must
come from Him who dwelleth in light, who is himself the light and
life of men, and who sends out his light and his truth to lead and
guide the sons of Adam. Of old it was written, "The commandment is
a lamp, and the law is a light." The work of the servants of God
has been to turn the Gentiles "from darkness to light, and from the
power of Satan unto God." It is "the light of the glorious gospel of
Christ" which illuminates the darkness of this world; and those who
embrace that gospel become the "children of the light," and are
"not of the night nor of darkness." Christ was "the true light which
lighteth every man that cometh into the world;" and "this is the
condemnation, that light has come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil." Being
thus illuminated, and made "light in the Lord," we are to "walk as
children of the light;" and walking in the light as Christ is in the
light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus
Christ cleanseth us from all sin.
Whatever course we may take in this life, whatever occupation we
may follow, whatever profession we may choose, this divine light is
needful to us all. We need God's word, as a lamp to our feet and a
light to our path, to show us how to walk. We need it in the daily
affairs of life; we need it in the field, in the workshop, and in
the marts of business. We need the heavenly light to guide us in
childhood, in youth, in manhood, in old age. We need it whether
in poverty or in riches, in prosperity or adversity. We need it to
show us what we ought to do to-day, and to guide us in our hopes and
expectations of the morrow.
Of old it was written, "the entrance of thy word giveth light." If
we follow its guidance we shall not walk in darkness, but shall have
the light of life. Infidelity may threaten to break our lantern and
to extinguish our light, but this is not what we want. It is not
enough to extinguish the light we have; we need something better.
Let the skeptic then tell us what is our duty here; let him unfold
to us our destiny hereafter. Let him unravel the mysteries of human
existence. Let him give us present peace and an assurance of future
blessing, and we will give attention to his words. But we wish no
one to extinguish the light we have, and leave us in the darkness
of a midnight without sun or star, to be bewildered by the phantom
lights of a false philosophy, and beguiled into the quagmires of
doubt and unbelief.
As we trace the history of ages past, we find that the destiny of
individuals and of nations has been foreknown and foretold. We find
that men of God have looked out upon the great empires and cities
of antiquity and foreseen their overthrow and announced their doom.
Following in the track of history, we find these predictions have
been fulfilled and are fulfilling to-day. Babylon is in heaps; Tyre
is a place where fishermen spread their nets; Egypt is the basest
of kingdoms; Nineveh is empty, void and waste; Jerusalem is trodden
under-foot of the Gentiles; Capernaum is cast down to the depths of
oblivion; Israel have been led away captive into all nations, and
are scattered through every land; and abundant evidences before
our eyes show beyond the possibility of doubt or question, that an
Omniscient One has read the future, and that His Spirit has inspired
the holy men of old who spake as they were moved of the Holy Ghost,
and revealed to mankind in advance the great events of human history.
We each need such a revelation as that; one which will tell us our
present duties and our future prospects; one which will show us what
is the will of God in this life, and what we may expect at His hand
hereafter.
And such a revelation is given us, to inspire our hearts with hope,
and to guide our feet in paths of safety. We have, in the written
word of God, promises to cheer us, counsels to direct us, reproofs
to admonish us; and a more sure word of prophecy, whereunto we do
well that we take heed, as "unto a light that shineth in a dark
place, until the day-dawn, and the day-star arise."
It is this /Lamp to the Path/ which a friendly hand extends to the
wanderers and toilers in a benighted and sinful world; in the hope
that many may turn their feet into God's testimonies, and their
faces towards that city where the Lamb is the light, and where gloom
and darkness are unknown; and prove in their own glad experience the
truth of the word of Him who said, "He that followeth Me shall not
walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life."
H. L. H.
Boston, July, 1884.
A LAMP TO THE PATH.
CHAPTER I.
RELIGION IN THE HEART.
As years roll over us, and as our delusive expectations from earth
and time slowly melt away, the complaint is very often heard that
the world is growing worse. The truth is, that we are only then
beginning to see the world in its true light. The visionary
hopes which we once entertained have vanished, and the mirage is
discovered to be neither a lake nor a stream. Perhaps we have had
to eat the fruit of bitter disappointment or of blighted hope; and
because our baseless anticipations have not been realized, we hasten
to the conclusion that the world is fast sinking into hopeless
corruption; that is, because the accounts which the Scriptures give
have been found to be true, we are ready to suppose that the world
is every year more and more distempered. Hence the peevishness of
some--hence activities cramped--hence querulous complaints--hence,
in a few cases, the very spirit of Ishmael, whose hand was against
every man, while every man's hand was against him.
SORROW AND ITS ORIGIN.
Against this, however, as against every form of error, we are
carefully warned in the Word of God. "Say not thou, What is the
cause that the former days were better than these? for thou dost
not inquire wisely concerning this." The truth is, they were /not/
better--it is we that look at them from a different point, or try
them by a different standard; in other words, /we/ change. Our
dreams have ended in the nothing whence they rose. We looked for
only smiles and sunshine, and have had to grapple with very stern
realities. We persisted in regarding this world as something very
different from what the Word of God describes--a place where man's
only sure portion is grief; but have at length discovered that the
Word of God is true. Hence our sorrow and disappointment; hence the
morbid complaints, and the cheerless repinings of age not seldom
succeed to the visions, the dreams, and the delusions of youth.
EXPLANATIONS.
But far from "saying that the former times were better than these,"
we feel that never was there an age in which so much was done as in
ours, to help forward the great cause of truth and the reclaiming
of the world to God. We know that vice has been unmasked in most
appalling forms; but that is because philanthropy has grappled with
crime in its own dens, and dragged it into daylight, till thousands
are revolted and appalled. We know that superstition is still
trampling men in myriads into the dust, while the Word of God,
and all that would elevate man from his deep degradation, is hated
and put down wherever superstition has the power; but that is only
because the systems which are antagonistic to the truth have been
roused to more resolute efforts by the earnestness of the friends
of man. And we know that oppression in many lands, is still goading
multitudes to madness, immuring them in dungeons, or hurrying them
to death; but that is only because the oppressor instinctively feels
that the tide is rising which must eventually sweep him from his
place.
PROOFS OF PROGRESS.
The struggles now made, then, to perpetuate the reign of bondage,
and doom men to mental and spiritual vassalage for some centuries
more, are symptomatic of a waning, not a waxing cause; and the
philanthropist may accordingly rejoice. Progression is the law of
the universe; and all the powers of darkness cannot always, or long
supersede it. If the bad be growing worse, the good are growing
better, more strong, and more aggressive. They now realize their
mission more than they did half a century ago. They are also more
closely banded to promote it; so that, instead of joining in the
cry that the former times were better than these, we are prompted
to regard our day as signalized above most by its schemes of earnest
philanthropy, its plans of mighty scope, and its luminous designs
for gathering in the nations to the sway of the Prince of Peace.
/Now/ abideth faith, hope, and love, beyond most of the ages which
are past: faith, which takes hold of Omnipotence, and therefore
cannot be baffled; hope, which turns the future triumphs of the
good and the true into present joy; and love, which exults in the
prospect of man's ultimate emancipation, according to the mind of
God.
Meanwhile, all the crime beneath which our blighted earth is
groaning, does not retard by a day the final completion of
the eternal plan. Truth is spreading. Providence, hand in hand
with grace, is slowly sapping the hoary systems which have long
enthralled our race. Those who support the truth of God are more
and more clearly ranged upon one side, and standing heart to heart
in defence of the holy and the pure. Those who support error by
oppression are more and more clearly ranged upon the other; and we
need not feel more assured that the sun will rise in the firmament
to-morrow, or that rivers will continue to hasten to the ocean, than
that truth is slowly triumphing, and error gradually erecting its
own funeral pile. Symptoms of these results appear equally manifest
in the Church and in the world.
DOUBTS.
But in every department, men must labour for these ends. As God
has given to every one his measure of power, he is to put it forth
--or of light, he is to let it shine. The Christian indeed is
pre-eminently a patriot. "Not one of us lives to himself;" and,
in contemplating this subject, it has sometimes occurred to us to
inquire whether the ministers of religion be sufficiently explicit,
minute, and detailed in their lessons on the Sabbath. Over thousands
of congregations each recurring week, there are diffused from the
pulpit, doctrines the most ennobling, allied, in many cases, to
lessons the most cogent and pure. Line upon line is employed, if,
by any means, some may be saved, and the truth of God carried, by
the Spirit's power, through the heart and the conscience to the hand
and the life.
Withal, however, is there not reason to believe that there is still
room for more precise and definite instructions than are sometimes
conveyed? It is obviously one thing for a soul passively to
acquiesce in a doctrine, and another thing to apply the truth
to practice; to give it the control of the life, that man may be
like-minded with God, and "pure as He is pure."--There have been
men in all ages who held a faultless creed, yet led a godless life;
who would tithe their mint, their anise, and cummin, and yet forget
the weightier matters of the law. There have been not a few who
took rank in the Christian Church, who could not be trusted in
the market-place. Some who had fallen into the hands of the public
prosecutor, have, with all the indignation of injured innocence,
resented it as an offence, when those who watch for the spiritual
good of men ventured to prevent them from polluting the holy place.
In /one/ point of view, the world thus seems to be more careful
or more high-toned than the Church; and that irresistibly suggests
the question, /Can/ a remedy be found for this sore evil? Without
interfering for a day with the preaching of those doctrines which
come from God as a light to guide us to Him, can aught be added
to our present appliances, to rescue self-deluded men from their
self-delusions, and at least render their number fewer in the
different branches of the Holy Catholic Church?
THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES.
The times appear to be specially favourable for promoting such an
object. It is a characteristic of our age, for which we have high
reason to be thankful to God, that the spiritual welfare of man is
largely regarded. It is now clearly seen that the true interests of
one class are the true interests of all. It is no longer antagonism,
it is co-operation; to a large extent, it is brotherhood and harmony;
it is liberal things devised on the one hand, and rejoiced in upon
the other, at least in the land in which it is our blessedness to
live. Grave men in the Church, and powerful men in the State, are
busy here; nay, royalty itself, does not disown the employment. The
prince co-operates with the peer, and both together hold out the
hand, not of lordly patronage--that is cold and repulsive--but of
brotherly-kindness and love.
ENCOURAGEMENTS.
We thus see at least the dawning of a state of things which has
no doubt been too long retarded, to our shame; but which may be
blessed by God, not to introduce an Utopia, or a golden age; not
to roll away the need of labour, or the lot of suffering--these are
component parts of man's existence upon earth; but to soothe the
sorrows, to dry the tears, and elevate the pursuits of those who
might otherwise be woeworn and unfriended for life. In a word,
"The purple pride that scowls at wretchedness,"
is now scowled at in its turn, wherever the Word of God is free, and
under its hallowing power, the brotherhood of man are becoming more
manifestly brothers.
To help on these results, then, we would now try to bring sound
doctrine into actual contact with men's souls, that it may produce
sound practice. "The form of sound words" is to be prized above
every earthly thing, but unless these words lead to right actions,
they leave us still in the condition of Chorazin and Bethsaida of
old. We would therefore try to take the truth of God in our hand; we
would go under its escort, to the places of daily business or daily
toil, there to apply the simple but often searching maxims which
came from heaven to guide men through life on earth to glory.--We
need expect no permanent amelioration for man except through the
power and the prevalence of truth, and every attempt to elevate his
nature to its true dignity by any other means, is either the effort
of an empiric or the deception of an impostor. The simple theory of
human progression, the only and exclusive means of purifying man, is
to make him like-minded with God again.
THE LABOURS OF SISYPHUS.
Now, as the mind of God can be learned only from his Word, everything
but that will prove as unavailing as the labours of Sisyphus--
"Up the high hill he heaves the huge round stone;"
but it recoils in spite of all his toil, and so will every effort to
elevate fallen man apart from the truth of God. We decline no fair
ally. Nay, we would invoke the aid of all that is salutary either
for mind or body. But unless the truth sit at the helm, and preside
over all; unless the mind of God become the mind of man, man is
still a degraded being; he is ignorant alike of his chief end and
his chief good. In short, permanently to benefit man either for time
or eternity without the knowledge of God, is a task as hopeless as
that of Adam when he tried to hide among the trees of the garden.
--Along the mountain-sides of some districts in this land we see
traces of the culture of former generations at much higher levels
than cultivation now reaches; but, deserted now as unproductive,
these patches are re-claimed by the heath or the furze: they furnish
no food at least for the use of man; and are not these significant
emblems of the attempts to cultivate man without the knowledge of
his God? The sepulchre may be white-washed, or sin covered over and
concealed; but all is impurity, all is moral deformity still, in the
eye of Him who judges righteous judgment.
THE SOVEREIGN PANACEA.
We therefore take the Word of God as the grand rule, the sovereign
panacea in our hand. We try to apply the system of mingled holiness,
and mercy, and truth, and love, which is there disclosed, to guide
the lives of mortals; and in prosecuting this design, the following
is our plan. We try to show--
I. Christianity in the /Heart/; for, unless it is found
there, we need not expect to find it anywhere besides.
II. Christianity in the /Home/. It must next appear there.
Parents and children, masters and servants, or the
employers and the employed, must all feel the genial
or the curbing power of truth in their several places
and relations.
III. Christianity in the /Workshop/--from which its
influence has too long been banished.
IV. Christianity in the /Market-place/, the place of
bargains and of busy trade.
V. Christianity in /the Professions/: 1. The physician;
2. The lawyer; 3. The divine.
VI. Christianity in our /ordinary social intercourse/; and,
Finally, Christianity, as the crown and glory of man's
existence upon earth.
THE WILLING WORKMAN.
Now, it is too manifest to require any discussion, that unless
Christianity be planted in the heart, it cannot control the life.
A religion merely for the hand has never done much for man. A creed
which teaches us only to cleanse the outside of the cup, has never
succeeded in elevating us far, or making us kindred either with the
pure or the lofty. A mere collection of doctrines, though each be
scriptural and sound, has never availed to restore man to happiness
and God. Merely to do as our fathers did, or hold, however
tenaciously, a mere ancestral faith, is not the process by which
the evil that is in man can be corrected. The soldier who is dragged
to the battle-field is not likely to become a hero. The man who
is carried to a foreign land in chains, seldom becomes one of its
benefactors. He who needs compulsion and the rod ere he will acquire
even the rudiments of learning, is not likely soon to become a ripe
scholar. In every department, it is the willing mind, the earnest
spirit, the hearty, zealous labourer, who achieves great results.
The heart must be thrown into the pursuit, even though it were only
some menial employment; and if that be not the case, then, however
he may be engaged, man will either be disgusted and repelled, or
doomed to drag a heavy chain amid his toil.
THE HEART UNMASKED.
And this is pre-eminently the case in religion. It is with Him who
looks on the heart that we have there to do--as is the heart, so
is our religion. A new heart is accordingly the first and the grand
desideratum. All the heart is to be given to God, and till that
be conceded, we have not done obeisance to the first and great
commandment. The law of God is to be written on the heart, or
in truth we never obey it. We may as well suppose that the ten
commandments could guide the Hebrews, while these precepts were
merely written on the tables of stone, far up amid the clouds of
Sinai, as that the truth of God can profit, or illumine the soul,
while it only floats in the understanding or the memory, without
sinking into the heart. Nay, the thunders of Sinai, amid which the
commandments were given, had scarcely died away, when the people who
had heard them ceased to fear and quake--they set up a golden calf,
and worshipped it as their God; and that forms one of the most
instructive facts of history. It seems incredible to the man who
does not know the guile which lurks in the heart, but it sheds a
full though a lurid light upon the soul, in the eyes of him who has
been guided by the truth through the intricate mazes of iniquity
which exist within us.
TRUTH AND FALSEHOOD.
Or, far more than this. Ten thousand times ten thousand may
possess the gospel as well as the law. Not merely the authority,
the power, or the terrors of the Lord may be brought to bear
upon their minds--His love, his pity, and compassion, may also
be revealed, and entreaties the most touching, or invitations the
most free, may be mingled with promises the most cheering, and all
may be employed to induce us to profit by them, while the heart may
continue proof against them all. The truth of God may be no truth to
us; His love in the Saviour may exercise no constraining power--and
what is the reason? How are we to explain the fact that the mind
of God has no control over the minds of myriads of men, so that
countless favours are received without awakening one grateful
response? The reason is, truth was never stamped upon the heart.
It is not understood that with the heart man believes unto
righteousness. The first and great commandment, "Thou shalt love
the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all
thy strength and mind," is not felt, and not obeyed; and men, in
consequence, often drink up iniquity with the very Word of God open
before them, soliciting their hearts and their affections for their
Lord. They have his Word, but it is perverted to light them on the
way to a more certain ruin.
This is all abundantly plain. If we have ever given so much as one
solemn hour to God, to eternity, and the soul, it must be manifest
that until the affections be set on things above, all else is vain.
The heart is the citadel of the whole man, and until that be on
the Lord's side, the enemy will find a stronghold there, from which
no power on earth can dislodge him. Is a man living in a state of
estrangement from God? Does the Heart-searcher know that that man is
perpetrating sin and regardless of his soul? The explanation of all
that is, that the heart has never been given to God. Christianity
is not there. Truth is not there--its place is occupied by lies.
The love of the Saviour is not there. The Word of God is a dead and
a despised letter. The foundation of the spiritual fabric has never
been laid. The first impulse heavenward has not been given. The
Spirit of God is not honoured in the heart as the temple where he
delights to dwell. Religion at the best is a cold and formal thing.
It only decorates the exterior, like trappings on a hearse. God is
not in such a man's thoughts--Christ is not in his soul the hope
of glory. The gulf between God and him is still a yawning void, and
the eternal life which is placed within his reach is practically
despised.
The illustrations of religion in the heart crowd upon us on every
side. Let us contemplate a few, and place them in the way of
contrast.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
There is a man whose heart the Lord has touched with great love to
souls. He learns that myriads are perishing in distant lands. That
oppresses him with the weight of a personal woe; he takes his life
in his hand and hastens away to tell the perishing of a Saviour.
Now, in his work of faith, and labour of love, that man is dealing,
let us suppose, with two of the youth of a dark-souled land. He is
pressing on the conscience the claims of God, on the understanding
his truth, and on the heart his love; but against all these
appliances one of the two is stout-hearted, and steeled. There is
no room in his soul either for the Spirit of God or his truth. Some
idol has erected his temple there, and that idol, however hideous,
is worshipped with the devotedness which is due only to God over all.
Hence the heart is shut and fortified against the truth; hence the
God of truth is rejected and disowned. The whole man is pre-occupied.
The affections are engrossed by a worthless or revolting thing; and
as there was no room in the dwellings of men for the Saviour when he
came to earth, there is no room in the soul of that man for truth,
though it brings salvation and the fulness of joy in its train. The
secret of the whole is, that the heart is not impressed; it is never
touched, and it therefore repels the approaches of Him who is love,
as the granite rock repels the spray of the ocean.
CONSCIENCE ASCENDANT.
But the case is different in regard to the other of the two:
conscience in him feels the power of the truth; it cannot deny the
charges which are brought against it; nay, it repeats and enforces
them every one, and then begins the struggle for the control of
the heart. Though the conscience be convinced, the heart may not
be surrendered, and in consequence of that, a pain, an absolute
distraction is sometimes produced--it has been described as the
plucking out of a right eye.
THE CHANGE.
Now, when does that struggle cease? When is that soul really
surrendered to the supremacy of God? It is when the truth finds its
way to the heart, and is planted there by the Spirit who revealed
it. As long as it remained only in the conscience, it stimulated,
it roused, it agitated, it produced only commotion or woe; or, in
the understanding, it instructed or delighted; but when the truth of
God passed through the conscience into the heathen heart, the whole
man was speedily captured. There was now the willing mind, there
was now the pliant disposition. Idols were now abandoned. The Son of
God was rejoiced in, and he who before had carried the badge of his
idol on his very brow, as if to glory in his shame, now felt all the
degradation of bowing down to an idol at all. The strongest earthly
affection--that of a mother to a cherished son--might obstruct the
path which led from idols to God, and other woes might come on the
believer; but his heart had owned the majesty of truth, whatever it
might entail. Truth, the truth of God, had taught him that there is
something stronger, deeper, and more constraining than even the love
of a mother to a son--namely, the love of the Saviour to the saved,
and their love to Him in return--and thus, that soul, amid sorrows
which are agonizing to flesh and blood, chooses the better portion.
Like one who is truly wise, that man, lately so dark and idolatrous,
now prefers the love of God to the love of a creature--and that
is Christianity in the heart. That is religion taking the helm of
life. That is truth occupying the citadel of the soul. That is God
enthroned. That is conscience obeyed. That is reason re-occupying
the sphere from which it was banished at the fall. That is the
promise fulfilled, "A new heart will I give you, and a new spirit
will I put within you."
Or contemplate another example of Christianity in the heart, as the
root and fountain of all that is lovely and of good report in the
life.
INQUIRY.
Another man has gone with no less love to souls than the former,
to win some of the far-fallen Jews to the Saviour. In that work he
encounters insult upon insult, and everything but Christian faith,
and Christian hope and love, would there faint and fail. He also
is surrounded by crowds of inquirers or objectors--let us select
two for their contrast. One of them is full of hereditary hatred
to the truth as it is in Jesus; and that very name which is to the
Christian a strong tower, is to that dark-souled man a provocative
to wrath and spiteful passion--And why? Because that heart is
pre-occupied. That man has never once seen the presented truth, so
thick is the veil which blinds him; he has never once felt its power,
so hard is the incrustation which envelopes his heart. The love and
pity, as well as the holiness and truth of God, are shut out from
his soul, for the repugnance and the recoil of the heart drive them
utterly away. He thus furnishes another example of the fact, that
there does not exist in all the world, a more intense antagonism
than that of man's polluted heart to the pure truth of God.
But the other of the two inquires--he is willing at least to
ascertain what a Christian is. He listens, and the great truth
which is the basis of all personal religion--conviction of sin in
the sight of God--begins to be felt. Whether Christianity be true
or not, that man discovers, from his own Hebrew Bible, that he is
a sinner. He perceives that Judaism, even in all its glory could
not take away sin, and much less now when it is worn out, or not the
shadow or the echo of its former self. In that state of soul, that
man comes nearer to Jesus of Nazareth than he had ever done before.
He reads; he marks; he inwardly digests; he begins to pray. The
Redeemer's history now becomes full of meaning. "He was despised,
and we esteemed him not"--"He was wounded for our transgressions,
and bruised for our iniquities"--"The Lord has laid on him the
iniquities of us all"--"They shall look on him whom they have
pierced"--These, or texts like these, now begin to be seen in
the light which the Spirit of God sheds on them, or felt in the
power which that Spirit imparts to truth, and they flash upon the
earnest man's mind with a meaning which he never saw before.
THE JEW, A CHRISTIAN.
That man now begins, then, to feel that the truth is just what
he as a sinner needs; and in the train of that, it begins to take
possession of the heart. It gives a new tone or a new colour to his
life. By securing the command of the heart, it converts a Jew into
a new creature in Christ. He begins to glory in what was once a
stumbling-block, the Cross; or to be ashamed of what was once his
glory, his self-righteousness; and as the aspect of the earth when
the sun is shining in the radiance of day is different from its
aspect when midnight reigns, that man's soul is different now from
what it lately was. Christianity is in the heart; and as the blood
is propelled from the heart to the extremities, spreading life and
activity as it flows, truth, the truth which the Spirit teaches now
circulates through the whole inner man, reducing everything there
to the obedience that is in Christ. The waste places are cultivated.
The spiritual fabric is founded, and the great Master-builder will
in due time perfect the whole.
THE HOME HEATHEN.
Or, without referring either to Heathen or to Jew, we might select
some two in our own favoured land for a contrast. We might picture
an assembly of men met in the house of God to worship the King
Eternal, Immortal, and Invisible, and single out two of the
worshippers to illustrate religion in the heart; and let us thus
single out two. They worship side by side. They hear the same
voice--they listen to the same gospel, the same appeals to the
conscience, the same lessons for the understanding, the same glad
tidings for the heart. They are pointed to the same Saviour, and are
equally told of his power and his willingness to save. Redemption
now, and not to-morrow--redemption perfect and complete, without
waiting for any supplement from man--redemption for "the ungodly,"[1]
and not for those who have already repented; in a word, salvation
/freely/, salvation /immediately/, and salvation /completely/, is
offered or pressed on the notice of each of the two, according to
the Word of the Eternal.
THE WAYWARD HEART.
But amid this affluence of mercy, this plenitude of love, one of
them continues indifferent, hardened, and without God. Every new
appeal is resisted, and so thickens the incrustation which has
gathered round the heart. All within is dead and cold. Religion
brings no joy. It seems a system to fetter, and not to emancipate;
and as that man cannot both sin and be a Christian, his heart
continues shut against the influence which would separate him
from his sins. The secret of all this is, that that heart is still
the victim or the dupe of lies. There is no Christianity admitted
into it. The truth of God is kept far away from the centre of man's
being. Lest that truth should enter the heart, it is kept carefully
guarded; it is crowded with worldly cares, or plunged into worldly
follies, but left dreary and desolate as to all that is divine; the
waters of Marah are never sweetened there; the soul is perishing
with redemption in its offer; it is self-doomed to woe and to
bitterness, while the Spirit of God through his Word is beckoning
it to glory and to honour.
The other of the two worshippers, however, has found out that
"one thing is needful." He has listened to conscience. He has taken
counsel with right reason. He has surrendered the heart to God, and
that is the decisive moment when man's name is written in the book
of life. It is then that the kingdom of God begins to be within us,
then that we learn both how wayward is the heart, and how mighty is
the grace of God to subdue it. Light now radiates where all was dark
before; joy is now felt where all was cheerless; and the new-born
sensation of spiritual freedom brings a presage of the glorious
liberty of the children of God.
CONTRASTS AND COLLISIONS.
And what renders it more needful to urge on this ascendancy of
truth in the heart is, the opposition which it is sure to encounter
in the world. While we sail down the world's stream, we may glide
pleasantly along, and need neither the canvass nor the oar; but the
moment we attempt to stem it, the struggle and the conflict begin:
we must either earnestly contend, or be carried down to ruin. What
is it that produces thunder? It is the meeting of contraries, or
fire and water. What is it that produces the earthquake? It is a
similar cause--the meeting of contraries, or substances which cannot
quietly co-exist. What is it that occasions war, and massacre, and
devastation? It is still a similar cause. It is passion in collision
with passion. It is the tyrant seeking to oppress the free. It
is ambition grasping at more and more, and trampling upon all who
oppose its pleasure--and the same law obtains in religion. Why
are God's people often of all men the most miserable? Whence come
persecutions? They come because holiness in the godly and sin in
the world have come into collision. The will of God is opposing or
protesting against the passions of men, and on that account there
is war on the one hand, produced by inflamed passion on the other.
A church, a flock, for farther example, has long been afflicted
with an unconverted ministry, and all is peaceful there, for all
is spiritual death. But there comes a change. A converted ministry
is raised up, and now begins the collision between spiritual life
and spiritual death. Ere the truth get access to the heart, it must
fight every inch of the way.
Or there is a family where, up to a certain period, all is
unmitigated worldliness; not one soul is there alive to God.--But
in His sovereign time one member is converted, and then perhaps
begin the collision and the strife. The world resents the intrusion
or the rebuke implied in spiritual decision; and if that heart will
love God's pure truth, it must zealously contend.
THE VICTORY.
Or there is an individual soul. It has long slumbered, as the world
does, without God and without hope. No compunction has roused it,
and no alarm been felt. But something at last occurs to disturb
that false peace. Truth enters the conscience. It operates there
like a visit from the living to the catacombs of Egypt, when
the night-birds are disturbed in crowds, and threaten, by their
multitudinous flutterings, to blind or to destroy the intruder. Thus,
if truth will take possession of a heart for God, it must encounter
and vanquish a thousand enemies. In that conflict man needs the
whole armour of God, for he has to fight the good fight of faith.
His enemies may be those of his own household, or even his own heart;
and nothing but the free Spirit of the living God can make man sure
of victory in that contest.
THE NEW HEART.
Perhaps it is superfluous to occupy so much time in illustrating
what is, in truth, so plain. Yet, as many overlook this plainness,
it should be urged in line upon line, that if we would begin
aright, we must begin at the heart, out of which flow the issues
of life. One of the most earnest prayers in the Bible is, "Create
in me a clean heart, O God,"[2] and one of its most emphatic or
comprehensive promises is, "A new heart will I give you."[3] And
would men learn that simple lesson, did they in their several places
and relations as superiors, inferiors, or equals, seek to begin
at the beginning, and have the heart right with God through the
new-creating power of His Spirit, O how sweetly would the whole
framework of society soon be adjusted! how surely would "all the
building, fitly framed together, grow into an holy temple in the
Lord!" The Church would be more pure. The world would not be so
often cheered in its ungodly ways, by the example of men professing
the truth, but holding it in unrighteousness, because they are
destitute of Christianity in the heart, where it should ever reign
as the unchallenged and unrivalled queen.--There are some ruins of
ancient cities now buried deep under water. When the waves above
them are calm, these ruins can still be seen, though centuries have
rolled away since they were first submerged. Yet who would regard
these waste places as the abodes of living men? Who would speak of
them as the haunts of the happy? Nay, life has vanished from them;
all that ever lived there have been for centuries destroyed. And,
in the same way, the heart that is sunk in worldliness or saturated
with what is earthly and sensual, is cut off from all communion with
the living God; it is dead to holiness and Him.
THE RELIGION OF THE HEART.
We cannot glance at the lives of godly men without noticing the
prominence which belongs to this subject of religion in the heart.
Their first aspiration is for the friendship of God, and their next,
their perpetual longing is to have the heart right with Him; "to
keep the heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of
life." We open the life of one man of God at random. He says, "An
inward sweet sense of divine things at times came into my heart, and
my soul was led away in pleasant views and contemplations of them."
"The sense I had of divine things would often of a sudden kindle up,
as it were, a sweet burning in my heart, an ardour of soul that I
know not how to express." "I was almost constantly in ejaculatory
prayer wherever I was. Prayer seemed as the breath by which the
inward burning of my heart had vent." "My former delights never
reached the heart, and did not arise from any sight of the divine
excellence of the things of God." "My heart panted after this, to
lie low before God as in the dust, that I might be nothing, and God
might be /all/; that I might become as a little child." "Oftentimes
in reading the Holy Scriptures, every word seemed to touch my heart;
I felt a harmony between something in my heart and those sweet and
powerful words."[4]
WITNESSES.
Another says, "O God, impress more deeply on my heart thine
exceeding great and precious promises, that I may perfect holiness
in thy fear." "Though God's pure Word is presented to worldly men
in ever such a variety of ways; though the provision be ever so
daintily served up, none of them relish it at heart. As well might
the preacher have the restless and ungovernable waves of the sea
before him, and think to control them with the rod of Moses, or the
words of Christ, 'Peace, be still.'" "In his earliest years he had
many pure, tender feelings, and stirrings of his heart concerning
God, and the texts inscribed on the church walls of his native town,
from the Epistle to the Romans, concerning death, sin, righteousness,
and the crucifixion, produced in him, as a mere child, emotions of
great joy and peace, and left upon him very profitable and lasting
impressions." "How may I know that I am become an heir of heaven?
How may I know that God is in me of a truth? When I have the earnest
of the inheritance, that is, when I am habitually led by the Spirit
of God, so as to walk in love, with my heart crying to him, Abba,
Father! and listening to every whisper of his Holy Spirit."[5]
WITNESSES.
Another says, "My heart was utterly averse from spirituality.
Sometimes, through the force of convictions, I was indeed brought
for some time to aim at getting my mind fixed upon heavenly
things, and kept on the thoughts of them; but my heart being still
carnal, I weaned of this bent and of this forcible religion; it was
intolerable to think of being always spiritual." "I abominated the
more gross breaches of all the commands, and disliked open sins. But,
meanwhile, my heart was set upon the less discernible violations of
the same holy law." "Under a searching ministry, the Lord began to
give me some discoveries of the more secret and spiritual evils of
my heart. He carried me 'into the secret chamber of imagery,' to let
me see what my heart did in the dark." "Though sin might prevail, my
heart was not with it as before; I found another sort of opposition
made to it." "I have looked on death as stripped of all things
pleasant to nature. I have considered the spade and the grave, and
everything that is in it terrible to nature; and under the view of
all these, I found that in the way of God they gave satisfaction
--not only a rational satisfaction, but a heart-engaging power
attending it, that makes me rejoice."[6]
One of the profoundest thinkers that ever lived has said, "There
are only two kinds of persons who can properly be styled reasonable:
those who serve God with all their heart, because they know Him;
and those who seek Him with all their heart, because they know him
not."[7]
WITNESSES.
--But it is needless to prolong such illustrations. Human nature,
revelation, and daily experience, agree in testifying to the
necessity of planting the truth in the heart of man, if it is to
control his life. For that purpose the Spirit of God is sent to
take the truth from the sacred page, where He himself has placed it,
and stamp it on the soul. And O, what man consents to sacrifice, by
keeping truth in the outer court as the Gentiles were kept in the
outer court of the Jewish Temple! What holy joy! What hopes and
consolations! What communion with God he forfeits! Or, how blind
the world to its own best interests, when the truth is kept cold
and shivering, apart from the soul and the heart! How would the woes
of a groaning world be soothed--how would our biting and devouring
of each other cease--how would swords be beat into ploughshares,
and spears into pruning-hooks, were truth enthroned in the heart,
and suffered to control the life! A single sentence of that truth,
honestly believed and obeyed, would soon revolutionize a world; and
should not every Christian therefore be busy, earnest, and solemn,
in spreading the truth; in seeking to have it planted deep in his
own soul first, and then in the souls of all?
THE NEED OF ZEAL.
Moreover, the world is very solemn now, it is earnest and devoted;
it is perfectly convinced, however baseless the conviction, that
time is all in all. For example, mark that atheist. They who do not
know the dark depths of man's heart will not believe that a soul
so monstrous can exist; but as if to prove the truth of the Word of
God, a bold blasphemer has stood forth to deny God's existence, and
challenged Him to prove that the impious one was wrong, by striking
him dead upon the spot. Or mark that knot of infidels. They are
assembled to devise the means of spreading their poison, and import
additional supplies from other lands, because the home growth is not
sufficient. Or mark that group of papists. They are daily plotting
the suppression of God's truth, the enslaving of man's soul,
and deepening the darkness which already envelopes him. All, all
are earnest, zealous, sanguine in the pursuit of evil--and shall
they who hold the truth be alone lethargic, listless, apathetic?
The infidel has been heard to declare, that if he believed what
Christians profess to believe, he would be far more zealous than
they. In truth, that infidel sees that the man whom the world
stigmatizes as a religious enthusiast is the only consistent
Christian. If I believe that every sin tends to eternal perdition,
can I be consistent in my belief, if I do not repress sin by every
proper means within my power? If I believe that none but Christ can
save so much as one single soul, can I be consistent in my belief,
if I am not ready to spend and be spent in winning souls to Christ?
On that maxim the Christian indeed will act; and when that spirit
is ascendant, we shall see far more done than has yet been attempted
to soothe men's sorrows, to dry men's tears, and ease their aching
hearts.