RELIGION THE CROWN AND GLORY OF MAN'S LIFE.
There can be no doubt that one reason why so many keep religion far
away from the heart, is the supposition that it offers no present
pleasure. It holds out promises, but their fulfilment appears remote,
and, men fear, uncertain. It tells of enjoyment, but that enjoyment
springs from causes which myriads cannot comprehend, and the whole
appears to be mystical, incomprehensible, or unreal. Such pleasure
as the world can yield, the worldly mind can understand at once and
cordially relish. It is at hand. It even solicits attention. It seems
real and palpable as well as near. While religion appears to approach
in the character of a jailor to imprison, rather than of a friend
to set us free and spread out joys in endless succession before us,
the world comes with sparkling bribes and with congenial joys. It
promises freedom unbounded, and, like the silly bird which hastens
to the blaze kindled by the fowler to attract it to his snare, souls
in thousands are duped, and deceived; it may happen that they are
undone for ever.
OUR JOYS.
But were it possible to impart to such minds some taste of the
pleasures which are enjoyed in the paths which are peace, it would
instantly be seen what injustice their views inflict upon the truth.
Its joys are /not/ projected into the distant future; they are nigh
to us, they are even in our hearts. It does not give us a stone
instead of bread, or a serpent instead of a fish--it is the world
which imposes in that manner upon all who trust it. When religion
comes to a worldly man to rob him of his gross or material joys,
he fears that he is about to lose his all--because he knows no joy
but what is earthly; and the very ways of God appear repulsive and
irksome; not a few would imitate him who cried, "Hast thou found me,
O mine enemy?" or, "hast thou come to torment us before the time?"
But what /can/ yield joy, if not the favour of God? What /can/ spread
sunshine through the soul, if not the sense of sin forgiven? What
/can/ impart true nobility, if not restoration to the image of God?
What /can/ give peace, if not the Prince of Peace? What /can/ dry
our tears or soothe our sorrows, if not He who came as a Comforter
to earth, and who re-erects the kingdom of God in the soul? Amid all
that plenitude of mercy, men may still persist in thinking that the
truth is a bondage, and that its joys are shadowy or evanescent; but
that can only be because their hearts have never bowed to the majesty
or rejoiced in the love of their God.
THE GAIN OF GODLINESS.
And this repugnance to His truth is sometimes augmented, when
religion begins to be contemplated with more care than the world
commonly bestows on it. When men, for example, read the words
--"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise
of the life that now is, and of that which is to come," their
perplexities sometimes increase. That godliness has the promise
of the life that is to come, multitudes may passively concede, for
they bestow no thought upon the subject. But when their attention is
drawn to the fact, that the promise farther embraces the life that
now is, men are not prepared to acknowledge the truth. Godliness
does not permit a man to ask, What will my fellow-mortals approve?
Its all-decisive question is, What has God said? It never pauses
to inquire, What will men think? what is current, or what is
countenanced among them? It goes at once to the fountain-head,
and seeks to ascertain what God has decided; what standard He has
set up; what aim or end proposed. That once ascertained, the godly
immediately feel bound thereby. They are in a court from which there
is no appeal, or a hand from which there is no escape. Now, as they
cannot do as others do, as they dare not pursue the world with the
intense avidity of multitudes, how can it be true that godliness has
the promise of the life that now is?
Moreover, are not the men called godly often hated, and persecuted,
and of all men the most miserable? Is not this their promised
lot--"In the world ye shall have tribulation;" or "The world shall
laugh, but ye shall weep and lament?" How, then, can it be time,
the question again and again recurs, that such buffeted men have
the promise of the present life? Nay, does not an apostle himself
confess, that, in certain conditions, Christians may be of all men
the most miserable?
With all these things, however, full in view, we still declare
that the promise is true, and that no man really enjoys this world
except the man of God. Whether it be in the Heart, that heart is the
happiest whose godliness is greatest; or in the Home, that home is
the most blessed where godliness is the most ascendant; or in the
Workshop, that workshop is ever the best conditioned, and the most
free from those things which rudely shock man's moral nature, where
the fear of God is most felt; or in the Market-place, that business
is ever the most healthy, the least exposed to panics or to failure,
where the lamp of life, the Bible, sheds light upon our path. Gain
without godliness is gold put into a bag with holes. It is a rusted
and a moth-eaten thing; it eats the flesh as doth a canker.
ESAU.
Let us now, then, glance at religion in its general bearing upon the
life of man on earth. It is the appointed Director of life; it is the
Ornament and the joy of life; it is the prelude, the foretaste, or
the earnest of the Life to come.--Viewed under these aspects, it may
not be difficult to discover the folly of those who act in the spirit
of Esau, and barter away their birthright for pleasures which perish
in the using; or the wisdom of those who seek that righteousness,
and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost, which are guaranteed to the
Christian by an eternal covenant.
As the Director of life, then, it cannot be difficult to show that
true religion is all-important.
THE GUIDE, THE COUNSELLOR, THE FRIEND.
Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a wiser guide than the
only-wise God? Is not that man under some dire infatuation, who
thinks that he can discover a safer? But true religion, the religion
which the Spirit of God has embodied in the Bible, just consists in
being under the guidance of the Holy One, in thought, word, and deed.
Can we, in the nature of things, ever find a path more pleasant than
that in which the Eternal leads us? Now, the religion of truth just
places us in the narrow path to glory opened up by God.
Can we be sane, and at the same time pretend to select a better
standard, a better rule, a better aim, than that which God
prescribes? Now, pure and undefiled religion just consists in
making that standard, that rule, that aim, our own. Like the ship
on the ocean, driven by the wind and tost, it may often seem as if
all hope were gone; but if we be godly, that is, if we have religion
in the heart as the Spirit of God plants it there, One comes to us
even upon the angry waves, and his presence makes a calm. Whatever
be our condition, here is a Guide. Whatever be our perplexity,
here is a Counsellor. Whatever be our loneliness, here is a Friend.
Whatever be our tendency to wander, here is one at our right hand,
proclaiming, "I am the way." Could the heart of man be persuaded
to follow the Lord fully, would he consult only for an hour with
reason, and with common sense, thousands more might be found in the
path which leads to glory and to honour.
THE SOVEREIGNTY OF TRUTH.
And let it be remembered that the directions which are given to guide
the godly in the way are authoritative and divine. We have more than
a royal road to heaven--we have a divine one. The man whose religion
is planted in the heart, is not guided by opinions, but by verdicts;
and these are the verdicts of the unchanging One. They are not
conjectures--they are the decisions of an infallible Judge; they
are the very maxims, the very laws by which we shall be tried, when
we stand before the great white throne, and the Judge of the quick
and the dead. Some men act as if they were at liberty to cancel the
decisions of God; to review them, and indorse or reverse them at
pleasure. In this manner, the word of the Supreme, which he cannot
alter without ceasing to be true, is made to bend to men's liking;
and if it will not bend, they break it. But the man who holds the
lamp, and is therefore truly wise, makes it a maxim in his life that
he cannot judge the Word of God--It judges him. He cannot bring his
religion to the Bible--He must get his religion from it. He does not
consult the sacred page with the view of welcoming or rejecting it
at pleasure. Nay, it is the sovereign umpire in every perplexity. It
is the director of his steps, and the sun of his soul. Guided by it,
and by it alone, that man walks under the direction of the Father
of lights, with whom is no darkness at all, to that abode where the
glory of God is manifested to all, and the Lamb is the light thereof.
THE LAMB OUR LIGHT.
They who have thus surrendered their souls to the guidance of God in
his Word, have felt, in their own experience, how blessed it is to
have Him for their light; they never yet were in a position for which
the only wise God has not made provision; the lamp of life is always
trimmed by the very hand which lit it.
--One is persecuted for righteousness' sake; the man who hates the
truth appears anxious to "chase him up to heaven." But even then, the
ear of faith can hear Him whom the world hated yet more, pronouncing
a blessing over all who suffer in the paths of godliness.
One has had to follow child after child, or brother after brother,
to the tomb; but has he not been told, perhaps at the edge of the
grave, of Him who is the resurrection of the body and the life of
the soul; and that them who sleep in Jesus, God will bring with him
from the dead?
One has neither father nor mother, nor friend on earth to lean on--he
is absolutely and utterly an orphan; but is he not told, "When father
and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up?" Is it not added, "I
will not leave you orphans?"
VICISSITUDES.
One has cherished dreams of happiness on earth--he is expecting
here what God declares we can never, never find. Well, He came, and
proved that his declaration was true; in mercy and in love he came,
though the lacerated heart felt that the stroke was sore. The gourd
withered. The frail reed broke. The shadow flitted away. The Word
of God was verified, and the happiness of earth appeared rather like
the lightning flash, than the steady shining of a summer day. But did
not He who wounded heal? If that soul had godliness, was it not made
apparent that the sovereign Lord of all had something in store for
it better than it was choosing for itself?
One is tottering very near the grave. However he may cling to life,
he cannot now be blind to the fact that the last resting-place of
man must soon be a resting-place to him. But just then, just there,
if that soul be godly, a light appears. It irradiates the tomb. It
illumines the vast unknown beyond it; and almost in the language of
a hosanna, such souls have passed away exclaiming, "To me to die is
gain."
Or, last of all, one has felt, what many never feel, the sinfulness
of sin. That soul has discovered how foolish as well as wicked it is,
to contend against Omnipotence. It feels that man forsakes his own
mercy by cherishing thoughts, or doing deeds opposed to the mind of
God; and that as well may we expect comfort on the rack, or pleasure
from the blaze which consumes us, as joy in that path which the Holy
God has forbidden. According to the Word of the Lord, that soul has
discovered what it is to be exposed to the wrath of God and of the
Lamb; or how like the career of the suicide, or the maniac, is the
course of those who live in sin unpardoned, with a soul unsaved.
But it has also discovered that the Word of God has devoted passage
after passage, or Psalm after Psalm, to the subject of pardon. In one
aspect, that is the burden of the Bible's lessons--to tell how free,
how immediate, how complete, is the forgiveness provided by Him whose
tender mercies are over all his other works. No entreaties so tender,
no lessons so plain, no commands so cogent, no promises so full, as
those which relate to the fountain opened for sin. The earnest soul
thus discovers that the word is indeed a light to man's feet, and a
lamp to his path. It is a light shining in a dark place--a directory
from heaven for man on earth--the very God of truth is there pouring
encouragement, or joy, or hope, into the heart.
THE PILLAR OF CLOUD AND FIRE.
When we buffet with a baffling tempest, how gladdening is the glimmer
even of a lamp seen through the drift, telling us of comfort and of
home! When we have long been driven by the waves and tost, so that
hope has fled and exertion become paralysed, how welcome the haven
of our rest! When strangers have long been our only associates in a
foreign land, where no familiar face was near to greet us with its
smile, how pleasant to know
"There is an eye will mark
Our coming, and look brighter when we come!"
--And how much more gladdening that Word of God which irradiates
the path of a believer, a pillar of cloud by day, a pillar of fire
by night! In joy or in sorrow, in youth or in age, in his home, in
his place of toil or of business, amid unceasing activities, or when
the sands of life are ebbing low, such a man has a directory at every
hour of need, a counsellor in every difficulty--enough to crown his
weary life with a portion of the joy of his God.
THE HALCYON.
We meet with some who have manifestly no guide but passion, or
feeling, or human opinion. They therefore live in a state of constant
fretfulness and mental fever, at once troubling and troubled. While
others have an anchor cast within the veil, these men are driven
by the wind and tost. Some are kept in perfect peace, even amid the
agitations of life; they are like the little bird which is said to
build its nest amid the breakers of the sea, and is most calm when
perched on the crest of an angry wave. Others are like the restless
sea; and whence this difference? The divine directory is in the hand
of the one class; it is ignored or perverted by the other. The divine
mind is the mind of the one; caprice and the changing passions of a
troubled soul form the standard or the tyrant of the other. To the
one, truth is truth, in the heart, the home, and the place of public
resort; to the other, truth is but a name.--The bodies of those
who live under a directly vertical sun, reflect no shadow; at least
their shadow is under their feet, and these shadowless bodies are
emblems of the condition of those who live nearest to the Sun of
Righteousness: like the children of the light, they are preparing
for the world where there is neither shadow nor night.
THE ORNAMENT OF LIFE.
But godliness is the Ornament of life as well as its Director.
And what is it that constitutes the beauty of a soul?--All that God
has made is lovely according to its kind. Look at the little flower,
and see what beauties beam upon us there. Contemplate the firmament
above us, the meet type of Jehovah's immensity; and mark the
surprising loveliness which is there. Or examine the winged insect
which buzzes around us, only, perhaps, to vex and to annoy--there
are more beauties and more marks of wisdom in that little thing,
than the science of man has yet been able to tell. Now, if even
these mean, these transient, and ephemeral things, are clothed in
loveliness by God, may we not expect a more exquisite beauty in that
immortal thing, the soul of man? It was once in the image of God;
it is capable of wearing that image again. And what is it that
constitutes its beauty?
THE MISERY OF SIN.
We need not again reply--/It is holiness/. It is purity like the
purity of God. It is perfection like his perfection. Sin at the first
marred the moral beauty, and put all that is morally offensive in its
stead. But a new creation takes place. The original loveliness begins
to be restored. The beauties of holiness decorate the soul, and with
the restoration of holiness the restoration of happiness begins. Give
the unholy soul the wealth for which millions pant; give it an empire
like that of our sovereign, on which the sun never sets. Let all that
can gladden and regale be poured into the cup of an ungodly man. The
mere fact that he is unholy, would leave him deformed and unseemly;
his soul would be wretched, craving, aching still.--A nobleman
of ancient name and brilliant powers once ranked among the most
conspicuous of all who dwelt in our land. He was admired by millions,
and, for a time, was "followed, flattered, sought, and sued,"
wherever he appeared. But he was slightly deformed in a limb; and
when his eye fell on the deformity, even from the heights of his
fame, he was chafed and chagrined: it was more than a counterbalance
to all the incense which was offered to his powers. Now, that
nobleman was as signal for his ungodliness as he was for his powers.
THE JOY OF HOLINESS.
But, on the other hand, place a holy soul in a dungeon. Let the new,
the holy nature which the Spirit of God imparts, be imparted to such
a man. With that in his soul, let the persecutor wreathe his chains
around him; let him "five times receive forty stripes save one;"
let all men forsake him and flee;--still, by the grace of God, that
soul would be made more like the Holy One by the very sorrows which
it encountered and the tears which it shed: and it is thus that
godliness becomes the ornament of life. As the rainbow would never
be seen were it not for the clouds and the rain, the beauties of
holiness would never shine so brightly were it not for the trials
which the Spirit of God employs to promote them. But /when/ he
employs them, the soul of man is changed into the image of the
Redeemer, from glory to glory. Though covered by sin with wounds
and bruises and noisome sores, it is created anew, after the image
of God, in righteousness and true holiness. The altogether lovely
One becomes the model of that soul; and ornament after ornament
is bestowed--such adornings as the eye of God can complacently
regard, for they are the work of his own Spirit: they indicate
the restoration of his handiwork, from the state of ruin into which
it had lapsed, to the state of beauty in which it appeared when it
sprang into being at his word.
It is holiness, then, that is the ornament of man. Without that,
no mental power, no constellation of gifts, can give beauty to our
spirits, as they are seen by God. Knowledge may be power; but it is
only the power of evil. Acquirements may be extensive; but they are
only like gaudy trappings on a hearse, or music in a dying man's
chamber, unless truth in the heart become holiness in the life.
* * * * *
But when Christianity is planted in the heart and soul of man,
it becomes his Joy as well as his director and ornament. This is
sunshine; all besides is gloom.
THE VAIN PURSUIT.
Upon this we need not expatiate long. It is manifest as day to all
who have submitted to the guidance of reason illumined by the lamp of
life, the Bible, that Christianity introduces us to the highest joy
of earth or heaven, even joy in the Holy Ghost; and while destitute
of that, whatever he may possess, man is wretched, and miserable,
and blind. One man seeks happiness in sin; but did he ever find it?
Nay, is it not like taking fire to his bosom? Is it not like a wound
to his immortal nature? O, is it not a mournful delirium, to dream
of finding joy in that which caused the creation of a place of
torment--which doomed a world to misery--which digs our graves--which
lays us in them, and fills our homes from time to time with the voice
of lamentation and woe?
Another man seeks joy in wealth; but after he has all that he can
grasp, is not his heart still, like the daughters of the horse-leech,
crying, "Give, give?" As well attempt to satisfy the hungry body with
the name of bread, as the craving soul with material things. It was
created to be happy in God; and, without him, the universe cannot
fill the void in man's heart.
DEATH-BEDS.
Another seeks joy in friendship, or in beautiful human affection.
But remorseless death comes: he strikes down the object to which
affection clings; and where is the bereaved one now? He is well-nigh
wearying for the grave, and so of all that begins and ends on earth:
its blossom goes up like rottenness at last. It is simply impossible
that any object whose root is in the dust can gladden the soul of
man, apart from the God who made it.
Has God, then, left us without joy? When we became idolaters, did he
leave us to our idols, to tears, and woe? Nay, there is blessedness
even here below; and the knowledge, the fear, the love, and favour
of God, is its fountain-head. In reconciliation to Him--in His image
restored--in growing holiness--in greater and yet greater love and
likeness to the Saviour of the soul--the man of God, the man who
is truly rational, finds the streams of his joy. God himself is the
fountain; but his blessings are the rills which flow from it: and
he who has not felt this joy, is still living among shadows, and
phantoms, and names. His is only the comb rifled of the honey; his
is the dream without the reality; his the corruption and the death
of sin, without the pleasures which flow from God into the soul.--Is
the land of his fathers a source of joy to the returning exile? Is
the breath of spring a source of gladness to man's fevered brow?
Is the face of nature a source of pleasure to him who has long
been immured amid the damps of a dungeon? Far more than all these
together, is a sense of God's favour to the soul which has returned
from its wanderings, to seek its blessedness again on the bosom of
its God.
VOLTAIRE.
And it is to godliness, or at least some counterfeit of it, that all,
or nearly all, men flee for joy at last. Some, indeed, die like the
beasts that perish, without either fear or joy. Conscience is dead
before the body. It occasions no alarm; and such men pass into
the presence of the Judge perhaps denying his very existence. But
not so all. When conscience is aroused from its long stupor by
the nearness of death, how eager do some appear for the joy which
religion promises! how gladly would they now grasp at what they have
practically despised, perhaps for threescore years and ten! There is
one who has spent a lifetime in denying the truth as it is in Jesus.
He declared that he hated the Saviour's very name, and did all that
wit and powers the most diversified could accomplish to blot it
from the hearts and memories of men. That man hated the truth with
a perfect hatred, and gloried in his hatred; it secured for him the
applause of myriads who felt that truth to be fettering, and who
rejoiced in the help of one so gifted in their attempt to banish it
from the earth.--But that man is dying at last, and all is changed
now. Goaded by conscience, he flees to a poor superstition--he tries
to soothe his soul by believing one of the most enormous impositions
ever practised upon man. He eats what he reckons, or what an abject
superstition teaches him to regard as "the body, the blood, and the
divinity" of Him whom he had so long blasphemed and denied; and that
very superstition of that dying infidel[41] tells where it is that
man finds or tries to find his joy after all. It is just an infidel's
method of proclaiming, "Godliness has the promise of the life that
now is, and of that which is to come."
Or if we refer to a case less extreme than that of an avowed infidel,
the same truth appears--the same lesson is taught. God and his favour
alone can gladden or satisfy the soul.
SIR WALTER SCOTT.
Another man, then, not less distinguished in his day than Voltaire,
is passing on to his great account. Millions in many lands have
admired his genius, and offered incense to his name. Wherever he
moves he is followed by applauding crowds; and if ever there was one
who might have been satisfied with the homage of his fellow-mortals,
that was the man. Princes deemed themselves honoured by being under
his roof. Royalty set him at its right hand. He added field to field.
He determined to make for himself a local habitation, as he had
already made for himself a name; and his mansion, once modest and
humble, grew into "a romance in stone."
But the fashion of this world vanishes away, and that man must die.
Before he leaves the scenes which his presence had long invested
with smiles, he must read a lesson to man--had man a heart to learn
it--more salutary and profound than any he had ever tried to teach.
The wind of adversity blew, and shattered his fortunes and his hopes
together. Death entered his abode, and one who had long been its joy
was carried to the tomb. Then affliction laid its hand upon himself.
The body was palsied, the mind a wreck; and amid all this, that man's
spasmodic efforts to resume his former self, rank among the most
touching incidents in the chequered history of humanity. But we must
listen to his own words to learn his tale of woe, and see how broken
is every earthly cistern when man seeks joy from it apart from God;
how shadowy and dream-like is every earthly thing apart from Him who
is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.
SORROW UNSOOTHED.
"When I think," says this idol of millions, on the eve of leaving his
home at the bidding of stern necessity and financial pressure; "when
I think what this place now is, compared with what it has been not
long ago, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of all
my family, I am an impoverished and embarrassed man."
Farther, he thus touchingly wails: "Death has closed the dark avenue
of love and friendship. I look at them as through the grated door of
a burial-place, filled with monuments of those who once were dear to
me, and with no other wish than that it may open for me at no distant
period."
And as if to show that all his anguish did not come from without,
the great Novelist says, "Some new object of complaint comes every
moment. Sicknesses come thicker and thicker; friends are fewer and
fewer. The recollection of youth, health, and power of activity
neither improved nor enjoyed, is a poor strain of comfort. The
best is, the long halt will arrive at length, and close all."[42]
THE MIMIC IMMORTALITY.
Now, it will be noticed in these extracts that it is /the grave/
which closes the vista of that greatly gifted man; at least he never
refers to the bright ulterior of which the tomb might be the portal.
--"I have no other wish than that the grated door of a burial-place
may open for me at no distant period."--"The best is, the long halt
will arrive at length, and close all"--it is there that the mind
seems to rest. It never rises into the region of immortality. It
does not refer to that favour of God which is life. As far as these
mournful records tell, that soul had nothing to repose on but what
was soon to enwrap the body--the earth, and earthly things. Dazzled
even to blindness by the mimic immortality which man bestows on
man, the life and immortality of the Gospel were ignored. Steeped
in the possessions which only increase the thirst which some suppose
they quench, that man discovered and confessed that he was "an
impoverished and embarrassed man," when he might have exulted in
the unspeakable gift, the unsearchable riches of Christ.
THE BROKEN HEART.
Now, it is thus that men sow the wind and reap the whirlwind, by
expecting that joy from things which are seen and temporal, which
can be found only in the things which are unseen and eternal; and
it is thus that the men who
"Hunt their misery with a zeal to die"
proclaim to all who have ears to hear, that if we would have joy to
the full, and blessings such as can satisfy the soul, they must be
sought in Him who is our peace, "of whom and to whom are all things."
"Surely he is, or ought to be, a happy man," said a visiter at Sir
Walter Scott's abode. "When I think of what it is now ... I think
my heart will break"--is his own dirge-like response.
But it is not merely in the high concerns of eternity that a man
of God finds sources of joy. Even amid the cares and distractions
of earth, he has often a peace which is independent of all earthly
sources. He sees God in all events, and soon discovers that they
all work together for his good: however diverse in their origin
or aspect, they sweetly blend into one harmonious whole, of which
blessedness is the product to a child of God. Think of the complex
machinery which pours such wealth into the lap of our nation, by
multiplying manifold its productive power. How intricate in its
parts! how apparently incomprehensible to an inexperienced mind;
yet how simple, how exquisitely beautiful in its /results/! Or think
of the sunlight in which all nature rejoices. It can be decomposed
into seven primary elements, yet how simple and how lovely is the
product of their combination! And so it is in the various events of
providence: they all blend into one harmonious result; they are all
presided over by our Father who is in heaven; and they all pour into
the soul of a believer more real joy than the world can know, even
"when its corn and its wine are increased."
* * * * *
But the crown and consummation of the whole is, that godliness is not
merely the Director, the Ornament, or the Joy of this life; it is the
prelude to the Life that is to come.
What are to be our employments in heaven? How shall we be sustained?
How perceive, or feel, or rejoice? Shall we recognise in glory those
whom we loved on earth?--or is the Alpha and the Omega of faith,
the Alpha and the Omega of fruition? These, and a thousand other
questions, are raised by the curious mind; but the most that we can
say in reply is, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be." There
will be praise in glory. There will be following the Lamb. There will
be satisfaction with God's likeness. There will be the fulness of
joy and pleasures for evermore. But after all, the mind, while in
the body, is exhausted by the effort to comprehend what we shall
be: it falls back fatigued upon the words of him who once lay on
the Redeemer's bosom, "It doth not yet appear what we shall be."
THE MILLENNIUM.[*16]
And yet there is a sense or a measure in which we can understand
heaven.--In our day we hear much of the Millennium. Churches
are divided on the subject. Brother differs from brother; and
it is difficult indeed, definitely to fix "what saith the Lord"
regarding it. But connected with the millennium there is one
subject, concerning which we may speak with perfect decision on
the undoubted authority of God. As the whole is composed of its
parts, the blessedness of the millennial state can be composed only
of the blessedness of individual souls. Now, would I introduce that
blessed era as far as I am concerned? Then let me make sure that
Christ is already personally reigning in me. Would I see the kingdom
of God set up in our groaning world; and would I like to fix a day
for its commencement? Then let me /this day/ make it sure that the
king of glory is on the throne of my heart, that "Christ is in me the
hope of glory."--Whatever the millennium is to be, or whensoever it
is to begin, it can, at the most, consist only of Christ's personal
reign. Now, he should be reigning at this hour in me. Be that,
through grace, accomplished, and we are in preparation for the
millennial glory; though the bright visions of some were turned
into realities to-morrow, we should be found meet to enter on the
joy of our Lord. "The millennium will never come," said Harlan Page,
"till Christians are more awake to duty."
HEAVEN.
And so of the eternal state. Does Christ reign in any soul now?
Then, beyond the grave, that reign perfected will be heaven. Is
Christ stamping on us now the image of the Eternal, and restoring
what the fall ruined or effaced? Then that restoration completed will
be heaven. Is Christ on earth showing us the Father? Then beyond the
grave, we shall be eternally restored to the Father's favour; and
that is heaven, for his favour is life, and his loving-kindness
better than life. Our joy on earth--our religion--when it is a fruit
of the Spirit, is at once a preparative and a prelude to the joys
of heaven. They are the same in kind, and differ only in degree. He
that is holy in a measure now, will be holy in perfection at last. He
that loves the Saviour in a measure now, will love him in perfection
beyond the grave; here we see the bud, on high we shall partake of
the ripe and mellow fruit--all according to the words, "He that is
unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be
filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him be righteous still:
and he that is holy, let him be holy still."
Let us try to find some one who is ignorant of the great processes of
nature; one of the untutored savages who still hover near the margin
which separates the rational from merely animal nature. Let him be
ignorant, for example, of the processes of vegetation. With the one
hand show him an acorn--a thing so small that it can scarcely serve
even for an infant's toy; with the other, show him some majestic oak,
beneath whose ample shade the beasts of the field and the birds of
the air find a common shelter. Then tell that degraded one, that
that majestic tree was once enveloped in such a little seed--how
incredulous, or how amazed, would that "Stoic of the woods" appear!
THE BUD--THE BLOSSOM--THE FRUIT.
And the same thing happens in regard to the coming eternity.
Godliness is the germ, of which eternal glory is the majestic
result. Grace is the bud, of which heaven is the ample fruitage.
Like the darkling savage, we may be unable to comprehend the process
by which the one passes into the other. But our ability is not the
measure of God's. The one /does/ pass into the other; grace does
pass into glory; and he is wise, he /only/ is wise, who makes it
his business on earth to tend that germ, or screen it from all that
would crush or destroy it. He is wise who places it often in the
clear shining of the Sun of Righteousness, or under the influence
of Him who assures us that he will refresh it like the dew. The
delicate exotic will not otherwise grow; and for want of such
tending, ten thousand times ten thousand let it wither, and pine,
and perish.
THE RESURRECTION.
GLORY--HONOUR--IMMORTALITY.
It is a saddening thing to stand by the edge of the open grave, and
see dust returned to the dust. One, perhaps, with whom we have often
taken sweet counsel, upon whose arm we have leant, whose soul has
touched our soul, with whom we had all things in common, even to
the secrets of the heart, is entombed. The cold earth must hide
him, and even affection must hasten to bury him out of sight. But
that very body thus consigned to corruption is yet to come forth a
glorious body, when death shall be swallowed up of life. That which
is sown in dishonour is to grow in glory, if united to Him who is the
resurrection and the life, who has abolished death, and brought life
and immortality to light in the gospel. Its home for ever is to be--
"The city of the golden pavement--
Seat of endless festival."
--And thus do we glance at the Spirit's fruit in the soul--or God's
religion, not man's--as the crown and consummation of life. We have
looked at it as it /should/ reign in the Heart: /Does/ it reign
there? We have studied it as presiding in our Homes, and leading all
who are there in the "way of the Lord:" To what extent has that been
accomplished? We have gone, with the lamp of life in our hand, into
the Workshop of the artisan, and tried to tell how it ennobles toil
by sanctifying him who toils. We have taken that lamp, and tried
to shed its light upon the Marts of business; and is it the case
that our merchandise and our hire are holiness to the Lord? We have
referred to what should be the ascendency of God's truth in our
Social Intercourse; and if it preside there, we are not far from
the kingdom of heaven; nay, we are within its sacred borders, and
the crown of all will be glory, honour, and immortality, through
Jesus Christ our Lord.
FOOTNOTES
---------
1 See Rom. v. 6, and compare Acts v. 31.
2 Ps. li. 10.
3 Ezek. xxxvi. 26.
4 Jonathan Edwards.
5 John Albert Bengel.
6 Thomas Halyburton.
7 Pascal.
8 Matt. vi. 25-33.
9 See the Domestic Constitution, by Christopher Anderson.
10 Discourses on the application of Christianity to the
Commercial and Ordinary affairs of life.--Discourse VI.
11 See a remarkable little volume, "Memoirs of Harlan
Page."
12 1 Cor. iv. 3, 4.
13 "It may look to some a degradation of the pulpit,
when the household servant is told to make her firm
stand against the temptation of open doors and secret
opportunities; or when the confidential agent is told
to resist the slightest inclination to any unseen
freedom with the property of his employers, or to any
discoverable excess in the charges of his management;
or when the receiver of a humble payment is told
that the tribute which is due on every written
acknowledgment ought faithfully to be met, and not
fictitiously to be evaded. This is not robbing religion
of its sacredness, but spreading its sacredness over
the face of society. It is evangelizing human life by
impregnating its minutest transactions with the Spirit
of the Gospel."--Dr. CHALMERS.
14 Acts xviii. 3; xx. 34. 1 Cor. iv. 12. 1 Thess. ii. 9.
15 "He lives in a cottage, and yet he is a king and a
priest unto God. He is fixed for life to the ignoble
drudgery of a workman, and yet he is on the full
march to a blissful immortality. He is a child in
the mysteries of science, but familiar with greater
mysteries. That preaching of the cross which is
foolishness to others, he feels to be the power
of God and the wisdom of God."--Dr. CHALMERS.
16 Job v. 3.
17 "Pulchra Laverna,
Da mihi fallere, da justo sanctoque videri."--HOR.
18 "We state it as our opinion, that though the whole
business of the world were in the hands of men
thoroughly Christianized, and who, rating wealth
according to its real dimensions on the high scale of
eternity, were chastened out of all their idolatrous
regards to it; yet would trade, in these circumstances,
be carried to the extreme limit of its being really
productive or desirable. An affection for riches beyond
what Christianity prescribes, is not essential to
any extension of commerce that is at all valuable
or legitimate; and in opposition to the maxim that
the spirit of enterprise is the soul of commercial
prosperity, do we hold that it is the excess of this
spirit beyond the moderation of the New Testament,
which, pressing on the natural boundaries of trade,
is sure at length to visit every country where it
operates with the record of all those calamities which,
in the shape of beggared capitalists and unemployed
operatives, and dreary intervals of bankruptcy and
alarm, are observed to follow a season of overdone
speculation."--Dr. CHALMERS.
19 2 Cor. viii. 2.
20 Mr. Hardcastle died in his sixty-seventh year.
21 See Mercantile Morals by Rev. W. H. Van Doren,
chap. iv.
22 See Mercantile Morality, chap. iv.
23 The Dutch florin is worth about two shillings.
24 A span of horses means a team or pair of /matches/
for a carriage.
25 A livre is equal to about 10½d. English.
26 See Mercantile Morals, chap. iv.
27 See Dr. Boardman's "Bible in the Counting-House,"
p. 132.
28 /Hunt's Merchant's Magazine/, quoted in Boardman's
"Bible in the Counting-House."
29 Psalm ii. 9-11.
30 "Ubi tres Medici, duo Athei."
31 Lectures on Medical Missions, Lect. V., by
Dr. G. Wilson.
32 Gouge, in his "Surest and Safest Way of Thriving,"
tells of an eminent physician of his day, Dr. Bathurst,
that "all his Lord's-day fees were kept as a bank for
the poor."
33 See this quotation from the "The Licence of Counsel,"
in Whately's Rhetoric. Part II., chap. iii.
34 See Archbishop Whately's Rhetoric. Part II.,
chap. iii.
35 See Campbell's Lives of the Chancellors, vol. ii.
pp. 429, 430.
36 Campbell, vol. ii. p. 307.
37 Memoirs of the Lives of Robert Haldane, and James A.
Haldane, p. 132.
38 See Lives of the Haldanes, pp. 128, 129.
39 Gen. xlix. 6.
40 1 Cor. v. 9-11.
41 It was Voltaire.
42 Sir Walter Scott. The closing chapter of his Life by
J. G. Lockhart ranks among the most melancholy and
instructive portions of our literature. Could aught
but a divine power undeceive the sons of men, these
chapters might undeceive them.
TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
-------------------
1 'Edinburg' replaced with 'Edinburgh'
2 'Boerhave' replaced with 'Boerhaave'
3 'dependents' replaced with 'dependants' for consistency
4 'uare taght' replaced with 'are taught'
5 Numeral 'I.' missing in text.
6 'engulphing' replaced with 'ingulfing' for consistency
7 'dishallowed'replaced with 'disallowed'
8 'its' replaced with 'it'
9 'enterprize' replaced with 'enterprise'
10 Meaning 'load', it measured about 120 cubic feet varying
by the item measured and changing over time
11 'enterprize' replaced with 'enterprise'
12 'controling' replaced with 'controlling'
13 Quotations marks corrected based on original source in
Footnote 37.
14 'stedfast' replaced with 'steadfast' for consistency
15 'respects' replaced with 'respect'
16 'MILLENIUM' replaced with 'MILLENNIUM'