u^:-^ 'y: y- irasp-^^;i\ - \ V i \ r M J r . ; I 'x ' $m»M r r ••i';:.-.;5v..W a . y^r. / :i from f^e feifirarp of (profe00or Wiffiam O^iffer (pa^on, ®.®., fefe.®. fo f^e &i6rari? of (|)nnceton C^^ofo^icdf ^eminarg ^^;f':v^^r v^v. "*^i ■ < [<-- t z^?'*^ ^^^f ^-- • L^** L-^//^'^" ^:^ r^i. \ LECTUKES AND SERMONS. PEEFACE. THIS volume, containing a selection from the Lectures and Sermons of the late Dr. Davidson, is now i^ublished in compliance with the request of many office-bearers and mem- bers of his late congregation and other friends. It has not been thought necessary to prefix any memoir of Dr. Davidson ; but a tablet, erected to his memory in the church where he last ministered, records a few particulars which it may interest some to know. The inscription is as foUows : — IN MEMOKY OF ALEXANDER DYCE DAVIDSON, D.D. MINISTER OF THIS CHUIICH BORN IN ABERDEEN 8 MAY 1807 ORDAINED MINISTER OF THE SOUTH CHURCH 3 AUGUST 1832 TRANSLATED TO THE WEST CHURCH 5 MAY 1886 SEPARATED FROM THE ESTABLISHMENT AT THE DISRUPTION ALONG WITH A LARGE CONGREGATION, 23 MAY 1843 OPENED THEIR CHURCH IN BELMONT STREET 28 JANUARY 1844 REMOVED TO THIS CHURCH 14 FEBRUARY 1869 AND AFTER LABOURING SUCCESSFULLY FOB NEARLY FORTY YEARS AS A PREACHER OF CHRIST's RIGHTEOUSNESS TO WARMLY ATTACHED FLOCKS HE FELL ASLEEP 27 APRIL 1872 DECLARING ' HIS TRUST TO BE IN THE GREAT SALVATION AND THE GLORIOUS REDEEMER. ' To give some idea of the extent of his writings, it may be stated that, besides many discourses which he destroyed, and others which had been from time to time published, there were found upwards of eighteen hundred Lectures and Sermons, vi PKEFACE. which have been arranged in the order of their dates as follow : — 1. The last twenty-seven of the forty-one Lectures on the Epistle to the Philippians, from 30th December 1832 to 25th August 1833. 2. Ten Lectures on the History and Character of Samuel, from 22d September 1833 to 27th April 1834. 3. Twenty-tlu-ee Lectures on the Christian Evidences, from 20th July 1834 to 11th January 1835. 4. Fourteen Lectures {first series) on Christ's Sermon on the Mount, from 28th June to 27th December 1835. 5. One hundred and nineteen Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, from 11th September 1836 to 24th March 1841. 6. Eight Lectures (second series) on the Life and Character of Samviel, from 4th March to 10th June 1838. 7. Six Sermons on the Heavenly Grace of Love, from 24th March to 15th September 1839. 8. Five hundred and forty-seven ^^ectures on parts of the Old Testament {first series), viz. : — Fifty-three on Genesis, from 24th October 1841 to 28th July 1844. Forty-four on Exodus, from 18th August 1844 to 22d Feb- ruary 1846. Thirteen on Leviticus, from 8th March to 9 th August 1846. Thirty-eight on Numbers, from 23d August 1846 to 12th Sep- tember 1847. Thirty-eight on Deuteronomy, from 19th September 1847 to 27th January 1849. Twenty-six on Joshua, from 4th February to 23d November 1849. Twenty on Judges, from 9th December 1849 to 23d June 1850. Five on Euth, from 21st July to 1st September 1850. Fifty-two on 1 Samuel, from 8th September 1850 to 11th July 1852. Thirty-four on 2 Samuel, from 18th July 1852 to 25th Sep- tember 1853. One hundred and thirty-three on Kings and Chronicles, from 23d October 1853 to 8th November 1857. Thirteen on Ezra, from loth November 1857 to 21st February 1858. Sixteen on Nehemiah, from 7th March to 22d August 1858. J^^ote. — The fifteen Lectures on the Book of Esther, from 29th August 1858 to 30th January 1859, were published in 1859, and the Mss. destroyed. PREFACE. Vll Ten on Malachi, from 6th Febraary to 15th May 1859. Fifty-two on Job, from 4th December 1859 to 23d June 18G1. 9. Five Lectures on the Spiritual Life, from 1st August to 19 th December 1858. 10. Four Sermons on the Christian Armour, from 26th June to 21st August 1859. 11. Eighty-eiglit Lectures on the Epistle to the Hebrews, from 18th August 1861 to 24th January 1864. 12. Thirty-nine Lectures (second seines) on Christ's Sermon on the Mount, from 4th September 1864 to 29th October 1865. 13. One hundred and ninety-three Lectures (second series) on parts of the Old Testament, viz. : — Forty-eight on Genesis, from 14th January 1866 to 12th May 1867. Seventy-two on Exodus, from 19th May 1867 to 20th June 3 869. Fifteen on Leviticus, from 18th August to 19th December 1869. Thirty-seven on Numbers, from 26th December 1869 to 26th February 1871. Twenty-one on Deuteronomy, from 5th March 1871 to 11th February 1872, — the last time he was in his pulpit. 14. Sixty-nine Action Sermons at Communions. 15. Nineteen Sermons out of the ordinary course, and specially for Sabbaths preceding the Communion. 16. Twelve Sermons also out of the ordinary course, and specially for Sabbaths after the Communion. 17. Forty New-Year's Day Sermons, 18. Forty-nine Sermons for days of Humiliation and of Thanks- giving for the Harvest. 19. Eight Sermons at Ordinations of Elders and Deacons, from 7th March 1833 to 13th June 1870. 20. Twenty-two Lectures to Divinity Students, session 1844—45. 21. Nine Sermons on the Fruit of the Spirit, from 19th February to 12 th November 1871. 22. Four Sermons on Practical Religion, from 26th November 1871 to 21st January 1872. 23. Sixty-one Sermons and Lectures for special occasions or on public questions, — such as Opening Churches ; Oi'dinations, Induc- tions, and Introductions of Ministers ; Meetings of Synod ; Divine Origin of the Bible and its Circulation ; Sabbath Observance ; Popish Controversy; Popery of Protestants; Schemes of the Church; on behalf of Local Charities and Associations ; and in connection with the Deaths of Eminent Men. 2 1. One hundred and twenty-four Sermons and Lectures, preached viii PKEFACE. on ordinary occasions, on texts in the Old Testament, from 1832 to 1872. 25. Three hundred and eight Sermons and Lectures, preached on ordinary occasions, on texts in the New Testament, from 1832 to 1872. In addition to the above, Dr. Davidson left many written addresses at fencing the tables, previous to the celebration of the Lord's Supper ; addresses at the table ; notes of exposition of the Confession of Faith ; and of continuous portions of the Scripture at the weekly prayer meetings, held on Thursday evenings during the greater part of his ministry. From such a mass it would have been dif&cult, and no attempt has been made by a perusal of the whole, to make a proper selection. In making a selection, regard has been had to the impressions which particular discourses made at the time on the minds of his ordinary hearers, and to the occa- sions on which Dr. Davidson afterwards preached them. But after the selection was made, it was found that many of those selected had to be reserved, in order that the present publica- tion should not extend beyond one volume. Those now published are specimens of Dr. Davidson's ordi- nary pulpit ministrations, from the time of his translation to the West Church in May 1836 to the end of 1870, and they are arranged in the order of their dates. After his death, funeral sermons were preached in the Free West Church, by Professor Smeaton of the New College, Edinburgh, and Principal Lumsden of the Free Church Col- lege, Aberdeen. Picference is made to these for some par- ticulars of Dr. Davidson's character and labours as a minister of the gospel. The Free Church Presbytery of Aberdeen, at their first meeting after Dr. Davidson's funeral, also recorded a tribute to his memory, drawn up by his old and much valued friend, the Eev. Dr. Ptobert James Brown, in the following terms, viz. : — ' The Presbytery desire to record their very deep regret for the heavy loss which they, in common with the Free West Church con- gregation, the Christian commvmity in this city, and the Church at large, have sustained by the removal from among them of the Eev. Dr. A. D. Davidson, minister of the Free West Church. Possessed of PEEFACE. IX superior talents, most assiduously cultivated from his early days ; of remarkable attainments, both in general literature and in Biblical scholarship ; of great facility in giving expression to his thoughts in a clear and forcible diction ; of an eloquence at once calm and sweetly persuasive, he manifested, without a semblance of art or parade of learning, a mighty power over the minds and consciences of his hearers. And the true source and secret of all this mighty power was the intenseness of his own faith in the doctrines of the gospel, and the warmth of his love to their souls. His pvilpit and week-day ministrations were so thoroughly pervaded by the soundest views of pure gospel doctrine, and at the same time so evangelically practical, that they ever conveyed the strongest impression of the inseparable connection between a pure faith, the work of the Spirit, and a life of holiness, humility, and love to immortal souls. During a period of forty years, throughout which he was privileged to exercise a ministry much owned of his Master, first in two important congregations in the Established Church, and afterwards in one, both numerous and influential, in the Free Church, with which he unhesitatingly cast in his lot at the memorable Disruption, the happy influence which he exercised by the blessing of God was never impaired. Equally faith- ful and indefatigable in devoting all the talents entrusted to him in the service of his divine Master, in the years of declining health as in the days of vigorous manhood, he never ceased, while able, to proclaim the message of salvation, to throw his whole soul into the delivery of that message, realizing the full import of the message itself, and the solemn issues involved in its acceptance or rejection. In ex- pounding the truths of the Word, he manifested a very thorough and intimate acquaintance with Scripture ; and by Bible illustration and beautiful imagery drawn from every source, he threw a clear hght upon every subject handled in the pulpit. Nor Avere his private ministrations and counsels less earnest, less affectionate, less wise, less characterized by fearlessness of man's opinion, less stamped with the image of his own faith, and humility, and love. His demeanour in the intercourse of private life was marked by simplicity, and cheerfulness, and modesty. While his conversation breathed a spirit of manly sense, and displayed an intelligent acquaintance with the thought and knowledge of his own times, it was always pervaded by the savour of the gospel. Though taking a deep interest in all that related to Christ's cause, and especially in connection with the Free Church, he was oftentimes withheld by his modest diffidence, by his devotion to his pulpit preparations, and latterly by the state of his health, from taking that prominent position in the Church's councils which he was so highly fitted to occupy. The Presbytery desire to give expression to their thankfulness to the God and Father of their Lord and Saviour for all that He enabled His deceased servant to accom- X PREFACE. plisli. Though dead, he yet speaketh, and long will his memory be fragrant among the members of his much-attached flock, and the people of God in this city and neighbourhood. The Presbytery record their warm sympathy with the relatives of their late much loved and honoured brother, and commend them to God and the power of His grace, and also with the oflfice-bearers and congregation of the Free West Church, under their heavy bereavement ; and they pray that a sanctified use of this dispensation may be granted, and that the Lord may send them, in due time, a pastor after His own heart, like unto him whom they now so deeply mourn, who will feed the flock abundantly with the bread of life.' KiNGSWELLS, 31st August 1872. CONTENTS. ^ T>1SC. PAGE I. THE SUBJECT OF PREACHIKG : JESUS CHRIST, AND HIM CRUCIFIED, . 1 II. THE GLORIFYING OF GOD, 17 III. THE ENJOYING OF GOD, 29 IV. FOLLOWING CHRIST, 41 V. THE SECURITY OF CHRIST's PEOPLE, 55 VI. THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND NUMBER OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE, . 66 VII. THE believer's DIFFICULTIES, . 83 VIII. THE DEATH OF ABRAHAM, 96 ^ix. Jacob's DREAM, 108 X. THE CHARTER OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, 121 XI. THE OUTPOURING OF THE SPIRIT, 135 XII. WAITING FOR GOD'S SALVATION, 147 XIII. GOOD TIDINGS TO THE POOR AND BROKENHEARTED, . . . 161 XIV. THE GLORY OF CHRIST AND OF THE CHURCH HIS SPOUSE, ' . . 178 XV. CHRIST THE SHEPHERD OF HIS PEOPLE, 196 XVI. THE WAYS AND DANGEROUS CONSEQUENCES OF VEXING THE HOLY SPIRIT, 211 XVII. CHRIST TO THE BELIEVER THE END OF THE LAW FOR RIGHTEOUSNESS, 229 XVIII. THE COMMUNICABLE FULNESS OF CHRIST, 243 XIX. THE SUBJECT OF CONVERSION, 259 XX. THE UNSEARCHABLE RICHES OF CHRIST, 275 XXI. CHRIST IN HIS PEOPLE THE HOPE OF GLORY, 292 XXir. THE REST PREPARED FOR CHRIST'S FOLLOWERS, .... 312 XXIII. THE PRIVILEGES OF BEING QUICKENED, RAISED UP, AND SEATED IN HEAVENLY PLACES, 328 Xll CONTENTS. DISC. PAGE V XXIV. THE DEATHBED OF DAVIli, 349 XXV. THE SOUL IN PRISON, AND ITS DELIVERANCE, .... 365 / XXVI. Christ's kingly power, as entitling him to willing and GRATEFITL HOMAGE, 381 XXVII. THE SIN AND DANGER OF REJECTING CHRIST, .... 402 XXVIII. THE DANGERS OF SELF-DECEPTION, 415 XXIX. THE SPIRITUAL LIFE OUTWARDLY MANIFESTED, . . . 429 XXX. THE CHRISTIAN SOLDIER's ARMOUR, 443 XXXI. THE CORRUPT NATURE WARRING AGAINST THE SPIRITUAL LIFE, . 458 XXXII. new-year's day sermon, 472 > XXXIII. THE HISTORY OF JOSEPH, 485 XXXIV. THE CONFLICT AND THE REWARD, 500 XXXV. THE ASCENSION OF CHRIST, 518 ^ XXXVI. THE FAITH OF ABEL, 537 XXXVII. Christ's sermon — the poor in spirit, 551 XXXVIII. the parable of the wise and foolish builders, . . . 567 XXXIX. Christ's work for sinners, and its fruits, .... 583 • XL. THE DEATH OF AARON, . . 599 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING ' For I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and Him cruciiied. ' — 1 CoK. ii. 2. THESE words carry us back to the time when the apostle formed the resolution of going to Corinth to preach the gospel, and when, as it was natural for him to do, he was revolving in his mind the manner in which he would most effectually discharge the arduous and responsible duties connected with the of&ce of the Christian ministry. From his mode of expressing himself, ' I determined not to know anything among you, save Jesus Christ,' it would almost ap- pear that he had previously felt himself, if I may so speak, under some temptation to act otherwise than he finally purposed, — that he had had to combat feeKngs perhaps altogether the offspring of his own mind, and perhaps sug- gested partly by the circumstances of the people among whom he was to labour, — feelings which, had he allowed himself to be influenced by them, would have led him to follow a very different course from that w^hich he actually pursued, — and that it was only after weighing fully and maturely what duty required, and what presented itself in opposition to it, that he formed the determination expressed in the words of the text. It may indeed by some be thought incredible that Paul should have had to weigh and to determine what should be the great subject of his preaching among the Corinthians, any more than in the other places where he had laboured ; and we do not conceive that his hesitation, if he did hesitate, was other than momentary. But after all, like other men, he had a corrupt heart to subdue, and rebellious affections to regulate ; and bold and resolute as he was during the whole of his ' Dr. Davidson's first sermon in the West Church, 8th May 1836. A 2 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING : course, there were no doubt seasons when weakness and irresolution — the remnants of the old man within him — sought to spread themselves over his mind, and to paralyze his energies, although ultimately they never gained the ascen- dency. And besides, there was something in the circumstances of the Corinthians which, we can easily imagine, must have rendered it somewhat dif&cult for the apostle to decide what particular method he might adopt with the greatest effect, to secure for the truth that paramount influence among them which he wished it to acquire. At the time when the gospel was fu'st proclaimed to the Corinthians, Corinth was the seat of knowledge, of science, and of luxury. The liberal arts, for the cultivation of which the Greeks Avere so much celebrated, had there fixed their principal abode. All those pursuits which address themselves more immediately to the imagination and the taste, flourished there under the fostering hand of wealth and its consequent refinement ; and to gain the ear of the Corinthians, and make an impression upon their hearts, one would have needed to invest truth with all the charms of eloquence, and all the graces of a soft and polished and harmonious diction. We may suppose, then, that as the apostle journeyed towards that city to preach the gospel, he might well ask himself. How am I to get access to the hearts of a Corinthian audience ? Will they listen to such plain and unadorned statements as I have made to others respecting the mode of salvation by a crucified Ee- deemer ? If my labours among them are to be successful, must I not endeavour in some measure to meet their pre- judices, and conceal those parts of the truth which are most likely to prove offensive to them ? And must I not adorn my preaching with the graces of eloquence, to make way for it to their hearts ? And will not this be only a harmless accommodation to circumstances which it is impossible for me at present to alter ? Such, we conceive, may have been some of the reflections that wovild occupy the mind of Paul as he pursued his journey toward Corinth; but before he reached his destination they had all given place to the noble sentiment which he expresses in the words before us. He remembered that underneath the glittering surface of polished JESUS CHKIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 3 society there was hid a depth of depravity by human eye immeasurable, — that the wisdom on which the men of this world pride themselves is foolishness in the sight of God, — that the only way in which the human soul can be purged from the guilt and the defilement into which it has sunk, is by the blood of Jesus ; and remembering these things, there- fore, he thrust aside every doubt that would have interfered to turn him from his path, and every feeling that would have led him to compromise those precious truths which, as the messenger of Heaven, he was commissioned to announce to guilty men, and 'determined to know nothing among the Corinthians, save Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.' Now, if the Apostle Paul found it necessary to fortify himself against temptations to unfaithfulness in the discharge of ministerial duty, by sketching out, as it were, beforehand the precise line which he was to pursue, and thus binding himself undeviat- ingly to adhere to it, how necessary is it for those who are now entrusted with the sacred office of ambassadors for Christ, in the midst of the difficulties by which they are beset, and of the temptations to unfaithfulness which inces- santly assail them — how necessary is it for them, at the very commencement of their ministrations, to entrench themselves within the ground which is marked out by the experience of such a man as Paul ! That ground, then, is described in the text ; and you will perceive that it concentrates all the topics which come within the range of the Christian ministry — all the truths which the teachers of religion have to inculcate in this one topic, and this one truth — ' Jesus Christ, and Him crucified.' That was the great subject of Paul's preacliing, and it must therefore be the leading theme of all who, like him, are commissioned to turn men from darkness to light, and from the power of Satan unto God. And what I would wish to accomplish in the remainder of this discourse, is to show that the preaching of Christ crucified is precisely the great topic which is accommodated to the necessities of man- kind,— that by making known the Ptedeemer in His death and sufferings for sin, and pressing Him upon the acceptance of our fellow-creatures, we adopt the only plan which can be pursued for promoting their well-being both in time and in 4 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING : eternity, — that, at the risk of being charged with frequent repetition of the same things, and of having the gospel repre- sented as destitute of variety, we must nevertheless act as the apostle did, determining to know nothing else among our people than Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I. In the first place, then, the preaching of Christ crucified is the great doctrine suitable for man viewed as a being guilty in the sight of God. That this is the natural condition of the human race the Scripture loudly testifies, and its testimony is corroborated by the voice of conscience. ' They are all gone out of the way, they are together become unprofitable ; there is none of them that doeth good, no, not one.' It is unnecessary to multiply quotations to the same effect, as no one can have looked into the word of God without perceiving in it the strongest and the most alarming statements with respect to the guilt of man. And what is especially to be kept in view, it is not the case, as some imagine, that this guilt is contracted merely by so many positive violations of the divine law ; on the contrary, it is something that adheres to us in consequence of Adam's breach of the first covenant,— it is somethmg that we bring into the world with us, — something that we may augment, and that we do augment, by our actual transgression of God's commandments, but wliich we cannot remove by any service or obedience of our own. Let me entreat your attention for a moment to this point, as it concerns each of us most closely. The view which many people entertain of the condition of mankind is, that in this world they are placed simply in a state of probation, — that if they discharge with tolerable accuracy their religious duties, that is, the duties of secret prayer and attendance upon the sanctuary, and act honestly and justly toward their fellow-creatures, then they have nothing to fear, because God is merciful and gracious, and Christ has died for sinners. In other words, they hold that none will be condemned at last but the most heinous, and obstinate, and incorrigible offenders, — those who have set at nought divine and human laws, and who have been to every good work reprobate. Can it be possible, they ask, that JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 5 individuals who have passed through life quietly and in- offensively, who have displayed so many amiable qualities in their intercourse with mankind, and who have ever been ready to countenance every praiseworthy and benevolent object, are to be charged with guilt, and represented as lying under the wrath of God, and classed with those who have lived without any fear of God before their eyes ? Yes, brethren, such is the truth as it is propounded in the un- erring record of the God of truth. There are indeed dif- ferences in the amount of guilt recognised in the Scripture ; but guilty and therefore liable to punishment we all are, on account of the transgression of the first man. The Bible finds us in a state of guilt ; it does not cast us into it. The fact would have been the same, although a page of that blessed word had never been written for our comfort. It is true, indeed, that if we had not received a revelation from God, we might have flattered ourselves with the prospect of happiness beyond the grave, — if it had been possible for us to arrive at the knowledge of a future state, — and we might have con- trived to silence conscience, as many do at present, by indulging in every species of worldly enjoyment ; but still the fact would not have been changed by our ignorance or forgetful- ness of it, — the fact that we are covenant-breakers in the sight of God, and that the penalty therefore of the broken covenant we must endure. Bethink yourselves, then, of the solemn circumstances in which you stand. God Himself brings against you the charge of guilt, — guilt which no acknowledg- ment of yours can modify, and no future endeavour of yours can atone for. The sentence, indeed, with which that guilt shall be visited is to be executed hereafter, — the judgment which will precede the sentence is for the present delayed. Death, which ushers the soul to the tribunal, seems at present at a distance ; visions of happiness, and prospects of enjoy- ment ahnost endless, appear to be between you and the threatenings of Scripture and the trump of the archangel. But these visions will pass away : death will come, judg- ment will come, the sentence will come, and the punishment of guilt will come, to all who have refused God's gracious invitations. Say, then, what in these circumstances is the 6 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING : duty of the ambassadors of Christ ? Are they to endeavour to gain the applauses of their perishing fellow-creatures by displaying from week to week the depth of their own erudi- tion, and the extent of their researches, while the great matter of reconciliation with God is left altogether untouched ? Are they to strive by smooth words and flattering statements to please the ears of those who listen to them, when this will only seal them up more deeply in their spiritual slumber ? Are they to set before them notliing else than the require- ments of the law, as if the deeds of the law could justify them before God, — as if those very requirements did not bring guilt home to every man's conscience, and comj)el him to feel that he needs a remedy ? Nay, in deaKng thus with those com- mitted to their charge, they would either be saying 'Peace, peace, while there was no peace,' or they would be tormenting them, before the time. What, then, is the remedy which they are authorized to propose for the guilt in which all men are naturally involved ? Just that one which is pointed out in the text, and which Paul carried to the Corinthians : ' Jesus Christ crucified.' Look to the suffering Eedeemer, and you behold at once the outgoing of justice in avenging the broken covenant, and the outgoing of mercy toward the offenders. Does the law denounce a curse against every one who con- tinues not in all things that are written in it ? That curse was executed upon Christ ; for it is written, ' Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree.' Was death threatened as the penalty of the first transgression ? Christ submitted to death, and endured the penalty in His people's stead ; so that now the question is, ' Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? it is Christ that died.' Is there a sentence recorded against every soul of man that doeth evil ? Christ hath ' removed the handwriting that was contrary to us, and hath taken it out of the way, nailing it to His cross.' Do our consciences reproach us for bygone delinquencies, and remind us that there is a day of reckoning, and force upon our view the anticipation of future wrath ? The sufferings of Christ for sin disarm the conscience of its power, for there is no con- demnation to them that are in Jesus Christ ; and being justi- fied by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ our JESUS CHKIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 7 Lord. Is death clothed with terror to the guilty soul, as the introduction to a state where God is to be met face to face, and where punishment will no longer be delayed ? Christ hath destroyed death, and him that had the power of it, and hath enabled His people when entering the dark valley to say, ' 0 death, where is thy sting ? 0 grave, where is thy victory ? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law ; but thanks be to God, who giveth us the victory through Jesus Clu-ist our Lord.' The knowledge of Christ crucified, then, is precisely that which man needs to have im- parted to him when viewed as guilty in the sight of God. And if, anxious to put the matter to the test of experiment, we ask those who have appreciated that knowledge, and ac- cepted of Christ as their Saviour, how they obtained that peace of conscience, and that hope in God which they presently enjoy ; their answer will be, that it was by being brought to beheve that their sins were transferred to Christ, and atoned for by Him upon the cross, and by thus arriving at the con- viction that God had no longer any controversy with them, but that He was well pleased with them for Christ's righteous- ness' sake. Is not this your experience, ye who have fled for refuge to lay hold upon the hope set before you in the gospel ? Was it not the apprehension of Christ reconciling God to man, and man to God, by the blood of His cross, that erected the foundation on which you could build your hopes for eternity ? Was it not this that dispelled the cloud that cast a gloomy shadow over your very choicest enjoyments ? And is it not this that you cling to as your hope amid all the trials and vicissitudes of the present life ? And were you asked what should form the commencement, and the burden, and the termination of a Christian ministry, would not your answer be, ' Jesus Christ, and Him crucified ? ' II. In the second place, the preaching of Christ crucified is the only doctrine suitable for man viewed as a being who has to be raised to holiness, that he may be fitted for the enjoy- ment of God. Innumerable are the declarations of Scripture to the effect that men must be born again, — that they must be renewed B THE SUBJECT OF PEEACHING : after the image of God, — that they must be made holy before they can dwell in God's presence. ' Verily, verily, I say imto you, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.' 'Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.' ' Evil shall not dwell with Thee. The foolish shall not stand in Thy sight ; Thou hatest all the workers of iniquity.' These are the testimonies of the word of God ; and even if it had not spoken so explicitly, we might have concluded from the nature of the thing, that a change must pass over the human soul before it can inhale the air of the heavenly paradise, since defiled by sin it could neither relish the society nor the enjoyments of the blessed spirits who surround God's throne. How, then, is this change to be effected ? how is holiness to be transfused into a soul dead in trespasses and sins ? The question is all-important ; in what manner is it to be solved ? Were we in any ordinary case desirous to bring any disposi- tion, or any class of dispositions, peculiarly into play in the mind of any one, we would without hesitation adopt this as the plan most likely to succeed in accomplishing our object. We would exhibit the excellence of that disposition, and en- deavour to stimulate to the cultivation of it, by producing the brightest examples we could find of its exercise. Will this plan then succeed in urging the claims of holiness upon the attention of mankind ? Nay ; describe holiness as you will, — speak of its beauty, of its dignity, of its intrinsic excellence, — invest the subject with all the charms which fancy can devise or language utter, — and to the human heart alienated from Christ, and unmoved by grace, your efforts will be as unavailing as if you were to exhibit the finest combination of colours to the blind, or to produce before the deaf the softest and the sweetest music ; for, says the Scripture, ' the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God.' Or if, attempting to gain your end by reference to example, you take the character of God, who is holiness itself, your endeavours will be equally fruitless For it is the very purity of His nature — His abhorrence of sin, and His righteous determination to punish it — that makes Him an object of terror and of hatred to His creatures. Can it be possible, you will ask, that God is an object of terror and of JESTJS CHKIST AND HIM CEUCIFIED. 9 hatred to any one ? It is even so, my friends. ' The carnal mind is enmity against God/ says the Scripture ; and the language of the unrenewed heart is, as expressed in the book of Job, ' Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways. What is the Almighty, that I should serve him ? and what profit shall I have if I pray unto him ? ' And are not these striking passages verified by all experience ? Is there anything more painful, more exquisitely painful, to a man ignorant of Clirist, than the thought of God as the God of holiness and justice ? Is there any thought which he is more anxious to banish from his mind when it does intrude itself? Shut him up in retirement for a day, and let him have this thought pressed upon him on all sides, and kept before him, and you plunge him into utter wretchedness. Holiness, then, win not be produced in man by any description that can be given of it, nor by the exhibition of the character of God which furnished the only perfect example of it. Will they be driven, then, to the cultivation of it by our working upon their fears ? IsTay, array before them all the terrors of the law, and all the solemnities of judgment to come ; let fancy picture in the most frightful colours the torments that await the wicked ; and let the truth be urged as powerfully as human voice can urge it, that unless they depart from their wickedness, and cultivate that holiness which God requires, these torments will everlastingly be theirs, and the only effect you will produce upon them will be to fill them with yet deeper enmity against the God of holiness. Again, therefore, the question recurs : How is holiness to be transfused into the soul dead in trespasses and sins ? And here, as in the former case, the answer is to be found in the text, and is summed up in this : The preaching of Christ cruci- fied. Bring the truth to bear upon the mind, that God so loved the world as to give His only-begotten Son a ransom for sinners, and let this truth, by the working of the Spirit, be believed and relied on, and you provide at once for the pro- duction and the growth of holiness. When the justice of God is seen vindicating itself in the agonies of the Eedeemer, — when the truth of God is contemplated enacting even to the very letter the punishment which was threatened on account 1 0 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING : of sin, — when the holiness of God is exliibited shutting up the streams of the divine complacency from the beloved of the Father at the time when the iniquities of His people were laid on Him, — and when all this is seen and believed to ori- ginate in God's love toward His offending creatures, and His anxiety for their salvation, — the divine character then assumes a new and a more engaging aspect. The sinner, who had before regarded God as his enemy, comes to look upon Him as his friend, and is melted by His goodness when he surveys him sparing not His own Son, but giving Him up to death for the guilty. The very root of enmity is destroyed within him by the sight of the bleeding Saviour ; and he who could neither be softened by eloquence nor subdued by fear, is led captive by the belief of the truth that God is reconciled to him through Jesus Christ crucified. Then, when this change has passed upon him, he delights habitually to turn his thoughts to the contemplation of God. With the same anxiety wherewith he formerly endeavoured to banish God from his mind, he now strives to keep Him constantly before him : his delight is to realize the presence of God vntli him ; and his language, instead of being, ' Depart from me, for I desire not the knowledge of thy ways,' is that of the Psalmist, ' My soul thirsteth for God, my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.' And withal, everything is valued by him in proportion to its ten- dency to bring him near to the gracious Being whom he has learnt to love. The Scriptures, as revealing the purposes of God, and containing a transcript of His will and His perfec- tion ; prayer, as opening up a channel through which he may hold intercourse Mdth God ; and all the other ordinances of religion, presenting so many means of raising his soul from earthly things toward God ; — all these become invested in his view with a new value and a new importance. And thus maintaining, if I may so speak, habitual companionship with God, he catches as it were the spirit that reigns in God's im- mediate presence : the desires which obtained donunion over him when the old nature had the supremacy are banished, and replaced by others more congenial to the divine society which he now delights to cultivate ; his tastes and habits acquire a new and heavenly colouring ; his affections are set upon the JESUS CHKIST AND HIM CEUCIFIED. 11 things of God ; and, in a word, sin is mortified and crucified within him, and the image of God is gradually impressed upon his soul. Such is the transformation which is effected by the believing reception of the truth that Christ suffered for the sin of His people, thereby magnifying the law and satisfying the justice of God, and opening up a way by which He might give vent to His love in consistency with all His adorable per- fections. When you reflect, then, that the resemblance to God which is thus generated on earth in the souls of His people is that which qualifies them for heaven's felicity, and that without it they cannot see God, and would not be happy even if they were admitted into His presence, you will surely once more admit that the commencement, and the burden, and the termination of the Christian ministry, ought to be, as Paul expresses it, ' Jesus Christ, and Him crucified,' III. The preaching of Christ crucified is the only subject suitable for making an impression upon man in the way of leading him to the discharge of active duty. Man is constitutionally an active being, and as such he has certain duties to perform which are prescribed to him in the word of God. Now it is upon his performance of these duties that the genuineness of his religious profession rests, — the growth of holiness in the heart being indicated by the fruits of righteousness in the life. But if man is formed for duty, and if the extent to which he discharges it be the surest, and indeed the only, evidence by which the reality of his Chris- tian discipleship can be demonstrated, it becomes an impor- tant question how he may be most effectually influenced to comply with God's requirements. Various are the methods, then, to which we may have recourse for the purpose of securing his compliance. We may address ourselves to his fears, and describe the punishment of disobedience, and warn him, as he values the interests of his immortal soul, to adhere to the path which God has marked out for him in His word. And perhaps such argument as this may with some be partially successful. They may abstain from certain sins, and they may perform certain things commanded, just because the fear of retribution hangs over them. Or we may take up 12 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING: different ground, and address ourselves to his pride, pointing out the meanness of following this or that course, and the dignity that always attaches itself to the pursuit of virtue. And perhaps this line of argument may have the effect of leading some to yield a certain measure of obedience to the law of God. But will the performance of duty which is secured by presenting these and similar motives to the mind, be as extensive as it ought to be, or will it be acceptable to that God to whom the secrets of the heart are open ? Nay, it will extend no further than self-interest and the desire to be esteemed by others lead ; and to God it cannot be acceptable, because it does not proceed from love to Him : it is essentially selfish, and he who lives to himself cannot please God. I may safely appeal to the conscience of those now present, who as yet have not been renewed in the spirit of their mind, whether they do not feel that the measure of outward duty which they render, be it prayer, or deeds of beneficence, or any- thing else that God requires of them, is not rendered from any desire to glorify God ; whether duty in general is not some- thing burdensome and disagreeable to them ; and whether, therefore, they are not anxious to devise excuses for the pur- pose of shaking themselves free from the obligation to do this or that, which after all they must feel they shoukl have done. Every man who knows his own heart wiU acknowledge that this is too true a picture of one of its lamentable tendencies. Now we hold that there is only one method by which this tendency can be overcome, and men brought to delight in the practice of duty, and to account it their meat and drink to do the will of their Father who is in heaven ; and that method is by their acceptance of Jesus Christ as their Saviour. When the sinner is once convinced that God loves him, and that, instead of consigning liim to everlasting misery. He has sent His Son to die for him, that through His death the gates of heaven might be opened, and endless felicity put within his enjoyment ; and when fear and doubt and suspicion have thus given place to hope and joy and confidence, then does he begin to ask what he can do to manifest his gratitude to his merciful Eedeemer. The commandments of the law are then regarded, not as the imperious dictates of a master who has no JESUS CHEIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 13 care for tlie happiness of his servants, but as the mild and gentle requirements of One who has loved us, and whom it is delightful to obey. The question is no longer. How can I do these things, placing myself under restraints, and denying myself pleasures, while others are at freedom to enjoy them- selves as they please ? but, Can I ever do enough for Him who for my sake endured the cross, despising the shame ? These are the feelings that reign among the children of God, among those who have believed in Jesus Christ crucified. It is not a constrained but a willing service which they render, because it is a service which is the fruit of love and gratitude, and not of fear. It has indeed been frequently asserted, that to make Christ crucified the chief topic of preaching, and to set forth faith in Him as the instrument of the sinner's justifica- tion in the sight of God, is injurious to the interests of morality, and calculated to make men regardless of their conduct. The assertion, however, betrays the most deplorable ignorance both of the Bible and of the human heart. It betrays an ignor- ance of the Bible, because there it is declared in passages in- numerable, that men are justified, and ever since the fall have been justified, not by the deeds of the law, but by the faith of Christ. And it betrays an ignorance of the human heart. For tell me what plan you would adopt as most likely to bring an individual to comply with your wishes, not only in your presence, but also in secret. Would you seek to bind him down by terror or by love ? Terror may, indeed, secure his services when your eye is upon him, but it will only lead him to make the service as easy as possible to himself when you are not present. Love, on the other hand, will influence him in the one case as much as in the other, and under its power he will strive even to anticipate your wishes. Love, then, is the principle by which God binds His people to obedience. He presents the Saviour to them bearing their sins in His own body on the tree, and tells them to believe that His anger against them is pacified for Christ's sake. The reception of this precious truth kindles up in their breasts a corresponding love to the God of grace. ' Wliat shaU I render to the Lord for all His benefits?' becomes the anxious inquiry of the believing soul ; and under the influence of this inquiry 14 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING : he goes forth rejoicing to have an opportunity of testifying his gratitude to Him that bought him with His blood, and abound- ing in all the fruits of active and holy obedience. Thus Christ crucified is the theme which pacifies the guilty conscience, which secures the growth of holiness, which provides for the discharge of duty, and which, therefore, to ministers and to people, should be all in all. Once more, then, let me ask you, if this should not form the commencement, and the burden, and the termination of the Christian ministry. By the grace of God, then, my friends, and as standing in His presence, and accountable to Him for the discharge of that stewardship with which He has entrusted me, I purpose and determine, after the apostle of the Gentiles, to know nothing among you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified, — to hold forth the Eedeemer as the only ground of the sinner's hope and the siimer's sanctification, and as furnishing, by His sufferings and death in the room of the guilty, the only motive that can effectually induce men to live not unto themselves, but unto God. I am well aware that the preaching of Christ, and the commending of the blessed truths wliich He has revealed to the consciences of men, will here, as elsewhere, excite the opposition of some men. Wedded to their sins and to their darling pursuits, and determined to enjoy, as they term it, the hour while it lasts, they turn a deaf ear to the entreaties of the Saviour and the admonitions of His servants. Bat how- ever much their opposition is to be bewailed, we must not suffer it to turn us from our path ; and if they are resolved to treasure up wrath to themselves against the day of wrath by despising God's profiered mercy, we are equally resolved that their blood shall be upon their own head. I am also aware that when a minister of the gospel makes Christ crucified the leading topic of his ministry, and interweaves it as far as possible with every other topic to which he calls the at- tention of his people from time to time, he sliall run the risk of being thought destitute of variety. But when I reflect that scarce a Sabbath passes, on which there are not in the house of God one or more who are there for the last time, and hear- ing for the last time the announcement of God's purposes to men, I do feel that there is not a Sabbath on which it does JESUS CHRIST AND HIM CRUCIFIED. 15 not become the ministers of Christ to speak to sinners of Christ's salvation. They are not, indeed, to use always the same language, and to have recourse perpetually to the same arguments and illustrations ; but still the same great truth must substantially be pressed upon the notice of mankind — that it is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners. Is there any other truth which in all circumstances a Christian mini- ster will find so suited to his purpose in some one of its aspects, as that truth that Christ died for sin ? When I am called to awaken the obstinate sinner from his deadly lethargy, and to stimulate him to flee from the wrath to come, with what other weapon can I reach his impenetrable heart, than with the truth that Christ submitted to the cross for sinners ? The terrors of the law will never soften without the proclamation of the love of God in Christ ; but that love itself, felt by the influence of the Spirit's working, will draw forth the tears of penitence and the fruits of holiness from those whose state, to human eye, would have appeared most hopeless. When I am called to administer hope and comfort to the doubting believer, and to persuade him that God is waiting to be gracious, where shall I find argument to remove his doubts, to invigorate his hopes, and to send him on his way rejoicing, unless I draw it from the fact that He who spared not His own Son, but de- livered Him up for us all, shall with Him also freely give us all things ? When I wish to arouse to deeds of sympathy, and plead the cause of the poor who have none to help them, or of the heathen who are perishing for lack of knowledge, whence shaU I select the views that will most readily excite the work- ing of Christian benevolence, except from the fact that Christ, who was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be rich ? When I am called to fortify those whom God has been pleased to afflict either with bodily sick- ness or with worldly trials, and to address to them the lessons of patience and quiet submission to Jehovah's will, where shall I find an argument for my purpose so fit as this one, Christ also suffered, the just for the unjust? When I am called to see a fellow-creature stretched upon the death-bed, and to encourage the soul in that trying hour, and to inspire it with 16 THE SUBJECT OF PREACHING, comfort and hope in its passage through the dark valley, what can I speak of but the death of Christ for sin ? what comfort can I give, but that which flows from the love of the Ee- deemer ? what hope can I point to, but that the atonement of the Eedeemer extends even to the chief of sinners ? And when I am called to sympathize with those who have suffered the most afflictive bereavements, whose earthly friends have been removed in the well-grounded hope of a glorious resur- rection from this state of sorrow, and sin, and trial, where shall I find the language of consolation, if not here, that Jesus who died rose again, and that He will come at last to change the vile bodies of His people ? And now, my brethren, while it thus appears to be the duty of every Christian minister to preach Christ crucified, let me remind you that it is your duty to believe upon Him. I say it is your duty. This is the commandment of God, that ye believe in Him whom God hath sent. Yet well may it be asked. Can you of yourselves believe ? No ; the Spirit of God must water the truth preached to make it effectual, and open the heart to receive it. Amen. 11 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD.^ ' Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.'— 1 Cor. X. 31. EVERY thoughtful man must be aware, and every man imbued with the spirit of religion must regret, that amid all the facilities which we enjoy in this Christian land of acquiring a knowledge of the doctrines contained in the word of God, there should still be so much actual ignorance among us, even of the very rudiments of divine truth. I do not speak of the deeply to be lamented fact, that the power of the truth is not felt by multitudes who make an outward profession of it ; nor do I allude to any circumstances in one denomination of Christians as contrasted with another, but generally with reference to a mere acquaintance with Christian doctrine. It is the fact that the language of the apostle to the Hebrews is but too applicable, that when for the time many who have waited upon sacred ordinances ought to be teachers, yet they have need that some teach themselves which be the first principles of the oracles of God. This fact, independently of the other arguments by which it is made out to us, is abun- dantly verified by the circumstance that in many cases, when people have the near prospect of eternity before them, and when their thoughts are more intently fixed upon religion than at other times, we cannot draw from them any distinct and well-defined account of their religious creed, nor ascertain pre- cisely on what ground their hopes of happiness beyond the grave are fixed. It becomes an important question, then, in what manner this prevailing ignorance of things spiiitual may be ^ The first of the series of 119 Lectures on the Shorter Catechism, 11th Sept. 1836. B 18 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. most effectually removed, or what steps the teachers of religion may adopt with the greatest probability of success, for the purpose of imparting as clear a conception as possible of the various truths which God has revealed. Now one method which suggests itself at once for the attainment of this end, on the supposition that the same people worship regularly in the same place, is that we present to them in some regular form the various doctrines which the Bible proposes to their belief, and the leading duties which it enforces for their practice. This indeed is the plan which in the majority of cases is in one way or other pursued ; but then it is a point that may be argued, whether all the advantages contemplated may be most effectually secured by following a regular plan, without giving any direct intimation to that effect, or by plainly laying down beforehand a general sketch of the plan, and then pro- ceeding to fill it up. The second of these methods we would conceive under any circumstances to be the best, as being the most likely to excite interest, as well as to evolve the very close and beautiful connection that subsists among all the doctrines of the gospel. But more especially does this method recommend itself to us, seeing that the founders of our Church have actually sketched out for us what may be called the general design of Christianity in the Shorter Cate- chism, placing before us the whole system of revealed truth in a form so simple and so luminous, that we can perceive, as it were at a glance, both what we have to believe concerning God, and the duty which God requires of us. What I would wish, therefore, by the assistance and blessing of God, to ac- complish, as one of the most promising means of securing your edification, is in a series of discourses to present to you the various doctrines and duties which the Scripture teaches and inculcates, in the order in which they are expounded in the Catechism ; that so ye may be acquainted with the whole counsel of God concerning the human race, and enabled to give an answer to every one that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you. In pursuing this plan, we shall no doubt have to review many subjects which to many of you may already be familiar ; and as the end proposed can only be gained by our using gi'eat plainness of speech, some may THE GLORIFfING OF GOD. 19 find fault with our statements as being accompanied with little that can please the ear or captivate the fancy. Still, brethren, we must remember that as it was not with embel- lishments of speech that the fishermen of Galilee overthrew the superstitions of the heathen, and planted the cross in the places that had been occupied by the heathen deities ; so it is not by wisdom of words that the enmity of the heart against God can now be subdued, but through the instrumentality of a simple commendation of the truth to men's consciences, accompanied with the power of the Holy Ghost. AVith these introductory remarks, then, we proceed to the consideration of the doctrine contained in the text, which brings us in contact with the first question of the Catechism, that it is the chief end of man to glorify God : ' Whether therefore ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' What, then, is to be understood by glorifying God ? — some special and practical directions as to the manner in which the duty is to be performed ; and what are the prin- cipal motives that should lead us to desire to glorify Him ? These are the three points to which our attention is now to be directed, as arising out of the apostle's words. I. In the first place, what is to be understood by glorifying God? There are two senses in which the expression ' the glory of God ' is to be taken in the Scriptures. It either signifies that infinite fulness of perfection which resides in the God- head, which may be called God's essential glory, and which is manifested in all His works, whether of creation or of provi- dence ; or it denotes that ascription of praise and honour to Him which is rendered by His rational creatures. In the first of these senses, I need scarcely say that man cannot add to the glory of God, or take away from it. Although ive had never existed, the same fulness of perfection would have resided in Jehovah ; and the exhibition of His attributes, which He has given in calling us into being, in preserving us, and in devising and completing the scheme of redemption, neither rests upon our will, nor can in any way be affected by our feelings or our conduct. It is in the other sense then 20 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. alone, viz. in giving praise and honour to God, that we can glorify Him. We cannot make Him more glorious than He is, but we can show that He is glorious ; we cannot add to the number of His perfections, but we can admire these per- fections ; we can declare our admiration of them to others ; we can meditate upon them ; and we can rejoice in them, and place confidence in them, as always exerted for our good. This, then, is to a certain extent what we are to understand by glorifying God. But there is more than this comprehended under the expression. God's attributes are exhibited in His works, in His various dealings with the human race, and in His word : so that to glorify Him is to meditate upon and admire His works, and show forth the wondrous perfection of them to others ; to acquiesce in His dealings, and to feel and declare the holiness and justice of them ; to love and reverence His word, and to endeavoiir to bring others to love and reverence it also. And still more particidarly, God has ex- pressed His will with regard to everything which man as His creature is bound to do ; so that to glorify Him is to follow the course which His will points out for us, in preference to every other, whether suggested by our own inclination, or recommended by its apparent advantage to ourselves, or by the opinion of our fellow-creatures. In a word, then, to glorify God is to honour Him, by giving Him the first place in our own hearts, by submitting to His will whether in the way of suffering or of acting, and by striving to bring those who come within the sphere of our influence to honour Him also ; or perhaps we comprehend every particular which the subject embraces, by employing the expression of the Psalmist, and saying that to glorify God is ' to set God always before us.' You will perceive, then, from the statements which have been made, that express intention is indispensable on our part to the glorifying of God. It is not enough that our actions are so ordered upon the whole as that Jehovah obtains glory through them, and that our schemes are so overruled by His wise providence as that they ultimately tend to advance His purposes ; for in this case He gains honour for Himself — it is not we that give it Him. Even the designs and actions of wicked men are so controlled, under the righteous government THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. 21 of God, as to promote His glory. The very counsels wliich they take in direct opposition to His revealed will, and the courses which they pursue for the overthrow of His cause in the world, and for the destruction of His people, are made to terminate in their own ruin, and in the advancement of His glory. If there is a ivorking among godless men to subvert the interests of truth and righteousness, there is a counter- working on the part of the divine providence to carry for- word these interests, and render them ultimately triumphant ; and the wisdom and power of God are thus more conspicu- ously magnified in the view of the universe than they would have been. It was in this way that God got Him honour upon Pharaoh and his host, when He overwhelmed them in the Eed Sea ; for He then made it be felt that aU the power of man is but as a straw before the whirlwind of the wrath of the Omnipotent. But, as I have already said, the wicked do not glorify God when their plans are thus frustrated, and good is brought out of the evil which they had devised ; it is God that is glorified upon them : wherefore there must be design, aim, intention on our part to give God glory, before we can be said to answer the end which as His creatures we are bound to answer. And this being the case, brethren, we conceive that there is much in it to excite alarm among those who are resting in a mere nominal profession of Christianity. How w^ill the man excuse himself to his own conscience, whose life hitherto has been passed without any reference to God, without any desire on his own part to honour God, or to induce others to honour Him ? He may have spent his days quietly and harmlessly ; he may be unable to charge himself with any feeling of malevolence or enmity against his fellow- creatures ; nay, he may have done much to advance the happiness of others : and yet, after aU, there may have been an habitual forgetfulness of the claim which God has to his services ; he may have never once thought, with regard to any of his actions, that he had to consult another will than his own, or seek a higher interest than his own. His character, for the most part composed of negatives, — as that he is free from this habit to which another man is a slave ; that he is unstained by this vice by which another man is tainted ; that 22 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. he rushes not into those excesses by which another has in- jured his health and his reputation ; — his character, I say, thus composed of negatives, may be fair and unblemished, and suitable to his professions of religion as far as man can judge ; but when we come with the question. How much of all this has been done from a regard to the will of God, and how far have you positively aimed at honouring God ? — oh, how soon is the fair structure demolished, and the unpleasant conviction forced upon the mind, that in the midst of all this apparent ex- cellence and regularity, the great end of existence has been lost sight of ! If, then, there are any among us who have hitherto never stopped to inquire what they were doing to glorify their Maker, but have pursued their plans with self-interest or self-aggrandizement only in their view, let them be admonished of their folly and their danger. There is a time coming when everything will hang heavy on the conscience except what has been done for God ; and it will be fearful if we have to look back upon our life without being able to fix upon any one thing that we have done for His glory. I do not say that anything can uphold the soul in time of trial excepting the deep-rooted conviction of Christ's all-sufficiency, — it is that alone which can give comfort under the sufferings of life or in the anticipation of eternity, — but assuredly in such seasons the feeling that God's glory has been kept out of sight will press upon the mind, and overwhelm it with an anguish un- speakable ; or if it do not, its absence will but corroborate what the Scripture says, that the soul may sink into a state of torpor which is rightly designated death spiritual, and which carries in it that unnatural and unseasonable calm which be- speaks the gathering storm. Let us then implore God to kindle within us a desire and an intention to promote His glory. II. We come now, in the second place, to offer some sj^ecial and practical directions as to the manner in which the duty of glorifying God is to be performed. ISTow the apostle in the text informs us that there is room for this duty in everything we do : ' Wliether ye eat or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.' We might therefore enumerate under this general head a vast variety of subordinate parti- THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. 23 culars ; but not to make the subject tedious by an excessive minuteness, and at the same time to render it as practical and useful as possible, I shall confine myself to such a line of observation as one might suppose would be followed in answer- ing the question of a serious inquirer — ' How am I to act ? what am I to do that I may glorify God in the world ? ' Were such a question proposed by any one in good earnest — and every man ought earnestly to agitate it in his own mind — we would endeavour to show him first how he might indi- rectly contribute to advance God's glory by his example ; and secondly, we would point out one or two things by which he might contribute more directly and positively to the advance- ment of it. Pursuing this division, then, I would remark that every professing Christian may be indirectly instrumental in glorifying God by keeping this principle always before him, that he is entrusted, as it were, with the guardianship of God's glory — that God has committed His honour to his keeping in the world. And as every rule is best understood when illustrated by examples, we shall suppose one or two cases. You have it in your power to pursue a course which will be profitable to yourself, and which is not in opposition to the laws of the land or to the maxims of the world, but which, at the same time, is not precisely of such a kind as to harmonize with Christian feeling, which would rather inter- fere with the regularity and the strictness of a truly Chris- tian deportment ; then viewing yourself as invested with the guardianship of God's glory among men, you relinquish all thought of pursuing such a course, lest some should be prejudiced against the truth of God, which you profess by your entering on it. Or, again, you are requested to take part in some amusement which is harmless perhaps in itself, which is suitable enough to your own feelings, and which you can show by argument involves no compromise of right principle, but which people of weak mind may view in a different light, and which thoughtless people regard as stand- ing upon the same ground with other amusements or gratifica- tions of a more questionable nature ; then, in this case, as having God's glory committed to your keeping, and being tender of it as something dear to you, you sacrifice your own 24 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. feelings, and shun the proposed amusement, lest you should wound the weak conscience of any of God's children, or give occasion to the thoughtless to imagine that, after all, there is no difference between the godly and the ungodly. Or, once more, you are exposed to a severe trial of temper in the management of your ordinary business, or your dignity has been assailed, or, in a word, your feelings have been so ruffled that no one acquainted with the peculiar situation in which you are placed would be astonished at your yielding to the impulse of anger, and retaliating forthwith the injury received ; then, in such a case, regarding yourself as the keeper of God's glory, you will repress the irritation which would prompt to instant vengeance by such reasoning as this : Wliat will be thought of a profession of religion, and of attachment to the Saviour, if I, who lay claim to it, am as hasty and ungovern- able in my temper as those who regard religion with indiffer- ence ? Let me rather submit to injury than cause the way of trutli to be evil spoken of on my account. Such are some of the cases where the feeling that God has entrusted us with the keeping of His glory will lead to a course of action calcu- lated to honour Him in the eyes of men ; and by striving to live at all times under the influence of this feeling, we just conform to the comprehensive precept of our Lord, " Let your light so shine before men, that others, seeing your good works, may glorify your Father who is in heaven." But it is neces- sary to advert for a moment to a point in connection with this part of the subject which may lead to some misapprehen- sion. While every Christian is bound to act as if the glory of God were committed to his trust, and while acting under this conviction he is bound to abstain from everything that would prejudice the interests of God's cause, that is, of Christianity, he must separate between what is prejudicial to himself personally, and what is hurtful to the interests of the truth. For example, I can conceive that a man who sustains a character for piety will endear himself to worldly-minded men by conforming to some of their favourite maxims ; while, by resolutely keeping himself free from the contamination of these maxims, in so far as he believes them opposed to the word of God, he may give occasion to some to dislike himself, THE GLOKIFYING OF GOD. 25 and to speak of religion as an austere and gloomy thing, that wages war with human happiness. And I can conceive that, from his desire to commend religion to others, or from his fear lest it should be wounded through him, he may cross the line which divides the children of the world and their pursuits from the children of God and theirs, and conform more than he should do to the maxims of the world. Now, in such a case, the error that is committed is most dangerous. The individual in question forgets that it is not his own personal character as a religious man of which he is constituted the guardian, but the honour and the name of God, and that the very fact of his being faithful to his trust, and acting with a single eye to the advancement of God's honour, will necessarily excite the hostility of some, both against himself and against the cause Avhich he espouses ; he forgets that God is compro- mised when anything is done by His people to lower the unsullied holiness of His character, or the unbending rectitude of His laws. So much, then, for the indirect instrumentality, as we may call it, through which God's glory is to be promoted by His people. And let me now remind you, that even one who wears the Christian name, be his situation in the world what it may, is able, and is bound, thus to promote it. Those who are invested with authority and influence, as the eyes of men are more fastened on them than on those who move in an humbler sphere, and as the force of their example circulates through many more channels than that of others, can certainly, as the guardians of God's glory, do more for the advancement of it than others, and therefore lie under a heavier weight of responsibility than others to live and act so as that God and religion may be honoured through them. But then the poorest and the humblest professor of the truth has some around him whom he can influence, and whom he must endeavour to influence, by living conformably to the will of God : he can shed a lustre upon the Christian profession, which, if it shine not so widely, may at least shine as steadily and as attractively, as that which emanates from the godly example and the sted- fast faith of those whom Providence has placed in higher stations. 26 THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. But it was remarked that Christians may contribute directly and positively to the advancement of God's glory in the world. Does it ever happen that you are placed in society where the cause of God and the truth of God are lightly thought of and lightly spoken of, where piety is accounted weakness of mind, and the exertions of pious men to amelio- rate the condition of mankind are regarded as visionary or fanatical ; and do you in these circumstances avow your sentiments, and feel no shame at having it known that you espouse the side of religion ? Then you contribute to promote God's glory, by showing that you esteem His favour more than the approbation of men, and that you honour His judgment more than the opinions of men. Or, to state the point more generally, we glorify God directly when we ' contend,' to use the scriptural expression, ' for the faith once delivered to the saints.' There are some who, for the sake of peace, as they love to term it, will allow error to pass unreproved, and suffer the distinction between right and wrong to be invaded rather than give rise to argument in maintaining what they believe to be according to the will of God. Now this, we hesitate not to say, is a sacrificing of God's honour which in no case, and for no reason, however specious, is allowable. It does indeed wear the semblance of Christianity to follow peace with all men : it is expressly commanded in the Scripture, and it cannot be too eagerly desired. Sacrifice for it per- sonal comfort ; endure for it personal reproach ; give up any- thing for it, but the truth which God has revealed. That you must hold and defend at all hazards ; for by defending it you honour it, and by honouring it you honour Him who gave it. Again, we contribute directly to the advancement of God's glory, by using every exertion to communicate the knowledge of Him to those who are destitute of it. This is perhaps the most obvious way in which man can glorify his Maker, and it is more or less within the reach of us all. The knowledge of God is principally to be derived from the Holy Scripture ; and whosoever, therefore, contributes according to his means for the dissemination of the Scripture, whether at home or in distant lands — whosoever gives any portion of his time to the forwarding of those schemes which contemplate the THE GLORIFYING OF GOD. 27 diffusion of the truth among the ignorant — whosoever Kfts up his voice in prayer for a blessing upon the means that are in operation for evangelizing the world, is endeavouring in the most effectual way to promote God's honour. ' He that offereth praise/ says Jehovah, ' glorifieth me.' But those that sit in heathen darkness cannot praise Him, for they know Him not. And shall we who have been favoured with this knowledge suffer them to live and die in their ignorance, with- out an effort to relieve them ? Nay, brethren, let us aid in gathering in that harvest of glory which will belong to God when the whole earth shall be filled with His knowledge. It were endless, however, to point out all the special ways in which God may be directly glorified by us, inasmuch as we are bound, according to what is stated in the text, to make the advancement of His honour the great aim of all that we say and do. To particularize, indeed, upon a subject like the present, is not to extend, but, as it were, to narrow the field of duty. Wherefore, in a word, as all that we are, and all that we have, is the gift of God, so all must be laid out with a reference to God. Our time, our energies of mind and body, and our wealth, nmst all be expended, not according to our own pleasure, or to gratify our own selfishness ; but in such a way as is confoimable to the will of God, that so our reverence for His will being manifest. He may gain honour through our instrumentality. III. In the third place, we were to consider some of the principal motives that should lead us to desire to glorify God. Here, however, we can do little more than advert to these in the most general way. First, a feeling of gratitude ought to move us to aim at God's glory. Has He called us into being, and loaded us with mercies innumerable ; did He give up His Son to die for us, that He might redeem us from eternal perdition ; and is He employed in making all things work together for our good ? Then siirely we cannot be insensible to all these manifestations of His mercy. "We must feel an anxiety to do something to show that we prize His love and His goodness. But what can we do ? Our good- ness cannot extend to Him ; our best services cannot profit 28 THE GLOKIFYING OF GOD. Him : liow then can we manifest our gratitude ? He informs us HimseK, that what He requires of us is, that we honour Him in the world ; as if He said, ' I am interested in having my name known and reverenced among men ; in being ac- knowledged as the chief good, and felt to be the chief good, of the human race. I am interested in having honour paid to the truth which I have revealed, and in the dissemination of that truth in the world. Let my name be reverenced by you ; let me be avowed as your chief good in the midst of my enemies ; and let all your exertions be put forth to speed the progress of my truth and my cause among mankind.' Such are the demands of God ; and who that looks to Christ, His unspeakable gift, will not endeavour to put aside his own little interests, and enlist all his energies in the work of making God be honoured in the world ? Secondly, another consideration which ought to lead us to desire the promotion of God's glory is, that in doing so we are most certainly advancing in likeness to Himself. The whole tenor of the Scripture is to the effect that the end which God has in view in all His deahngs with His creatures is the advancement of His own glory. And reason itself, when it is consulted, tells us that this must be the case, since the advancement of His glory is the highest and the noblest possible end. When we, therefore, make this the end of all our designs and actions, we just fall in with the very purpose of God — we identify ourselves, as it were, with God — we feel and act in the same way as God would have us to do — we are partakers, as the Scripture says, of the divine nature. How glorious, then, is it to have such an aim ! Man, with all his insignificance, thus rises toward an assimilation to the Eternal One ; and living and moving upon earth, carries about with him the feelings and is influenced by the prin- ciples which pervade the angels and the spirits of the just in heaven. Amen. Ill THE ENJOYING OF GOD.* * How excellent is Tliy loving-kindness, 0 God ! therefore tlie children of men put tlieir trust under the shadow of Thy wings. They sliall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house ; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. For with Thee is the fountain of life ; in Thy light shall we see light,' — Ps. xxxvi. 7-9. LAST Lord's day our attention was directed to the great end of man's existence, the glorifying of God. On that occasion, after endeavouring to expound the meaning of the expression, I proceeded to answer an inquiry that would naturally suggest itself: If any one, seriously impressed by the truth, were to ask, ' How am I to act, or what have I to do, for the purpose of glorifying God in the world ? ' As a practical solution of this inquiry, and as tending to remove the obscurity in which some might feel the subject to be involved, it might be suggested that every one should conceive himself as personally entrusted with the guardian- ship of God's honour in the world, and should speak and act as if in all cu'cumstances every movement of his could bring honour immediately to God, or reflect discredit on Him. Thus, God's professing people may advance His honour among men by their own personal submission to His law, and believing His testimony, — for instance, by defending the truth which He has revealed, when it is assailed by the infidel or by the scoffer, and by using every exertion to disseminate that truth in the world ; and to do this is to be fellow- workers with God. But the subject which now claims our atten- tion is the enjoyment of God as a part of man's chief good. The Psalmist prized the excellence of God's loving-kindness, and put his trust under the shadow of His wings. He ex- 1 The second lecture on the Shorter Catechism, 18th September 1836. 30 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. perienced the fatness of His house, and drank of the river of pleasures which flows from His throne. He felt that He was the fountain and the well-spring of life; and his own soul had been cheered by the light which beams from God, and which is reflected from His precious word. And judging from his own experience of these things, he speaks in the text of what others shall also feel and enjoy from the same source, intimating manifestly, if he does not express it in so many words, that no created good is sufficient to satisfy the desires of the immortal soul, or can be put in competition with the blessedness which is treasured up in God for them that love Him. In entering upon this subject, however, we are most forcibly reminded of the utter inadequacy of human language to con- vey any clear exposition of it. The enjoyment of God is purely a matter of experience, and must therefore be felt to be understood. To a man who is a stranger to spiritual things, and whose affections and desires are confined within the narrow range of this world's pleasures and pursuits, it is as impossible to communicate any distinct conception of "s\diat is meant by enjoying God, as it would be to impart an idea of colour to a man born blind. In fact, the Scripture, in many passages, avails itself of this very comparison, for the purpose of showing us the fearful ravage which sin has wrought on our moral constitution, and the vastness of the change wliich we have to undergo in being turned from sin to God. When it speaks, for instance, of men while they are in an uncon- verted state as ' having the understanding darkened, and being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the Uindncss of their hearts ; ' and when it speaks, on the other hand, of those who have experienced divine grace, as "' having the eyes of their understanding en- lightened, so that they know what is the hope of their calling,' it evidently authorizes us to affirm that, until the Spirit of God dissipates the darkness that has settled down on the mind of man, any representations we place before it of things spiritual and eternal are like so many pictures placed before the blind. But although no language can possibly convey the slifjhtest notion of colour to a blind man, — although we THE ENJOYING OF GOD. 31 cannot make him sensible of the positive enjoyment that flows into the mind through the medium of the eye, — we can at least easily bring him to comprehend this, that the want of sight deprives him of certain enjoyments which would otherwise be open to him, and subjects him to certain incon- veniences which he would otherwise escape. So, in like manner, although we cannot exhibit to the spiritually blind the full import of the expression, ' the enjoying of God,' just because they are destitute of the inward sense by which that enjoyment is experienced, we may nevertheless make even them perceive that there is a something which in their present circumstances they want to make their happiness complete, and that there are certain evils to which they un- avoidably expose themselves, so long as their discernment of spiritual things remains clouded and impaired. For example, let us take an unconverted man in the most favourable situa- tion in which such a man can be placed for the enjoyment of happiness, and let us try by the test of his own experience the amount of satisfaction which from the various avenues of gratification that are open to him he derives, and we shall find that underneath the specious tinsel of pleasures and delights in which he is wrapped, there is shrouded a host of miseries and disquietudes from which he can contrive no means of escape. Let him have wealth and extensive pos- sessions, and be raised above the common reverses of fortune, and the anxieties which cleave more or less to every species of worldly business ; let him be surrounded by dependants, to whom his slightest wish is a law, and by affectionate friends, who are really interested in his happiness ; in a word, let him be furnished with all the means of self-gratification and comfort which the world can bestow, and still we say not only that something Avill be wanting to complete his happi- ness, but that he will be compelled to feel this to be the case. For what means that endless thirst for variety which pervades those who have been most liberally blessed with the bounties of providence, but who are strangers to the love of God ; why, if their pleasures are pure and imperishable as to the eye of inexperience they seem to be, — why should they wander from one kind of enjoyment to another as they do, and betray so 32 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. restless an anxiety for change ? If the fascinations of gay society, and the excitements of the crowded assembly, or the grosser pleasures which mere sensuality thirsts after, or the incense that is offered to wealth and rank, or the gratification which vanity receives from state and splendour, — if these things afford enjoyment so exquisite as one might suppose they do from the eagerness with which they are sought after, then why should they satiate their votaries so soon, and why should the one after the other be put aside and again pursued, and pursued and put aside, in an endless round ? If, among the enjoyments which the world places within its reach, the soul could light upon any one sufficient for it, and adequate to its cravings, assuredly it would not exchange it for another ; and the fact that worldly men are ever seeking for variety in their pleasures, demonstrates that in these pleasures there is nothing to satisfy them. And if, in those cases where there is every facility afforded for present enjoyment, and where there are few things to interfere with and to ruffle it, there is thus a want of satisfaction experienced, and a continual looking round for something more permanent and satisfying than what is present ; much more will this hold good in those instances where men have to contend with all the ordinary cares and anxieties of life, and to suffer all the disappointments that are interwoven with the vicissitudes of earthly things. There cannot be a safe ancliorage for the soul amid the fluctuations of human affairs, and the troubles that are inseparable from the pursuit of every temporal good ; and moreover, when the thoughts are directed toward futurity, and the reproaches of conscience for the misimprovement of time, and the neglect of God's word, and the rejection of His offered mercy, have to be endured, then indeed is the acknowledgment extorted, that a shadow has been pursued for a substance, and enduring happi- ness sacrificed for that which at the best was a delusive dream. Now, while there is thus impressed upon all the enjoyments of unregenerate men a want of permanence and of satisfaction ; and while at certain seasons, when the conscience is awakened, there is even a positive misery inflicted on them, which the voice of pleasure and the soothings of flattery cannot drown, — surely there is enough to make them sensible that the world THE ENJOYING OF GOD. 33 is not a sufficient portion for an immortal being, and that it is only in the unchangeable God that their souls can find a secure and an abiding resting-place. In this way, then, by throwing those who are ignorant of God, and who desire not the knowledge of His ways, back upon themselves, as it were, and referring them to their own experience, we can communi- cate to them some idea of what is meant by enjoying God. It is just the supply of that which they cannot but feel to be needful, and which the world cannot give them, — an imperish- able object of all loveliness, on which their affections may be placed without the possibility of disappointment, — an im- moveable rock of refuge, to which they may betake themselves without the possibility of being torn from it, — an inexhaust- ible storehouse of happiness, in which they can abide without the possibility of its being diminished, — a spring of pure and never-ending felicity, in which they can quench their thirst without satiety ; for, says the Saviour, contrasting the enjoy- ment which the world yields with that which comes direct from God : ' If any man drink of this water, he shall thirst again ; but whosoever drinketh of that which I have to give shall never thirst, but it shall be in him a well of water spring- ing up to life everlasting.' But how comes it to pass, some may ask, that if worldly enjoyments are so unsatisfying as they have been represented to be, and if the difference be- tween them and those which are treasured up in God is so obvious as to be felt by worldly men themselves, so many should still give an open and a decided preference to the less above the greater ? Brethren, we must guard against being deceived by appearances. There is something that wears the semblance of satisfaction discernible among the enemies of God and of godliness : in general, they wiU not betray their secrets to those who espouse an opposite interest, and seldom even to each other ; so that to look at them, they do seem to live in sunshine, and to be really happy. But the whole is tinsel, false, hollow, deceitful, like the master they serve. And we know this from those who have come over from them to the cause of Christ. Blessed be God for it, there are some who from time to time have power given to burst the bands of servitude by which they are held, and join themselves to the C 34 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. Lord; and they tell us of the aching heart under the gay- exterior, — of the constrained smiles that hide the pangs of remorse, — of the vanity and emptiness that reign among the votaries of pleasure, and are felt by them, — of the cravings of soul which no amusement can fully gratify, — of the death which lurks under the specious appearance of life and happi- ness that pervades the abodes of folly. They tell us, too, of the lasting and ever-increasing enjoyment which they have experienced since they forsook the paths of sin and vanity ; they teU us of the rest which, weary and heavy laden, they have found for their souls in Christ, — of a delight which they feel in living near to God, infinitely outweighing the fallacious pleasure which they drew from the turbid springs of worldly felicity, — and of the calmness and serenity of mind wliich they are now privileged to enjoy amid all the changes and anxieties of the present life ; so that with one voice they testify what the experience of the ungodly themselves at least re-echoes, — that without God there is no permanent and satis- fying enjoyment, and that in God there is something to which the soul can cling as adequate to all its desires. But having thus attempted to bring the subject before us in some measure within the range of the conceptions of those who are 'practically unacquainted with it, by showing them that the enjoyment of God holds out to them the very thing which they need, and which they look for in vain from any other source, we must now proceed to speak more directly of the nature of this enjoyment, and of its excellence. What, then, is precisely to be understood by enjoying God ? I remark, first, that in the enjoying of God there is implied a sense of His love and favour. This is expressed by the Psalmist in the text, in the words, ' How excellent is Thy loving-kindness, 0 God ! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of Thy winfTS.' Now these feelings are not congenial to the mind of fallen man ; for he neither loves God, nor places confidence in Him as really interested in the happiness of His creatures. On the contrary, the natm-al tendency of the human heart is to distrust God, and to regard Him as an enemy. There may, indeed, be an occasional recognition of His providential kind- THE ENJOYING OF GOD. 35 ness on tlie part of many who are actually at enmity with Him ; and there may be something like confidence in His boundless mercy exhibited by those who are strangers to the way of reconciliation with Him which He has pointed out in His word. But then this confidence, if we may call it so, rests merely on a presumption, and only lasts while the ground of it is not subjected to a searching scrutiny. And this acknowledgment of God's kindness in providence is altogether unaccompanied with any feeling of love and of devotedness to Him. It is only when the soul is enlightened in the know- ledge of Christ ; when His obedience to the law, and His suffering of death in the room of sinners, are seen, upon the authority of the word of God, to be an adequate satisfaction to the divine justice ; and when they are felt and trusted in as such ; — it is only then that the sense of God's love and favour is shed abroad in the heart, and truly realized. The wall of partition between the holy Jehovah and the sinful creature is then seen to be broken down ; the weight of guilt that hung upon the conscience is then removed ; the threatenings that formerly disquieted and terrified the soul are then hushed into silence ; the reality of God's merciful designs toward His sinful creatures is then perceived ; and man, from feeling himself an alien and an enemy, comes to rejoice in being constituted a member of the family of God. This is the commencement of the divine enjojonent. The soul, freed from that slavish terror under the influence of which it could only look up to God with suspicion, now rises in affection and desire toward heaven, and the believer regards God as his Father and his friend. His hand is recognised in the ordering and the arrangement of all that concerns Him. If providence smile, its bounties are felt to be a Father's gift ; if affliction or adversity is sent, it is acquiesced in as a Father's chastisement. And while the things of time thus assume, as it were, a new aspect, and give rise to new feelings in the believer's heart, the things that are unseen and eternal also put on a new appearance. Formerly all was dark and gloomy in futurity, and the soul, conscious of guilt, could only obtain repose by banishing the thought of futurity ; but now the darkness is dissipated. The conviction that God loves him, and has no longer any contro- 36 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. versy with him, brings the whole range of the divine promises within the grasp of the believer. He beholds the truth of them sealed by the death of Jesus ; he perceives the realities which they embrace opened up for his own enjoyment, as now reconciled by the blood of Jesus ; and thus he is enabled to rejoice in his prospects with a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. Oh, then, how delightful a thing it is to carry about with us the feeling that God is our friend, and that we are personally partakers of His love ! To view His present deal- ings with us as so many special marks of His affection, and of His interest in our well-being ; and to regard all the glories which lie beyond the grave as reserved for our own enjoy- ment : who would not desire to be in such a state as this ? who would place earthly good in competition with this ? Here indeed, brethren, is a remedy for all the troubles and ills of the present life. The man who has put his trust in God, and cast himself upon His mercy in Christ Jesus, and who believes that God for Christ's sake loves him, can walk abroad into the world, and mingle in its business, if need be, clad in armour that is proof both against its allurements and its trials. When deceived by his friends, he can oppose to this the feeling that God's love is unchangeable ; when dis- appointed in his schemes, he can rise from his depression by the thought that God is able to keep what he has committed to Him ; and when sickened by the ingratitude and the way- wardness of men, he can still betake himself to God, and feel as sweet a satisfaction in the feeling that God is his Father and his friend, as if his head were really pillowed upon the breast of the Eternal One. The sense of God's favour and love, then, we place as the first element in the enjoyment of Him. And now I remark further, in the second place, that another element is the delightful feeling which His people cherish of His presence with them. This is altogether different from the cold conviction at which philosophy arrives, that God is everywhere present, as well as from the feeling of the mere sentimentalist, who, while he pretends to trace God's workmanship in every flower, and His presence in every movement either of the moral or material THE ENJOYING OF GOD. 37 world, yet excludes Him from his own heart. The believer not only acknowledges in the beautiful language of the Psalmist that God compasses his path, and is acquainted with all his ways — that there is no escaping from His Spirit, or fleeing from His presence ; but he delights to contemplate Him as present with himself personally, and feels a positive satisfaction in the thought of His presence with him. And the reason is obvious. The presence of God is to him the presence of a friend ; and all the delight which flows from the free inter- changing of our thoughts with those we love, and all the pleasing sympathies that are awakened by their society, does the believer experience as arising from the conviction that God is beside him. It is in this way that sacred ordinances are to him so interesting and so desirable. They bring Jehovah, as it were, so much nearer to him, and raise him so much nearer to Jehovah. The pre?i^.hing of the word, or the reading of it in private, is valued by His people as bringing them more closely in contact with Him who is the supreme object of their affection. Prayer carries them to His very footstool, and the Lord's Supper places them beside Him. Thus their experience harmonizes with that of David : ' How amiable are Thy tabernacles, 0 Lord of Hosts ! My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth, for the courts of the Lord ; my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God.' The exercises of religion being in this manner felt by them to be so many channels through which God manifests Himself to them, and communicates specially the comfortable sense of His presence, are regarded not as mere duties to the discharge of which conscience or a sense of propriety binds them, but as privileges of the highest order, — as Solomon calls them, ' a banquet ' spread for their refreshment by the King of Zion, to compensate in the meantime for their not seeing Him face to face. But while in the ordinances of His own appointment God is peculiarly present with His people, and while their hearts, like those of the disciples of old, burn within them, and their devout and holy desires are especially kindled up amid the solemnities of His worship, the feeling of His presence is not with them confined to the sanctuary. They bear it about with them in the world, and are habitually influenced by it 38 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. in the management of their worldly business. It operates as a check upon the sinful thoughts which are ever ready to obtrude themselves upon the mind ; it spreads itself like oil over the little rufflings of the temper that would vent them- selves in the angry reply or the sharp rebuke ; and it descends like a healing balm into the heart, soothing the cares and dis- quietudes that would terminate in depression or despondency. Wlio then, brethren, would not desire thus to live continually in God's society, to have the Holy One of Israel at his right hand, to walk in the light of God's countenance ! So much for the second element of which the enjoyment of God is composed. I now remark, in the third place, that another element of it is, our being made partakers of a divine nature. This is the point that is chiefly alluded to by the Psalmist in the text. It is with reference to it that he says, ' They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of Thy house ; and Thou shalt make them drink of the river of Thy pleasures. For with Thee is the fountain of life ; in Thy light shall we see light.' God by His Holy Spirit imparts to His people a resemblance to Himself, working in them all the graces that form the ornament of the Christian character, and bringing their will into a state of conformity to His own blessed will. This is what is usually called having communion with God, and it is the highest glory and happiness of which our nature is susceptible in the present life. All the moral attributes of Jehovah are impressed by the Spirit in the soul of man, so that he gradually becomes what he was before sin entered into the world — a being wearing the divine image. And as a necessary consequence of this, he is put in possession of a blessedness that bears some resemblance to that which he forfeited by his apostasy. For as misery always haunts the footsteps of sin, so happiness takes up her abode with holiness ; and in proportion as man is restored to the character, and influenced by the feelings, and moved by the affections which he exhibited in paradise previously to the fall, in the same proportion does he experience the pure enjoyment which he had in paradise. And besides the happiness which flows into the soul from the conscious possession of those graces that are THE ENJOYING OF GOD. ' 39 communicated by the Spirit, or, as I might say, besides the native happiness which the existence of holiness in the heart necessarily implies, the Scripture speaks of another source of enjoyment connected with the possession of the divine image : ' The Spirit Himself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God.' He shines upon His own workman- ship, gladdening the heart, imparting a joy and peace that pass all understanding, elevating the affections toward God, and drawing the whole soul heavenward so gently, and yet so forcibly, that the tabernacle of clay sometimes seems too narrow for it. These are peculiarly the seasons of refreshment from the presence of the Lord to which the Scripture alludes, and it is at such seasons that the language of the Psalmist is caught up by the believer as an image of his own thoughts : ' Whom have I in heaven but Thee ? and there is none in all the earth that I desire besides Thee. Flesh and heart may faint and fail ; but Thou art the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever.' And let it not be supposed that these spiritual joys which God sometimes communicates to His people on earth are the same thing with the raptures of enthusiasm. No, brethren, it is when the grace implanted in the heart is mani- fested in all the activities of the Christian life, when the believer is running with greatest stedfastuess in the path of the divine commandments, and aiming most steadily at the promotion of God's glory, — it is then that the light of the Lord shines most brightly in his tabernacle, and that in this light he sees light. Such, then, are the three elements of which we conceive the enjoyment of God on earth is made up, — a sense of His love and favour obtained from reconciliation with Him through Jesus Christ ; a delightful feeling of His presence ; and a par- ticipation in His moral perfections, or, as it may be otherwise expressed, the bearing of His image. In these things, we say, lies the cliief happiness of man ; in these only can the soul find a portion suitable to its immortal nature and its imperish- able faculties. The world, indeed, may smile for a time upon its votaries, and dazzle them by its allurements, but satisfy them it cannot. And when they come to lie on the confines of eternity, they will be compelled to acknowledge that all is 40 THE ENJOYING OF GOD. vanity and vexation of spirit. On the other hand, it is then especially that those who have chosen God as their chief good will realize all that is implied in the enjoyment of Him. The sense of His favour which cheers them on earth will he clouded by no doubts and misgivings when they are acknowledged as His before the assembled universe ; the feeling of His pre- sence, which in this world is interrupted from time to time by worldly cares or the inroads of sin, will then be exchanged for the glorious vision of Immanuel ; and the divine image in this life, formed but imperfectly, shall then be perfect ; they shall be like Him, for they shall see Him as He is. But the eternal enjoyment of God, which is reserved for His people, we need not attempt to describe. The imperfection of human language to convey a clear conception of things spiritual, we have throughout the whole of this subject been reminded of ; and it were needless to attempt to describe that which eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath entered into the heart of man. God Himself is the portion of His people ; the Most High is their habitation; and the liighest aspirings of the human soul can neither aim at nor anticipate anything greater or more permanent. Amen. IV. FOLLOWING CHRIST, ' Jesus saith unto liim, If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me.'— John Xxi. 22, OUE Lord, after having drawn from the Apostle Peter an explicit declaration of his love for Him, and after having pointed out to him the line of duty which he must pursue as an evidence of that love, proceeds in the eighteenth verse of the chapter to inform him, in terms which seem to have been fully understood by Peter himself and the rest of the apostles, how his earthly career was destined to be closed : ' When thou wast young, thou girdedst thyself, and walkedst whither thou wouldst ; but when thou shalt be old, thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another shall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldst not. This spake He, signifying by what death Peter should glorify God.' Here there was a manifest allusion made to a death of violence. The apostle's hands were to be bound like a criminal's, as his Master's had been ; and he was to be carried forth to suffer publicly, as his Master, too, had been before him. And so it afterwards was, the event completely verifying the Saviour's prediction. Now it is exactly in harmony with all that we know of the character of Peter, that the announcement thus made to him should not daunt his bold and ardent spirit. On one occasion only he had been betrayed by fear into the guilt of denying his Lord ; but at all other times he was ready to encounter any danger, yea, sometimes he was even reckless in courting it. And so in the case before us, he heard with the utmost calmness the termination of his own course foretold ; and proceeded to question the Lord what would be the destiny of John, the dis- ciple whom Jesus loved, and toward whom he had exhibited 42 FOLLOWING CHRIST. many proofs of peculiar affection. At the twenty-first verse he asks, pointing to John, ' Lord, and what shall this man do ? ' The question as it here stands does not accord so com- pletely with the general bearing of the narrative as it would do if the original words were rendered thus, which they might have been most properly : ' Lord, and what shall be the fate of this man ? ' The Saviour did not think fit to satisfy the curiosity of Peter on this occasion ; but answered in the words of the text, ' If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me.' The meaning of these words was not apprehended by the disciples at the time, for we are told that there went forth among them a saying that that disciple should not die. They overlooked the important fact which Jesus had told them before, that He was to come to take vengeance upon the Jewish nation for their hardened unbelief and wickedness, as well as to judge the world at the last day. And interpreting what He said respecting John with reference to the last of these events, they imagined that he was not to taste of death at all. But Christ, as John him- self here says, had not intimated that His servant was not to die ; but had only meant to repress the curiosity of Peter, by telling him that it was no concern of his although the life of his fellow-labourer should be prolonged until He came to inflict His threatened judgments upon the guilty nation that had rejected His offered mercy. Accordingly we know that John did live for a considerable time after Jerusalem was destroyed, and the Jews were scattered abroad among all nations, and many years after Peter had put off his taber- nacle, as the Lord Jesus had shown unto him. These remarks will suffice for the explanation of tlie mere language of the text, and of the surrounding context ; and now I would wish to direct your attention more particularly to the important practical truth which the text brings before us : ' If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me.' The general import of the words is obviously this : that Christians have nothing to do with those vain specidations which, even if they could be satisfactorily carried out, would only tend to gratify idle curiosity ; that they must be con- tented to remain in ignorance of many things which they FOLLOWING CHEIST. 43 may think it desirable to know, and to pursue the path of duty as plainly revealed in the word of God. The same truth, or at least substantially the same truth, is set before us in another place, as evolved in circumstances very similar to those alluded to in the text. The disciples on one occasion asked the Saviour whether there would be few people saved. The question respected a point with which they had personally no concern ; and therefore, instead of answering it, He said, ' Strive ye to enter in at the strait gate.' As if He had said : Whether there be few saved, or many, rests upon God's pur- pose ; let it be your object to endeavour to be found among the number. There might be many profitable lessons drawn from the important truth stated in the text ; but what I would wish to accomplish is, in the first place, to point out what is to be understood by following Christ ; and in the second place, to advert to the frame of spirit in which He is to be followed. These are the two topics which seem to be most plainly deducible from the words, ' If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me.' I. In the first place, then, what is to be understood by following Christ ? In this is manifestly summed up the whole character of a Christian; and perhaps it would be impossible to find any language so weU fitted to convey a clear and practical im- pression of what a Christian ought to be as these words do. Let us carry ourselves back in thought to a short period after the Saviour's resurrection, and suppose ourselves listening to the conversation of a few persons who were commenting upon the character and views of certain others, and en- deavouring, to use a familiar expression, by comparing notes to ascertain whether this and that one could be called a disciple of Jesus. They are speaking, for instance, of Mco- demus as a person supposed to favour the Christian cause ; and one says that there is a strong presumption to be gathered to this effect, from the fact that on one occasion he went secretly to Jesus in the night-time, and held a long conver- sation with him. Another says that the presumption is heightened by the circumstance that, when the council were 44 FOLLOWING CHRIST. anxious to lay hold of Jesus soon after the commencement of his public ministry, Nicodemus was the only person who ventured to throw in a word in his defence : ' Doth our law judge any man before it hear him, and know what he doeth ?' And another says that it is all but certain that Nicodemus must be a follower of Christ, because he was with the party who took charge of the body of Jesus after it was taken down from the cross, and wound it in linen clothes, with spices, before it was laid in the sepulchre. Altogether, therefore, they come to the conclusion, that if Mcodemus is not wholly a Christian, he is at least to be suspected of Christianity, because he had been in Christ's company, because he had spoken in his defence, and because he had shown respect for his memory. Again, the case of Peter, we shall suppose, is canvassed. One testifies that he saw him a^ain and again with Christ, from the time that his fame first began to be noised abroad ; that he was known to be present dimng the delivery of most of Christ's discourses ; that he went about in obedience to Christ's orders, to proclaim the coming of the kingdom of God ; that he was habitually in Christ's society ; that he had left his former profession to wait upon Christ ; and that at the very time when Christ was apprehended in the garden, he was seen among the few who then were with him, and who were understood to be his most devoted ad- herents. Another, however, might reply, that although there was much in all this to fasten upon Peter the imputation of being a follower of Christ, there was much also to render that doubtful. Did I not hear him, he might say, with my own ears, in the palace of the high priest, and in the presence of Christ when he stood at the bar, deny that he knew liim, or had any connection with him ? And is there not another case very similar to this — that of Judas, who, although he attended Christ as constantly as Peter during the whole of His ministry, and sat as often at the same table with Him, and went about, too, declaring that the kingdom of heaven was at hand, yet afterwards became weary of his employment, and conducted the people who apprehended Christ in the garden ? Yes, another might reply, all this is very true ; but I was present in the hall of judgment when Peter disavowed FOLLOWING CHRIST. 45 all knowledge of Jesus of Nazareth, and all fellowship with him ; and I observed that when Jesus turned about, as he did, and looked upon Peter, he went out and wept most bitterly. And he was afterwards known to go to the sepulchre where Jesus was buried, on the morning when he is said to have risen again, and since that time to have kept company with the few who still espouse his cause. Yea, and who is so forward as this man now in preaching in the streets of Jerusalem, and declaring that Jesus is both Lord and Christ ? Putting all things together, therefore, the con- clusion they come to is, that Peter must be regarded as one of Christ's followers, notwithstanding of the suspicion which is thrown over his character by the fact that he denied his Lord, I might pursue this train of remark much further, but it is unnecessar}'. My object in entering upon it was to bring out broadly the principles on which men would have judged whether or not any one was a follower of Christ in the first age of Christianity; because it is substantially ac- cording to the same principles that we must judge still what is meant by following Christ. To have been habitually in His society, going with Him where He went, and dwelling where He dwelt ; to have manifested obedience to His com- mandments ; to have been influenced by His discourses ; to have adhered to Him in the midst of His trials and sufferings ; to have openly espoused His cause when it seemed to be desperate, and to have endured reproach and suffering for His sake, were the great external marks of His undoubted followers in the first age of the church ; and making all due allowance for the difference of circumstances on account of His personal absence, they are the great external marks of His undoubted followers now. Yea, and besides this, it will be manifest to every one who reflects upon the subject, that, from the illustrations that have been given above, there may be deduced certain principles which, if followed out, would enable us to discriminate between the genuine and the false follower of Christ. Judas was with Him so long as it served his own purposes ; he was with Him while the hosannas of the populace encouraged the hope that temporal advantage was to be gained in His service ; there was nothing to distinguish 46 FOLLOWING CHRIST. him from the rest of the apostles while the people, astonished by His miracles and melted by His doctrine, were ready to acknowledge Him as the long-promised Messiah. But we look for him in vain among the faithful few in the garden : he appears there in the midst of the Saviour's enemies, as the guide to those who dragged Him to the tribunal and to Calvary. And thus it is with many still. They are Christians in the calm, when their professions expose them to no peculiar inconvenience or disadvantage ; but when the storm breaks forth, and when profession lies in the way to reproach and to suffering, they will be Christians no longer. The follower of Christ — to repeat again the marks by which he would have been known in the primitive age — is one who delights in Christ's society ; who walks behind Him wherever He goes ; who does what He commands ; and who is not ashamed to avow his connection with Him, be the conse- quences what they may. Now from these general observa- tions I would proceed to state briefly one or two of the more prominent features of the character of a follower of the Lord, and which may be deduced from the remarks made above. 1. And in the first place, I observe that the follower of Christ must be of one spirit with his Master. This lies at the foundation of the whole subject. We always conclude that there is similarity of mind and disposi- tion and temper among parties who come together voluntarily, — who continue to associate, and who follow the same train of pursuits. Whatever the object may be which they aim at, we always feel warranted in drawing the inference that they must be of kindred spuit when they continue knit together for the accomplishment of it. Men may be carried away by. sudden impulses to put their hand to works which they afterwards repent of, and to join in associations which they afterwards see cause to condemn ; but then they quit the fellowship into which they had been thoughtlessly led. Long and unbroken co-operation indicates fraternity of mind and of principle. Now there is a remarkable peculiarity to be noted with respect to the unity of feeling and of pursuit in the case of Christians, which, as the followers of the Lord Jesus, they must be supposed to cherish along with Him. And it is FOLLOWING CHKIST. 47 this : there is originally no sympathy or community of pur- suit between the Saviour and any of the human race. Their loves and their enmities, their desires and their aversions, are diametrically opposite ; and therefore there must be a great spiritual change wrought upon a man before he can be of one spirit with the Lord. To go again to the primitive church for an illustration, there could not be imagined a more thorough discrepance between two beings than there was originally between Jesus the Son of God and Peter the' fisher- man of Galilee, even only an hour before the latter became the follower of the former, and of one spirit with Him. In point of feeling, of affection, of desire, of pursuit, and of aim, the two were wholly and thorouglily dissimilar. Peter went forth in the morning in his little boat, accompanied with the partners of his toils and profits, to gain a livelihood for him- self and his family. His thoughts were bounded by his dependent occupation. The earning of a day's wages was all that he contemplated when he left his home ; and the idea of his taking a part in the evangelization and enlightening of the world, in carrying the knowledge of God to the Gentiles, in braving synagogues and councils, and swaying the opinions of countless multitudes, both high and low, and being received into intimate fellowship with the long-expected Messiah, and having the mystery which had been hid from ages and gene- rations revealed to him, and being honoured to die a martyr for those truths which are destined to regenerate the world, — such an idea broke not in upon the current of his thoughts ; and had it been hinted at, he would have laughed at it as the offspring of a maniac fancy. But as he plied his task, there came along the shore of the Sea of Galilee, in humble guise, an individual, in outward appearance nothing more than man, who cried to him, ' Peter, follow me, and I will make thee a fisher of men ;' and the obedient fisherman deserted his boat and his nets, and entered on all those glorious enterprises that have been specified, — the very things on which Christ's heart was set, — being from that moment of one spirit with the Lord. Now, although in outward respects there may not in many cases be such a perceptible difference between the condition of the follower of Christ before he begins to follow Him and 48 FOLLOWING CHRIST. his condition afterwards as in the case of Peter, there is a difference as real. The fisherman of Galilee, in his narrow views, and contracted national feelings, and paltry aims, was. not more different from the apostle with enlightened mind, and enlarged charity, and heavenly aspirations, than is the man of the world who is ignorant of Christ, and the same man when he becomes His follower. And wherein lies the change ? — by what agency is the transformation wrought ? In both cases by the self-same agency, the power of the Holy Spirit. It was He who sent the Saviour's call home to the heart of Peter, who enlightened his understanding, who directed his zeal into a proper channel, who subdued his heart, and made him of one mind with Christ. And it is the agency of the same sovereign Spirit that turns men now from being worshippers of mammon to be worshippers of God, — that subdues the enmity of their hearts to the gospel, — that leads them to admire Christ, and to love Him, and to honour Him, — and that makes them of one mind with Him, and thus disposes them to follow Him. The Spirit dwelt in the man Christ Jesus, and He dwells in all His people. The Spirit is the bond of union between Him and them. Under His in- fluence there are desires kindled up within them congenial to those by which Christ on earth was animated ; their affec- tions are brought to harmonize with Christ's, and they are made to feel that tlie great object which Christ kept ever before Him — the glorifying of His heavenly Pather^ — -is the object at which they ought to aim supremely. And so, with the Spirit thus dwelling in them and working in them, they just acquire the very temperament, or, if we may so call it, the very soul that fits them for becoming the followers of the Lord Jesus. In one word, if we would follow Christ, we must begin with regeneration — we must be renewed by the Holy Spirit. 2. Now from this I proceed to remark, in the second place, that to follow Christ implies our making what wa,s Christ's work our work. Step for step the apostles went with their Master while He pursued His career of benevolence, doing good to the souls and bodies of men ; and when He was removed from them, tliey FOLLOWING CHRIST. 49 persevered in the same course as if He had been with them still. Were we to define in as few words as possible what was Christ's work on earth, we would say that it consisted in the doing of His Father's will, which He tells us was His meat and His drink, or more particularly, in the glorifying of God by working out the salvation of lost sinners. In the same terms, therefore, may be defined the work of His fol- lowers, or the course which they have to pursue. They only walk in their Master's footsteps when they seek to do the will of God, and when they endeavour, within the peculiar sphere of their influence, to save sinners from perdition. It is not indeed meant here, that men should leave their occupa- tions, and go forth as the apostles did to call sinners to repent- ance. This lies not to their hand, unless they are specially called of God to that work. But if they would follow Christ, they must lay their own inclinations prostrate before the divine law, and take it as the rule of their conduct ; they must learn to combat and to set aside those feelings which would lead them to postpone the calls of duty, and to listen to the promptings of selfishness ; and they must use what influence and opportunities they have to bring others under the power of the truth. I do not know by what delusive fancies that man must be possessed, who conceives himself to be a follower of Christ, and yet has no heart for promoting the eternal well- being of his fellow-sinners ; nor by what arguments he can make it out that he is walking in the path which Christ trode, if he has never made an attempt to gain over one in- dividual, whether related to him or not, to the side of truth and of righteousness. He may urge the plea that he does no harm to any one, but pursues his way calmly and quietly, and endeavours to fulfil the duties of his station ; but this is not to live a life like Christ's. The Saviour was not a passive beholder of the ills that encompass humanity, nor did He stand aloof from the misery that He saw around Him. He went into the midst of it, carrying with Him a sovereign remedy for every form of man's distemper, bringing light to dissipate the darkness, comfort for the sorrowful, hope for the desponding, and life to the dead. But is it necessary, it will be said, that we should endeavour to act in these respects as He did ? D 50 FOLLOWING CHEIST. Certainly, we answer, if you would be His followers. It may be so ordered in the providence of God that you cannot make these things your proper occupation. Your field of duty in doing the will of God may rather lie in submission to trials and privations, than in any active offices of good to others. But look, brethren, to the conduct of those who are the ser- vants of sin and Satan, and take a lesson from them. How readily do wicked men find opportunity to advance the cause they serve, and how many words do they put in for their master, and how perseveringly do they strive to make others as wicked as themselves ; while those who call themselves the servants of Christ can spend a long life without one at- tempt to commend Christ's cause to others, without having once spoken a word decidedly in His behalf, and without having made a single effort to press one beside them into His service ! Let each man's conscience judge how this can be reconciled with the fact of his being a follower of the Son of God. 3. But, in the third place, I remark, that to follow Christ implies a habitual endeavour on our part to imitate Him, or to be like Him. One great reason for which so large a portion of the word of God is occupied with the history of Christ's doings, and with an account of the spirit by which He was animated both in His public and private life, is that w^e may have the great model fully set before us to which we must be assimilated. And one object which every Christian must incessantly en- deavour to accomplish, is to bring his whole temper into a frame like that of Christ, and to be pure even as Christ is pure. What a gloomy world this Avould be, some will be ready to think, if people should always aim at this attainment, and if there should be universally prevalent the desire to imitate the Saviour ! How heavily would the time hang on one's hands, and how impossible it would be to render life comfortable, or even tolerable ! Then, brethren, to such people the prospect of heaven as it is described in the word of God must be exceedingly uncomfortable, and the occupations of its inhabitants full of misery. For all who are there are like Christ, and their employments are suitable to the likeness. FOLLOWING CHKIST. 51 But it is the carnal mind only that connects the idea of gloom and of misery with resemblance to the Son of God. The mind renewed by grace sees nothing therein but blessedness. To be like Christ is to be surely and completely happy ; and it is from his consciousness of the vast disproportion between what he has attained and the perfect model presented to him in the character of Christ, that the principal disquietude of the Christian on earth springs. He cannot rest satisfied with his own meagre attainments. The immeasurable height of holiness which he has yet to climb rises up before him ; the footmarks of his Lord are there pointing out to him the way ; while others are sitting down contented on the little eminences which lie around the bottom of the arduous steep, and looking down upon the place below, forgetful of the boundless range above, are satisfied with the height they have already gained, the prints of the Eedeemer's feet tell 1dm that he has higher and higher yet to go. The smnmit which he seeks is lost in heaven, but still he perseveres. As he advances, he breathes a purer and fresher atmosphere ; he is encouraged by others who are, like himself, toiling np the ascent. While he rises, the world is more and more shut out from him ; he disen- cumbers himself of the weights which press him down ; and at length, after all his toil and pain, he gains the final resting- place. Without a figure, to be a follower of Christ is to aim at universal holiness. 4. In the fourth place, I remark, that to follow Christ implies separation from the sinful pursuits of the world. While the Lord Jesus mingled freely with all classes of men, and was no enemy to innocent enjojrment. He was at the same time the determined and uncompromising enemy of the spirit which the world breathes. Unlike John the Baptist, He came eating and drinking like other men, and scorned not to partake of entertainments provided for Him by those who were designated sinners, where He met only with people to whom the same name was applied. But still the great principle wliich influenced Him was, that He might have opportunity of publishing the truths which He was sent into the world to make known, and of bringing within the reach of those who would have otherwise been excluded the offer 52 FOLLOWING CHRIST. of salvation. It is no uncommon thing to liear those who up- hold and patronize what are called fashionable amusements, assert that there is nothing in the Scripture to condemn them, and refer to the example of the Saviour as affording a warrant to His followers not to deny themselves the ordinary enjoyments of life. But let it be observed first, that it was only in the common enjoyments of social intercourse that Jesus took a part, and that even there His object was to fulfil the purposes of His mission. And let it be noticed next, that in scenes of gaiety, in the place of vain show, Christ's foot was never placed ; and that the whole spirit of His gospel is decidedly opposed to them. Let this maxim be fairly acted on, that we never take part in any pleasure where we feel that we cannot carry Christ's presence with us, and it will give a death-blow to the frivolities and amusements in which the children of vanity seek their happiness. 5. In the fifth place, I observe, that to follow Christ is to bear the cross. ' Whosoever will be my disciple, let him renounce himself, take up his cross, and follow me.' There is no promise made in the Scripture to the effect that, in maintaining a Christian profession, we shall be exempted from tribulation. On the contrary, we are commanded to expect it. Inward peace and joy are held forth in the promise, but outward suffering of some species or other usually forms an ingredient in the Christian's cup. Tliat suffering, whatever it may be, is the cross we are commanded to bear, and we must not shrink from it. Jesus on earth was the man of sorrows : He was made perfect through suffering, and He hath exhorted us that it is through much tribulation we must enter into the kingdom of God. If our principles are so pliant, that we will fall into the views of any in whose company we may happen to be, rather than subject ourselves to inconvenience or to ridicule by upholding the truth ; if our Christian faith is so accommo- dating, that we shall hold or reject any doctrine at the bid- ding of men, we may make what professions we please, but Christ will not recognise us as His : for whosoever is ashamed of Him and of His word on earth, He will be ashamed of when He comes in judgment. FOLLOWING CHEIST. 63 II. Many more particulars might have been mentioned as involved in the idea of following Christ, but the time forbids. I shall now only offer a few remarks, in conclusion, on what was laid down as the second thing to be considered, viz. the frame of spirit in which Christ is to be followed. ' If I wiU that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee ? follow thou me.' It is manifest from these words that Christ will not have His people know everything, although He makes all known to them that concerns their happiness and their salvation. It was Satan that promised boundless knowledge to the un- happy Eve ; Christ makes no such promise. 1. And here therefore I remark, first, that it is with the most implicit faith that Christ must be followed. There are many difficulties in the course of the Christian's pilgrimage which tend to perplex him, and which he would often desire to have solved. When he sees the ungodly prospering in the way; when he beholds the schemes of righteous men baffled, and the designs of the wicked suc- cessful ; when he feels himself involved in trouble because he Will not let go truth and a good conscience; when, by some dark and inexplicable dispensation, he is doomed to see his favourite hopes blasted, there is much in all this that prompts to the inquiry, ' Lord, wherefore should it be so ?' The answer of Christ is, ' What is that to thee ? foUow thou me.' Pursue thou the path of duty, leaving all these dark and doubtful matters to be brought to light in God's good time. And surely, if Christ is worthy to be trusted and followed at all. He is worthy to be trusted with the secrets of His providence until He shall see fit to reveal them. FoUow ye Him, or rather put your hand in His, for He guideth His people by the hand ; and what ye know not now ye shall know hereafter. It is by faith, and not by sight, that the Christian must walk ; and shall I commit my soul to Christ's keeping, believing that He is able to keep what I have com- mitted to Him against that day, and scruple to take it for granted that all my other concerns are safe in His hand ? 2. Once more, it is with most submissive humility that Christ must be followed. 54 FOLLOWING CHEIST. The child following its parent, or with its hand locked in its parent's, is an emblem of the believer following Christ, or walking with Him, and is illustrative at once of faith and of humility. The language of faith is, I am satisfied not to know what Christ has not thought it proper to reveal ; the language of humility is, I do not wish to know it. The language of faith with respect to the roughness of the path which leads to heaven is. It is a hard path ; but as it is of God's ordering, it is no doubt the best. The language of humiKty is. The road is rough, but it is good enough for me. Under the combined influence of these kindred graces, the Christian holds on his way, following his Lord ; and in God's good time he attains the end of his faith, even the salvation of his soul. Amen. THE SECURITY OF CHRIST S PEOPLE. 'Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.' — Rom. viii. 34. IN" this ricli and comprehensive passage, the apostle sets forth the security which Christ's people enjoy that they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of His hand. And I do not know, brethren, where any troubled soul seeking rest and comfort for itself, amid the tossings of doubt and of a weak faith, could better cast anchor than at this passage. There are many sources from which condemnation comes. I. First, the sinner finds it in himself, and that in two respects. 1. In his own conscience. When a sense of sin is truly brought home to a man's con- science, he stands self-condemned. He finds no plea to justify him, or to palliate his offence, within himself. He is con- strained to write bitter things against himseK, as having sinned wilfully, having violated every principle of gratitude, and having knowingly done the things which make him worthy of death. If there were no other source of condemnation than that which rises in the heart of the transgressor him- self, it would be sufficient to make him miserable. And hence the strong expressions which are employed in the Scrip- ture by the people of God when bewailing their iniquities. The Psalmist compares himseK to the owl, which by its dis- cordant scream wakes the dull echo on some sequestered tree; inasmuch as he had been driven by the sense of his iniquities to withdraw himself even from the business of life, and to 56 THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. mourn in secret over his transgressions. In many places we find liim crying out in the bitterness of his spirit on account of his sins, and describing the feverish restlessness which his convictions had occasioned him, as changing his moisture into the drought of summer. He would have answered at once the question in the text, Who is he that condemneth ? in words similar to those which the apostle uses : ' My own heart condemneth me; and God is greater than my heart, and knoweth all things.' 2. But, again, there is another accuser of whom we must also speak as witliin the sinner ; and that is the wicked one, who is called in Scripture the accuser of the brethren. This spirit of darkness — the father of lies — finds it some- times in accordance with his policy to endeavour to deepen the remorse of the convicted sinner so as to drive him to despair. And this we speak not without authority, for the Scripture has informed us of his doings in this respect, that we may not be ignorant of his devices. He entered into Judas Iscariot, that is, he took full possession of him, that he might use him without control as his instrument. And what was the effect of his suggestions in the mind of the traitor after the deed of treachery was done ? Nothing else than to make him think that he had sinned beyond forgiveness. He sometimes hardens the sinner, when by that means he can draw him into his snares ; but in this case he had effected his purpose sufficiently, and accordingly he whetted the arrow of conviction, yea, poisoned it, as we may say, that he might at once make sure of his victim. And thus the wretched Judas sank under the stroke; and imagining that he had sinned so that he could not be pardoned, he went and hanged him- self With such a specimen, then, before us of the influence of Satan, we feel warranted to refer to him as condemning the sinner, partly by giving him so strong representations of his guilt that he finds the burden insupportable, and partly by endeavouring to shut out from his view any glimpse of God's mercy in Christ, by which alone relief can be brought to his soul. And therefore it would be well if those who are haunted by deep convictions would remember, that it cannot be a voice from the divine word which would sussrest to them THE SECURITY OF CHEIST'S PEOPLE. 57 that they are utterly beyond the reach of mercy, but rather the insidious whisper of the crafty adversary, whose object is attained when he can persuade any one that he is irremediably condemned — that there is no hope for him in God ! II. But further, secondly, there is condemnation to the sinner from loithout; and here also in two respects. 1. First, the law of God condemns him, and that whether he is conscious of the fact or not. Its verdict is, that every one who offendeth in one point is guilty of all, and for this reason, that the law rests on the authority of the lawgiver; and there- fore every transgression of it, however small in appearance, is tantamount to a contempt of that authority, and therefore incurs the punishment due to any one who sets at nought the supremacy of Jehovah. Supposing, then, that any one were so blinded through the deceitfulness of sin as to imagine that he had not done anything that could expose him to the divine vengeance, or that he were so buoyed up by a false estimate of his own deservings as to think that he had done so much more good than evil, that he could have nothing to dread, still the sen- tence of the law would stand against him ; and while he was say- ing, 'Peace, peace,' the law would be collecting all its thunders to overwhelm him. And it is no empty threatening that it utters : no voice of terror, just to alarm for a moment, and no longer ; but a voice which, though lost amid the bustle of business, will come back again,— though stilled by false arguments, will again make itself be heard, — though drowned by worldly plea- sure and dissipation, will again break out, — though lost in this world, will peal forth again in the next. My brethren, I sus- pect there is some reason to fear lest in the very preaching of the gospel there should be occasion taken by men to deceive themselves respecting this awfully momentous subject. In the narrow compass of one discourse we have to speak of law threatenings and gospel promises ; and this of necessity, since we dare not teU people of the danger that hangs over them without pointing at the same time to the refuge. But just because the two things are thus closely brought together, it may be imagined by some of the hearers that the threatenings may be as easily disposed of in their particular case as they 58 THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. seem to be in the general ; and tliey may go away with the impression, that though the law did once issue a sentence of condemnation, that sentence is now whoUy reversed by the gospel, and is referred to rather as something that was in force, than as anything that noiv holds. But this is not the truth. The condemnation of the law rests upon every one who believeth not in Christ Jesus. And though, in answer to the question. Who is he that condemneth ? it should be said, Man has no charge to bring, and conscience has little to urge ; yet there is a higher accuser than either, — the unchangeable law, which ceases not to condemn, and will not cease to con- demn, every descendant of Adam who has not been freed from its sentence through the believing acceptance of the Lord Jesus Christ. For there is no freedom from its condemna- tion, except in the one way which is opened up by the atone- ment of Christ. 2. But once more, God the judge of all condemns the sinner. Every right conception we are enabled to cherish of God leads to the conclusion that He is the avenger of sin, and His own word places the matter yet more clearly before us. The Bible records various judgments executed against the workers of iniquity ; and there is nothing said in the New Testament to afford the smallest ground for the belief that any change has been produced upon the determination of Jehovah with respect to the punishment of sin since the gospel dispensation was introduced. N"ay, if there be any difference between the threatenings of the Old Testament and those of the New, it is to the effect that sin will be more dreadfully visited in the latter case than it was in the former. ' If he that despised Moses' law died without mercy under two or three witnesses, of how much sorer punishment shall he be thought worthy who hath trampled under foot the Son of God, and counted the blood of the covenant an unholy thing ! ' ' There re- maineth now no more sacrifice for sin, but a certain looking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.' These are the terms in which the Lawgiver of the universe issues His will regarding sinners under the New Testament dispensation ; and according to the same rule will the final judgment be regulated. So that the gospel pro- THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 69 mulgates no general act of pardon against all offences and all offenders, as if the Sovereign Judge had ceased from all contro- versy with this world of ours. But only to those who believe in Jesus, and place confidence in Him as their deliverer from threatened wrath, is there any remission of guilt proposed. ' Let God be true, and every man a liar;' 'The soul that sinneth, it shall die.' But this is a very important matter; and I would not, brethren, that you should suppose it rested upon the opinion of man. Listen, then, to the infallible word : 'Though hand join in hand, the wicked shall not be unpunished.' ' Be not deceived ; God is not mocked : for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.' There is no respect of persons with God. There is condemnation then written by the Judge of all the earth against the transgressors of His law, for the inflicting of which His own veracity is pledged. And although the voice of conscience should be stifled by false remedies ; and although the enemy, to serve his own purposes, should cease for a time to produce alarm ; and although the declarations of the law should be regarded as having no force under the dispensation of mercy ; yet aU this cannot alter the truth, that evil shall not dwell with God, but that His throne shall be set for judgment, to assign indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, to every soul of man that doeth evil. Then how shalt thou escape ? I ask at each one now present. You have heard the condem- nation ; how shall you get free from it ? Certainly not on account of the mere circumstance that Christ has made atone- ment for sin, and that you know on what terms the benefits of His atonement are to be enjoyed. That will not save. For innumerable multitudes have gone down into perdition with the full knowledge that Christ came into the world to save sinners, and in the enjoyment of all the outward privi- leges which the gospel dispensation brings along with it. In what manner, then, are we to obtain deliverance from this fourfold condemnation under which we all naturally lie ? I answer, not by merely Tcnoiving, but by helicving, the testimony which God hath given concerning His Son — by receiving or embracing Christ by faith. It is this which places us in security ; and it is those only that believe who can give the 60 THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. answer written in the text to the question, Who is he that condemneth ? ' It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again; who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.' And now, therefore, let us look at this immoveable ground of the believer's security as expressed in these words. Here I shall take occasion to show, first, in what an impregnable fortress the believer is secured by those four lines of argument or defences which the apostle here erects around him ; and then I shall endeavour to bring the collective force of the argument to bear upon such as are weak in the faith. (1.) To the question, then, Who is he that condemneth ? the believer can answer, first. There is no condemnation, because ' it is Christ that died.' The death of the Eedeemer provides in point of law full immunity from the punishment of sin for all who believe upon His name. And so the Scripture says : ' God hath set forth His Son to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness for the remis- sion of sins that are past.' The subject can even be reduced to the plainest reasoning, as it is set before us in the word of God. Christ is said to have given His life a ransom for many. This implies that the many were lying in a state of spiritual captivity, and that there was some claim against them on the part of the Sovereign Judge, which they them- selves could not satisfy so as to procure their release. In these circumstances Christ came into the world, according to the terms of the. covenant of grace, and gave payment of the price which was demanded — even life for life ; and thus, according to every principle of justice, the many, all who believe, are set free from the bondage under which they groaned. The weakest intellect may comprehend this short reasoning ; and happily it bears such an analogy to the or- dinary transactions of life, that no person can be at any loss, at least as far as mere understanding is concerned, to per- ceive the bearing of it. Who is he that condemneth ? is a question which the guilty conscience apart from Christ cannot hear proposed without trembling. It finds condemnation every- where ! But it is not in fear, it is in triumph, that this question is asked in the text. The apostle proposes it, that THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 61 he may at once and for ever pnt it at rest by the reply : It is Christ that died ! Believer, thou canst not be condemned, since Christ hath died for thee. If thou believest with all thine heart, it is as impossible for thee to be left in sin and guilt, and consigned to hell, as it is for the Most High to com- mit injustice. But, sinner, if thou dost onhj think that thou believest, if thy faith is only a name, without any change of nature or of character, then it is not Christ that died, but the law that lives, and its condemnation lives also ; and who shall deliver thee from that terrible destiny to which thou art so justly exposed ? (2.) But, in the second place, to the question. Who is he that condemneth ? the believer can answer, I look to Christ that is risen again. If Christ had not risen again, then our faith would have been vain ; no atonement would have been offered for sin. The whole evidence of the truth of Christianity rests upon the resurrection of Christ from the dead. Any one might have declared himself the saviour of sinners, and spoken of his death as the means of effecting their salvation. But there is no help to be expected from the dead ; and so it is the resur- rection that seals the commission and the power of Jesus as sent to seek and to save that which was lost. The objection which was mockingly thrown out against our Lord as He hung upon the cross, ' He saved others, himself he cannot save,' would have remained unanswerable, had not the glory of the resurrection wiped away the ignominy of the cross. Eor Christ could not have given life to others, had He not been able to save Himself. The great error of the objectors was, that they would have salvation without the price being paid for it — they would have the Messiah not die at all; whereas God's purpose was, that through death He should de- stroy him that had the power of death ; and it was His death that gave Him a right to dispense pardon and eternal life to His people. The resurrection is, in a word, the evidence we have that Christ's work was sufficient for the ends it was de- signed to answer; and that the ransom which He paid for sinners was accepted by the Sovereign Lawgiver as fully ade- quate to procure the redemption of those for whom it was 6 2 THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. offered. Who is he that condemneth ? Now it may well be asked, when God Himself has declared His satisfaction with the price paid for the deliverance of the captives. And so, believer, whosoever thou art that doubtest whether thou wilt escape from the wrath to come, here is thy security: ISTot only that Christ's life has been given for thine, but that Jehovah, who was justly incensed against thee, has accepted the substitution, and has therefore no longer any controversy with thee. (3.) But thirdly, in answer to the question, Who is he that condemneth ? the believer can reply, I appeal to Christ, who is even at the right hand of God. The expression, He is at the right hand of God, is precisely equivalent to the declaration which He made Himself to the apostles before His ascension : ' All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth.' And how full of comfort is this truth to all His people ! The same Saviour who demonstrated His love for the church by appearing on earth in the form of a servant, and submitting to the death of the cross, now wields all power in the universe for the benefit of that church which He purchased with His own blood. And therefore, although the enemies by whom His people are surrounded are innume- rable,— although their power is great, their craftiness exceeding deep, and their malignity unquenchable, — they never can pre- vail against them, or pluck them out of His hand. It is only, indeed, when we look at the power of Christ, as pledged for the defence and the deliverance of His people, that we can understand how creatures so weak in themselves, and so cor- rupt, should be able to wage successful warfare against prin- cipalities and powers, and the rulers of the darlmess of this world, and spiritual wickedness in high places. The apostle unveils the mystery to us when he says, ' I can do all things through Christ that strengtheneth me ;' ' When I am weak, then am I strong ;' ' Yet not I, but Christ who is in me.' The power, then, with which Christ is invested, and which He employs specially for the benefit of His people, may well prove a source of comfort and encouragement to them. The adversary has a strong arm, and he is as subtle as he is strong ; but omnipo- tence is against him, and on the side of the believer. And to THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 63 imagine it possible for any one who has fled for refuge to Christ, according to His own invitation, to be dragged forth from that refuge and condemned, is to imagine that omnipo- tence should be worsted by the strength of a creature. (4.) In the fourth place, in answer to the question. Who is he that condemneth ? the believer can reply, ' It is Christ who maketh intercession.' Here we are taught in what manner the power of Christ is chiefly exercised for His people's good. It is put forth in intercession; and that intercession cannot fail of its effect, because of the dignity and the merit of Him who makes it. It is in the way of an ascending climax that the apostle puts his four arguments here, and the last accordingly is the strongest. One might think that there could be no higher encouragement afforded to the believer than that which flows from the consideration that He who was once dead now liveth for evermore, and hath all power committed into His hand. Yet, as the humble Christian, under a deep sense of his own unworthiness, might sometimes be tempted to suppose that he is utterly beneath the regard of the exalted Mediator, the apostle strikes away even this unreasonable ground of despon- dency, by giving us the assurance that Christ, so far from forgetting His people, is employed in interceding for every one of them. His exaltation and the place of dignity He holds is not for his own benefit, but for theirs. And though the voice may seem to sound loudly in their ears, ' Condemn, condemn,' — and their own consciences may re-echo it, — there is a voice which comes forth from the mercy-seat above, soft and sweet, yet loud enough to drown the other, saying, ' Save from going down to the pit, I have paid the ransom. Father, I will that those whom Thou hast given me be with me wdiere I am, that they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me.' Let this, then, be the consolation of the believer, and the anchor of his soul sure and stedfast : that Jesus is within the veil making intercession for him ; and that it is as im- possible for any of His little ones to perish, as for any one to hurl the Saviour from His throne. Such, then, are the argu- ments which the apostle advances to allay the fears and to invigorate the confidence of those who are weak in the faith. 64 THE SECURITY OF CHKIST'S PEOPLE. II. Let me now endeavour for a moment to bring the collective force of these arguments to bear upon the despond- ing followers of Christ. Some of these may now be hearing me, and I would ask them to contemplate for a moment the delightful statement which is contained in this precious passage. They are some- times ready to say, when any of tlie peculiarly gracious promises of the divine word are brought under their notice, that such things are too excellent for them; and that it is only those who have made far greater advancement in know- ledge and in grace than they, who can take the comfort of such assurances. One can hardly reprove with severity these humble remonstrances ; but the text points out to us the way in which they are to be disposed of. What is the ground even of that little hope you are permitted to cherish ? I would ask those who are troubled and downcast lest after all they should be cast away. What reason have you to cherish any hope at all toward God ? The only answer to this question must be : Jesus Christ died for sinners, and it is through Him that I expect to obtain acceptance with God. The answer is right. It is in the death of Christ alone that any poor sinner first finds deliverance from his countless fears. It is at the cross of Calvary that the weary pilgrim is eased of his burden. But you have other grounds of hope than the death of Christ. The Saviour in whom you are called to place your confidence is not only a suffering, but a risen, an exalted, an interceding Saviour. And these four great characteristics are all brought together in the text, just to show you that it is your privilege to enjoy not one, but all the blessings which Christ in all the varied relations in which He stands toward His people is ready to confer upon them. Is Christ divided ? the apostle asks of the Corinthians. Is Christ divided ? I ask of you who doubt and despond. It is the same Jesus that died, who also rose and ascended, and intercedes. Have you received Him as He is offered ? — have you placed confidence in Him for pardon, and acceptance, and eternal life ? Then you have received Him under aU those aspects in which the text pre- sents Him to us. Look not then continually into the sepulchre, as if all your hope lay there ; but turn your view THE SECURITY OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE, 65 upwards, for the Saviour is in heaven, and in heaven to inter- cede for you, if you believe upon His name. Take, my brethren, take the comfort which is here held out for your acceptance. Christ is dishonoured when you doubt His power and willing- ness to save you. God is dishonoured when you refuse to trust to the veracity of His Avord. There is no promise greater than what is contained in this text ; and if you have received Christ at all, you have received Him as here exhibited in all His fulness. Let me again call you to notice, in another and briefer form, the four things in the text, and four things con- nected with them : The fear of punishment — Christ died. The fear of death — Christ rose. The fear of being overcome — Christ has all power. The fear of not being admitted into heaven — Christ is there in our nature. And now, finally, the subject must be applied as a stimulus to holiness. What Christ gives. He gives to be improved — to be turned to account for His glory. Eem ember the parable of the talents. The death and resurrection and glorification of Christ are, among other purposes, designed to answer these : our death to sin, our rising with Him to holiness of life, and our being thus made fit for the endless glory. Who is he that condemneth ? There is no condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus ; with this as their character, that they walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit. Amen. VI. THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND NUMBER OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. * Thy people sliall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holi- ness from the womb of the morning : thou hast the dew of thj' youth. ' — Ps. ex. 3. EVEEY one must feel that these are beautiful words ; but there is a certain vagueness about them, which we must make it our first object to remove. The verse, then, consists of two clauses. The first could not be more appro- priately rendered than it is here : ' Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness.' TJure, however, there should be a pause. The following part of the verse contains another statement respecting the number of those who are to be made willing in the day of power ; and it should run thus : The dew of thy youth shall be as the dew from the womb of the morning ; i.e., Thy youths, who shall flock to Thy standard to follow Thee, shall be numerous as the drops of the dew in the morning. The text, then, may be read thus : ' Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness : Thy young men shall be numerous as the dew-drops from the womb of the morning.' And from these words, as thus interpreted, I would address you on the present occasion. The psalm celebrates the glory of Christ as Priest and King of His church ; a combination of offices which we find else- where alluded to in the Scripture. Thus Zechariah says : ' Behold the man whose name is the Branch : even He shall build the temple of the Lord ; and He shall bear the glory, and shall sit and rule upon His throne ; and He shall be a Priest upon His throne : and the counsel of peace shall be between them both.' It is the triumphs of this exalted personage who, like Melchizedek, at once swayed the sceptre and ministered at THE WILLINGNESS, ETC., OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 67 the altar, that the inspired writer in this song of Zion predicts as if he had witnessed them. And, brethren, it is worth while to remark, even though it does lead us somewhat from the subject more immediately before us, that it is not without reason that the office of Christ as a Priest is here placed in immediate connection with His glory as a King, and with the conquests which, as a King, He wins. He was raised to the mediatorial throne through and in consequence of His ministry, if we may so speak, at the altar. * Because He humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, therefore God hath higlily exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.' Christ's right to reign as King over the holy hill of Zion, that is, over the church, was acquired by His giving of Himself a sacrifice that He might purchase that church with His own blood. And if He had not sustained the character and performed the duties of our Priest, even when He Himself was both the offerer and the victim. He would not have borne the title by which His people delight to hail Him — that of their Lord and Sovereign. ' He poured out His soul unto death ; He was numbered with transgres- sors ; He bare the sin of many ; and therefore there was divided to Him a portion with the great, and a spoil with the strong.' 'For the suffering of death He was crowned with glory and honour.' Now let me observe here, that this account which the Scripture gives us of Christ's office of a King, as founded upon and exercised in right of His having first discharged the office of a Priest, and given Himself a sacrifice for sin, is in its practical bearings of the first import- ance. The Lord Jesus reigns, and as our rightful Sovereign demands our homage. The very place which He occupies, as having all power in heaven and in earth committed to Him, invests Him with a title to make this demand, and renders us guilty of rebellion if we refuse to comply with it. But it is not as armed with a right which He has power to enforce that our King advances His claim. Such an argument, though it might be employed. He does not employ. A successful usurper might point to the blood through which he has waded to the throne, — an awful demonstration of what he will do to 68 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND secure his possession of it,— as the most forcible method of overcoming any opposition that may be likely to rise up against his authority. But this is not Christ's method of gaining the homage of His subjects. He does indeed point to blood as marking out the path by which He has risen to the glory He now possesses ; but it is not the blood of enemies whom He has slaughtered in His wrath, but His own precious blood, shed for the remission of the sins of many, that forms the ground of that argument whereby He seeks to secure the homage of His subjects. He suffered for us that He might acquire the right to reign over us ; not to tyrannize and make us miserable slaves, but to set us free from the thraldom of sin and death. And, my brethren, who is prepared to resist the force of such an argument, and to reject the claims of Christ to the homage of his heart, when he beholds Him thus bearing the wounds which He received in achieving His own sovereignty and our freedom ? Look at the blessed Jesus, from no impulse but that of love, submitting to all indignities and tortures for His people's sake, and say if He who suffered so much as the Priest of the church has not a title to reign as her King ? But now, to come nearer to the subject which is to occupy our meditations, I may notice first of all generally, that in the psalm from which the text is taken, Christ's kingly authority is presented to us under two different aspects. There are two classes of people spoken of as placed under His control, — those, namely, who are hostile to Him, the wicked who say. We will not have this man to reign over us, let us break his bands asunder, and cast away his cords from us ; and those who are described as His true and faithful subjects. It is with reference to the first of these classes that it is said at the beginning of the psalm, ' Sit Thou at my right hand, until I make Thine enemies Thy footstool ; ' and at the fifth and sixth verses, ' The Lord at Thy right hand shall strike kings through in the day of His wrath. He shall judge among the heathen. He shall fill the places with the dead bodies ; He shall wound the heads over many countries.' And it is the second class, Christ's faithful subjects, that are referred to in the text: ' Thy people shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the NUMBER OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 69 beauties of holiness.' The same distinction between two classes is observed in the second Psalm, which also treats of Christ's kingly office. There are some there spoken of with respect to whom it is declared that He will break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel ; and others who are pronounced blessed, as putting their trust in Him. Let this be pondered seriously, for it is overlooked by many. Many people, looking to the statements which are given with regard to the mild and peaceful administration of the Messiah, and to the glory of His kingdom, as consisting in the diffusion of universal love and goodwill, and judging from the grace and kindness which pervaded His words and actions while He dwelt with men on earth, — many people feel as if there were an utter inconsistency between all this and the exercise of vengeance which is ascribed to Him in such passages as those which have been quoted. But have they forgotten that there is such an expression in the Scripture as the wrath of the Lamb ? Do they not know that, while Christ comes with the offer of mercy to all who will accept of it. He makes this the terrible alternative, that for those who will not embrace His offer there remaineth nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment ? And I ask if those are not righteously doomed to perdition who will not submit to the authority of Christ, but trample under foot the blood of the covenant, and count it an unholy thing ? Let none of 2(s delude ourselves by the vain fancy that under the government of Christ punishment is unknown. He would not be a King if He had not power to crush His enemies as well as to protect and to bless His devoted and willing subjects. In the meantime, however, we are to look at the bright side of the picture, and to contemplate not the destiny of those who refuse to submit to the King of Zion, but the happy condition and character of those who are ]3eculiarly His own, the purchase of His blood, the fruit of the travail of His soul. The Psalmist in prophetic vision beholds Messiah going forth on His glorious expedition to bring this rebel world of ours into subjection to Jehovah, its rightful Sovereign. On the one hand He is opposed, and all His overtures of reconciliation are treated with contempt ; on the other hand He is welcomed 70 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND and adored. It is of those that welcome and adore that the text speaks when it says, ' Thy peoj^le shall be willing in the day of Thy power, in the beauties of holiness ; Thy young men shall be numerous as the dew-drops from the womb of the morning.' And now, in discoursing from these words, I would direct your attention to the following topics as suggested by them. In the first place, I would inquire what is to be understood by the description of Chiist's people here given as a willing people. In the second place, I would advert to their decorations : they appear ' in the beauties of holiness.' In the third place, I would speak of their number : ' they are as the dew-drops from the womb of the morning.' And in the fourth place, I would request you to attend to the time and way in which they are made Christ's willing followers : it is ' in the day of His power.' May the Divine Spirit guide our meditations, and make them profitable to our souls. I. In the first place, then, let us see what is meant by the expression that Christ's people are a vjilling people. This indicates that a vast change has been made upon them ; for there is no man naturally inclined to follow and to obey the Saviour. Although He comes to us not with anger in His countenance, or with threatenings on His lips, but with looks of tenderness and accents of mercy ; although the offer which He holds out conveys every blessing that man needs to make him happy here and hereafter, even nothing less than the forgiveness of every sin, admission into God's family and friend- ship, deliverance from the bondage of iniquity, and from the yoke of Satan, and the enjoyment of eternal life ; although no one can hear these blessings named without feeling that he needs them all, and few of us deny in so many words Christ's power and willingness to bestow them all ; yet, strange to say, the offer is unheeded by the majority of men, and they re- main unwilling to follow Christ : they will not come to Him that they might have life. It is true, indeed, that many, through the influence of fear, or from the power of habit and early education, do render to Christ a certain amount of outward service. This accounts for the respect which is paid to ordi- nances by mere nominal Christians, and for the observance of the NUMBER OF Christ's people/ 71 common proprieties and decencies of life in those communities where the truths of the gospel are proclaimed. But when we speak of Christ's people as a willing people, there is much more meant than that they honour the forms of religion and observe the ordinary proprieties of life. We might all advance a claim to be numbered among them, if these tilings could make it good. Let us therefore endeavour to arrive at a right under- standing of this important matter. To be willing, then, in the sense in which the expression is used in the text, is to have the enmity of the carnal heart to Christ and to His law sub- dued and destroyed ; so that the person in whom this change is wrought looks up to the Saviour with all affection, rejoices in the privilege of holding intercourse with Him by prayer and other means, and accounts the performance of duty not a toil, but a pleasure. When a man who is himself a stranger to the love of Christ reads of the sacrifices, the self-devotion, the labours of His people in the primitive age ; and when he sees — alas, how imperfect the image ! — a reflection of the same spirit in His genuine disciples now ; when he perceives the Christian, without any worldly motive or interest, spending and being spent for Christ, devoting time, and talents, and money, to the advancement of Christ's cause ; when he be- holds men whose powers of mind would have raised them to honour and affluence in their own land, leaving behind them friends and worldly prospects, and embarking their very life in the enterprise of spreading the truth of God among the victims of idolatry and debasing superstition ; when a man a stranger to the love of Christ sees or reads of such instances of heroic devotion to the Saviour, he wonders how any should be found voluntarily to make such sacrifices, and to encounter such trials. And certainly, were he in his present state of mind, and with his present feelings, to attempt to act upon the principle of Christian devotedness, and to yield to the restrictions which Christ's law imposes both upon the heart and the conduct, he would be of all men the most miserable. His life would be that of a slave dragged to his task, and stimulated only by the scourge. But that which makes the difference in the case of the believer is, that he loves Christ and His service also. It is not of constraint, but with a 72 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND willing mind, that he renounces the pleasures which Christ's word condemns, and enters upon the duties which it incul- cates. The Holy Spirit has brought him to see and to ap- preciate the love of Christ for him ; and he now feels that he cannot do enough for Christ. And so, while he climbs the steep ascent of Christian duty, it is not with reluctance and regret, as if he were leaving in the world beneath him all that deserves to be called enjoyment. On the contrary, every step he takes he breathes more free : every difficulty he over- comes makes him more ready for another; the further he removes from those carnal pleasures which once engrossed him, the more intense and pure his satisfaction grows ; and the secret of the whole is, that the Spirit has made him willing. He loves his Master, and he loves His work ; and in such a case there can be no complaint, no murmuring. Let it, however, be particularly noticed here, that the willingness which has been spoken of as characterizing the people of Christ is not to be regarded as a mere point of doctrinal theology, but as a great practical reality. Our catechism, you know, speaks of the renewing of the will as one part of the Spirit's work, and it is indeed the work upon which the salvation of the sinner turns. But what we are concerned about at present is not the 'proof of this doctrine. Many people may be satisfied with the mere knowledge of the doctrine, and may think that they are far advanced when they can describe the effects which the Spirit produces upon the heart in making- a sinner willing to serve Christ, who before served only his own appetites and passions ; but it is of a practical matter we speak, of a willingness manifested in action, and not confined to the mere definition of terms. Let me illustrate it. We read in the Gospels of a centurion who came to Jesus beseeching Him to heal his servant, and grounding his plea upon this, that Christ must have the power to perform this cure as invested with God's authority ; because he himself (tlie centurion) was a man under authority, having soldiers under him ; and he could say to one. Go, and he went ; and to another, Come, and he came ; and to his servant, Do this, and he did it. The description which this centurion gives of his NUMBER OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 73 household is exactly that which may be given of the family of Christ. He says to one, Go, and he goeth ; and to another. Do this, and he doeth it. ' Speak, Lord, Thy servant heareth ;' ' Here, am I, send me,' is the language of the believer. No matter though the work be difficult; no matter though it demand a measure of self-renunciation too severe in the esti- mate of a selfish and worldly-minded man ; no matter though it subject the follower of the Lord to trouble and to persecution : Christ's work has charm enough for His people with all its difficulties, and when He calls they are willing. Thus does the Captain of salvation say to any one of them, in provi- dence, Occupy this watchtower under the very eye of the enemy, and look for little aid from thy companions in this warfare. The willing follower takes his place accordingly, and is satisfied to know that amid all his dangers the eye of his great Leader is upon him. Does He say to another. Go forth and contend with these enemies ; they will be violent in their opposition ; thou wilt have restless days and sleepless nights ; nevertheless, resist them ? The willing follower goes forth, and trusting to the assistance of his Leader, does his best in the conflict. Does He say to another. Go as am- bassador from me to such a place, and tell the people there what terms I offer them : the majority will despise thee, and treat thy message with scorn ; yet go and proclaim it, some will listen ? The willing follower at once goes forth and speaks accordingly, leaving to his Master the issue of the embassy. Does He say to another. It is for the interest of my service that thou shouldst be for some time poorly fed and meanly clothed, that thou shouldst suffer many troubles in the body, because I have certain purposes to answer by thy un- selfish devotedness ? The willing follower is content to sub- mit to liis Leader's word ; and bread and water in Christ's service are better than all worldly comforts out of it. And once more, does He say to any one, Thy time of active service is not now ; thou must remain for a little on the sick-bed, and be satisfied with what comforts are sent unto thee there ; such is my will, inquire no further ? The ready follower is contented with liis Master's order, and is willing to suffer as well as to act when Christ so pleases. So wide, then. 74 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND brethren, is the interpretation we put upon the words, ' a willing people! They designate a people willing for whatever is Christ's will, because they love Him and trust Him. And do not suppose that we have drawn a fancy sketch in thus describing them. If that willingness of which we have been speaking is something beyond your experience, cast not away the description of it as untrue ; but ask yourselves whether this may not rather be the truth, that ye are not Christ's, and therefore know not what a willing service means. II. In the second place, let me advert to the decorations of Christ's people : ' They appear in the beauties of holiness.' If we have found, in the matter of willingness, a mark by which the true follower of Christ may be distinguished from the pretended follower, this additional matter which we have now to investigate makes the test yet more plain. The vision which the Psalmist had of the Messiah, and which he seems to have kept before him while he wrote this psalm, was that of a leader marshalling his forces for a great enterprise, and assigning to each the place which he was to occupy. The following out of this figure wiU illustrate the topic at present before us. Let us imagine to ourselves a great army under the conduct of a commander of tried experience, encamped within sight of the enemy with whom they have to contend. Suppose the general order issued, that whenever a certain signal is given, all shall be ready to take the post marked out for them, with certain accoutrements, and in a special dress : with this plain intimation too, that these furnishings are in- dispensable toward the success of the expedition. Then, if when the trumpet sounds an alarm, and each man seems to hasten to his place, it should be found that this and that one had forgot or despised the order with respect to his equip- ments, would these who are convicted of such ne<^lect be accounted good and faithful soldiers ? Certainly not. They would, with all their apparent readiness, mar the very purpose of the enterprise. The application of these remarks to the subject before us is very obvious. It is not enough, you will perceive, that Christ's followers profess to be ready for their work ; they must have the equipment which He requires, and NUMBER OF CHEIST'S PEOPLE. 75 that is holiness, else tliey are unfit for tlieir place. But you may say, Can any one be willing to follow Christ, and yet he destitute of this great qualification by which His followers are distinguished ? We answer, that where there is true willingness, there is everything else ; but a man may appear to be willing to do many things for Christ, and yet may want the qualifica- tion by which the genuineness of his professions is to be tested. It is possible to contend for the truth, yea, to suffer for the truth, without crucifying the old man with his lusts, and putting on the new man. It is possible to act the part of an ambassador for Christ, yea, and to do it faithfully and respect- ably, so far as the announcing of the terms of the embassage are concerned, while at the same time personal holiness is overlooked. And there may be much appearance of content- ment and resignation under poverty and on the sick-bed, and much profession of acquiescence in the will of God, without the slightest symptom of spirituality of mind beyond what these appearances indicate. And thus you will perceive that in all these cases we have the soldier, as it were, at his post, but without the great and essential equipment. It is indeed most humbling, brethren, to reflect that men may speak for Christ, and act for Him, and display much zeal and devoted- ness in His cause, while yet they want the one thing that He especially requires, namely, holiness. This is the peculiar and indispensable mark of His people, and that which distinguishes them as His. But how shall we describe it ? What is holiness ? Let us try to ascertain this. And for this purpose let us take the terms, a virtuous or good man, and ^.holy man, and endeavour to find out what is the difference between them. It will at once occur to you that there is a difference : wherein does it consist ? A good or virtuous man is one who discharges with fidelity all the duties of that station in which he is placed, who cannot be found fault with either in his conduct toward his family, or in his inter- course with the world at large, — a man who may be. pointed to as a pattern of excellence in all the relations which he occupies. But this is not altogether a holy man. We must feel from the very description, and from the ideas which it suggests, that there is somethino; wanting here to constitute holiness. 76 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND And what is it ? I would say, in a word, that the holy man, besides having all the distinguishing qualities of the good man, is one who loathes all impurity in thought, or speech, or conduct. There is a sensitiveness about the holy man that makes him turn away from everything that can pollute, in the heart as well as in the life. To illustrate : take the person of very delicate taste, as distinguished from the person of good taste. The latter will see the excellences of any work of art, and duly appreciate them ; bat the former, along with this, will detect a very slight error, and feel as if it marred the whole. In other words, the holy man is one who shrinks from sin as well as delights in virtue ; and holiness is shrinking from what is sinful, as well as the practice of what is good and praiseworthy. It forms, as the text teUs us, the decoration of Christ's people ; it constitutes their very beauty ; it marks them out as His. "When they are said to be clothed with the beauties of holiness, this implies that they are not only characterized by. their outward conformity to the law of God, but that they seek to have the whole frame of the heart — every thought, every feeling, every breathing of the soul — regulated by God's holy will. And oh, what struggles they have with heart-corruption ; what mournings for secret sin ; what prayers for deliverance from its power ; what self- condemnation, when to the eye of their fellow-mortals they seem almost to be perfect ! Yet they do advance. Their hatred and loathing of sin become more and more intense, their resistance to it more and more steady, their triumph over it more and more complete ; until at length in spirit, in afifec- tion, and in desire, they are made meet for that place into which nothing that defileth can enter. These, then, are the people of Christ. And, brethren, if we saw things in their proper light, if we could judge of the beautiful as those glorious spirits do that have never sinned, we would feel that holiness alone is real and proper beauty. It forms the glory of God's own character — the excellence, if we may so speak, of Jehovah Himself ; and is not the creature made glorious in- deed, when, by the grace of the Eternal Spirit, he is invested with heaven's own beauty, and transformed into the image of his Maker ? What miserable phantoms do men pursue on NUMBEK OF CHRIST'S PEOPLE. 77 earth, what trifles do they toil and fight for, as contrasted with this heavenly excellence which adorns and dignifies the followers of the Lamb ! Let it be ours, brethren, to pant more ardently after this highest of attainments, that we may be holy as Christ is holy, and perfect as He is perfect. III. But now, in the third place, I would advert to what is here said respecting the number of Christ's followers. ' They are as the dew-drops from the womb of the morning.' It is well, brethren, that this psalm is prophetical, else we should not know how to interpret this part of it. We glance at the history of the church from the time of Christ doAvnward ; and alas ! while we see nation after nation outwardly submitting to the gospel, and receiving the name of Christian, we are compelled to feel that the true church in every age has been a little flock, as Christ designated the faithful few that were around Him — a little flock and a troubled flock. The small boat with the twelve tossed at midnight upon the waves of the Sea of Galilee, is the fittest emblem of the church of Christ throughout the whole of her eventful history. A few witnesses for the truth with devoted hearts and willing minds, in the midst of a host of cold formalists and of deadly adver- saries,— what a mournful picture, and how unlike that which the Psalmist beheld in vision ! But it will not be always so. Heaven and earth may pass away, but God's word will not. Go forth on a morning in spring, when the first sunbeams are rolling away the morning cloud, — see how the light sparkles in the little drop which hangs upon the point of every blade. Count, if you can, those tiny mirrors which reflect in varied colours the cheering ray, and make the green earth for a moment one vast sea of light ! While you are lost in wonder at this display of nature's loveliness ; while you are admiring the freshness of the scene, and are drinking in health and pure enjoyment from it, the Psalmist takes you by the hand, as it were, and pointing to these shining dew^-drops, beautiful and countless, says, Such, for number and for fairness, will Christ's people be when the day of His power cometh. At present you see but as through a glass darkly. Oh, brethren, that will be a glorious time for the church when the prediction 78 THE WILLINGNESS, BEAUTY, AND is fulfilled — when she embraces the whole earth within her bosom, and when for one willing and holy servant Christ shall have thousands ! Wlien the Lord gives the word, and sreat is the company of them that publish it ; and when the Spirit gives to that word, as He did on the day of Pentecost, power to wound, and yet to heal — to kill, and yet to make alive ; that will be the time when the faithful may hold up their heads, for there shall be nothing to hurt or to destroy in all God's holy mountain. Surely this is a time worth waiting for — worth praying for ! But the language of the text is applicable to another time yet more eventful, and for the people of Christ more glorious. This psalm describes Messiah's triumphs over all His enemies. These shall not be completed until the morning of the resur- rection. He must reign until He hath put all enemies under His feet ; and the last enemy that shall be subdued is death. Then it will be that this beautiful prophecy shall have its full accomplishment. The barriers of the tomb will then be burst ; the tenants of the dark sepulchre will come forth ; the corrupt shall put on incorruption. John saw the bright assemblage more clearly than the Psalmist, and he thus describes it : ' I beheld, and lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.' This is the realization of the Psalmist's vision ; these are the willin