tihvaxy of t^e trheolojical ^emmarjo 
 
 PRINCETON • NEW JERSEY 
 
 •a^D- 
 
 PRESENTED BY 
 
 The Estate of the 
 Rev. John B, Wiedim^-er 
 
«r^ 
 
 ^ 
 
THE 
 
 Lesser Parables 
 
 Our Lord 
 
 JcBsous of Sracc in the language of Jlaturc. 
 
 / 
 
 REV. WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 With Biographical Notice by Canon Bell. 
 
 T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW. 
 
 EDINDURGII; AND NEW YORK. 
 1884. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 WILLIAM ARNOT, 
 
 THE LESSER PARABLES OF OUR LORD 
 
 I. THE HARVEST FIELD AND THE HARVEST LABOURERS. PART I., 
 II. THE HARVEST FIELD AND THE HARVEST LABOURERS. PART II., 
 
 III. THE FIELDS 'WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST, 
 
 IV. LIBERTY, 
 
 V. TRUE, YET TENDER — TENDER, YET TRUE, 
 VI. THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON, 
 VII. THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN, 
 VIII. THE TWO FAMILIES— THE NATURAL AND THE SPIRITUAL, 
 IX. TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. PART I., 
 X. TREES OP RIGHTEOUSNESS. PART II., ... 
 
 33 
 
 43 
 
 51 
 
 62 
 
 74 
 
 86 
 
 97 
 
 110 
 
 127 
 
 137 
 
 LESSONS OF GRACE IN THE LANGUAGE OF 
 NATURE. 
 
 I. ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST, 
 II. EPISTLES OF CHRIST, 
 
 III. CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD, 
 
 IV. A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION, 
 
 149 
 163 
 174 
 184 
 
VI 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 V. KOOTED IN LOVE, 
 VI. DR.\WN AND DRAGGED, 
 VII. THE FIXED COMPASS, 
 VIII. THE GOOD SHErHERD, 
 IX. PEliSONAL ADORNING, 
 X. THE SALT OF THE EARTH, 
 
 200 
 212 
 217 
 22S 
 237 
 248 
 
 READINGS IK FIRST PETER. 
 
 I. PETER, AN APOSTLE, 
 
 II. APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION, 
 
 III. THE HEIRS AND THEIR INHERITANCE, ... 
 
 IV. MIGHTY TO SAVE, 
 
 V, THE LATTER END IS PEACE, 
 VI. REJOICING IN TRIBULATION, 
 VII. SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION, 
 
 Vin. NO CROSS, NO CROWN, ... 
 
 IX. JESUS IN THE MIDST, 
 X. OBEDIENT CHILDREN, 
 XI. BOUGHT WITH A PRICE, 
 XII. LOVE ON THE SPRING, 
 
 XIII. MAN AND HIS GLORY, 
 
 XIV. "CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY'," 
 XV. THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE, 
 
 XVI. LIVING STONES, 
 
 XVII. " ON EITHER SIDE ONE ; AND JESUS IN THE MIDST," 
 XVIII. " THE lord's PEOPLE, THE LORD'S TREASURE," 
 XIX. THE WAY AND THE FRUITS OF REDEMPTION, 
 XX. THE WARFARE, 
 
 XXI. THE WITNESS OF A PURE LIFE, 
 
 XXII. THE SCRIPTURES SANCTION CIVIL AUTHORITY, ... 
 XXIII. THE DIGNITY OF MAN, 
 
 261 
 
 205 
 
 270 
 
 274 
 
 280 
 
 2S4 
 
 289 
 
 294 
 
 298 
 
 303 
 
 307 
 
 312 
 
 317 
 
 322 
 
 327 
 
 332 
 
 337 
 
 342 
 
 S46 
 
 350 
 
 354 
 
 358 
 
 302 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 XXIV. NO KESPECT 01'' PERSONS, 
 XXV. THE BROTHERHOOD, ... 
 XXVI. LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD, 
 
 3G7 
 372 
 377 
 
 LIFK IK CHRIST. 
 
 I. LIFE IN CHRIST, 
 II. CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS — THE SPIRIT AND THE BODY, 
 
 III. FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE, 
 
 IV. THE PRODIGAL, 
 
 V. NO CROSS, NO CROWN, 
 VI. THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE, ... 
 
 383 
 392 
 400 
 421 
 431 
 440 
 
WILLIAM AEISTOT. 
 
 ILLIAM ARNOT was a remarkable man. He was a 
 power in his time, and made himself felt as preacher, 
 writer, lecturer, both on this and on the other side of 
 the Atlantic, His life contains but few incidents, 
 but is nevertheless well worthy of being related, partly by his own 
 graphic pen in a short Autobiography, and partly by his daughter 
 through a selection from his private papers and correspondence. 
 
 We have only to look at the portrait attached to the Autobiog- 
 raphy and Memoir, and we know at once what manner of man 
 he was. If the mind be written in the face, here we have a man 
 simple yet strong-brained, earnest and true, full of humour, full 
 too of " the milk of human kindness." 
 
 These traits all gradually become apparent as we read his story 
 from childhood onward to manhood, and at last see him placed in 
 an honoured grave, mourned not only by that branch of the 
 Church to which he belonged, but by all who can estimate genius 
 when sanctified by grace and devoted to the highest aims. 
 
 William Arnot was born at Scone in 1808. His father lived 
 here for about twelve years, and here seven children were born ; 
 and here his mother died when she gave him birth. Wliile 
 William was still an infant, his father removed with his family to 
 the Boat of Forgan, on the river Earn, in tlie parish of Forgan- 
 denny, about four miles from Perth. This he always looked upon 
 as his native place, as he never could feel an interest in the spot 
 where he was born, since he never knew it as a home. This was 
 
X WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 the home of his youth. No other spot on earth was half so dear 
 to him ; and to use the touching words of the Autobiography, 
 " The love of it is fresh in my bosom yet, when many other emo- 
 tions are fading." And again, when describing the place connected 
 with his earliest recollections, he says, " There are three trees at 
 the west end of the house, and two — a venerable plane and wide- 
 spreading ash — at the edge of the garden, right behind the barn. 
 Oh, the hum of bees in the top of that plane tree on a summer 
 afternoon, when its blossoms hung from every twig ! I think I 
 hear it now ; and it makes me weep to think that I shall never 
 hear it as I was wont to hear it, with the fresh, buoyant, hopeful 
 bosom of boyhood. I should like to sit beneath it again on a 
 warm summer evening and hear that hum. I do not know 
 whether it would gladden my heart again, or break it; but I 
 would like to try." 
 
 His parents lived in the faith and the fear of God. They 
 were universally respected. The following is a characteristic 
 anecdote of his father : — The small farm which he cultivated was 
 rented from Lord Ruthven. He had obtained a verbal authority 
 from his landlord to execute some building, and repay himself by 
 retaining his rents. Lord Ruthven left home for the Continent, 
 where he resided some seven years. The building was erected, 
 and the cost was £49, 10s. Robert Arnot retained this sum; but 
 as he had no voucher, the factor could not give him a discharge. 
 On Lord Ruthven's return, the factor sent Arnot a letter, stating 
 that this sum stood on his book as arrear of rent, and advising him 
 to get the necessary voucher. He carried the factor's letter to 
 Lord Ruthven, and received one in return to the factor. "On 
 presenting his lordship's letter to the man-of-law, my father 
 observed him smiling as he read, and asked the cause of his 
 merriment. Whereupon he read aloud the contents of the letter, 
 which were as follows : ' I believe whatever this man says.' " 
 
 His mother was a woman who loved her Bible and walked 
 with God. He notes down one very characteristic habit of hers 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. Xl 
 
 which had reached him. *' When employed in spinning, she was 
 wont to have her Testament lying open upon the body or frame- 
 work of the wheel, within sight, and would catch a verse from 
 time to time without interrupting her toil. ' Diligent in business; 
 fervent in spirit ; serving the Lord.' " Though he had never seen 
 his mother, he delighted to think that all his blessings came in 
 answer to her prayers ; and he felt it was very good for him to 
 have grown up with the conception of his mother being a glorified 
 saint. " Her company has often awed me out of evil, and encour- 
 aged me to good. Even yet, the thought of my mother's eyes 
 fainting in death, taking a last look of me, her helpless infant, 
 melts me as nothing else is able to do." So, although his birth 
 was humble, and the scenes and circumstances which surrounded 
 his childhood rude, he could with thankfulness take up the words 
 of the poet Cowper, — 
 
 *' My boast is not that I deduce my birth 
 From loins enthroned and rulers of the earth ; 
 But higher far my proud pretensions rise — 
 The son of parents passed into the skies." 
 
 The glimpse which he gives us into his boyhood is interesting. 
 His memory was so good that it retained a connected and continu- 
 ous record of events from the time that he was four years old. 
 This period was to him " like the era which divides the fabulous 
 from the authentic history of a nation." He takes us to the 
 village school, and paints the teacher in a few graphic touches. 
 " He was an elderly man, lame in body, and of a most inoffensive 
 and gentle disposition. His character penetrated right through 
 the childlike, and stuck fast in the childish. He was, however, a 
 good, conscientious. Christian man, of a most unblemished reputa- 
 tion." He describes the school, with its two stone steps outside 
 the door leading to the floor, a little elevated above the level of 
 the road. We see the little boy standing on the street, and 
 looking through the opened door at the whole extent of the school- 
 room, where his eye is arrested by " the rows of dangling feet and 
 
XU WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 legs, whose owners were seated at the tables above, and not so 
 
 directly in my view I was soon introduced to the master and 
 
 the alphabet. I had the credit of being a good scholar from the 
 commencement. " 
 
 That he had a lively imagination, may be gathered from the 
 following incident : — " Somewhere about this time my brothers 
 and sisters and companions began to persuade me that I had been 
 enlisted, and that as soon as I should grow up they would take me 
 away to be a soldier. The foundation of this dangerous joke was 
 this : Some soldier, or perhaps a yeoman going to Perth for drill, 
 took me up in his arms and gave me a shilling, when I was quite 
 an infant. It was afterwards repeated, as I thought seriously, 
 that I was enlisted and must be a soldier. I never spoke of it ; I 
 was too much afraid even to mention it ; but it often imbittered 
 my joys throughout the period of childhood. It was a grievous 
 wrong that was done me. Why will not all mankind speak truth, 
 and only trutli, to children 1 " 
 
 Arnot had no distinct remembrance of the dawn of religious 
 impressions on his mind. He was sure, however, that the influ- 
 ence of prayer and the Bible at school was good. He had a very 
 vivid recollection of the first prayer that he ventured to offer in 
 his own words and thoughts, and he felt the emancipation from 
 the trammels of prayers learned by rote to be very great. At 
 seven years of age he was sent to school at Aberdalgie, the nearest 
 parish on the other side the river. Its master, Mr. Peddie, was 
 a teacher in advance of his age, and a fine specimen of an old 
 gentleman. He used to give Scripture lessons with a vigour and 
 a genius that made the Bible stories most attractive to his scholars. 
 " I remember well the hearty laugh of the scholars when the 
 worthy old gentleman, who was somewhat corpulent and very tall, 
 enacted David throwing the stone at the Philistine. How he did 
 swing his one arm round his white head, while the loose sleeve 
 where the other arm should have been danced in the wind ; and 
 wliat a race forward he took to give additional impetus to the 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. xiii 
 
 stone when at last it was let off; and how earnestly he lookerl 
 forward to see whether his missile had taken effect on the forehead 
 of his adversary ! The whole essence of the training system was 
 there." 
 
 While at this school and other schools he did much as other 
 boys do. He fought many a battle, played the truant, and proved 
 the truth of the saying that " evil communications corrupt good 
 manners." 
 
 His father married again when he was about eight or nine 
 years of age. As the boy grew in years and strength he was kept 
 at home in the summer to herd cows, and attended school only in 
 the winter. He had but few books ; but amongst them were 
 "The Pilgrim's Progress," Brydone's "Tour through Sicily and 
 Malta," "The Arabian Nights," and "Don Quixote." These were 
 greedily devoured, and, whetting his appetite for mental food, 
 contributed to his intellectual development. The historical parts 
 of the Bible were an inexhaustible theme, and Watts' " Hymns 
 for Children " became a part of memory itself. The first glimpses 
 he obtained of the political world were connected with the trial 
 of Queen Caroline. Robert Liddel, owner and master of a sloop 
 trading from Perth, and married to Mary Laing, his cousin, often 
 visited his father, and sometimes brought with him a newspaper ; 
 and in this way he first found out the existence and nature of 
 government. 
 
 When about fourteen, his father sent him to a school in Perth ; 
 but he had not been there more than six or seven weeks when he 
 was compelled to leave through illness. An attack of measles, 
 and then of acute inflammation in the chest, was so severe that 
 for two or three days his family were apprehensive for his life. 
 He recovered, however, and from the period of convalescence in 
 the summer he dates a most important era in his spiritual history. 
 He was made to feel the reality of his sin and danger, and 
 ardently to desire the safety of his soul. Baxter's " Saints' Rest," 
 which he read at this time with .great profit, gave reality and 
 
XIV WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 power and personal interest to all that he had previously known 
 of divine things. 
 
 In the autumn of the same year, while he was still feeble, he 
 was invited to reside with a cousin of his father, Mr. William 
 Thompson, at Leadketty, in the parish of Dunning. Mr. Thomp- 
 son was a farmer, and young Arnot was set to work on the farm, 
 the horses being chiefly intrusted to his care. The open-air 
 employment and the constant exercise were favourable to health, 
 and he became strong and robust. The inward man did not 
 prosper so much as the outward man. Evil influences were mani- 
 fold. He was almost wholly in the society of ploughmen and 
 other young persons employed on the farm. The moral tone was 
 low. The conduct in many instances was most vicious. He was 
 now fifteen years of age and far from his father's house. It was 
 only on Sabbath evenings that he escaped from the society of the 
 servants and farm-labourers, for on such occasions he was invited 
 to drink tea with the family in the parlour. 
 
 A painful experience at this time of the truth that " the way 
 of transgressors is hard " begat in him a resolution which coloured 
 all his future days. At an annual fair in a neighbouring village, 
 he went with Mr. Thompson's foreman and other men into several 
 public-houses, where they gave him whisky-toddy. After he 
 reached home, he became sick and giddy, passed a wretched night, 
 and, gnawed by thirst, left his bed at three in the morning, and 
 seeking a well at the bottom of the garden, drank of its clear, cool 
 stream. He was not well for several days after ; and the sickness 
 and disgust produced so great an effect upon his mind that for 
 many years he could not endure the taste of whisky in any shape, 
 and could not even remain in a house where toddy was emitting 
 its fumes. The illness of that night, and the loathing of spirits 
 which resulted from it, became a shield of defence to him from 
 that time forth. 
 
 The reflective powers which were so prominent a feature of his 
 character began now to put forth some faint buddings. " One hot 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. XV 
 
 summer day I was alone in a field, driving three horses in the 
 harrows. The ground was soft and dry. The harrows raised the 
 hot dust round my head, and my feet at every step sank heavily 
 into the dry ground. It was a weary day ; it was fatiguing work. 
 I had no human being to speak to. I betook myself to rhyme. 
 I composed a poem on a snowdrop. It occupied my thoughts 
 pleasantly, and diverted me from the oppressive exercise of my 
 lungs and limbs." When the hour of release came, he unyoked 
 the horses, leaped joyfully on the bare back of one, and, leading 
 the other two, soon had the poor brutes in the stable. Hurrying 
 to his sleeping-room, he committed the lines to paper. They were 
 "sad doggerel," he says, "they have long been lost, and not one 
 could I now recall. But though the lines are lost, and would be 
 of no value if found, the memory of the making of these lines, 
 with the attendant circumstances, is still fresh and sweet. It is 
 one of a number of little mental efibrts which served to keep me 
 from being entirely absorbed in the mass of coarse vulgarity." 
 
 That experience on the farm, hard as it was, he never 
 regretted. "The rude contact with men and familiarity with 
 horses rubbed off a good deal of my constitutional 'bairnliness,' 
 and imparted a dash of manliness to my character, which I think 
 is by no means to be despised. I certainly do not regret that I 
 held the plough at sixteen years of age, or that I could throw 
 myself on the bare back of a horse while he was in motion, or that 
 I learned horsemanship at the expense of many a fall. It has 
 helped, I think, to wring the womanhood out of a nature some- 
 what soft in its original contexture. It enables me to feel easy in 
 many positions which are sufficient to annoy those who have been 
 more tenderly cradled in their youth. I delight to notice every 
 one, even the least, of the multifarious influences which during 
 youth go to mould the character of the man." 
 
 About the year 1824 or 182.5 he went home, and was called to 
 occupy for a time the place of his brother, who had been appren- 
 ticed to the business of a gardener at Kilgraston, in the parish of 
 
XVI WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 Dunbarney, and who was laid aside by illness. When he left 
 Kilgraston he returned to his father's house, and became an 
 apprentice to the gardener of Lord Ruthven at Freeland. His 
 father was not favourable to this step, believing that a lawyer's 
 office offered better prospects of remuneration ; yet many influ- 
 ences combined to attract young Arnot to the occupation. A 
 spice of the romantic in his nature, a strong desire to continue 
 under his father's roof, and a decided contempt for money-making, 
 made him prefer the open air and freedom of a garden to a desk 
 in a county town. He entered joyfully on his duties at Martinmas , 
 (November 11th) 1824, when he was just sixteen years of age. 
 His work was often heavy, but he was in good health, and lived 
 in great happiness. 
 
 With regard to his religious impressions he thus writes : — 
 " My mind made some progress in spiritual understanding ; but 
 there was a great conflict between the claims of Christ and the 
 claims of pleasure. One thing I ought to record with unmeasured 
 thankfulness, — that the enemy in that conflict never got the 
 advantage over me which results from actual indulgence in vice. 
 I am well aware that there may be to a great extent the abstinence 
 from vice where Christ is not permitted to dwell in the heart by 
 faith ; but I am most firmly convinced that every defilement of 
 the conscience by actual guilt strengthens the adversary's hold, 
 and diminishes the power of resistance. The conflict in my 
 experience was hard enough ; and I thank God now that elements 
 were not permitted to enter which would have made it tenfold 
 harder, — that such giant lusts as drunkenness and licentiousness 
 were kept at bay without the camp, and never obtained the 
 advantage of actual possession. One touch of defilement on the 
 conscience corrodes the very sinews of the combatant's strength. 
 The vain thoughts — the pleasures of sense — the dislike of serious- 
 ness, — these and a multitude of other sins maintained within me 
 the conflict against the truth. But at this hour I rejoice with 
 trembling that their power was not then reinforced by those lusts 
 
 (753) 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. XVii 
 
 which, besides presenting enticements to the spirit, lay hold of the 
 body, and drag down the man by all the force of natural laws." 
 
 About this time he freed himself by a desperate struggle from 
 the bondage of the recognized drinking usages of society. And 
 though in doing so he had to run the gauntlet of sarcasm and 
 scorn, yet his own strong common-sense prevailed, aided as he was 
 by the support and counsel of his father, who not merely con- 
 demned excess, but was "opposed to the drinking customs root 
 and branch." 
 
 "The great ruling event of my youth, the event which by 
 sovereign wisdom was made the pivot on which my life and char- 
 acter turned, was the long illness and death of my only brother." 
 This brother was obliged in the year 1825 to leave his employment 
 finally, and to come home an invalid. He had grown up to man- 
 hood with many qualities fitted to gain the esteem of his fellows. 
 His person was handsome, his manners refined, and he possessed 
 a considerable amount of mechanical genius. From his frolicsome 
 and social qualities, as well as from the purity of his conduct, he 
 was a favourite in every circle, and greatly beloved. He came 
 home to die from a disease of the spine, which gradually increased, 
 paralyzing the limbs, and telling with efiect on his general health. 
 
 The companionship of this brother became a turning-point in 
 William Arnot's life. For his brother was a true Christian ; his 
 faith was seen by its fruits, and the new life was manifested in 
 his conversation. Communion with this brother, sometimes by 
 the river-side, or in the woods, where William carried him in his 
 arms " as a nurse takes a child ; " sometimes on a grassy bank, 
 where they basked in the softened rays of the evening sun ; or 
 sometimes on a bed in the sick-room, — was the training provided 
 by his heavenly Father to break the power of the world over his 
 heart. And when at last his brother died, and his "dearest 
 earthly treasure was torn away," a new purpose was formed in his 
 heart, and he wished to devote himself to the ministry. 
 
 He now commenced the study of Latin in right earnest, and 
 
 (763) 9 
 
XVlll WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 the account which he gives of his preparation for the work to 
 which his after-life was to be consecrated is remarkable, and shows 
 us the earnest, determined, noble character of the man : — 
 
 " Even during the hours of labour I continued to learn some- 
 thing. Digging, which was one of our most laborious occupations, 
 became nevertheless, by a little management, a favourable occasion 
 for learning a conjugation or a rule of syntax. The management 
 was after this manner. When three or four persons were together 
 digging a large plot of ground, we followed each other closely, 
 each carrying a furrow across. When the first man reached the 
 edge with his furrow, he stood aside and waited till the others 
 completed theirs, and turned with each a new one in the opposite 
 direction. Then he who had arrived first at this side struck in 
 last when the motion began towards the other side. Thus at 
 each round we obtained in turn two or three minutes to stand 
 and change the position for the relief of the muscles. I latterly 
 fell upon the plan of having my elementary books of Latin or 
 Greek in my pocket. During the moments of rest I snatched the 
 book, ran over a tense or a portion of whatever might be in hand, 
 and put the book in my pocket again when it was time to move 
 on again with a new furrow. While toiling across a field I kept 
 conning and trying the portion I had read. At the next halting 
 I corrected the errors, and took up a new portion. This was done 
 without any prejudice to the work. I found in it a double benefit. 
 The memory in these circumstances acted very freely ; the lesson 
 was easily learned, and the employment of the mind on that 
 subject acted as a diversion, greatly lessening the weariness of the 
 toil." 
 
 Truly William Arnot was a man of mark, and one who proved 
 himself able to rise above the circumstances which would have 
 dragged a man of weaker nerve or infirmer purpose down. 
 
 He had now begun to save every penny of his wages that could 
 be spared from necessaries. He earned nine shillings a week 
 during the two latter years of his labour, and his father, thinking 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. XIX 
 
 the discipline good for his son, charged him two and sixpence a 
 week for his board. He had saved twenty pounds in November 
 1828. His father would fain have persuaded him to remain at 
 home, and offered to take a farm and stock it for him ; but when 
 he saw that his heart was set upon the work of the ministry, he 
 fell in with his views, and encouraged him in every possible way. 
 He now devoted all his time to study, preparatory to entering 
 college. He went to Perth, and placed himself under a Mr. 
 Thomas Scott, a probationer, lately licensed, who had begun to 
 keep a school. Here he read the whole of the ^neid of Virgil, 
 acquired some knowledge of the Greek grammar, and read portions 
 of the New Testament and other selections from Sandford's 
 "Extracts." 
 
 At the invitation of his uncle, Robert Fisher, who offered him 
 lodging in his house free of expense during the first session, ho 
 went to Glasgow on the 8th of October 1829. On the 10th 
 October he purchased a red gown, paid his matriculation fee at the 
 library, and his tickets for the Greek and Latin classes, and was 
 ready to commence work on the following day. And work he 
 did, — obtained an honourable place in his classes, — carried off 
 prizes, and enjoyed learning not only for its own sake, but for the 
 enlargement of mind which it brought. The amount of his private 
 teaching, which was needful for his support while at college, was 
 no doubt a hindrance to his own studies, and prevented him from 
 specially distinguishing himself as a student. He felt this 
 necessity keenly at the time, and regretted it in after-years. 
 
 While at college he formed some life-long friendships. With 
 two students especially he was intimate, and enjoyed with them a 
 tender and hallowed brotherhood. They were both men of mark, 
 and both entered into rest before him. He was the eldest of the 
 three, and yet it was his singular lot to begin his own literary 
 life-work by composing the Memoir of one of his friends, and to 
 close it by composing the Memoir of the other. These friends 
 were Halley and Hamilton ; and now, as the author of Arnot's 
 
XX WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 Memoir beautifully says, they three " who paced long ago the 
 dingy quadrangle of Glasgow College, now pace the golden streets, 
 praising together the Lord whom they all three loved and served 
 so faithfully on earth." 
 
 " All the friends were earnest workers in the cause of Sunday 
 schools. Some of them, including Mr. Arnot, were amongst the 
 first promoters of the Glasgow Sabbath-School Union." He taught 
 for four years an advanced Bible class for young women, in con- 
 nection with the mission at St. Rollox. His work was much 
 blessed, and many were the testimonies he received as to the good 
 that was done. 
 
 His correspondence at this time with his intimate friends is 
 very interesting, and throws much light on his character in all its 
 phases. " Some letters overflow with playfulness, and sparkle 
 with humour ; others are full of serious thoughts on the most 
 solemn subjects ; in many the grave and the humorous lie side by 
 side in very close contact, but never mingled so far as to jar on 
 the strictest sense of propriety." 
 
 He was keenly alive to all that took place in the great city, 
 and threw himself as far as he was able into the question of Negro 
 Emancipation and of Reform, and into the other public movements 
 of the day. Through the whole of his college life the love of home 
 runs like a strong current through all his correspondence ; and his 
 love of flowers crops up in almost every letter ; so that when a 
 parcel has to be sent from home the invariable request is, " Be 
 sure to send me a flower." 
 
 On the 4th of October 1837 Mr. Arnot was licensed as a 
 preacher of the gospel by the Presbytery of Glasgow. Soon after- 
 wards he was appointed assistant to the Rev. John Bonar, then 
 minister of the united parishes of Larbert and Dunipace, and 
 entered on his duties in November 1837. The year spent in the 
 work at Larbert and with Mr. Bonar was both pleasant and 
 profitable, and was a time which he always liked to look back to. 
 
 He had hardly been a year at Larbert when he received a call 
 
WILLIAM A KNOT. Xxi 
 
 to St. Peter's Church, Glasgow. " He began his ministry here on 
 the first Sabbath of January 1839; but before many weeks had 
 passed, his health, already much enfeebled, broke down completely 
 under the new strain. A severe illness ensued, which disabled 
 him entirely for work during a period of about three months." 
 
 When he recovered from this illness, he very soon gathered 
 around him a large and warmly attached congregation. His 
 preaching had a peculiar attraction for young men, who, both 
 in Glasgow and afterwards in Edinburgh, formed an important 
 element in his congregation. Though his church became crowded, 
 and his hearers eagerly drank in the Word as it fell from his lips, 
 the preacher himself was far from satisfied with his work. His 
 private journal and letters " show how strictly he scrutinized his 
 work, with all its springs and motives; and how sternly he judged, 
 and how unsparingly he condemned, when he himself was the 
 prisoner at the bar," 
 
 He was truly at this time in labours abundant ; and besides 
 the duties more particularly connected with his own church and 
 congregation, he began to take his share in more public work, and 
 his name was announced in the prospectus of "a course of lectures 
 on the physical, educational, and moral improvement of the people, 
 especially of the great towns." Fully occupied with the laborious 
 work of a city charge, he took no prominent part in the proceed- 
 ings which led to the Disruption. But when the crisis came, he, 
 with his whole congregation, left the Establishment, though they 
 continued for some years in possession of their old place of 
 worship. 
 
 On the 30th July 1844 he married the second daughter of 
 Mr. Fleming of Clairmont, Glasgow; and although a stranger to 
 all the family but the lady herself, he gradually gained their love, 
 and exercised a growing influence for their good. 
 
 In the spring of the following year he was requested by the 
 Colonial Committee of the Church to supply the newly-organized 
 Free Church congregation in Montreal for some months. To this 
 
XXU WILLIAM AUNOT, 
 
 he agreed, and sailed from Liverpool on the 4th May, accompanied 
 by his wife. During his absence he wrote some pastoral letters to 
 his people, giving an account of his journey and his labours, and 
 exhorting them to cleave with steadfast heart unto the Lord. He 
 left for home in the end of September. 
 
 Prom his own letters we learn the number of calls he received 
 to become the pastor of other churches, and to minister to other 
 congregations. Now the call comes from Lerwick, in Shetland ; 
 now it comes from Canada; now it is to a professorship in the Pres- 
 byterian CoUege in London. These different proposals to remove 
 from Glasgow caused him considerable anxiety, and brought him 
 to the throne of grace for guidance ; but bound by the ties of 
 strong affection to his flock, he refused them all, and for twenty- 
 five years he continued to minister to the same people. 
 
 St. Peter's congregation was not, like many others, ejected 
 from their place of worship immediately at the Disruption. The 
 church belonged to the Church Building Society, and continued 
 until the commencement of the year 1849 to be used by the Free 
 Church congregation, they paying to the Society a yearly rent of 
 £100. But in February 1849, by a decision of the Court of 
 Session, the congregation, along with others similarly situated, 
 were formally ejected from their place of worship, which was 
 declared to be the property of the Established Church. A new 
 church, however, had been building in Main Street for Mr. Arnot 
 and his congregation. This was opened on the 26th May 1850, 
 and Dr. Hamilton preached the opening sermon. 
 
 In 1851 he published his first volume of sermons. It was 
 entitled " The Race for Eiches, and some of the Pits into which 
 the Runners Fall : Six Lectures applying the Word of God to the 
 Trafiic of Men." The first edition of one thousand was sold out 
 within two months, and a second thousand printed. At the close 
 of the next year a little book appeared with a fictitious signature, 
 but which his friends at once ascribed to William Arnot. The 
 title of this was, "The Drunkard's Progress: being a panorama 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. xxiii 
 
 of the overland route from the station at Drouth to the gem-ral 
 terminus in the Dead Sea ; in a series of thirteen Views, drawn 
 and engraved by John Adam, the descriptions given by John 
 Bunyan, junior." He was a determined foe to drinking under all 
 its forms during the whole course of his life. He entered heart 
 and soul into the battle against it, and there can be no doubt that 
 his manly and consistent protest against the evil did much to 
 advance and strengthen the temperance cause. 
 
 During his long ministry in Glasgow, from the close of 1838 
 till October 1863, there are few striking events or great changes 
 to be recorded to mark the progress of the years. To use his own 
 words in describing a similar period in the life of James Hamilton : 
 — " Where there are no battles, the history of a country is brief 
 and dull ; but great are the happiness and progress of the people. 
 It is the same Avith the work and sphere of a Christian minister, 
 when he is faithful and his flock afiectionate. The minister, lovino- 
 and beloved, is felt everywhere as a rallying-point and centre 
 of attraction. The beneficent machinery goes smoothly round. 
 Christian charity lubricating every wheel ; and precisely because 
 everything is going on well there is not much for the historian to 
 tell." But his time is fully occupied. Now he is engaged on a 
 new series of tracts ; now he prepares a paper for some periodical ; 
 then he writes a warm letter of sympathy to a friend on the 
 occasion of his mother's death, or he sends a kind farewell letter 
 to a young man connected with the congregation going abroad. 
 And many a proof do his letters aftbrd of a rich affectionate nature, 
 of ripe wisdom, of strong common-sense, of kindness toward man, 
 and of love toward God. 
 
 His Autobiography and Memoir gives us pleasant glimpses of 
 the writer, and lecturer, and preacher at home. We see him in 
 his holiday time giving daily lessons to his two girls in the rudi- 
 ments of Latin, or reading aloud to his children Longfellow's 
 poem of "Hiawatha." "The peculiar rhythm of this poem took 
 his fancy, and he would frequently improvise long screeds of 
 
XXIV WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 mock-heroic verse in imitation of it. Any little incident at home 
 or in his walks furnished a subject, and he would proceed as 
 uninterruptedly as if reciting from a book. If a rhyme was 
 wanted and did not immediately present itself, a word was coined 
 to suit the emergency." 
 
 Amidst his busy life, Mr. Arnot found time to write and 
 publish some works of lasting interest, great originality of concep- 
 tion, and remarkable freshness of thought. Amongst these may 
 be mentioned lectures on the Book of Proverbs, entitled " Laws 
 from Heaven for Life on Earth;" a volume illustrating the 
 Parables of our Lord; a volume of sermons called "Roots and 
 Fruits of the Christian Life ;" and "The Church in the House, or 
 Primitive Christianity as exhibited in the Acts of the Apostles." 
 
 How active was this man of God, how energetic in body and 
 mind, may be gathered from the fact that he spent six months in 
 Canada in evangelistic work, that he paid several visits to the 
 Continent, attended the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance at 
 Geneva, and preached the gospel at the Salle Evangelique in the 
 Paris Exhibition of 1867. Besides all this, he twice visited the 
 United States, — going on the first occasion as one of "a deputation 
 from the Free Church to the United Assembly of the Presbyterian 
 Churches in America ; " and on the second occasion being invited 
 to attend the meetings of the Evangelical Alliance at New York 
 in the autumn of 1873. His two eldest sons were eneased in 
 business in the United States, and this strongly influenced him to 
 accept the invitation — which was further pressed upon him, in a 
 personal interview, by Mr. G H. Stuart of Philadelphia and Dr. 
 Hall of New York. During this latter visit " he traversed the 
 Pacific Railway to San Francisco and back — a great undertaking 
 for one of his years, and alone ; indeed, the result proved that it 
 was too great. A serious illness detained him some days in Salt 
 Lake City ; and though he recovered so as to be able to complete 
 the journey, the fatigue of it more than balanced the pleasure, and 
 the very recollection of it was never anything but dreary to him.' 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. XXV 
 
 It should have been mentioned that in 1863 he received a call 
 to the Free High Church, Edinburgh, which he accepted, as be- 
 lieving it to be the leading of Providence, though it was directly 
 opposed to his own inclinations at the time. Once settled in his 
 new sphere, he soon began to feel at home, and enjoyed his work, 
 rapidly filling a church which had been thinned during the long 
 vacancy. 
 
 During Mr. Arnot's first absence in America the editorship of 
 the Family Treasury became vacant, and the publishers proposed 
 that he should undertake the conduct of the magazine. On his 
 return it was definitely arranged that he should become editor, 
 and his duties commenced with the begmning of the year 1871. 
 It added considerably to his labours ; but he enjoyed the work, 
 and entered upon it with all his might. He was now in his sixty- 
 third year. So his life ran on quietly, happily, usefully. He had 
 many blessings and some sorrows. He took both from his 
 Father's hand, and both were made to work together for his good. 
 
 One of his great sorrows was the death of that eminent man 
 Dr. Candlish. He heard the tidings on his return from his second 
 visit to America. " At Queenstown, on Monday night, Irish 
 newspapers came on board. I was listlessly glancing over para- 
 graphs in one of them, when my eye fell on one of two and a 
 half lines, thus : — ' At the funeral of Dr. Candlish yesterday, in 
 Edinburgh, the procession was nearly a mile long.' It blinded me 
 like a flash of lightning in my face. It was the first intimation to 
 me of our great bereavement. Edinburgh seems naked and empty 
 since." And then Mr. Arnot adds: " Many beautiful things are 
 told of his faith and love and childlike demeanour towards the 
 close. I must tell you a thing that he said of myself, that I count 
 a very precious legacy. His mind was wandering ; he thought he 
 was in some meeting of Presbytery or Assembly. Suddenly and 
 sharply, after a pause, he said, ' That's Arnot ; I want to hear 
 what he is saying.' His son took occasion to say, ' Do you love 
 Arnot 1 ' ' Love him ! who would not love Arnot 1 I love him 
 
XXVI WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 as a brother.' These words have distilled like oil to soothe other 
 rufflings ever since — all the more that they were spoken while the 
 intellect was beclouded, and judgment not sitting on watch to 
 restrain the expression of the heart's thoughts." 
 
 Towards the close of the year 1873 the two American 
 evangelists, Moody and Sankey, paid their first visit to Edinburgh, 
 and Arnot was one of the first to throw himself heart and soul 
 into their work. He also wrote occasional notices of the work, 
 both for the Family Treasury and also for an American paper, 
 The Illustrated Christian Weekly, to which he was, from the time 
 of his last visit to America, a frequent contributorc 
 
 In the autumn of 1874 he once more spent a month on the 
 Continent, and during the winter of the same year he lectured in 
 Exeter Hall to the Young Men's Christian Association. His sub- 
 ject was, " The Foe and the Fight ; or. The Trinity of Evil,"— Belial 
 (vice), Infidel (unbelief). Idols (superstition), 2 Cor. vi. 15, 16. 
 
 Throughout the winter his strength declined steadily, but so 
 gradually that it was only on looking back over a considerable 
 period that the difference could be observed. A formal application 
 was made in the November of this year to the Assembly, in his 
 name, for a colleague and successoi\ At the monthly meeting 
 of the Presbytery, in January 1875, the proposal was brought 
 forward, and the necessary steps taken for bringing it before the 
 General Assembly in May. " Little did he then think that by the 
 time it reached the highest court of the Church the need of such 
 an application would be only too apparent. He lived only two 
 days after it was sanctioned by the Assembly." 
 
 For two or three months before the end his strengtli began to 
 fail, and to his friends he would let fall some touching hints that 
 the end was drawing near. To one he said, " I do not know 
 whether it is the sjyring season, or whether it is the atitumn of my 
 life; but I have never felt before as I do this spring." To another 
 he wrote, "The strength has leaked out of me this spring more 
 than ever heretofore." And so there followed some months of 
 
WILLIAM ARNOT. XXvii 
 
 gradual decline and " calm decay." But still he continued to work 
 as his strength permitted him. 
 
 In April he went to Stirling, to attend a religious convention ; 
 and the same day left for Glasgow, to be present at the funeral of 
 a near relative. 
 
 In May he went to London as a deputy from the Free Church 
 to the Synod of the English Presbyterian Church ] and during the 
 week he spent there he spoke twice at the Synod, twice at Moody's 
 meetings in the Opera House, and preached on Sunday, in the 
 forenoon, at Hampstead, and in the evening at Regent Square. 
 On the 16th, the last Sunday that he preached, his text in the 
 morning was, " We all, with open face beholding as in a glass the 
 glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to 
 glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." Against the wishes of 
 his family, who feared for his strength, he spoke in the afternoon, 
 shortly and simply, on the wise men from the east being guided 
 by the star to Bethlehem, On Monday he finished the preparation 
 of the June number of the Family Treasury. On Tuesday he 
 attended the noon prayer-meeting in the Assembly Hall, when he 
 opened his mouth in public for the last time. " Taking his text, 
 as he so often did, from Nature, he told how that morning, on 
 going into his vinery, he observed a branch drooping. On 
 examining it, to discover the cause, he found that it was a tie 
 which he had himself bound round it, some time before, to give it 
 support. The branch had grown since then, and the tie was now 
 so tight that it impeded the flow of the sap. He took out his 
 knife and severed it at once. He then spoke of ties around our 
 souls hindering us from full fruitfulness, and of the means by 
 which the great Husbandman loosens them. ' Sometimes he takes 
 the knife and cuts them through ; sometimes he sends such a I'ush 
 of life through the soul that it bursts every bond.' The friend 
 who after his death reported the substance of what he said, 
 added : ' It seemed to me as if his own soul was being visited with 
 such a ble.ssed rush of life.' " 
 
XXVlll WILLIAM ARNOT. 
 
 A few days of weariness followed, during which he was bright 
 and cheerful as ever. The last glimpses which his children got of 
 him, weak though he was and much confined to his room, were 
 very pleasant. Oftentimes he Avould sit in his easy-chair in his 
 garden, looking at his shrubs and flowers, and gladdened by their 
 beauty. "Never had earth seemed so fair to him in the fresh 
 green of early summer ; and expressions of admiration often burst 
 foi'th from his happy heart." He knew that he was drawing near 
 the goal ; but the good fight had been fought out and his course 
 finished. " Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright : for 
 the end of that man is peace." 
 
 The last day of his life he remained in bed most of the day, — 
 taking pains, however, to say that it was not because he felt worse, 
 but because he felt so useless when he was up In the evening he 
 rose and went to another room, where he sat for several hours. 
 Some letters ari-ived by the late post ; they were read to him after 
 he had lain down again. One was from a daughter at school, and 
 he laughed heartily at some girlish fun described in it. Another 
 was from the Convener of the Continental Committee, asking him 
 to go to Rome for the winter. His wife and daughters were 
 delighted with this proposal, knowing his desire to see Rome, and 
 thinking that the rest and change would recruit his strength. 
 When he was asked his opinion, he smiled, and said, " I feel like 
 the laddie who was off"ered jelly when he was too sick to take it, 
 and said, 'You never give me good things but when I canna 
 tak' them.'" About three in the morning he awoke in profuse 
 perspiration. Noticing the sweet warbling of the birds, he said, 
 "These sweet birds! they are singing for me." A little after- 
 wards his wife, hearing him speak, asked if he wished anything. 
 "No, dear," he answered; "I was not speaking to you." In less 
 than two hours she was awakened by the sound of coughing, and 
 running to his side, saw the blood flowing from his mouth. The 
 silver cord was being loosed, and the golden bowl was being broken 
 at the fountain. " He sank back on his pillow as if in a swoon, 
 
WILLIATM ARNOT. xxix 
 
 aud without a sigh, without a quiver, the spirit escaped away from 
 its tabernacle of clay." 
 
 He was buried in the Grange Cemetery, beside his eldest sister 
 and his infant child. On his monument are inscribed the appro- 
 priate words : " He walked with God : and he was not ; for God 
 took him." 
 
 This sketch of a good man cannot be better closed than with 
 an extract from the sermon preached by Professor Blaikie on the 
 Sunday following his death : " And now along the golden path, 
 and through the golden gate, he himself has passed to his Father's 
 house. And to you his death just deepens the lessons and ex- 
 hortations of his life — ' Choose the path to glory ; see how it 
 stretches from your very feet upward to the heavenly Jerusalem ; 
 let your citizenship be in heaven ; and while you are on earth 
 walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.' " 
 
THE HARVEST FIELD AND THE 
 HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 " The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few ; pray ye therefore 
 the Lord of the harvest, that he \vill send forth labourers into his harvest." — 
 Matt. ix. 37. 38. 
 
 PART FIRST. THE HARVEST FIELD, 
 
 |EVERAL distinct aspects of Christ's kingdom are 
 represented in the gospel under the figure of 
 grain, in its growing, ripening, and ingathering. 
 One view is set forth in the parable of the 
 sower, another in the parable of the tares, and another in the 
 separation of the chaff from the wheat ; but the conception 
 here is essentially different from all these. The harvest in 
 this similitude springs not from the seed of the word, 
 but from the root of human nature. The field is the 
 world, and mankind the crop that covers all its breadth. 
 The portions that are safely gathered represent the re- 
 deemed of the Lord ; and the portions that drop over-ripe 
 and rot on the ground represent those who perish in their 
 sins. This field is — 
 
 1. Precious, in the Very fact that it is a harvest-field. 
 Men, created a,t first in God's image, and capable yet, when 
 redeemed, of living in his presence for ever, are the fruit 
 which this world bears — the fruit for the sake of which 
 
 (753) 3 
 
34 THE HARVEST FIELD. 
 
 this world was made. If you ask a farmer what has been 
 the produce of a certain field, he will not in reply enumer- 
 ate roots, stalks, husks, and grain ; he will answer, in one 
 word, wheat ; the other portions of the plant are valuable, 
 not for their own sake, but for the sake of the grain 
 which they bear. Thus the various vegetable and .animal 
 products of the earth are the stalks that support humanity; 
 and humanity is the true fruit, for the sake of which our 
 Father, the husbandman, cultivates his field. The conclu- 
 sion of philosophy, reached through an examination of 
 Nature, without reference to Revelation, is that all creation, 
 from its earliest embryo, pointed to man. All that lies 
 beneath and that came before him was a preparation for 
 his coming. Creation contains abundant evidence that 
 the conception of humanity was in the Maker's mind from 
 the first, and that the purpose of calling man into being 
 ruled all the successive stages of the stupendous work. 
 
 An American citizen from the sunny South, travelling 
 once in New England, and holding its rugged hills in con- 
 tempt, demanded of a native what his country produced. 
 " My country produces men," said the descendant of the 
 Puritans. He was right. Man, made in God's image to be 
 his servant and his son, is the true, heavy, precious head ; 
 'plantations of cotton, sugar, rice, are merely the stalks 
 which support it. Silk, wool, flax ; wheat, barley, oats, 
 are precious only as food and clothing for the Father's 
 family. These articles are not separately reckoned in the 
 inventory of the great Proprietor's goods. After all these 
 things were made, and the world stored with them, its 
 Maker counted his work only begun ; it was then that God 
 said, " Let us make man in our image." All other pro- 
 ducts served only to make the earth ready for the recep- 
 
THE HARVEST FIELD. 35 
 
 tion of man. This is the fruit that God vahies. With this 
 he intends to fill his stores. When ransomed men are 
 gathered into heaven, the cotton crop, the silk crop, the grain 
 crop, and all the crops, will be left behind like stubble, 
 rotting in the field when its work is done. 
 
 Human beings are the head of God's creation. For these 
 he formed the green earth, and spread over it that bright 
 sky ; for these he hung the sun in heaven by day, and 
 sprinkled the stars like gold dust upon the canopy of night: 
 for these, when they fell, he gave his Son a ransom, and 
 prepared an eternal home on high ; over these, when they 
 are forgiven and purified, he rejoices with a joy unspeak- 
 able and full of glory. man, reverence thyself ! In 
 God's sight thou art precious ; be not vile in thine own ! 
 
 2. It is plenteous. So said he who sees it all and knows 
 its worth. We soon become bewildered when we try to 
 realize the numbers of human beings that live or have lived 
 on the earth ; but numbers do not burden God. It would 
 not weary him to enlighten every human heart, any more 
 than to send a beam of sunlight into the bosom of every 
 flower. More than ten hundred million live and breathe 
 at one time ; and many such generations have passed over 
 the stage in succession since time began ; yet the hairs of 
 every head are numbered, and omniscience is not baffled by 
 the account. There may be as many blades of grass in one 
 field as there are persons in Great Britain and Ireland ; and 
 yet every one of these gets its own drop of dew, and its 
 portion of colouring from the sun's rays. It is not more 
 difficult for God to care for us than to care for them. One 
 day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand 
 years as one day. In like manner, one man is with the 
 Lord as a worldful, and a worldful as one man. If the 
 
36 THE HARVEST FIT LT>. 
 
 existing population of the globe were multiplied by a 
 million, none would receive less of God's care ; and if there 
 were only one man in creation, he would not get more. 
 We are a great family who have been born into this 
 world, but not too many for the Creator's upholding 
 hand; and if we were all born again, we would find 
 room enough in the mansions of our Father's house. When 
 God's Israel have got through the fire and water, it is " a 
 large place" into which they are ushered as their eternal 
 home. 
 
 God has made all these of one blood. He has compassion 
 on the ignorant and them that are out of the way. He 
 will people heaven from every kindred and every tongue. 
 He so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. 
 The godly should be like God both in the wideness of their 
 view and the warmth of their love. If love be true, the 
 extent of its range will not diminish its intensity. It is 
 characteristic of God's laws and works that while they grasp 
 the greatest they do not neglect the least. The power that 
 balances the worlds in space, sharpens the down on a nettle 
 stalk. If we, the children of the kingdom, be in spirit like 
 our Father in heaven, no extension of range will dilute the 
 strength of our sympathy. He who has learned from 
 Christ to take the whole world within his embrace, loves 
 his own house more intensely than the man who loves his 
 own house alone. 
 
 The world, as distinguished from the people of God so- 
 journing in it, may be roughly divided into the three parts — 
 Pagan, Mohammedan, and Papist. Under the term Pagan 
 may be included all who do not know and worship the one 
 living and true God; under the term Mohammedan, all 
 who, worshipping one God, do not approach him by the 
 
THE HARVEST FIELD. 87 
 
 one Mediator Jesus Christ ; and under the term Papist, all 
 who, worshipping God and acknowledging Jesus, have added 
 a multitude of other mediators. 
 
 Pagans have not God. 
 Mohammedans have not Christ. 
 Papists have not Christ only. 
 
 (1.) Pagans. We should never forget, in this land of 
 light, that the larger portion of the human race is sitting 
 in darkness. We are not near Christ and not like him if 
 we do not take the burden of this fact upon our spirits. 
 More especially, the many millions of India and of Southern 
 Africa have been thrown upon the compassion of British 
 Christians. In respect to those feeble myriads who are 
 subject to our sway, we are like a rich family at whose 
 door a foundling has been laid. That vast multitude, nearly 
 equal to the population of Europe, has been thrown on our 
 hands. When they were sinking in anarchy we came to 
 the rescue. Pushing aside others who offered to undertake 
 the task, we drew the child out of the water. In our 
 hands it is helpless as a child. If she who drew the child 
 out of the water be a daughter of the king, she will bring 
 up the child, not in the bondage to which it was born, but 
 as a prince in her father's house. Alas ! we have done little 
 to bring the child up for our Father King. The Chinese, 
 though not directly subject to our sway, have a stronger 
 claim on our compassion. The nation has in time past 
 done them wrong, and Christians in the nation should en- 
 deavour to make compensation. We introduced or winked 
 at the introduction of a destroying flood ; we should pre- 
 pare a channel in which the water of life may flow. 
 
38 - THE HARVEST FIELD. 
 
 (2.) Mohammedans. The region of the false prophet's 
 rule is a study of intense interest to Christians in respect 
 of its geographical position. It constitutes a broad and 
 continuous belt, running across the world from the Atlantic 
 on the west to the deserts of Siberia on the north-east, 
 separating Christianity from Paganism. Observe the skil- 
 ful strategy of the god of this world. The gross idolatry 
 of the heathen was not allowed to come into contact with 
 the Christianity of the West. To meet the strongest enemy 
 a more ethereal system was pushed forward, and accordingly 
 Christianity and Paganism, previous to the date of modern 
 missions, were nowhere geographically conterminous. The 
 foolish idols were withdrawn into the dark bosom of the 
 East, and a line of stronger lies drawn up to cover them 
 from the onset of Christian truth. 
 
 When the power of Mohammed swept over Western Asia 
 and Eastern Europe like a lava flood, some Christian com- 
 munities were embedded in it, like Herculaneum and 
 Pompeii ; and these fossil Churches have been found of late 
 by some American missionary explorers. If the breath of 
 the Spirit bring life into the petrified skeletons, it will be 
 a Sfrand siofht to see a resurrection of dead Churches, after 
 the silence of many centuries, in the very lands where the 
 disciples of Jesus were first called Christians. 
 
 (3.) Papists, The greater part of the nations called 
 Christian have remained under the Roman Antichrist, or 
 are bound by the similar superstitions of the Greek Church. 
 I shall mention here only one feature of the many-sided 
 system, — the discovery lately made and proclaimed by the 
 Pope of the immaculate conception of the Virgin. On first 
 hearing the fact we are surprised that the Papacy should 
 thus expose its own weakness. One would think, if they 
 
THE HARVEST FIELD. 39 
 
 were wise in their generation, they would hold by antiquity, 
 and not confess that there are saving truths in religion 
 which Popes for many generations did not know. But 
 when w^e examine the state of the case, we find they could 
 not help themselves. They are in the power of a law as 
 mighty and as inexorable as gravitation. " Evil men and 
 seducers shall wax worse and worse." They cannot fix 
 their doctrine at the present point, although they would. 
 On — on they must go, like the fall of a stone or the flow 
 of a river. The Popish system, by the mere weight of its 
 wickedness, sinks necessarily deeper and deeper, until it fall 
 like a mill-stone into a sea of wrath. Priests and people 
 have for many generations been gravitating deeper and 
 deeper into the worship of Mary. In this direction the 
 mighty mass was moving, and it could not be recalled. Any 
 attempt to arrest the movement would have rent the huge 
 bulk of the Papacy asunder. The heads of the great 
 apostasy found themselves in this dilemma : the people with 
 one consent were worshippers of Mary as much as the 
 people of Ephesus were worshippers of the great goddess 
 Diana. They must either forbid the worship or declare its 
 object divine ; they must either go backward or forward. 
 Backward they were not able to go, and therefore, making 
 a virtue of necessity, they went forward. They separated 
 their idol from humanity ; they declared her a sinless being. 
 Happy Mary ! she got safe to heaven before these lies were 
 invented. She rejoiced in God her Saviour, while these her 
 worshippers, if they had been living then, would have told 
 her she was mistaken — that she had no sin, original or 
 actual, to be saved from. 
 
 Be of good courage, then ; the apostasy of Rome cannot 
 help itself. Further and faster it must fall by an inexorable 
 
40 THE HARVEST FIELD. 
 
 law, until the jubilant cry be raised by emancipated nations, 
 " Babylon is fallen, is fallen, and shall be found no more 
 at all." 
 
 But in a general survey of the field, we must not over- 
 look the portion that lies nearest ourselves. Multitudes of 
 our own flesh and blood, speaking our own language, and 
 dwelling on our own soil, are living without God and dying 
 without hope. As the Lord intimated to his disciples in 
 Samaria, we have only to lift up our eyes where we stand, 
 and we shall see fields large enough to occupy all our 
 energies. The need of home missions has been fully recog- 
 nized by the Church, and the work of home missions has 
 been fairly begun. The features of this work, however, 
 with its difficulties and its hopes, may be more appropriately 
 noticed in connection with the latter portion of the parable — 
 the prayer for an increase of harvest-labourers. In the 
 meantime, looking generally to the world as the field to 
 which the reapers must be sent, we gather from manifold 
 symptoms that — 
 
 3. It is rijje. In the days of our Lord there was a 
 divinely arranged readiness in the world for receiving his 
 truth. It ran like the breaking out of waters over the 
 empty aching breast of Greece and Rome. The Master saw 
 that readiness, and pointed it out to his disciples in a tone 
 of reproof. They were inclined to delay ; he was eager to 
 send them forth upon their work. Accordingly (John iv. 
 35) he said, "Say not ye. There are yet four months, and 
 then cometh harvest ?... Lift up your eyes, and look on 
 the fields ; for they are white already to harvest." Wliat- 
 ever interval might be needed to ripen the natural grain, the 
 spiritual field was ready for the reaper. There was a pant- 
 ing expectation both in Jew and Gentile then, and the 
 
THE HARVEST FIELD. 41 
 
 Master commanded his servants to strike in while the 
 opportunity was good. 
 
 I believe at no period since Jesus spoke these words 
 to the twelve in Samaria were the fields so generally 
 and so manifestly ready for the reapers as they are in 
 our day. 
 
 The idols of the heathen are losino; hold and totterinor 
 to their fall. The Euphrates is drying up from its springs, 
 — the doctrines of the prophet are effete, and his followers 
 do not find their hands. The Papacy is rent from within, 
 and its empty and disappointed multitudes, discontented 
 with the teachers who have cheated them, are opener, there- 
 fore, to the advent of the truth. Even the Jews are weary 
 with waiting, and the godless multitudes of our great cities are 
 heaving like the sea in a ground-swell, some with dumb, 
 indefinite desires, not knowing what ails them, but some 
 with the grand old question of a quickened soul, " What 
 must I do to be saved ? " ^ No worker needs to wait four 
 months or four days for the harvest. The fields are already 
 white. There is a tide in human things which should be 
 taken at the flood. When the gTain is ripe it comes easy 
 to the gatherer's hand. But — 
 
 4. It is perishing. When vast breadths of land have 
 been sown in spring, and few hands can be found in harvest 
 to gather it, the sight is one of the saddest. So much come 
 to the birth, and not strength to bring forth ! The heavy 
 ripened fields are bending and growing black, and falling to 
 the ground. Whatever may have caused the scarcity of 
 reapers ; whether war or pestilence or oppression may have 
 cut them down or cast them away, or whether it be mere 
 indolence that clogs exertion, the sight of food left to perish 
 is equally a melancholy sight. 
 
42 THE HARVEST FIELD, 
 
 Seldom does sncli a sight present itself, for men value 
 the fruit of the earth. They cannot want it, and therefore 
 they make adequate exertions to secure it. We know what 
 hunger is, and therefore we do not waste food. When our 
 spiritual appetites become as keen as our natural, God will 
 get his work done. When it becomes our meat to do the 
 Father's will and to finish his work, we shall be like Christ; 
 and soon thereafter, I suppose, we shall be with him, and 
 see him as he is. 
 
II. 
 
 THE HARVEST FIELD AND THE 
 HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 "Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the 
 labourers are few ; pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will 
 send forth labourers into his harvest." — Matt. ix. 37, 38. 
 
 PART SECOND. THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 HEAVY burden lies on the husbandman's heart 
 when he sees his cornfields fully ripe, and 
 knows not where to find a sufficient band of 
 reapers. The thought that the last year's 
 labour and the coming winter's hope may both be lost 
 together occupies and oppresses him. For the fruit he 
 planned and toiled and spent his means ; and shall it slip, 
 now that it is so near his lip ? 
 
 This heaviness of heart the Man of sorrows employed to 
 express his care at the sight of human generations perish- 
 ing for lack of knowledge. When he lifted up his eyes 
 and saw the people of Sychar coming out in companies to 
 the well, his soul yearned for their salvation as for the 
 reaping of ripened fruit, lest it should drop and be lost for 
 ever. " Lift up your eyes," he said to the twelve, " and look 
 on the fields ; for they are white already to harvest " (John 
 iv. 35). If the mind that was in Christ were in his people 
 now, there is much in the aspect of the world fitted to stir 
 both fear and hope in their breasts. 
 
44 THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 I. As the world's population, living and dying without 
 God, appears in the Redeemer's eye a great harvest- field, 
 ripe and ready to perish, those who in any sphere strive to 
 win souls are, in his eye, as reapers gathering the wheat 
 into the garner. A labourer need not expect to lead an 
 easy, idle life. To eat his bread with the sweat of his brow 
 is a necessity of his condition. Our Father is our Master ; 
 and he says, Son, go work to-day in my vineyard. For a 
 reconciled man who possesses the spirit of adoption work 
 is worship. The labour of his hand, as well as the song: of 
 
 -I. ^ O 
 
 his lips, is praise to the Lord that bought him. Christ 
 the Son made himself a servant, and it was his meat to do 
 the Father's will. Christians are admitted to be Christ's 
 fellow-servants ; and the more they resemble the Lord, the 
 more they rejoice in their work. 
 
 Labourers are not a high class of functionaries. They 
 need not expect to get all their own will as to the times 
 and places of their toil. It is their business not to select 
 the field that jileases themselves, but to labour diligently 
 at the task which the Master may have assigned them. 
 What thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might. The 
 Husbandman may send some of the reapers into a thin and 
 comparatively barren field, where they must bend very low 
 and toil very long ere they get their bosoms filled with 
 corn ; and he may send others to a more favoured spot, 
 where with less exertion and in a shorter time they may 
 gather many sheaves. Sometimes, in the natural sphere, a 
 jealousy springs up, and a murmuring breaks out among 
 the reapers on this ground ; but in the spiritual harvest 
 there is no cause for complaint : there is no respect of 
 persons with God — " Be thou faithful unto death, and I will 
 give thee a crown of life." The Judsre of all the earth 
 
THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 45 
 
 when he distributes the eternal reward lays the emphasis, 
 not on the number o£ the talents that may liave been 
 intrusted to the servant, but on the faithfulness of the 
 servant in the execution of his trust. 
 
 II. In the judgment of the Lord Jesus the labourers 
 were few. They were few then ; they are few still. We 
 are not at liberty to set aside the force of the word by 
 pointing out that the circumstances are different in our 
 day. Such a prophecy of Scripture is not of any private 
 interpretation. Jesus spake as never man spake. He 
 spoke to his own generation with his eye on all generations. 
 Although, in point of fact, a much greater number of 
 labourers are employed in the harvest-field to-day, the Lord 
 himself would not retract his word if he were now amongst 
 us. He would still say, " The labourers are iew." After a 
 multitude whom no man could number had entered by the 
 narrow gate into the kingdom, he cried, " Few there be that 
 find it." A great multitude have pressed in since that day, 
 and yet he would certainly repeat the same cry were he 
 on earth again. His heart is so enlarged toward a lost 
 world that he will complain, Few are coming, until the last 
 man is safe within the gate. In like manner here he would 
 not retract his plaintive word about the paucity of the 
 labourers because one Church has sent fifty missionaries to 
 the heathen, and another a hundred. All flesh is grass ; 
 but the word of the Lord abideth for ever : it is true for 
 us to-day. The labourers are few, — few in proportion to 
 the world's need ; few in proportion to the compassion of 
 the Lord. As that same Jesus from his throne to-day 
 looks down upon the world, and counts the numbers that 
 attempt to reap the vast fields of India, and China, and 
 
46 THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 Africa — the vast fields of our overgrown cities in so-called 
 Christian lands — we may rest assured he will not retract 
 or modify his word, " The labourers are few." 
 
 A very remarkable contrast is presented in the multi- 
 tudes that may sometimes be seen pressing forward to the 
 natural harvest. The pressure has slackened of late ; but 
 a few years ago you might have seen, any day about the 
 beginning of autumn, dense crowds of Irish labourers 
 clustering like bees about the wharves of Liverpool and 
 Glasgow. On one occasion the master of a Londonderry 
 steamer, on arriving at Glasgow, was prosecuted for admit- 
 ting a much greater number of passengers than his ship was 
 legally entitled to carry. His defence was that the men 
 rushed on board in spite of his efforts to prevent them, and 
 took forcible possession of the deck. Such were the 
 numbers that poured into the Scottish harvest-fields at that 
 time, and such the eagerness of each man to get a share of 
 the work and the reward. 
 
 It is even so : natural wants press heavily, and their 
 pressure is keenly felt. The motive is sufficient to throw 
 an abundance of labourers into the harvest. But a spiritual 
 taste and a divine power are needed to fill with reapers 
 that vast ripe field over which the compassionate Saviour 
 looked and lonsfed. 
 
 III. When additional labourers enter the field, they are 
 sent into it by the Lord of the harvest. The expression 
 " send forth " in the English version is feebler than the 
 corresponding term in the original. The word which the 
 Lord employs conveys the idea of force. It is literally 
 " throw out," as missiles are thrown in war into a besieged 
 city. The labourers are grasped by the providential hand 
 
TIIK HARVEST LABOURERS. 47 
 
 of God, and thrown upon the field where their services arc 
 needed, not indeed against their will, but by means of their 
 will. They are made willing in a day of power. A secret 
 force, like the force of fire, is generated within the man, — 
 as it were behind and beneath his will. While the man is 
 musing alternately on the Redeemer's mercy to himself, 
 and the need of a perishing world, this fire burns and dis- 
 turbs his rest. To such a height of pressure the force at 
 leno-th attains that he can no longer resist : he is torn from 
 the fastenings where he had said. Soul, eat and drink and 
 take thine ease, and thrown with a great impetus forth 
 from himself and into the field of labour. It is after this 
 manner that missionaries are made. He works best on 
 this field who cannot help working : " Woe is unto me if 
 I preach not the gospel." The power that throws the 
 missionary into the field is the love of Christ to his own 
 soul : it is divine mercy tasted in secret that swells about 
 his heart, until all barriers burst, and the volunteer conies 
 forth with the old offer founded on the old reason, " O 
 
 Lord, I am thy servant thou hast loosed my bonds." 
 
 The distinction between a missionary properly so called, 
 who abandons his secular calling and devotes himself 
 wholly to the ministry of the word, and a disciple who 
 abides in his calling and commends the gospel to his neigh- 
 bours, although important, is a distinction of detail and not 
 of principle. The Lord has need of both sorts ; and the 
 world has need of both. Some portions of the work can- 
 not be reached except by men set apart for the purpose ; 
 and other parts cannot be reached except by the silent 
 every-day influence of Christians upon the consciences of 
 those with whom they come into closest contact from day to 
 day and from hour to hour. The Master will send some 
 
48 THE HARVEST LABOURERS, 
 
 reapers forth into great and distant fields, and some down 
 into minute openings, where only those can work who are 
 every day and all day upon the spot. 
 
 " The poor always ye have with you," not "only indicates 
 a fact of history, but reveals a plan and purpose of the 
 Lord. Exercise is provided for the spiritual life. None 
 shall be able to say that the field was too distant, and that 
 he consequently had not an opportunity of rendering service 
 as a reaper. A man cannot sit at meals in his own family, 
 walk along the streets, or pursue his daily toil on the farm 
 or in the workshop, without passing along this laden 
 harvest-field. Everywhere precious fruit, ready to perish, 
 offers itself to the reaper's hand. Nowhere in the world 
 at the present day can a sadder sight be seen than in the 
 great cities of so-called Christian lands. Great, needy, 
 promising fields have been placed within reach of every 
 disciple of Christ ; none should stand idle. If any stand 
 all the day idle, they will not at last be permitted 
 to urge either that the field was distant or that the 
 hirer made no proposal. Work is offered to every one, 
 and the reward is sure. To win souls is both work and 
 wages. 
 
 To illustrate the manner in which it pleases the Lord of 
 the harvest sometimes to throw a reaper into the field, I 
 shall mention one example which came under my own 
 personal knowledge. 
 
 In a remote rural district of Scotland, a boy passed 
 through a spiritual struggle of several stages, resisting the 
 Spirit with varying measures of determination, in order to 
 keep himself free for the expected pleasures of the world, 
 but never able wholly to silence the still small voice. At 
 length the love of Christ gained the mastery, and the youth 
 
THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 49 
 
 surrendered ; not unwillingly, but because now his will had 
 been won, and it became both a reasonable and a pleasant 
 service to own the Redeemer as his King. Few, perhaps 
 none, were aware of the conflict while it lasted, for he kept 
 it secret as if it were a crime. 
 
 Having occasion one day, after he had chosen conclusively 
 his side, to cross a range of hills on his way to the market 
 town of the district, he must needs pass a lonely thatched 
 cottage where he knew a poor and very old man lay dying. 
 He must go in ; he dare not pass by ; the groans of the 
 old man would have followed and haunted him. Nor was 
 he unwilling to go in ; the conflict now lay with a certain 
 conventional and constitutional bashfulness. Grown now, 
 but inexperienced and shame-faced, he stepped in and 
 stood by the old man's bed, repeated some texts, and 
 uttered some timid words to commend Christ to a sinner. 
 He was about to take leave, when the old man's daughter, 
 herself far advanced in life, and of rough, ungainly appear- 
 ance, came forward, tamed at least for the time by a sense 
 of loneliness, and with a beseeching look from filling eyes, 
 underneath long shaggy eyebrows, and gray dishevelled 
 hair that hung over a weather-beaten, wrinkled brow, said, 
 " Ye'll pray wi' my faither ? " The youth was enclosed ; 
 the net was round him ; his retreat was cut off; backward 
 he cannot, forward he must go. He prayed for the first 
 time in the hearincj of strangers. Such was the instrument 
 that the Lord of the harvest employed that day to come 
 behind one reaper who was hesitating and holding back on 
 the border, and to throw him, ere he was well aware, over 
 that dreaded fence into the harvest-field. It is a long, 
 long time ago ; and, God helping him, he is in the field, a 
 reaper still to-day. 
 
 (753) 4 
 
50 THE HARVEST LABOURERS. 
 
 IV. The Lord of the harvest presses labourers into the 
 field in answer to the prayers of his people. The request 
 of Jesus possesses a tender interest for us. He who bids 
 us address this prayer to the Father knows the Father's 
 mind, and always does what pleases Him. Let it be settled 
 firmly in a disciple's mind that Christ would not persuade 
 us to say anything to the Father that the Father would 
 not like to hear ; and it is certain that the Father loves to 
 grant the requests that he loves to hear. Indeed, it is be- 
 cause he longs to grant the requests that he delights to hear 
 them. There is an encouragement of peculiar power to 
 induce us to prefer the request in the fact that the 
 Mediator between God and man urges us to prefer it at 
 the throne. 
 
 But some who hear, and hear with reverence, the word 
 of Jesus, so far from being themselves ready to be sent 
 forth as reapers, may be in sadness reckoning themselves 
 the wheat that is not yet gathered and ready to perish. 
 Yet even in these circumstances he who hears the word of 
 Christ should obey it, — should pray the Lord of the harvest 
 to send forth labourers. Let the first groans of an anxious 
 soul be shaped into this prayer, and the Lord may send 
 out a reaper to gather thee. We know that the Spirit of 
 God sent out Philip from his mission work in the city to a 
 desert place near Gaza, to meet the Ethiopian treasurer 
 there, — a reaper to gather a precious head of wheat into 
 the garner ; but I think that silent sable African, with his 
 weeping eye bent on Isaiah's gospel, had sent a petition up 
 to the Lord of the harvest for a reaper ; and in answer to 
 his own prayer a labourer was sent out to the field to 
 gather him in. 
 
III. 
 
 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 "Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I 
 say imto you. Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields ; for they are white 
 already to harvest." — John iv. 35. 
 
 HE conception here is closely allied to the subject 
 of our last paper. The two parables are recip- 
 rocally complements of each other; together 
 they constitute one whole. The second fills up 
 the spaces that were left open in the first ; consequently it 
 is convenient and useful to examine them in immediate 
 succession. 
 
 Never man spake like this man, because never man was 
 like this man ; his lessons, both in substance and in form, 
 sprang naturally and necessarily from his life. The two- 
 fold nature of the Mediator was continually revealing 
 itself in his words and his ways. The life of Jesus, as it 
 lies in the evangelic histories, is a riddle which men cannot 
 read until they find the key in his name, Emmanuel, and 
 his nature, God with us. It is a life within a life ; at 
 every turn in his history the divinity glances from human 
 words and acts, as a burning light shines through a trans- 
 parent covering. 
 
 In many instances the language which the Lord em- 
 ployed partook of his own twofold nature ; and this pecu- 
 
52 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 liarity served to deposit his doctrines in the memoiy of his 
 disciples, without revealing their full meaning until his 
 work was finished. In these cases, while the body of the 
 words represented temporal things, their soul within was 
 occupied with things unseen and eternal. The passage in 
 John ii. 19—21 affords an example of the peculiar duality 
 of meaning which often attached to the words of the Lord: 
 " Jesus answered and said unto them. Destroy this temple, 
 and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, 
 Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt 
 thou rear it up in three days ? But he spake of the 
 temple of his body," 
 
 It was his manner, while conversing about common 
 things, to be occupied in secret with his own saving work, 
 and to employ the terms as a channel to convey some law 
 of the kingdom or some purpose of the King. Several 
 examples occur in the narrative where this parable is found 
 embedded. While he continued to speak to the Samaritan 
 woman about the natural water which she had drawn from 
 Jacob's well, he employed the words as a vessel wherewith 
 to pour the good news from a far country into a thirsty 
 soul. While at a subsequent stage the subject in hand 
 between himself and the disciples was the food which 
 nature greatly needed, he was speaking of his own redemp- 
 tion work as the savoury meat which his soul loveth. 
 And yet once more, while the senses of the disciples are 
 occupied with the sown field and the expected harvest, the 
 Master's meaning is. Souls are perishing ; haste to the 
 rescue. 
 
 It was seed-time in Samaria when these events occurred 
 and these words were spoken. The period is determined, 
 directly by the terms of the text, and indirectly by the 
 
THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 53 
 
 circumstances of the context. It is obviously implied that 
 any one who should look simply to the course of nature 
 would have said at that time and place, Four months hence 
 it will be harvest. Further : from the abundant reference 
 to sowing in relation to reaping which occurs in the suc- 
 ceeding verses, we may gather that on the journey north- 
 ward that morning they had seen the husbandmen on 
 either side of the path busily employed in the process of 
 committing the seed to the ploughed ground. 
 
 Every reader of the evangelic history is aware that the 
 Lord Jesus, looking on creation and redemption from the 
 centre of the eternal purpose in which both were planned, 
 was wont to think and speak of them in parallel lines. 
 None could so well cause the two worlds to throw light 
 reciprocally on each other as the Author and Finisher of 
 both. The Lord saw and acknowledged a many-sided and 
 various analogy between nature and grace. At another 
 time and place the operations of seed-time, as seen on the 
 shores of the Lake of Galilee, suggested to him the parable 
 of the sower ; while on this occasion the same scene brings 
 up a completely different lesson. There the sowing sug- 
 gested the many obstacles which might interfere to prevent 
 the growth and ripening of the grain ; here it suggests the 
 vastness of the harvest, the rapidity with which it ripens, 
 and the consequent necessity of having many reapers ready 
 to pour into the field. In the ministry of Jesus, two or 
 more distinct and separate spiritual lessons spring from the 
 same natural fact, as two or more wheat stalks spring from 
 one grain of seed. 
 
 It is a remarkable and most instructive feature of this 
 brief parable that it points out both a likeness and an 
 unlikeness between the natural and the spiritual husbandry. 
 
54 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 In general, the sowing of the seed in spring and the reap- 
 ing of the grain in harvest are like the preaching of the 
 word and the gathering of saved souls ; but in one par- 
 ticular feature they are decisively and conspicuously unlike. 
 The points of similarity are many and obvious ; the one 
 point of dissimilarity, singled out in the instructions of 
 the Lord, is, that whereas in the natural husbandry four 
 months must intervene between the sowing and the reap- 
 ing, in the spiritual husbandry, on the contrary, no such 
 fixed and uniform period of time elapses after the gospel 
 has been preached ere its ripened fruits are gathered in the 
 conversion of sinners. In this department the ripe fruit 
 may appear the same day — the same hour in which the 
 seed of the word has been cast into a contrite heart ; or 
 it may lie dormant, not only four months, but forty years, 
 and come in great abundance at last. 
 
 On this distinction let the form and order of our exposi- 
 tion turn. Notice first the Likeness and then the Unlike- 
 ness which the Lord here acknowledges and employs 
 between the natural and the spiritual husbandry, esiDecially 
 in the relation between sowing and reaping. 
 
 I. The natural sowing and reaping suggest, represent, 
 and illustrate the sowing and the reaping in the kingdom 
 of grace. The beginning of a process suggests the end. 
 In the spring-time, as you walk along the highway, you 
 may observe either the actual operation of sowing, or care- 
 ful preparation for it, on almost every field. 
 
 The first coming of Christ was the seed-time, and his 
 second coming will be the harvest. From the seed which 
 was then dropped into the ground will spring ripened fruit, 
 like the stars of heaven or the sand of the sea-shore for 
 
THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 55 
 
 multitude. The ten thousand times ten thousand that 
 stand round the throne in white clothing constitute the 
 harvest, wavino- like Lebanon, — a manifold increase from 
 the handful of seed sown on the mountains of Israel, when 
 the Son of God took our nature and gave himself 
 for sin. 
 
 Generally, the seed is the word, and the sowers are the 
 ministers of the gospel. Wherever and whenever Christ 
 is preached, there is a sowing of the precious seed. 
 
 But in all cases the sowing is only a means to an end. 
 It is the hope of harvest that induces the husbandman to 
 cast his seed into the ground, and sustains him through the 
 heavy labour of the sj)ring. If he did not desire to reap, 
 he would not sow ; and if he did not expect to reap, he 
 could not. No man ever yet cast the material seed into 
 the ground for the sake of the sowing. He would be 
 counted mad who should go forth ostentatiously and labori- 
 ously to sow seed in the field, performing the operation 
 with a knowinsj and elegant air, counting: his work done 
 when the grain was lost to view under the clods, and never 
 coming back to look for a profitable return. Every man 
 that sows, sows in order to have an increase in harvest. 
 Those who have their bosom filled with the incorruptible 
 seed of the word should do likewise. When we have 
 preached, even when we have preached well, our work is 
 not done, our end is not attained. He is wise that winneth 
 souls. It is enough to console a man for all the pain of 
 spring, when he went forth weeping, bearing precious seed^ 
 to tell him that he will return rejoicing, bringing his 
 sheaves with him. 
 
 This is the only aim that will animate a ministry as 
 a living soul^ and sustain a minister as a connnanding 
 
56 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 motive, — to save a soul from death and hide a multitude 
 of sins. 
 
 When many anxious inquirers come to a minister, and 
 many under his advice close with Christ as their righteous- 
 ness, the joy is like the joy of harvest. Though in harvest 
 the work is heaviest, it is then that the workers are most 
 cheerful. There is a providential arrangement here ; and 
 the rule holds good in both husbandries. 
 
 II. Consider now the single feature in which there is a 
 marked dissimilarity between the natural and the spiritual 
 husbandry. Whereas in nature a known and uniform 
 period, in each country and climate, intervenes between the 
 sowing and the reaping, in grace the fruits may be 
 gathered at any season of the year, and at any length of 
 time, from the least to the greatest, after the seed of the 
 word has been sown. 
 
 In this respect the word of the Lord intimates that 
 there is a specific contrast between the two departments. 
 He put the question to the discijDles as an emphatic method 
 of affirming that they were accustomed to say. We shall 
 have harvest in four months. It would have been an 
 inversion of the order of nature if the fields had been ripe 
 on the day that they were sown or the day after. Yet he 
 announces emphatically that the fields were already white 
 to harvest. Lift up your eyes and see. Alas ! they were 
 not adept in the art of lifting up their eyes or their souls. 
 It was downward and earthward that they ordinarily 
 looked. It needed an elevation of position and an enlight- 
 enment of eye to enable them to understand that in the 
 labour to which they had been called they might reap as 
 soon as they had sowed. 
 
THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 57 
 
 Two lessons, distinct but cognate, emerge here, one on 
 either side. The interval between the sowing and the 
 reaping is not the same in the kingdom of grace as it is 
 in the kingdom of nature : — 
 
 1. It may be shorter. 
 
 2. It may be longer. 
 
 On the one hand it is not necessary for sowers of the word 
 to wait four months ere they begin to look for a return ; 
 and, on the other hand, although they have waited four 
 months, or as many years, without seeing a single ripened 
 stalk, they should not despair of success or abandon the 
 enterprise. 
 
 1. Do not wait four months, for the harvest may come 
 at an earlier period. The seed that is sown to-day may be 
 ripe to-night. An example of such a rapid progress to 
 maturity was set before the disciples that day beside 
 Jacob's well. Jesus has dropped the seed into that poor 
 woman's heart. See the great, plump fragrant seeds as 
 they drop from the Sower's hand : " Whosoever drinketh of 
 the water that I shall give him shall never thirst ; but the 
 water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water 
 springing up into everlasting life" (ver. 14). She had 
 gone away into the town and invited her neighbours. In 
 the interval of her absence the conversation took place 
 between the Lord and his disciples in which he told them 
 that though the cultivators in the neighbourhood must 
 wait four months after having deposited the seed in the 
 ground ere they could expect to reap their harvest, it was 
 not so in the kingdom of God. They might sow to-day 
 and to-morrow reap abundantly. Peter, when at Pentecost 
 he saw the heads of the surrounding multitude drooping 
 
58 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 on their breasts under his preaching, like ripe ears of grain 
 under an autumn sun, would doubtless remember the 
 words of the Lord Jesus, how he said, on the very day of 
 the sowing, The fields are white already to the harvest. 
 
 " Lift up your eyes," he said, perhaps not an hour 
 after the sowing, "and look on the fields... they are white 
 already." At this point he glides from the natural to the 
 spiritual. Those who were on the spot would observe the 
 transition easily ; for in point of fact the agricultural fields 
 in view were not white. They were black, as being 
 newly ploughed and sown. But I think it probable that a 
 stream of people from Sychar, stirred by the tidings which 
 the woman bore, were by this time pouring along the road 
 towards the well where the Messiah stood, and that these 
 were the whitened fields on which the Master would send 
 his servants to work. To the left, when they lifted up 
 their eyes, they would see an enclosure of dull black earth, 
 for which, although the seed was already in its bosom, the 
 owner must wait four months ere he could get any ripe 
 return ; but to the right, although the seed was only sown 
 that day at noon, already the harvest of anxious souls was 
 waving like Lebanon, inviting the reaper to enter and fill 
 his bosom with the sheaves. 
 
 Those who minister the word of Christ, wdiether more 
 publicly or more privately, are at once sowers and reapers. 
 Like the cultivators in the natural sphere, the same persons 
 must sow the seed and gather in the harvest ; but unlike 
 the cultivators of the ground, those who care for souls may 
 and should expect to reap immediately after they have 
 cast away the seed. Here then is the lesson for the 
 reapers whom this Master sends into his field. Never fold 
 your hands and say we must wait — the fruit cannot 
 
THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 59 
 
 ajDpear till such and such an interval. Go out to gather, 
 expecting to get your bosom full ; lest while you are 
 waiting the harvest whiten suddenly, and soon waste for 
 want of reapers. 
 
 The Master gives sometimes to the sowers a glad reaping 
 in the spring, but not uniformly, not always. 
 
 2, The second branch of the lesson is, — Do not despond 
 and count your labour lost, although four months, 
 although four — forty years pass and the seed which you 
 have been all the time sowing should lie still hidden in 
 the ground. If the cultivator of the grain field do not see 
 his harvest whitening in about four months, he abandons 
 hope : he knows that if he do not get a harvest from the 
 spring's sowing now, he will get it never. In the spiritual 
 husbandry, where ministers are fellow-workers with God in 
 the saving of the lost, this rule does not hold good. As 
 the seed of the word may ripen earlier, so also it may 
 ripen later, than other seed. 
 
 It is well worthy of remark here that although these 
 peculiarities are contrary to each other, the Lord of the 
 harvest makes them both alike work for good to his ser- 
 vants in their toil. To know that some of the seed ripens 
 early, keeps their hopes active from the first ; and to know 
 that some of the seed ripens late, prevents their hopes 
 from sinking even to the last. 
 
 One most precious aspect of the law that the spiritual 
 seed may bring forth fruit after it has long lain dormant, 
 is specially singled out by the Lord in a subsequent part 
 of the same conversation, where he intimates to the 
 disciples that " one soweth and another reapeth." How 
 broad and deep is the counsel of God in this feature of his 
 covenant ! It is fitted to multiply the labourers and 
 
60 THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 
 
 intensify their toil. To draw forth the reapers, and 
 give them an impulse in their w^ork, it is proclaimed that 
 seed sown long ago by some who have entered into rest 
 may be now growing white for the sickle ; and that conse- 
 quently those who now enter the service may enjoy the 
 delight and the reward of reaping where they have not 
 sown. On the other hand, where there is faith in God, 
 a patient sower is greatly comforted by learning that the 
 living seed is not lost, although his own eyes should not 
 behold the golden sheen of harvest. Even when these 
 eyes are closing in death, the servant of the Lord who has 
 been faithful in his day may depart in the joyful hope 
 that many sons shall be brought into glory as the fruit of 
 his saving work. 
 
 Both are best, and God has shown his goodness in giving 
 both. We could not hold on, unless some of the seed 
 should ripen in our own sight and be gathered by our own 
 hands ; and we should abandon the work in despair, unless 
 we were held up, on the other side, by the knowledge that 
 after many days the seed sown now may send up a plenti- 
 ful harvest. In times of special spiritual quickening, 
 beautiful mixtures of both methods occur. Some of the 
 seed sown long before by other labourers ripens suddenly 
 then, and is gathered on the same day with fruit that 
 springs from the sowing of yesterday. 
 
 Men are the reapers in this harvest : there is no limit 
 as to the capacity that each shall possess or the numbers 
 that may be employed. As to numbers, the rule is, " Let 
 him that heareth, say, Come." Every one who knows that 
 Christ is precious should make his secret known to his 
 neighbour ; and as to capacity, the Master has need of men 
 — little ones who have one talent, as well as of the great 
 
THE FIELDS WHITE ALREADY TO HARVEST. 01 
 
 who have ten. These are the reapers in this harvest ; but 
 another harvest follows that will be gathered by another 
 class of labourers. Time is the spring season, death is the 
 sowing, resurrection is the harvest, and the reapers are the 
 angels. When the earth and the sea give up their dead, 
 the fields will be white to harvest, and a mighty band of 
 reapers will have their hands full of work. 
 
 Some rocky islets are so covered at certain times by 
 white sea-birds, that they seem from a distance islands of 
 snow. When an alarm is sounded the whole multitude 
 rise into the air, like a cloud that hides the sunlight from 
 the landscape. This black earth sailing through space, 
 protruding like a rugged islet from the waters of infinitude, 
 will, methinks, appear one day white like a hill of snow. 
 When the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall rise, oh, 
 what a harvest ! These angel reapers will quickly fill 
 their bosoms with the sheaves. Christ died and rose again, 
 the first-fruits ; then shall all that are his arise to meet 
 him, the full harvest of the ransomed that shall at last 
 fully satisfy his soul. 
 
IV. 
 LIBERTY. 
 
 " If tlie Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed." 
 John viii. 36. 
 
 I REE indeed! Really free! There must, there- 
 fore, be a freedom which is imaginary, unreal, 
 delusive. I know not a feature of our fallen 
 world that is more frequently displayed, or 
 more melancholy to look upon, than this. A whole family 
 or a whole nation in bondage is a sad sight ; but the 
 measure of its sadness is multiplied tenfold if the cruel 
 conqueror has put out the eyes of the captives, so that 
 they do not see their prison walls, and fondly dream them- 
 selves free. Examples of persons who, being enslaved, 
 foolishly imagine themselves free, instead of needing to be 
 discovered and picked out, are strewn on the surface of the 
 world as green grass in summer or as withered leaves in 
 autumn. 
 
 Ask the visitor of a mad-house what was the saddest 
 sight he saw ; he will immediately describe to you the 
 patient who had contrived to plait a crown out of rags and 
 tinsel, and strutted about with the toy on his head giving 
 orders right and left, as a king, to imaginary fleets and 
 armies ; casting all the while stolen and startled glances 
 toward the iron bars of the window, and trembling when 
 
LIBERTY. 63 
 
 the stern look of the keeper met his eye. This man is an 
 object of pity even among his fellow-captives, who rave 
 some degrees less wildly than himself. 
 
 You have lain down to sleep, perhaps more wearied than 
 your wont, and have dreamt that, free from the law of 
 gravity, you soared at will in all the upper air. But when 
 you awoke your limbs were stifFer and heavier than here- 
 tofore ; you could scarcely trail them along the ground. 
 Flying was a dream ; the cold reality scarcely amounted to 
 a walk on the earth ; it was only a painful dragging of 
 benumbed limbs. 
 
 In literary and political circles liberty is plentiful as a 
 profession but scanty as a power. In those departments, 
 freedom and independence are frequently employed as 
 terms of sarcasm when men desire to make sport of the 
 bondage. 
 
 But the cases which are at once most characteristic and 
 most numerous are those in which a man loudly boasts of 
 his liberty, while vice, like a possessing spirit, rules in his 
 heart and lashes him to diligence in his deOTadin^ task. 
 I need not describe in detail the miserable drudgery of the 
 slaves. The description, like the public exhibition of a 
 cripple's sores, would be both repulsive and unnecessary. 
 When a drunkard has been tormented, body and soul, by 
 the demon that possesses him— tormented as cruelly as the 
 martyrs in ancient persecutions — the poor victim's resolu- 
 tion under the compulsion of his keeper is. When I awake 
 I will seek it yet again. Apart from the redemption by 
 Clirist and the renewing by the Spirit, the struggles of a 
 sinful race to shake off their bonds are like those of Samson 
 when his locks were shorn and his eyes out, with the 
 Philistines making sport of the giant's pain. 
 
64 LIBERTY. 
 
 The Jews of that day took it ill that Jesus should pro- 
 pose to 'make them free. The offer of liberty implied the 
 imputation that they were slaves : this they rejected with 
 disdain. " We are Abraham's seed, and were never in 
 bondage to any man;" and this at a time when the Romans 
 held the province with their legions and made their own 
 will the law. We can see through the flimsy pretexts 
 under which they attempted to cover their pride and 
 poverty ; and other onlookers may perhaps as easily see 
 through ours. Slaves, in very deed, we all are, held help- 
 less in a tyrant's grasp, unless and until the Son of God 
 make us free. 
 
 Our inherited and actual bondage has two sides, and 
 there are two corresponding sides in the liberty wherewith 
 Christ makes us free. The two sides of the spiritual 
 slavery may be designated, Guilt on the conscience, and 
 Rebellion in the will. These are distinct and yet united. 
 They are wedded into one spirit, and become helpmeets to 
 one another in offending God and destroying man. Guilt 
 unforgiven on the conscience makes impossible a holy 
 obedience in the life. While God's wrath lies on your 
 soul, your life is not obedience to God's law. The greater 
 the w^eight that lies on any object, the more difficult it is 
 to move that object along the surface of the earth. If it 
 is weighed heavily down, it will not move easily forward ; 
 if you lift off its load, you draw it easily after you. Like 
 the relation between the perpendicular pressure of a weight 
 and the difiiculty of horizontal motion is the relation be- 
 tween guilt and rebellion. Sin, and the wrath which it 
 deserves, constitute the dead weight which presses the spirit 
 down ; and the spirit so pressed cannot go forward in duty. 
 
 As in the material department it is the weight pressing 
 
LIBERTY. 65 
 
 sheer down that causes the difficulty of moving forward, 
 so in the spiritual department it is the conscious want of 
 God's favour that hinders a human being from obeying 
 God. When his anger is removed from me, I will yield 
 myself a willing instrument of his righteousness. When 
 the Son, by redeeming me from the guilt and the power of 
 sin, has made me free, I am free indeed ! 
 
 Look to these two sides of the primary bondage and 
 subsequent liberty, — look to them separately and succes- 
 sively, as well as in their actual union. 
 
 I. The main element of the bondage consists in guilt and 
 the consequent apprehension of judgment. The book in 
 which the debt is registered lies far above, out of our sis^ht. 
 Although a man's account in that book were hopelessly 
 heavy, he might not in point of fact be greatly troubled 
 by it, if there were no counterpart or duplicate of the 
 liabilities transferred to a ledger nearer at hand. The 
 charge against a man is led, by an electric wire, from God's 
 secret book right into the man's own bosom ; and fiery 
 throbs from the distant judgment-seat are ever and anon 
 generated in his conscience, disturbinof his rest and bliofht- 
 ing all his joys. 
 
 What we call conscience is a mysterious, tenderly 
 susceptible instrument in the midst of a man's being, 
 bringing the man and keeping him in close and conscious 
 relation to the great white throne and the living God. 
 Here on earth, at one extremity of the connected system, 
 the needle quivers and beats quickly, significantly, terrifi- 
 cally. The still, small tick of that needle, moved by a touch 
 in the unseen heaven, is more appalling to the man than the 
 thunder over his head or the earthquake under his feet. 
 
 (753) 5 
 
66 LIBERTY. 
 
 The pain is in practice deadened more or less "by a 
 hardening of the instrument, so that it loses a measure of 
 its susceptibility ; but mysterious beatings sometimes thrill 
 through all the searings, and compel the prodigal to realize 
 the presence of the living God. We sometimes speak of 
 distance being destroyed by the telegraph. A sovereign 
 and his ambassador in a distant capital may whisper to 
 each other across seas and continents, as if they were 
 separated only by a curtain drawn across the room. By 
 the communication which is kept up between God's law 
 and man's conscience, the distance between heaven and 
 earth is practically done away ; and the criminal must rise 
 up and lie down in the presence of his Judge. A man is 
 compelled to eat, and drink, and speak under the eye of 
 the King Eternal. 
 
 It is natural that the slave, weary of such complete and 
 constant inspection, should cast about for the means of be- 
 coming free. To quench this burning in the unclean con- 
 science, all the bloody sacrifices of the heathen were offered. 
 To the same object all the efforts of self-righteousness are 
 directed ; they are so many blows dealt in order to sever 
 the connecting rod, so that the anger of the Judge may not 
 be felt even now burning like fire in a sinner's breast. But 
 these efforts do not avail : " There is no peace, saith my 
 God, to the wicked." 
 
 But a real liberty is possible : God in his infinite mercy 
 has opened a way by which it may be reached. If the Son 
 make you free, you shall be free indeed. He is able to 
 open the seven-sealed book and to blot out the reckoning 
 that stands against us there. We have an advocate with 
 the Father : the blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanseth 
 us from all sin. 
 
LIBERTY. 67 
 
 The Mediator — the Daysman who lays liis hand upon 
 both — has placed himself in the line of communication 
 between the Judge and the culprit. When I am in Christ, 
 all the throbbing messages that rise from me to God, or 
 descend from God to me, pass through the heart of Jesus. 
 The frown of justice due to sin is changed into love as it 
 passes through the Mediator, and from him descends on me, 
 no longer a consuming fire, but the light of life. On the 
 other side, my sins, rising up to stir the wrath of the right- 
 eous God, are absorbed in the suffering Saviour as they pass, 
 and his righteousness ascends as mine and for me. 
 
 It is this that explains the agony in the garden and the 
 cry on the cross. Man's sin passing up demanding judg- 
 ment, and God's answering anger coming down, met in the 
 well-beloved of the Father, and rent him : " My God, my 
 God, why hast thou forsaken me ?" 
 
 Am I free from condemnation ? Then with a great price 
 obtained I this freedom. I was not free-born, but redeemed 
 from bondage by the precious blood of Christ. 
 
 II. In the department of life and conduct also there 
 is a false freedom wherewith men delude themselves, and 
 there is a real freedom which Christ bestows upon his own. 
 
 The essence of slavery, in as far as work is concerned, 
 lies in the terror of the master, that sits like a heavy, cold, 
 hard stone on the worker's heart. After the slave has 
 spurred himself on to duty, and accomplished his task, 
 something still occurs to his memory that he ought to have 
 done ; he trembles lest he should be punished for the defect. 
 " What lack I yet ?" is the dreadful question to the worker 
 who is striving with the load of unpardoned sin on his con- 
 science — strivina: without love and reconciliation to fulfil 
 
68 LIBERTY. 
 
 all the law of God. There may be a good deal of work 
 without reconciliation, but there is no liberty in it, and no 
 love. The man is hunted forward in his toil by the lash 
 of a master. Even to prayer the slave runs trembling, 
 driven by the fear lest he be punished for not praying. 
 
 It is the heavy weight of sin not forgiven lying on the 
 spirit and pressing it into the dust in dull despair — it is 
 this burden that prevents the man from bounding forward 
 fleetly, gladly on the errands of his Lord. When that load 
 is lifted, the spirit, free to rise, is free also to move onward. 
 It is when condemnation is taken away that obedience 
 begins. 
 
 Take your stance on the margin of the ocean, on the 
 western coast of this island, where the shore is a bold rucrsred 
 rock, and when a long blue ground-swell is rolling towards 
 the land. I know not any aspect of merely inanimate 
 nature that tends so strongly to make one's heart sad. I 
 have stood and gazed upon it until I was beguiled into a 
 painfully tender sympathy with a mute struggling captive. 
 Slowly, meekly, but withal mightily, the sea- wave comes 
 on in long, regular array, and striking with its extended 
 front at all points simultaneously against the pitiless rock, 
 is broken into white fragments and thrown on its back all 
 thrilling and hissing with expiring agony. Sullen and sore 
 the broken remnants of the first rank steal away to the 
 rear, and hide themselves in the capacious bosom of the 
 mother sea. Anon, you perceive another long blue wave 
 gathering its strength at a distance ; with gloomy, unhope- 
 ful brow, as if warned by the fate of its predecessor, and 
 hurried onward to its own, it rushes forward and delivers 
 another assault against the rocky shore. It shares the 
 fortune of the last. Again, and yet again, the water 
 
LIBERTY, 
 
 69 
 
 wearily gathers up its huge bulk, and again strongly but 
 despairingly launches itself upon its prison walls, to be 
 again broken and thrown back in utter discomfiture. You 
 weep for the great helpless prisoner, who cannot weep for 
 himself. Year after year, century after century, era after 
 era, that prisoner toils and strikes upon the walls of his 
 prison, but never once succeeds in clearing the barrier and 
 flowing across the continent free. That mighty creature, 
 with its sublime strength, and dumb, patient, unceasing 
 labour, never succeeds in breaking its bonds — never leaps 
 into liberty. Here you find a picture, such as no artist 
 could ever make, of a sinner, or a worldful of sinners in 
 the aggregate, as they lie in their prison, ceaselessly striving 
 for enlargement, but never attaining it. " The wicked are 
 like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest." And can this 
 water never get freedom ? Is it doomed to lie weltering 
 for ever in its prison ? Cannot the prisoner by any means 
 be ever set free ? 
 
 The captive may be set at liberty ; the captive is set at 
 liberty day by day. Above the firmament are waters, as 
 well as in the hollow which constitutes the ocean's bed. 
 They are higher up — nearer heaven — as you see, these 
 aerial waters ; but being high in heaven, they are therefore 
 free to move across the earth. Nothing conveys a more 
 lively idea of quick, soft, unimpeded motion, than a flying 
 cloud. Here is none of the effort visible even in the flight 
 of birds. Absolutely free they are ; and sweetly swiftly 
 do the free run on the errands of their Lord. In this 
 respect there is a sublime contrast between these waters 
 that have been made free and those that are still enslaved 
 — held down by their own dead weight within their prison 
 walls. 
 
70 LIBERTY. 
 
 It is thus that human spirits advance in fleet, gladsome 
 obedience, when the weight is lifted off, and they are per- 
 mitted to rise. It is when you are raised up into favour 
 that you can go onward to serve. " O Lord, truly I am thy 
 servant." That is a great attainment, David ; how did you 
 reach it ? Hear him give the reason : " Thou hast loosed 
 my bonds" (Ps. cxvi. 16). 
 
 Those who are strangers to the liberty of dear children, 
 often fall into great mistakes in regard to the obedience 
 which true disciples render to their Lord. Here is a man 
 who lives for present pleasure, and lives without God. He 
 is good-hearted, in the ordinary acceptation of that word. 
 He lays himself out for happiness, and he would like to see 
 all his neighbours happy as well as himself. If he would 
 not suffer much to promote the happiness of others, neither 
 would he spontaneously do anything to injure them. As 
 soon as one source of pleasure is exhausted, he puts his 
 wit on the stretch to invent another. He denies himself 
 nothing that is pleasant to his taste. Be it eating and 
 drinking ; be it luxury in things more elevated ; be it the 
 midnight dance or play — whatever pleases his palate he 
 tastes in turn. He knows another man, a neighbour in 
 residence or business, who denies himself all these indul- 
 gences, and prosecutes some difficult and disagreeable line 
 of benevolence. The free liver looks on that neighbour 
 and studies him, but cannot understand him. If the Chris- 
 tian were a morose and gloomy natured man, he thinks he 
 could explain the reason of his conduct ; but his character 
 is precisely the reverse. He is diligent in business, cheer- 
 ful in company, affectionate and sprightly at home, literary, 
 it may be, or patriotic. With all this he lives strictly as a 
 Christian. He never turns night into day in any species 
 
LIBERTY. 71 
 
 of revelry ; he neither reads newspapers nor attends to 
 business on the Lord's day. He refuses to associate with 
 any who dishonour the name and day and word of God, 
 however profitable the association might seem. The man 
 of the world — called and counted free and easy, although 
 he is neither free nor easy — wonders how his neighbour, 
 being not a morose and gloomy but a cheerful man, can 
 consent to lie under such grievous restraint ; how he can 
 deny himself so many liberties, and bind himself so steadily 
 to a round of dull duties. 
 
 It is a mistake. This man is not capable of understand- 
 ing his believing neighbour. His standpoint is low, and 
 his range of vision limited. He counts that liberty which 
 the Christian counts bondage, and that bondage which the 
 Christian counts liberty. The Christian before he was con- 
 verted entertained the same views ; but his world has been 
 turned upside down by the gospel. The disciple of Christ 
 has changed — he has become a new^ creature ; but his 
 neighbour, who is not changed, cannot understand him 
 now. He applies carnal measurement to a spiritual nature, 
 and is out of his reckoning at every point. 
 
 It is as if he were told that a certain vast quantity of 
 water has been in a very short space of time removed a 
 distance of a thousand miles over mountains and valleys, 
 from one continent of the earth to another. Forthwith 
 the thought arises of the heavy, sluggish, gurgling mass 
 enclosed within vessels innumerable of vast capacity and 
 strength, and of these being dragged by mechanical power 
 up steep mountain sides and precipitated into the valleys 
 beyond. It is all a mistake. If the water could only have 
 been transported in this manner, it would never have been 
 transported at all. The water in inconceivable quantity 
 
72 LIBERTY. 
 
 was lio-htened — was set free : beinsr free, it rose into the 
 heavens, and softly sailed away to its destiny. 
 
 Thus one who has not entered into peace through the 
 blood of Christ, having no experience of liberty, cannot 
 understand liberty as enjoyed by another. He counts that 
 it must be a dreadful dragging to follow the Christian life. 
 It would be viphill work for himself, if he should attempt 
 it ; and he thinks it must be uphill work for his neighbour 
 too. In reasoning from the capacities and habits of his own 
 physical frame to those of his neighbour's, he reaches a 
 just conclusion ; for in bodily constitution, notwithstanding 
 minor ditFerences, both are essentially the same. But in 
 reasoning by analogy from his own spiritual state to that 
 of his believing neighbour, he errs fatally , for the one is 
 the old man, while the other is the new : the one soul is in 
 bondage ; the other has been made free by the Son of God. 
 The Christian obedience is not the dragging of a heavy 
 weight over the rugged ground by the sheer force of fear ; 
 it is the easy, fleet movement of the cloud, after its con- 
 stituent waters have been set free from earth and raised 
 to heaven. " Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy 
 power." 
 
 A ship outward bound has struck on a sunken rock ere 
 she has well cleared out of the harbour. There she lies in 
 the water, a mile from land, with the ocean all clear before 
 her from that spot to her journey's end ; but she moves 
 not. What will make her move ? The mechanical re- 
 sources of our time could bring an enormous accumulation 
 of force to bear upon her, but under all its pressure she 
 will remain stationary. If you increase the dragging power 
 beyond a certain point, you will wrench her asunder limb 
 from limb, but you will not win her forward on her voyage. 
 
LIBERTY-. 73 
 
 No ; not this way — not by any such method can the ship 
 be set free to prosecute her voyage. How then ? Let the 
 tide rise, and the ship with it : now you may heave off 
 your hawsers and send home your steamers. Hoist the 
 sail, and the ship will herself move away like a bird on the 
 wing. 
 
 It is thus that a soul may be set free to bound forward 
 on the path of obedience. Dragging will not do it. A 
 soul cleaving to the dust is like a ship aground, — it cannot 
 go forward until it be lifted up ; but when it is lifted up, 
 it will go forward without any violent drawing. Further : 
 the soul cleaving to the dust is lifted, as the ship was, 
 by a secret but mighty attraction in the far-off heaven. 
 Elevated by a winning from above, it courses over life 
 with freedom. " I will run in the way of thy command- 
 ments, when thou hast enlarged my heart." 
 
 But there is no time to be lost. If that ship be not 
 lifted up by the tide to-day, she may be broken to pieces 
 by the waves to-morrow. Yield to the mighty but gentle 
 upward drawing which God's mercy now exerts upon the 
 world, like the sun-heat winnino- water from the sea, lest 
 you should be obliged to yield to the tempest in which the 
 wicked are driven away in their wickedness. 
 
V. 
 TRUE, YET TENDER— TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 " Have salt in yourselves, and have peace one with another." — Maek ix. 50. 
 
 R^^^^N this place the Lord is instructing his own 
 disciples. We learn here not how one may 
 become a Christian, but how one who is a 
 Christian should demean himself in the world. 
 The lesson directly concerns not the roots but the fruits of 
 the new life. Every step of progress that a believer makes 
 in practical conformity to his Master's example and pre- 
 cept, is a substantial gain. If we gain in godliness, we 
 shall grow rich ; and this species of wealth never flies 
 away. 
 
 When a mercantile telegram arrives from a distant land, 
 and is exhibited in the exchange, men eagerly crowd 
 around it. You may see them clustering like bees about 
 the spot, and hanging one on the other's shoulders, all eyes 
 strained to learn the news. Even when the message 
 relates immediately to battles fought and cities captured — 
 to the slaughter of thousands and the capture of myriads — 
 the interest of the onlookers is absorbed not in the facts 
 that meet the eye, but in the possibilities that lie beneath 
 them. The news of the crushing defeat or the glorious 
 victory is regarded chiefly as an index of the probable 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 75 
 
 price of cotton oi^ the premium on gold. Such is the pre- 
 ponderating attraction of gain in the mercantile comnnniity. 
 
 Now here is a transaction which promises a profit. 
 Here is a message, short and pithy like the telegrams. It 
 is a message from a far country, and it points to a good 
 investment ; it opens a prospect of great gain. Let us 
 press near the intimation that has been flashed down upon 
 us from a better country, and go in for a fortune on the 
 field which it lays open. Remember the words of the 
 Lord Jesus, how he said : " Have salt in yourselves, and 
 have peace one with another." 
 
 The two principal terms are Salt and Peace. Examine 
 first their meaning, and next their relations. 
 
 I. The meaning of each. 
 
 1. Salt. As its natural effect is different in different cir- 
 cumstances, so also its meaning differs when metaphorically 
 applied to moral character. It is not necessary, however, 
 for our present purpose, to investigate the different shades 
 of meaning which the metaphor bears, either in Scripture 
 or in common language ; for as used by the Lord and his 
 apostles, its signification is obvious and sure. " Ye are the 
 salt of the earth... if the salt have lost his savour" — "Have 
 salt in yourselves " — " Let your speech be alway with 
 grace, seasoned with salt." Keeping in view the reference 
 to salt in the sacrifices, and the solemnizing announcements 
 conveyed by its means in the immediate context, we gather 
 easily, from a comparison of these passages, that salt, as a 
 metaphor applied to human character in the New Testa- 
 ment, signifies in general the grace of God sanctifying the 
 whole nature, and in particular the sterner virtues, — Faith- 
 fulness, boldness, righteousness, truth, purity. The term 
 
76 TRUE, YET TENDER —TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 indicates holiness on its harder side ; and holiness has a 
 hard side, for it must needs be strong. 
 
 In this use of the analogy the preserving power of salt 
 is the pi-edominating idea. Salt appears here as the stern, 
 sharp antagonist of all corruption. Christians baptized 
 into the Spirit of Christ act as salt in a tainted world. 
 
 In union with the virtue that preserves, there is a 
 pungency that pains. You may observe, however, that 
 salt does not irritate whole skin. Apply it to an open 
 sore, and the patient winces; but a healthy member of 
 a living body does not shrink from its touch. A similar 
 distinction obtains in the moral region. Stringent faith- 
 fulness in the conduct of his neighbour will not offend a 
 just man : but those who do not give justice do not Hke 
 to get it. 
 
 Purity in contact with impurity makes the impure 
 miserable. Peter's charge against the Jews after the 
 resurrection was : " Ye denied the Holy One and the Just." 
 It was precisely because he was holy and just that they 
 denied him. The member that was covered with wounds 
 violently shook off the salt that touched and by touching 
 tormented it. Like draws to like, and unlike shrinks 
 from unlike. 
 
 Salt in yourselves, then, means grace on its sterner side ; 
 an unbending truth and faithfulness, that preserves while 
 it pains, but pains while it preserves. 
 
 2. Peace. Surely it is not necessary to explain what 
 this word means. You may comprehend it without the 
 aid of critical analysis. It is like the shining sun or the 
 sweet breath of early summer ; it is its own expositor. 
 Wherever it is, it makes its presence and its nature 
 known. 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 77 
 
 As the traveller who has missed his way thinks more of 
 the light, and luiderstands it better, while he is groping 
 and stumbling in the dark than he did in the blaze of 
 noon ; so those best understand and value peace who suffer 
 the horrors of war. You know the worth of it when you 
 know the want of it. In communities, in churches, in 
 families, those who groan under the rendin^s of strife can 
 best tell you what peace is and how much it is worth. 
 Blessed is peace — blessed are the peacemakers. The 
 greatest peace is, peace with the Greatest ; the greatest 
 peace is, peace with God. The Mediator, who makes this 
 peace, is the greatest Peacemaker. Thou shalt love the 
 Lord thy God : this is the first and great commandment ; 
 the second, which is like unto it, is. Thou shalt love thy 
 neighbour as thyself. After the privilege of peace with 
 God comes that of peace with your neighbour — peace with 
 all the human brotherhood. 
 
 Peace — including all the characteristics of a Christian 
 which make for peace — is holiness on its softer side ; and 
 holiness has a soft side, that it may win the world. 
 
 As the disciples of Christ should combine the wisdom of 
 the serpent with the harmlessness of the dove, so they 
 should possess and display, in balanced union, the bold, 
 biting strength of the preserving salt and the gentleness 
 of the little child whom Jesus set as a pattern in the 
 midst. 
 
 " I withstood him to the face, because he was to be 
 blamed " — behold the salt ! " All things to all men, that 
 I might gain some " — behold the peacefulness ! 
 
 II. The reciprocal relation between salt in ourselves 
 and peace with one another. 
 
78 TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 In a certain sense, and to a certain extent, these two are 
 true opposites. In some measure salt in you is antagonist 
 to peace with your neighbour ; and peace maintained with 
 your neighbour is antagonist to the vigour of salt in your- 
 selves. Accordingly, error appears alternately in two 
 opposite directions. One man has so much salt in himself 
 that he cannot maintain peace with his neighbours ; an- 
 other man is so soft and peaceable towards all that he 
 manifests scarcely any of the faithfulness which is indicated 
 by the salt. 
 
 It is interesting and instructive to examine the extent 
 and the limits of this antagonism. In point of fact, and 
 among men, faithfulness does sometimes disturb peace ; 
 and peace is sometimes obtained at the expense of faithful- 
 ness. At one time you are in a strait, because, if you 
 show faithfulness, you will break the peace; and at another 
 you are in a strait, because, if you keep the peace, you 
 must hold truth in abeyance. The difficulty really exists, 
 and frequently crosses our path in life ; but we need not 
 be surprised, and need not be despondent. It is not 
 inherent in the nature, but introduced by the sin of man. 
 When Christ has made an end of sin, the contradiction will 
 disappear from the new world. Those white-robed multi- 
 tudes that surround the throne are very peaceful, and yet 
 very pure ; are very pure, and yet very peaceful. There 
 the salt does not disturb, because there is no corruption to 
 be irritated by contact with holiness ; there the peace does 
 not degenerate into indifference, for there is no vile appetite 
 to be indulged. That will be joyful, joyful ! when all 
 shall have salt in themselves, and all peace with each other. 
 Nothing shall hurt or destroy in all that holy mountain. 
 
 In the meantime — like the necessity for labour — that 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 79 
 
 which comes as a curse is, under the arrangements of 
 Providence, converted into a blessing. As toil to keep 
 down thorns and thistles is a useful exercise for physical 
 health, so effort to maintain faithfulness without breaking; 
 peace keeps the spirit healthful and fits it for heaven. 
 All the more fully grown and perfect will the heirs of the 
 kingdom be when they reach their rest, that they were 
 compelled to exert themselves during their course in the 
 world. No effort is lost ; every expenditure of energy in 
 God's work tells on the education of God's child. Every 
 exertion made by a disciple of Christ to soften his own 
 faithfulness and invigorate his own tenderness goes to in- 
 crease the treasures which he shall enjoy at God's right hand. 
 It is thus that the saved ivorh out their own salvation. 
 
 Similar antagonisms in the system of nature constitute 
 at once the exercise and the evidence of the Creator's skill. 
 Results are frequently obtained through the union of 
 antaofonist forces neutralizing each other. A familiar 
 example is supplied by the centripetal and centrifugal 
 forces, which insure the stability of the solar system. 
 
 Take another case, equally instructive, though not so 
 obvious. In the structure of a bird, with a view to the 
 discharge of its functions, two qualities, in a great measure 
 reciprocally antagonistic, must be united ; these are strength 
 and liglitness. As a general rule, strength is incompatible 
 with lightness, and lightness incompatible with strength. 
 You cannot increase the one without proportionally 
 diminishing the other. The body of the bird must float 
 in the air, therefore it must be proportionally lighter than 
 quadrupeds or fishes ; but the creature must sustain itself 
 for long periods in the atmosphere, and perform journeys 
 of vast length, therefore its members must be strong. The 
 
80 TRUE, YP:T tender TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 structure of a bird, accordingly, exhibits a marvellous con- 
 trivance for the combination of the utmost possible strength 
 with the utmost possible lightness. Every one is familiar 
 with the structure of the feathers that compose the wing. 
 The quill barrel gives you an example of a minimum of 
 material so disposed as to produce a maximum of strength. 
 The bones of birds are formed on the same plan. They 
 are greater in circumference than the corresponding bones 
 of other animals, but they are hollower in the heart. In 
 iron castings we repeat the process which we have learned 
 from nature. 
 
 This union of antagonists for the production of a 
 common beneficent result is like the labour of a Christian 
 life. Be gentle to all without sacrificing any truth ; be 
 faithful to truth without giving needless ofience to any 
 brother. There should be meekness of spirit, speech, and 
 conduct in a Christian, that he may have peace with his 
 neighbours ; but there should be a stern, unyielding 
 righteousness in a Christian, that, wherever his lot may be 
 cast, he may act as a salt to counteract all corruption. 
 
 The task set before us is difficult, but not impossible. 
 Much watchfulness, prayerfulness, perseverance, and self- 
 sacrifice are required in order that you may do it ; but it 
 may be done. The disciple who would accomplish this 
 task must labour hard ; but hard labour applied to this 
 task wall not be labour lost. In this business the hand of 
 the slothful remaineth empty; but the hand of the diligent 
 maketh rich. 
 
 We are ignorant of many things ; but the object in 
 creation which most successfully escapes our scrutiny 
 is precisely that which lies nearest us — ourselves. The 
 heart is deceitful above all things. We do not pronounce 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 81 
 
 righteous judgment wlicn oiu^ own thoughts and ways are 
 under trial. Self-love, like a huge lump of iron concealed 
 under the deck right below the ship's compass, draws the 
 magnet aside ; thus the life takes a wrong direction, and the 
 soul is shipwrecked. Self-love draws the life now to the 
 right and now to the left ; the errors lie not all on one 
 side. One man, soft from selfishness, basely sacrifices 
 truth and duty for ease ; another, hard from selfishness, 
 bristles all over with sharp points, like thorns that tear 
 the flesh of the passenger, and when he has kindled discord 
 among brethren, calls his own bad temper faithfulness to 
 truth. There is no limit to the aberration of a human 
 judgment under the bias of self-interest. It will not 
 scruple to dispute the distinction between black and white, 
 if it can thereby hope to gain its selfish end. Oh, how 
 precious are these words of our Lord, " Watch and pray, 
 that ye enter not into temptation." It is easier to explore 
 the sources of the Nile, than to discover the true motives 
 whence our own actions spring; and easier to turn the Nile 
 from his track, than to turn the volume of thoughts and 
 purposes which issue from a human heart and constitute 
 the body of a human life. We cheat ourselves and our 
 neighbours as to the character of our motives and the 
 meaning of our acts. Nothing that defileth shall enter 
 heaven ; purged we must be ere we go in. It is time to 
 begin and oret the work forward a stao-e or two. " Put ofT 
 the old man with his deeds." Watch on the right side, and 
 watch on the left. 
 
 1. On the side of peace. It is true there cannot be too 
 much peace in a community ; and there cannot be too 
 much of the gentle and peace-making in the character and 
 conduct of a man. But if the folds of our peace are so 
 
 (753J 6 
 
82 TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 large, and thick, and warm, as to overlay and smother 
 our faithfulness, the joeacemakers are not blessed by God, 
 and are not blessings to the Avorld. This soft carcass that 
 has no salt in it soon runs into decay. To have peace one 
 with another is only half of the commandment ; and half 
 of a commandment, like half of an animal body, cannot 
 live alone ; it goes into corruption. 
 
 One who is constitutionally soft and indolent may not 
 only sinfully fail in faithfulness ; he may even take credit 
 for his fault, and blame a brother for want of love who 
 tempers his love with the due j)i'oportion of righteous firm- 
 ness. Let the timid and retiring nature stir up his soul to 
 a greater measure of truthful courage, without letting any 
 of his gentleness go. Let the vine of his tenderness cling 
 to an oak of stern faithfulness ; it will thus bear more 
 fruit than if it were allowed to trail on the ground. 
 
 2. On the side of truth and faithfulness. There cannot 
 be too much of faithfulness in the character of a Christian; 
 but even faithfulness to truth may become hurtful, if it is 
 dissociated from the gentleness of Christ. The arms that 
 impart strength to the chair may only hurt the occupant, 
 if they lack the cushion that ought to cover them. For 
 strength, there should be an iron hand in the velvet glove ; 
 but for softness, a velvet glove should be on the iron hand 
 when it grasps the flesh of a brother. 
 
 Some people mistake acid for salt ; their own passions 
 for godly zeal. Jehu drives furiously forward to purify 
 the administration of the kins;dom ; but it is a cruel, selfish 
 ambition that spurs him on. When such a man scatters a 
 shower of acid from his tongue, and sees that his neighbours 
 are hurt by the biting drops, he points to their contortions, 
 and exclaims, See how pungent my salt is ! The true 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 83 
 
 savour is in my salt; for see how these people smart under 
 its sting ! Ah, the acid, in common with salt, makes a 
 tender place smart in a brother ; but it possesses not, in 
 common with salt, the faculty of warding off corruption. 
 Itself corrupts and undermines ; it corrodes and destroys 
 all that it drops upon. " Get thee behind me, Satan : for 
 thou savourest not the things that be of God." 
 
 Let every one suspect himself. Watch especially the 
 side in which the weakness lies. But, alas ! how shall we 
 know that side ? The deceitfulness of a human heart often 
 consists in this, that it persuades the dupe that what is 
 really his weakness is his strength. Blind humanity 
 makes a merit of its besetting sin. How shall we find out 
 
 our ailment ? " Search me, God see if there be any 
 
 wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting." 
 Carry the war into the enemy's country, and strike home 
 there. But where is the enemy's country ? Alas ! it is 
 mainly here ; down in the secret chambers of the heart. 
 Those enemies that are within the fortress have the greatest 
 
 o 
 
 power to hurt. Strike them first, and strike them with all 
 your might. 
 
 If a deadly viper should alight upon your flesh, you 
 would strike a sudden sharp blow with the first weapon 
 that might come to hand. You would not bring the stroke 
 down gently and waveringly, in order to save your skin. 
 You would smite quick and strong, although you should 
 thereby wound your own body, in order that you might 
 destroy the viper ere it had time to sting. " All that a man 
 hath will he give for his life." Would that the children 
 of light were as wise in their generation ; would that our- 
 selves were as wise in counsel, and as prompt in action, 
 when the soul's life and health are concerned, as we are 
 
84 TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 
 
 when we are called to preserve the health and life of the 
 body. 
 
 But we have apostolic example to sustain us in adminis- 
 tering sharp reproof. " Enemies of the cross of Christ," 
 said Paul, in addressing his well-beloved Ephesians. He 
 runs the sword boldly through, and spares not for their 
 crying. But let ignorant and rash physicians beware how 
 they imitate that great master. He did, indeed, administer 
 to his patients a biting reproof ; but there were two 
 ingredients in the prescription. One alone would kill and 
 not cure. Such remedies are too potent for being safely 
 intrusted to inexperienced hands. Paul told the Philippians 
 to their face that they were enemies of the cross of Christ, 
 but he told it weeping. Ah, those tears, thrown into the 
 potion along with the scalding reproof, took all the burn- 
 ing out, and made the word mighty to save. 
 
 Alas ! in this form the truth is often turned into a lie. 
 Even the terrors of the Lord rattled forth hard and dry 
 from an unmoved human heart, lose their divinity when 
 they lose their tenderness, and degenerate into a scold. 
 God is love while he sends out his threatenings ; man 
 should be loving when he ventures to gather these bolts 
 from the Bible and point them to a brother's breast. 
 
 Let us press with all our might, and press always on 
 both sides, — as far towards tenderness as truth will permit 
 us to go, and as far towards faithfulness as the line of love 
 will allow. Between these two divinely balanced opposites 
 — between the salt and the peace — between steadfast truth 
 and a gentle, winsome brotherliness, let the Christian life 
 swing round the circumference of time, as those heavenly 
 orbs revolve in beauty and safety, balanced between the 
 force that drives them off' and the force that keeps them near. 
 
TRUE, YET TENDER TENDER, YET TRUE. 85 
 
 Do you ask what mainly hinders the union of Christians 
 in these days ? I answer, it is the practical divorce of 
 this paradise pair, whom God has commanded us to bind 
 in a perpetual wedlock. The softness that suffers sin upon 
 a brother, and the hardness that proudly tears a brother 
 because of his sin — these two are the dividers, the disturbers 
 of Israel. If we could pour enough of love into our faith- 
 fulness, and enough of faithfulness into our love, an amalgam 
 would come forth from the crucible fitted to weld into one 
 all the dislocated members of Christ's body, the Church, 
 
VI. 
 THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 " Jesus saith unto them, My meat is to do the will of him that sent 
 mo, and to finish his work." — John iv. 34. 
 
 CERTAIN woman who lived in the Samaritan 
 town of Sychar went out one clay at noon to 
 the well for water. Although the path between 
 the town and the well was trodden by multi- 
 tudes every day, the woman on this occasion had it all to 
 herself. She seems to have had nobody in her company, 
 and to have met nobody by the way. All the well-ordered 
 households had laid in their supply of water early in the 
 morning, or late in the evening of the previous day ; for 
 none who can otherwise arrange their plans will bear a 
 burden through an unsheltered plain when the Syrian sun 
 is high. Matters were not well arranged in this woman's 
 house : she led an irregular life in a disreputable home. 
 On this account, probably, she came to the well at noon. 
 Had she been ready when her neighbours came, she would 
 have missed the living water. How deep are God's pur- 
 poses both in creation and providence, and how exactly 
 wheel fits into wheel as the vast machinery moves majes- 
 tically round ! It is intimated at the beginning of the 
 chapter that Jesus must needs go through Samaria. The 
 necessity for taking this route lay deeper than the geog- 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 87 
 
 raphy of Palestine. In the counsels of Eternal Mercy he 
 must needs go through Samaria, that he might meet a 
 sinner there ; and she must needs go out to the well at 
 noon, because only at that hour could she tind on the well's 
 brink the Saviour of her soul. 
 
 As she approaches the well-known spot, alike venerated 
 for its hallowed associations and valued for its continued 
 usefulness, she espies a way-worn stranger resting on the 
 stones at the well's mouth. Either suspecting him to be a 
 Jew, and therefore avoiding intercourse, or bent only on 
 her own errand without regarding his presence, she pro- 
 ceeded in the usual way to let down her bucket and to 
 draw it up full from the cool depths. Ere she had time to 
 transfer her treasure to her shoulder, in order to bear it to 
 her home, the weary stranger accosted her with a simple 
 request for a drink of water. Now that the ice was broken, 
 and the intercourse begun, she enters freely into conver- 
 sation ; and, as the subject that came easiest to hand, 
 plunged into the feud between Jews and Samaritans. So 
 far from replying to her argument, the Lord instantly 
 glided from the water with which he was refreshing his 
 own parched lips, to the water which would be the life of 
 her soul. 
 
 He has requested the woman to give him drink. He 
 has applied his parched lips to the vessel which she pre- 
 sents, and, perhaps in the pauses of his panting draughts, 
 looking into her careworn, uneasy countenance, he mysteri- 
 ously says, " I will give thee living water." At a later 
 stage of this episode the disciples, having brought some 
 food from a shop in the town and offered it to their master, 
 knowing that he must by this time be hungry, are surprised 
 when he declines their offer. To account for his unexpected 
 
88 THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 abstinence, they suggest the thought that some person dur- 
 incr their absence misjht have given him food. Gliding of! 
 that common theme, What shall I eat ? — rising and lifting 
 them with himself up from earth to heaven, he replied, 
 " My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to 
 finish his work." 
 
 Consider Messiah's ministry of salvation, first, simply as 
 a work which he performed ; and next, as the food in which 
 he delighted. 
 
 I. His work .•— " To do the will of him that sent me, 
 and to finish his work."' 
 
 He speaks here in his capacity of Son and servant. He 
 has been sent to execute the Father's will. In his essential 
 nature he is one with the Father, and the purpose of 
 redeeminof lost men is his own as well as the Father's ; 
 but here the Son speaks in accordance with his place as 
 Mediator. From Father, Son, and Spirit, the one purpose 
 issued; and to Father, Son, and Spirit, will the glory return, 
 when many sons are brought into glory ; but in the actual 
 execution of the divine purpose, and during the currency 
 of redemption, the Son of God, the Saviour, stands in a 
 low place, and speaks as a servant charged with a specific 
 mission, and engaged in performing a specific work. 
 
 He is doing the will of the Father that sent him. What 
 is the will — the desire of the Sender ? You may learn it 
 best by looking to the Sent. Look unto Jesus, if you 
 would know the mind of God. He meant not evil to a 
 fallen world when he sent his Son to dwell amongst us, 
 clothed in our nature. The Gift reveals the Giver's heart. 
 Well may we take up the bright, blessed argument ci' 
 Manoah's wife, as we meditate on the incarnation, ministry. 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 89 
 
 death, and resurrection of onr Lord — well may we adopt 
 faith's strong argument, " If the Lord had meant to kill us, 
 he would not have shown us such things as these." Jesus 
 himself has said, " No man can come unto me, except the 
 Father wdiich hath sent me draw him." The Christ sent 
 into the world is fitted to draw men to God, not to drive 
 them away. 
 
 The will of the Father toward the world corresponds 
 with the Messenger who has been sent to accomplish it. 
 God is love ; and Christ came to embody divine love in the 
 actual redemption of the lost. Oh, when will the thought 
 spring up in the heart of a prodigal race, " I will arise, and 
 go to my Father" ? By the gift of the Son the Father has 
 revealed his own heart ; and they are without excuse who 
 still count him hard, and keep at a distance. 
 
 " To do the will of him that sent me :" the desire of God 
 could not be carried into effect without Christ sent, the 
 Saviour. As God made the world by his Word, he makes 
 the world anew by the Word made flesh, and dwelling 
 amongst us. The incarnation and dying of the Lord Jesus 
 became the accomplishment of the Father's merciful design. 
 Intention was turned into fact. How precious are God's 
 thoughts towards us ! But his thoughts found body in 
 Christ crucified. Here lies the power to carry into eflfect 
 the love that lay in the eternal covenant. 
 
 "And to finish his work." The work is not left half 
 done. His work is perfect. Creation was completed ere 
 God gave over his work and rested. It was all very good 
 ere it left his hands. His next and more glorious work will 
 be finished too. There will be no patches added after the 
 children assemble in the Father's house. 
 
 This earth was complete as a habitation for humanity, 
 
90 THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 ere the children were brought to it as their home. The 
 mountains were all raised up, and the rivers all flowing in 
 the valleys, and the sea confined within its capacious basin, 
 and the air mixed and made up, suitable as breath for 
 living creatures, clasping the globe round all its circumfer- 
 ence. Then, and not sooner, did God make man in his own 
 image. The home of the holy will be perfect when its 
 inmates enter. All things are ready ere the message is 
 sent round to bid the guests assemble. God's works are 
 all finished works. 
 
 At the time that Jesus talked with the woman and with 
 his disciples at Jacob's well, the work which he had under- 
 taken was not finished. The agony in the garden lay be- 
 fore him, and lay full in view ; the hiding of the Father's 
 face, the cup of wrath ; all the bearing for his people's sin, 
 and the Father's righteousness, lay before him. This bap- 
 tism he must yet be baptized with, and he was straitened 
 till it should be accomplished. He hastened to the end. 
 For the joy that was set before him, he endured the cross, 
 despising the shame. 
 
 II. His food : — To do the Father's will and finish his 
 work, he counted his bread. 
 
 It is not enough to learn from the evangelic histories 
 what Jesus did and suffered. It is not enough to examine 
 his acts ; we must look, as far as the Scriptures present an 
 opening, into the secret motives that wrought in his heart. 
 At Jacob's well he was carrying forward his great mission 
 as the Saviour of lost men : the twelve looked on, but they 
 looked on as little children look on their father while he is 
 preparing to accomplish some great work of skill. They 
 saw each separate movement, but they could not compre- 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 91 
 
 heiid the design. Not understanding the whole, they were 
 baffled by the sight of the separate parts. " They marvelled 
 that he talked with the woman." 
 
 Knowing full well all that the redemption of his people 
 would bring upon himself, he longed for the work as for 
 his daily bread. It is my meat to do his will, and finish 
 his work. This word we can in some measure understand ; 
 for we know what the pain of hunger is, and what the 
 delight of satisfying hunger with convenient food. I can 
 in some measure comprehend the desire that burned in the 
 breast of Jesus that day at Jacob's well ; for I have been 
 hungry, and when hungry have been satisfied with bread. 
 In this glass I can see reflected the nature and intensity of 
 the Saviour's eagerness to save. 
 
 On one occasion Jeremiah was commanded to go down to 
 the potter's house, that he might there receive a message 
 from the Lord ; and the prophet soon learned the reason 
 why the message was not communicated to him in his own 
 house. It regarded the sovereignty of God in appointing 
 the lot of his creatures, and Jeremiah could more easily 
 understand the lesson while he stood by the potter's wheel, 
 and saw him making from one piece of clay a vessel unto 
 honour and a vessel unto dishonour. Some lessons which 
 God gives us can be more fully taken up in one position 
 than in another. Some texts of Scripture may be most 
 profitably read in a dark night, some beside a stormy sea, 
 and some at the brink of an open grave. You can enter 
 into the spirit of some texts more easily when you are 
 young, and of others when you are old, — of some while 
 you are joyful, and of others when you weep. Methinks 
 this word of the Lord should be thought of when we are 
 hungry, and anticipating the pleasure of enjoying our food. 
 
92 THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 Like hunger was Christ's appetite for saving work — like 
 the satisfying of hunger is his joy when he is winning souls. 
 
 What an agony is unappeased hunger ! What contriv- 
 ances will you adopt, what efforts will you make, what 
 pain endure, in order to obtain bread ! " Skin for skin, yea, 
 all that a man hath will he give for his life ;" and food is 
 life — the want of it death. 
 
 A traveller lost his way in an Eastern desert. His pro- 
 visions were exhausted, and he had already wandered about 
 for several days without food, when he descried under a 
 palm-tree on his track the marks of a recent encampment. 
 He approached the spot tremulous with hope. He found a 
 bag which the travellers had left behind, filled with some- 
 thing that appeared to be dates. He opened it eagerly, 
 expecting to satisfy his hunger, when lo, it contained only 
 pearls ! He sat down and wept. What are pearls to a 
 man who is dying for want of bread ? 
 
 Jesus is Lord of all. Those glorious stars that stud the 
 heavens are all his. They are the jewels which belong to 
 his crown. He values them ; but they do not satisfy his 
 soul. To Christ, these shining orbs are like the pearls to 
 the fainting traveller in the desert. They are precious and 
 pure, but he cannot live on them. Christ does not need 
 to redeem those bright worlds and those unfallen angels, 
 and they cannot therefore satisfy his appetite. To seek 
 the strayed ; to redeem the lost ; to renew the fallen ; to 
 lay down his life for them, — this is his meat : and for this 
 food he must pass those shining worlds. He must leave 
 them, like the ninety-nine unstrayed sheep upon the moun- 
 tain pastures, and go after the lost one, that when he gets 
 it on his shoulders he may rejoice, with a joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory. 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 93 
 
 " Blessed are they that hunger ; for they shall be filled." 
 This he said : this he felt. He experiences the truth of 
 this saying to-day in the midst of the throne, while ten 
 thousand times ten thousand of the saved are ministering 
 before him. That fainting, hungry traveller by Jacob's 
 well, obtained a foretaste of his joy when the Samaritan 
 woman received life from his hands ; and his joy will be 
 full when all the ransomed shall rise and reign with him 
 upon his throne. 
 
 Behold the man, fainting, hungry, under a midday sun 
 at Jacob's well ! Behold the man, crowned with thorns 
 and mocked at Jerusalem ! Behold the man, as he bows 
 his head upon the cross, — what has brought him to this ? 
 His appetite : it is that hunger for the doing of his Father's 
 loving will, and the finishing of his Father's mighty work. 
 It was his unquenchable appetite for saving, as for the 
 bread of his life, that brought him to a fallen world, and 
 left him under the curse that was due to sin. This appetite 
 burned in hi 3 breast like fire. With this appetite unsatis- 
 fied, he would have counted heaven unhappy. Under the 
 control of his own divine love, he left his throne, took upon 
 himself the form of a servant, and suffered unto death, that 
 he might feast upon the work of winning souls. 
 
 The same feature of his character appeared when he 
 stood on the Mount of Olives, and wept over Jerusalem. 
 Son of God, why weepest thou ? He weeps for hunger. 
 He is like a hungry man in sight of food, but not within 
 reach of it. It is in such a case that hunger gnaws like a 
 worm in the breast. Oh, how he loves ! 
 
 How deeply and how persistently do the guilty misin- 
 terpret and misrepresent the heart of Christ ! Men take 
 the devils' opinion of him, " Art thou come to torment 
 
94 THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 US ?" instead of the view which the true One gives of 
 himself. 
 
 It is diificult for us to take in the conception of Christ's 
 passionate desire to save, and yet retain a due sense of his 
 omnipotence as God. We are apt to think that in such a 
 case his power might have been put forth, as the immediate 
 instrument of accomplishing all his desire. Might not the 
 Almighty Deliverer have made short work with the saving 
 of Jerusalem that day ? Might he not have seized a whole 
 cityful, as the angels seized Lot by the hand, and hurried 
 them up to heaven ? 
 
 But this would not satisfy his soul ; this is not food con- 
 venient for him. It is not pure. It was a gross and carnal 
 conception that the prosperous man entertained, when he 
 tried to feed his soul with the goods that he had laid up 
 in a barn. Material acquisitions cannot satisfy and sustain 
 spirit. Though the Lord Jesus has all power committed to 
 him in heaven and in earth, he will not command stones to 
 be made bread by a miracle to satisfy his hunger ; neither 
 will he lift a multitude to heaven by mere omnipotence. 
 They who are drawn up to him for the satisfying of his 
 soul, rise as the clouds rise from the sea, spontaneous and 
 pure. Nothing shall enter that defileth. He hungers, and 
 savino- work is his food ; but as with his servant Peter so 
 with the Master himself, — nothing common or unclean hath 
 at any time entered his lips. 
 
 He must needs go through Samaria, not only because 
 that province lay in his way, but because he was hungry, 
 and in poor half-heathen Samaria lay the savoury meat 
 which his soul loved. In the same manner he must needs 
 pass through our nature and our world, as he goes from 
 the glory of the eternity past to the glory of the eternity 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 95 
 
 to como. It was not any physical necessity; for the ]\Iaker 
 of all worlds might have found another path from glory to 
 glory without visiting this shooting star. But ho nuist 
 needs pass through the abode of fallen humanity on his 
 way to the throne of the kingdom, because he longed to 
 save the lost with a longing like hunger, and here only 
 could be found the food that would satisfy his soul. His 
 own sovereign love laid the necessity upon himself. The 
 sun, his creature, is under an inherent necessity of giving 
 out light ; so Christ, the light of the world, must needs 
 give out the light of life, and therefore he casts himself in 
 the way of a dark world, as the hungry seeks food and the 
 thirsty makes his way towards water-springs. 
 
 The Ethiopian found Christ in the desert, and went on 
 his way rejoicing ; but also Christ found the Ethiopian in 
 the desert, and went on his way rejoicing that he had 
 tasted his sweetest food. 
 
 Within the limits prescribed by our capacity and our 
 condition, the appetite of the Master may be experienced 
 by the servants too, and they after their own way may be 
 satisfied with the food that he loved so well. Our spiritual 
 hunger is first a desire to get and then a desire to give 
 salvation. It is in the second part of the process that the 
 disciple enters in some measure into the joy of his Lord. 
 Out of his own fulness the Lord gives. At first we are 
 empty ; but when we have obtained mercy, we shall experi- 
 ence a desire like an appetite to publish it. Oh that we 
 were inoculated with that appetite for doing good that 
 burned in the breast of the man Christ Jesus ! We try to 
 do some good, and then we slacken and leave off. When 
 some providential call awakens us, we start into activity 
 again for a season. This is not the way to work deliver- 
 
9C^ THE FOOD THAT JESUS LOVED AND LIVED ON. 
 
 ance in the earth. The work is not effectually done unless 
 we do it as the Master did it. When saving work is our 
 meat, and idleness gnaws like the pain of hunger, we shall 
 be sent unto our task and kept at it. An appetite is the 
 unslumbering, faithful, effective task-master appointed by 
 our Creator, in the material department, to see that we 
 take our necessary food. When a task-master of the same 
 order keeps our spirits on the stretch for saving work, the 
 work will be vigorously prosecuted, and we shall never be 
 long out of employment. 
 
VII. 
 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 " I am the living bread which came down from heaven : if any man eat of 
 this bread, he shall live for ever : and the bread that I will give is my flesh, 
 which I will give for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove among 
 themselves, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat ? Then Jesus said 
 unto them, Verily, verily, I say \mto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son of 
 man, and drinli his blood, ye have no life in you." — John vi. 51-53. 
 
 ^0 finish his work was bread to himself: his work 
 finished is bread to his people. His food was 
 the subject of the last exposition ; theirs invites 
 our attention now. 
 As never man spake like this man, so never hitherto has 
 even this man spoken as he speaks here. After intimating 
 generally, " I am the bread of life," he proceeds to declare 
 specifically, " The bread that I will give is my flesh, which 
 I will give for the life of the world." Here he glides from 
 a deep into a deeper revelation. In answer to the per- 
 plexed questioning of his auditors, he declares with great 
 clearness that, in order to their spiritual life, they must 
 " eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man." 
 He was well aware, when he uttered these extraordinary 
 words, of the offence that they must give. The conception 
 of eating his flesh, in as far as they took it in a bodily 
 sense, was fitted to shock them as men ; and the conception 
 of drinking his blood was additionally distasteful to them 
 
 (753) 7 
 
98 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 as Jews, who were forbidden in any circumstances to eat 
 the blood. He foresaw that many would take offence at 
 these words and desert his ministry ; but he would not on 
 that account refrain from uttering them. The truth which 
 these words convey is necessary to the life of men, and 
 therefore the merciful Redeemer will not withhold them. 
 He must finish his work. This rock must be laid down 
 although many of the superficial disciples may stumble 
 over it, for it is necessary as the foundation of a true dis- 
 ciple's faith and hope. The cross must be held aloft, 
 although the offence of the cross may drive many of the 
 unstable away. Already the Lord saw meet to proclaim 
 his own sacrifice as the atonement for sin. 
 
 Let it be distinctly understood at the outset that the 
 Communion of the Lord's Supper is not the subject of dis- 
 course here. The doctrine which the Lord here teaches, 
 and the ordinance which he afterwards instituted in the 
 upper room at Jerusalem, are distinct things, although they 
 are related to each other. 
 
 If the instituted supper is like a lofty tower, the doctrine 
 tauo-ht in this passage is like the solid ground on which 
 the tower rests. This broad world is a greater thing than 
 any tower or mountain that it bears. There might have 
 been a world the same substantially as that which is, 
 although no tower or mountain should have .ever raised its 
 head into the sky ; but no tower or mountain could have 
 lifted its head towards the heavens if there had not been a 
 deep steady world to bear it. 
 
 Not the words of this passage, but the truth which they 
 teach, is the ground on which the Lord's Supper rests. 
 The Communion is a lofty monumental tower from whose 
 summit the spectator can look eastward into the morning 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 99 
 
 of time, till he meet Abraham's straining faith looking 
 down the ages ; and westward, farther and farther toward 
 the end, till he go round the circumference of time and 
 meet another morning — the second coming of the Lord in 
 the clouds of heaven. But that ordinance depends abso- 
 lutely for all its value on the foundation-truth that is 
 revealed here : that Christ crucified — his flesh and his 
 blood — constitutes the sustaining food and refreshing drink 
 of all who enjoy spiritual life and are heirs of the life 
 eternal. 
 
 The evangelist John omits from his history both the 
 sacraments. He mentions neither as an instituted ordi- 
 nance ; but he records from the lips of the Lord the funda- 
 mental doctrines on which those ordinances severally depend. 
 In the conversation with Nicodemus you find the ground 
 which sustains Baptism ; and in this discourse the ground 
 which sustains the Supper. 
 
 The Supper, although it is Christ's own institute, is an 
 outward thing, deriving all its meaning and power from 
 this precious truth. This is the soul which animates the 
 body of the sacrament. If Christ had not made himself 
 the meat and drink of his people, the Supper would never 
 have been set up as a monument of the fact ; and if Christ's 
 disciples do not really thus live upon him in secret, their 
 participation of bread and wine at the Table wdll be to them 
 a stone instead of bread. 
 
 Wanting Christ's sacrifice for sin, the sacrament of the 
 Supper would have contained nothing for us ; and wanting 
 individual personal faith in Christ crucified, we can get 
 nothing from the sacrament. 
 
 For the beginning of this doctrine regarding the 
 spiritual appetite and its supply, we must go back to the 
 
100 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 conversation with the Samaritan woman (iv. 10). "He 
 would have given thee living water." Living water ! what 
 may that be ? It is not a springing well ; it is not a run- 
 ning stream. The water that Christ gives is not only 
 living, it gives life. He who drinks of it is satisfied, and 
 that for ever. The woman failed to comprehend his mean- 
 ing, as one who had enjoyed a better education had failed 
 before her to comprehend the new birth ; but both the 
 woman and Nicodemus, like new-born babes, received the 
 nourishment which they could neither explain nor under- 
 stand. It is a mistake to suppose that spiritual profit is 
 always in proportion to the intellectual comprehension. A 
 little child may thrive upon the food of whose name and 
 nature he is ignorant, while a physician who knows the 
 constituents and properties of every morsel he swallows 
 may be dying by inches, not for want of food, but for want 
 of hunger. The woman soon got beyond her depth in 
 doctrine ; but she thirsted, and drank the living water. 
 Forthwith she became an apostle, and called the men of 
 her city out to the Lord. 
 
 In this portion the same doctrine appears at a further 
 advanced stage. There, it was water for the thirsty ; here, 
 it is meat and drink. Then the Lord gave water ; now his 
 flesh is meat and his blood is drink. 
 
 Hunger and thirst inhere naturally in human souls. 
 There is a craving in humanity for more. We are in this 
 respect completely distinct from other orders of living 
 creatures. The craving for something not yet possessed, 
 and not yet visible, is a universal characteristic of our kind. 
 The pressure of that appetite makes the whole machinery 
 of the world go round. It sends armies into the field, and 
 ships across the ocean ; it mines the solid earth, and washes 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 101 
 
 gold from Avistralian sands. The cry of human nature, 
 blind and unintelligent, but eager and constant, is the cry 
 of the horse-leech — Give, give. 
 
 This soul-hunger in humanity human beings attempt to 
 satisfy with body-food. " Soul, thou hast much goods laid 
 up for many years," etc. But when all these have been 
 flung to it, the poor soul is more hungry than before. It 
 is as when the shipwrecked seaman on his raft drinks salt 
 water to appease his thirst, and so makes his thirst burn 
 more fiercely. 
 
 This strong but blind appetite is cheated, moreover, by 
 all the idolatries and all the self -righteousnesses that men 
 have invented in name of religion. 
 
 To meet and satisfy this craving Christ came into the 
 world, and gave himself a sacrifice. Neither is there 
 salvation in any other. " My flesh is meat indeed, and 
 my blood is drink indeed." 
 
 " Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son 
 of man, ye have no life in you." Here we have, on the part 
 of Christ, his incarnation and sacrifice ; on the part of 
 Christians, their faith in exercise, and their life thereby. 
 
 I. On the part of Christ, Incarnation and Sacrifice. 
 
 1. His incarnation : the Son of man. A deep mine of 
 meaning lies in this form of expression. Not man, not a 
 man, not a son of man ; but the Son of man. There is 
 only one to whom this title is due. It points not to the 
 millions who are sons of man, and nothing more ; it points 
 to him who, being Son of God from eternity, became the 
 Son of man in the fulness of time. Neither a son of man 
 nor the Son of God could be our substitute and saviour. 
 The one is near enough to us, but has no power to save ; 
 
102 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 the other has power to save, but is not near enough to us. 
 A son of man is linked to us in the sympathy of a common 
 nature ; but this only secures that he sinks with us when 
 we fall : the Son of God is far above, out of our sicjht, and 
 we cannot rise with him when he rises. Thus, if mere man 
 had been our help, we should have perished, for there 
 would have been no strength to lay hold of ; and if only 
 God had been our help, we should have perished, for we 
 could never have laid hold of his strength. 
 
 The incarnation — that is, when he who is God blessed 
 for ever took our nature, and became a man — is the 
 greatest fact in the course of time. It is the knot that 
 binds a fallen world to a stable heaven, that interlaces 
 divine power with human weakness, and imparts divine 
 righteousness to the fallen as their covering and their 
 plea. 
 
 2. His saGrifice. Beyond question the Lord points already 
 to his own atoning death when he speaks of his flesh and his 
 blood as the meat and the drink of his people. Even the 
 incarnation, if it stood alone, could not save us. Although 
 the Son of God had taken our nature, we must have been 
 left to perish, if he had not in that nature given himself a 
 sacrifice. Without shedding of blood there is no remission 
 of sins. This is the great central lesson of the Scriptures. 
 This cardinal doctrine was imprinted into the being of the 
 Church during the period of its infancy. From Abel's 
 sacrifice to the Passover which Jesus kept in the upper 
 room wath the twelve on the eve of his suffering, the blood 
 of sacrifices flowed on the altar like a continual stream. 
 Daily sacrifice ; morning and evening sacrifice ; sacrifice 
 when the sun went down, and sacrifice again to greet 
 his risinc: : blood, blood ; all things under the law were 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 103 
 
 sprinkled with blood. Expiation by the victim's blood 
 was the very mould in which the people's minds were cast 
 from youth to age, from generation to generation. If that 
 were only the invention of men, what a waste ! but if that 
 be the appointment of God, what a meaning ! When Christ 
 came he recognized his place and his mission. He placed 
 himself in the focus of all those converging fires, and owned 
 himself the Lamb of God, slain from the foundation of the 
 world. " It is finished," he said at length, and gave up the 
 ghost. 
 
 II. On the part of Christians, They believe and live. 
 
 " Eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of man." 
 He employs plain, powerful language. Nor does he take 
 any pains to give warning that it is not the bodily eating 
 of his material body that he means. He knows what is in 
 man, and what man needs. He knows that if any would 
 not perceive his meaning without such a warning, neither 
 would they accept his meaning with it. Those who enter- 
 tain the conception of a corporal and carnal receiving of 
 Christ's flesh and blood would have run into that idolatry 
 over the back of all the warnings that could have been 
 written. All through, the Lord speaks not of the hunger 
 and food of the body, but of the hunger and food of the 
 soul. If any one misses or rejects this, he would not have 
 been corrected and instructed by any other form of words 
 possible in human speech. 
 
 But mark well, although it is a spiritual and not a 
 material food, it is yet a real supply of a real hunger. 
 The soul's hunger is a greater thing than the hunger of the 
 body. A Roman poet has called avarice a spiritual thirst 
 for gold. And this spiritual appetite works greater effects 
 
104 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 on earth than any bodily appetite. Correspondingly, a 
 pure and divinely inspired spiritual appetite is a more 
 imperious and far-reaching power than the natural appetites 
 of the body. From the Psalmist downward, it has been 
 common for souls to be so eager for the spiritual food that 
 they have forgotten to eat their daily bread. The soul's 
 appetite has overruled and overridden the appetite of the 
 body. And as hunger is often quickened into sharper 
 activity by the sight or the scent of food, so longing eager 
 souls become more eager when, after long striving in vain 
 for that which will satisfy, they come near their true satis- 
 faction — the Christ of God, incarnate in our nature and 
 sacrificed for our sin. Never did the Ethiopian treasurer 
 more keenly hunger for this flesh to eat and this blood to 
 drink than when, on his journey homewards, he continued 
 seeking, and was blindly groping over the very place where 
 his satisfaction lay — the Lamb of God led to the slaughter 
 — the sacrifice of Christ for the world's sin. 
 
 To eat his flesh and drink his blood is to secure and live 
 upon Christ — God with us, and sacrificed for us. As truly 
 a believing soul receives this food as the living body 
 receives its appropriate nourishment ; and as truly does the 
 new life of the soul prosper on this sustenance, as does the 
 healthy body prosper on its convenient food. 
 
 " Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son 
 of man ye have no life in you." Even intelligent assent to 
 the truth of the gospel does not give life. Even devout 
 admiration of the incarnation, the ministry, and sufferings 
 of Immanuel will not give and sustain the life of a soul. 
 It is the personal individual acceptance and relish of the 
 divine and crucified Redeemer, as your own Redeemer, and 
 this acceptance as real as your acceptance of food for the 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESTJS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 105 
 
 body's life — it is this that contributes, that sustains, that 
 constitutes the new life of a Christian. 
 
 Drink his blood is a striking, and must have been to the 
 Jews who heard it, a startling addition to the more familiar 
 conception of eating the flesh of the sacrifice. He must 
 have intended to startle them, and to shake them out of 
 their lethargy. They were strictly forbidden to eat the 
 blood ; and yet they were taught that the blood was the 
 life. It was like the prohibition laid on the primeval pair 
 acfainst eatinsr of the tree. Yet the tree is a tree of life ; 
 and the Lord means that they shall eat of it yet, and eat 
 abundantly. Not in an imlawful way or at an unripe time, 
 but in time and manner divinely appointed, Israel shall 
 yet drink the blood in which is the life. The time had 
 now come. The way was open ; the barrier was removed. 
 There was now access into the holiest. That which was 
 veiled off before is laid open now, and whosoever will may 
 come and take of this water — may drink of this blood, 
 which is the life, freely. 
 
 These words of Jesus have a direct and obvious bearing 
 on the question whether participation in the communion of 
 the Lord's Supper, the external ordinance, is necessary to 
 salvation. The doctrine taught here manifestly settles that 
 question. The words were spoken by Jesus, and recorded 
 by John, in order that they might settle that question. 
 Here the circumstance that John, writing after the other 
 three Gospels were before his eye, gives fully this discourse, 
 and gives not the institution of the Supper at all, is broadly 
 significant. By eating the flesh and drinking the blood of 
 the Son of man believers then had life, at a time when the 
 Supper was not appointed, and none but the Lord himself 
 knew that it ever would be appointed. This is given in 
 
106 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 full by John, and the sacrament not given at all, to prevent 
 a corrupt priesthood, in a subsequent age, from laying a 
 yoke of bondage on the necks of believers. There were 
 men who then and there did eat the flesh and drink the 
 blood of the Son of man before the external ordinance was 
 appointed ; and a multitude which no man can number 
 would have so eaten and so drunk for their own eternal 
 life, in succeeding ages, although it had pleased the Lord 
 not to have instituted the Supper at all. 
 
 But althouo-h the discourse of Jesus vindicates for all 
 time and all places the possibility of living in Christ here 
 and with him on high, without actually partaking of bread 
 and wine with the Church on earth, it does not make the 
 ordinance which Christ subsequently instituted of no effect, 
 and does not liberate any disciple from the duty of observ- 
 ing it. The fact that he lives a new life, by secretly eat- 
 ing the flesh and drinking the blood of Christ, so far from 
 making a believer careless of the ordinance, is the very 
 thing that impels him with desire and joyfulness to take 
 the cup of salvation in his hand, and so call upon the name 
 of the Lord. It is the consciousness that he has already 
 been redeemed from all evil through the shedding of the 
 Saviour's blood, that induces him to serve the Lord that 
 bought him by a glad obedience to all his commandments. 
 The supposition of a believer living in Christ, and eating 
 his flesh and blood, yet refusing to partake of the Lord's 
 Supper, is vain and useless. For if the refusal spring from 
 some mist that has come over a true disciple's mind, pre- 
 venting him from seeing the way that the Lord has pointed 
 out, it is like the case of a man who wants a limb — he 
 lives, but his progress is impeded by the calamity. And 
 if it be the case of one consciously, with his eyes open, 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 107 
 
 refusing to obey that dying command of Christ, that 
 despiser is none of his. No man who really trusts in the 
 risen Saviour for redemption and eternal life, will persist 
 with understanding in refusing to obey what he knows to 
 be the Saviour's command. 
 
 When one has tasted that the Lord is gracious, you may 
 be well assured he will cast up wherever and whenever 
 new tastes of the same grace are going. As even the dumb 
 brute which draws your carriage will turn aside with a strong 
 determination when he approaches the spot where formerly 
 he has obtained food when hungry or drink when thirsty, 
 so a Christian who has already lived upon the Lord will 
 be feund pressing in to whatever places, by the Lord's own 
 appointment, new experiences of his love are given, — in 
 the Closet, in the Church, at the Table. 
 
 Pause a moment yet over the word, " Except ye eat the 
 flesh of the Son of man, and drink his blood, ye have 
 no life in you." The Lord seems to ignore the life that we 
 now live in the body. He will not count or call it life at 
 all ; at least, when in his view this life is laid for com- 
 parison alongside of eternal life in himself, he deliberately 
 refuses to count it life. He reckons it only a process of 
 dying. We are aware of the general law that one's view 
 depends upon his view-point. Christ, though he is Son of 
 man and our Brother, yet stands within the veil while he 
 speaks to us. He stands on his own footing as the eternal 
 Son of God, with all eternity exposed beneath his eye : in 
 this position he stands while he speaks to us, and he can- 
 not call this fitful struggle to keep death at bay for a few 
 years, a life. In his view, unless we are found in him and 
 so partake of life spiritual and eternal, we have not life 
 at all. 
 
108 THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 
 
 If it were possible for us, by a certain process of union 
 or engrafting, to admit an insect whose life is but a day 
 into a participation of the human life, with its intellect and 
 its span of seventy years ; and if the creature could become 
 aware of the fact, and capable of receiving instruction 
 regarding it, you might, in such an imagined case, approach 
 it while its one-day life was drawing towards sunset, and 
 say, Haste and take such and such measures for engrafting 
 yourself into me ; for except ye be inserted into my flesh 
 and blood, ere that sun go down you have no life in you. 
 From man's view-point, and with his measures, the life of 
 that ephemera is not a life at all. 
 
 The figure, though feeble, helps, as far as it goes, to 
 explain the meaning of the Lord when he says, " Except ye 
 eat my flesh and drink my blood, ye have no life in you." 
 With his experience and with his prospect, he counts this 
 fitful life in the body as not a life. In comparison with 
 the life of which we are capable, and which he both has at 
 his disposal and loves to bestow, this is not life. But as in 
 this lower life, if we do not eat and drink it cannot be 
 sustained ; so in that higher life, unless we receive its 
 sustenance we cannot enjoy it. The Hebrew fathers, 
 although they tasted the manna that fell from heaven, 
 died. No material plenty, no spiritual privilege, will secure 
 for you the life of the soul. The body and blood of Christ 
 are the appropriate and necessary sustenance of that only 
 real and perfect life. You must, not after a corporal and 
 carnal manner, but by faith, discern the Lord's body and 
 feed upon it. 
 
 A soul can live as well as a body. A spirit can hunger 
 and thirst as well as a body. The hunger and thirst of a 
 spirit are as real as the hunger and thirst of a body. The 
 
THE FOOD THAT JESUS GAVE TO HIS OWN. 109 
 
 food that satisfies a spirit is as real as, and inconceivably- 
 more substantial than, the food that satisfies a body. 
 
 Nor is it true that body-hunger and body-food are sub- 
 stance, and the spiritual need and spiritual supply a kind 
 of shadowy figurative thing. No ; the opposite is the truth. 
 The real, the substantial, the original — the food that is first 
 and shall be last — is the body and blood of Christ, on which 
 Christians live ; and the hunger and the food that bulk so 
 largely in the business of earth are a shadow that endures 
 for a moment and then vanishes away. 
 
VIII. 
 
 THE TWO FAMILIES— THE NATURAL AND 
 THE SPIRITUAL. 
 
 " Then came to him his mother and his brethren, and could not come at him 
 for the press. And it was told him by certain which said. Thy mother and thy 
 brethren stand without, desiring to see thee. And he answered and said ixnto 
 them, My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God, and 
 do it." — Luke viii. 19-21. 
 
 HILE Jesus was in the act of preaching in the 
 centre of a crowd, Mary his mother approached 
 the spot, accompanied by some members of her 
 family. Unable to penetrate the throng, they 
 remained on its outskirts, and sent in a message, from lip 
 to lip, that they desired to speak with him. Not permit- 
 ting his public ministry to be authoritatively interrupted 
 even by his mother's word, he set the demand aside by the 
 memorable answer, " My mother and my brethren are these 
 which hear the word of God, and do it." 
 
 From these words of the Lord Jesus I learn — 
 That, without repudiating the family relations of 
 earth, he institutes and proclaims the family rela- 
 tions of heaven. 
 
 The prophecy is not limited to any single or private 
 interpretation ; it has a meaning for all kindreds and all 
 times. As a faithful minister of the gospel said once to a 
 despotic sovereign — " There are two kings and two king- 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. Ill 
 
 doms in Scotland," explaining how Church and State may 
 live and thrive on the same spot at the same time, giving 
 and receiving help reciprocally, if each will consent to con- 
 fine itself to its own sphere and exercise only its own func- 
 tions ; so the Scriptures intimate that two families pervade 
 society, both having to a great extent the same persons as 
 members, yet without jealousy or collision, getting and giv- 
 ing reciprocal support. Both families are of God. He has 
 planned and constituted them. To him they owe their 
 origin, and from him they receive their laws. A place has 
 been assigned to the one in creation ; to the other in re- 
 demption. The one has been in full operation since the 
 birth of our race ; the other was long a secret hidden 
 institute, nor was it completely formed and openly mani- 
 fested till Christ came into the world. The members of 
 the first family enter its circle by birth ; the members of 
 the second by the new birth. The one is the grand Insti- 
 tute of Nature ; the other the grand Institute of Grace. 
 Both are good, each as far as it goes ; but the second is 
 deeper, longer, broader, higher than the first. The first is 
 the family for time ; the second is the family for eternity. 
 In this text, and in others of similar import, the Lord 
 Jesus, without pulling up the first family, plants another 
 among its roots. The first, being an institute existing from 
 the beginning hitherto and manifest to all, he simply leaves 
 as it is ; the second, being in a great measure new and 
 unknown, he proclaims, defines, and approves. The first, 
 beino^ strons: in nature, he leaves to its own resources ; the 
 second, being feeble, he protects against the possible 
 oppression of its robuster neighbour. The rights of the 
 one family are secured in the decalogue ; the privileges of 
 the other are pronounced by the lips of Christ. 
 
112 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 In short, as the Kedeemer and Head of his ransomed 
 Church, the Lord does not condemn and annul relations of 
 blood ; but he refuses to permit them to burst in and 
 dominate relations by the Spirit. By silence he permits 
 the natural affections to rule in their own sphere ; but by 
 express intimation he forbids them to usurp authority in 
 another. At the proper time and place, Jesus the son 
 owned the law of Mary his mother ; but Jesus the Saviour 
 will not, at this woman's word, interrupt his work, and 
 scatter an assembly of disciples. 
 
 Let us therefore endeavour to explain and apply in their 
 order and relations these two lessons : — 
 
 I. Christ in the Gospel permits the natural family, in all 
 its integrity, to remain undisturbed. 
 
 II. Christ in the Gospel establishes, on the same sphere, 
 a new spiritual family. 
 
 I. Christ in the Gospel permits the natural family, in all 
 its integrity, to remain undisturbed. 
 
 Jesus was himself the member of a family. He received 
 the benefits of that position, and fulfilled its duties. In his 
 ministry he recognized the institute, and in his conduct he 
 obeyed its laws. Nor is it enough to say that he knew 
 and acknowledged those aflfections that bind family-groups 
 together : himself had planted them in the human consti- 
 tution at the first. He is the contriver and creator of 
 humanity, with all its original capacities. Wisdom, as in 
 the Proverbs, was with the Maker " when he set a compass 
 upon the face of the deep," and his peculiar " delights were 
 with the children of men." He who stands in the heart of 
 that crowd, and receives a message from a mother, shared 
 in the mysterious counsel, " Let us make man in our own 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 113 
 
 image." It is essential to the depth and stability of our 
 faith to bear in mind that our Redeemer is the Eternal and 
 Almighty God. He who is now redeeming man from sin 
 made man in the beginning sinless. He imprinted instincts, 
 such as he saw meet, on the core of his creature ; and these, 
 as they came from his hand, were all very good : these are 
 all very good still, in as far as they have been set in his 
 own work by his own hand. 
 
 While the incarnation is to us the grand evidence of 
 God's condescending kindness, it is fitted also to exalt to 
 the utmost the dignity of man. Therein we get a glimpse, 
 which the fallen could not have otherwise obtained, of the 
 place which unfallen humanity held, and which the re- 
 deemed will enjoy for ever. " The Word became flesh, and 
 dwelt among us." "He took not on him the nature of 
 angels," but ours ; and he bears that nature still. We learn 
 here that God is not ashamed of his own conception em- 
 bodied in the constitution of the human race. He did not 
 repent of his plan, and has not withdrawn it to substitute 
 another. He did not fling his work aw^ay, even when it 
 fell. He abides by all that is his own in us ; and will 
 abide by his redeemed, not ashamed to call them brethren 
 when they are at last completely restored. Before the 
 mystery of the incarnation we ought first to adore the 
 condescension of God, and next to reverence ourselves. 
 Honour all the pure affections of human nature, for they 
 thrill in the Saviour's breast ; loathe all the sins that stain 
 it, for they crucified the Son of God. 
 
 If you examine the natural affections and instincts of 
 living creatures, you will find that one principle lies like 
 a measuring rod along the whole — utility. These affec- 
 tions are inserted, and inserted such as they arc, in the 
 
 (753) f. 
 
114 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 constitution of the creature, because of their usefulness. 
 They are the instruments whereby the Maker works out 
 his own design. " God is good," will explain all. " The 
 eyes of the Lord are in every place." " The hairs of your 
 head are all numbered." The instincts go as far as is 
 necessary for the good of the creature, and no farther. 
 There is no waste in the mechanism of creation and provi- 
 dence. Sufficient power is provided to produce the desired 
 result ; and by a self-acting apparatus the power ceases to 
 operate as soon as the result has been attained. Some 
 living creatures, as fishes and certain species of birds, have 
 no perceptible filial or parental affections at all. In their 
 case the instinct is not needed, and therefore is not found. 
 In others, including all the higher grades of the brute crea- 
 tion, the parental affection is developed in great intensity 
 for a short period, and then altogether ceases. A mother 
 that would have shed her blood for her offspring a month 
 ago, when it was feeble, does not know it to-day, at least 
 does not acknowledge it in the herd. The instinct, having 
 served its purpose, is not left dangling after its work is 
 done. It has been cut off" short and clean ; remnants would 
 only encumber, and therefore none are left. 
 
 Relative affections in human kind expatiate on a wider 
 field, and are more enduring. Here we enter a region in 
 which these affections find room to range ; they become, 
 accordingly, manifold and strong. The roots go deeper 
 down in the deeper, richer soil. A short-lived maternal 
 love would not serve the purpose here ; and therefore a 
 mother's love in this region is not short-lived. In this 
 sphere a moral end is proposed, penetrating through time 
 into eternity ; and in the economy of Providence adequate 
 means have been provided. The relations of the family, like 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 115 
 
 the flowers, are fair even on the surface and to the casual ob- 
 server; but beauties unnumbered and unmeasured lie beneath 
 the leaves to reward more earnest and careful inspection. 
 
 Christ was a perfect man. He was not only perfectly- 
 holy, but completely human. He took all our nature, 
 without its defects and defilements. He experienced filial 
 and fraternal love. He loved his mother and his brethren 
 with the true affection of a son and a brother. The bosom 
 on which he slept when he was an infant, he never tore 
 when he became a youth and a man. The woman who 
 cherished him from his birth was dear to his heart till 
 death. How the filial regard, a merely human emotion, 
 was affected by the love divine wherewith he, the same 
 person, regarded Mary as a sinner saved, we can neither 
 comprehend nor explain. We are treading here on the lip 
 of the unrevealed and the unrevealable ; if we turn one 
 step aside, or go forward one step too far, we are in an 
 instant helplessly beyond our depth. One thing we know 
 surely — that the man Christ Jesus fulfilled a son's and a 
 brother's part to the woman Mary and those men of her 
 family who are called his brethren. 
 
 No disciple of Christ is permitted to break the bonds of 
 kindred, and abjure the affections of consanguinity, on the 
 plea of his Master's example or command. Superstition 
 has always shown a tendency to exalt the spiritual relations 
 by crushing the natural ; it would build up, according to 
 its own false conception, the family of God on the ruins of 
 the family of man. It even represents, that to extinguish 
 by violence every spark of specific filial regard to an 
 earthly parent, is the way to become a first-class favourite 
 among the children of our Father in heaven. This is a 
 mistake — a mischievous will-worship. God has not re- 
 
116 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 quired — will not accept this service at our hands ; he is 
 not pleased — he is displeased with those who, on any pre- 
 tence, rudely break the bonds which his own hands have 
 so skilfully constructed. 
 
 God did not build up the family in order to pull it down 
 again. By permitting the bonds by which it is united to 
 twine around his own heart, the Lord our Redeemer has 
 intimated that in themselves they are pure, and in the 
 Church shall be permanent ; these laws he came not to 
 destroy, but to fulfil. 
 
 As the ordinances of the earlier dispensation were a 
 shadow, and so a prediction, of better things to come in 
 Christ, the natural family is a type, and so a promise, of 
 the spiritual and heavenly. That which is earthly is first, 
 and will be superseded when that which is spiritual shall 
 have fully come. It occupies its place and serves its pur- 
 pose ; for its time and its purpose, behold it is very good. 
 Christ came to plant another family beside it — a family 
 which is now growing among its roots and under its shade, 
 and will at last cast it out and assume its place ; but in the 
 meantime, and while the world lasts, he leaves all the 
 relationships and instincts of human families untouched, 
 except to hallow them by his own example and approval. 
 He will not permit the affections of the present time to 
 grow too rank, draining off all the heart's riches, and starving 
 the affections that are unseen and spiritual within his own; 
 but even in the act of checking the family instincts and 
 forbidding them to travel beyond their sphere, he leaves 
 them honoured and approved in all their integrity to ex- 
 patiate within their own sphere. He will not permit 
 the family to exalt itself above its own place ; but 
 neither will he depress it beneath its own place : he wall 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 117 
 
 neither banish it from earth, nor permit it to intrude into 
 heaven. 
 
 On this, and on one or two other occasions, the Lord 
 Jesus maintains towards Mary his mother a measure of 
 reserve which at first sight attracts notice, and perhaps 
 even excites surprise. We know from the record of his 
 life that equally in his childhood and at his dying hour a 
 fervent filial love glowed in his breast ; but some incidents 
 also recorded in the Gosj^els, although not contrary, distinctly 
 point in another direction. Two lines in regard to this 
 matter, not hostile or inconsistent, but articulately distinct, 
 seem to run through the Lord's life on earth. Here emerges 
 a true, deep, human, filial love ; there appears a subdued 
 and measured, but meditated intentional reserve. These 
 facts, I believe, were prophecy ; and upon them, as upon 
 the spoken prophecies, subsequent events have thrown light. 
 He saw the end from the beginning, and so acted from the 
 first ; we now see the beginning from the end, and perceive 
 the reason why he acted thus. 
 
 The Mariolatry of modern Rome, lying, like all other 
 events, open before the mind of the Lord during the period 
 of his personal ministry, must have sensibly affected those 
 of his words and actions whose relation to it he, in his 
 omniscience, foresaw. In short — for I desire to throw out 
 this thought frankly and without ambiguity — I believe that 
 the Lord Jesus, deliberately and presciently, adopted towards 
 Mary, the mother of his humanity, precisely that line of 
 conduct by which he might on the one hand sanction by 
 his own example all the relations and affections of the 
 family, and yet, on the other hand, withhold from a great 
 but grossly superstitious community, in these latter days, 
 every semblance of pretext for citing his authority in sup- 
 
.118 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 port of a loathsome idolatry on which he foresaw they should 
 absolutely go mad. Why should we hesitate to accept this 
 solution ? Wist ye not that he must be about the Father's 
 business ? Even in smaller matters we enjoy to-day the 
 benefit of ancient prophecy, not spoken in figurative lan- 
 guage, but deeply relieved in historic fact. For what pur- 
 pose has the Holy Spirit permitted and directed the record 
 to be inserted, in two distinct and far distant portions of 
 Scripture,* that the Apostle Peter was, and continued to be, 
 a married man ? If Rome had chosen any other one of the 
 twelve than Peter as the head of her celibate priesthood, I 
 am not aware that direct proof could have been found in 
 the Scriptures that, in the matter of marriage, the practice 
 of the chief condemned the precepts of his followers. Why, 
 when the family relations of the rest have been permitted 
 to pass into oblivion, as unimportant to the Church, have 
 two witnesses separately testified in Scripture that Peter 
 was a married man ? If you ascribe this to chance, you 
 may ascribe all to chance, and refuse to recognize in the 
 world the traces of an intelligent government. For my 
 part, I see God's finger in the fact; and I read it as a prescient, 
 prophetic condemnation of the Romish celibate— a system 
 that brands a divine ordinance with a stigma of reproach 
 and elevates at its expense a mischievous invention of 
 man. 
 
 In presence of the idolatrous worship addressed to Mary, 
 which has been swelling like a tide for ages, and has reached 
 its culmination only in our own day, practically superseding 
 Christ in the devotions of the multitude, I reverence and 
 love with peculiar interest that chastened reserve wherewith 
 Jesus saw meet to modify his filial tenderness throughout 
 
 * Matt. viii. 14: 1 Cor. ix. 5. 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 119 
 
 his intercourse with Mary his mother. Ah, there was no 
 sorrow like unto his sorrow, because there was no know- 
 ledge like unto his knowledge of the desperate wickedness 
 which from generation to generation broods in human 
 hearts. In that distance and coolness, approaching almost 
 to coldness, with which he treated Mary, I see the Man 
 of sorrows covering his human filial love, and limiting to 
 the utmost the visible expression of its fervour, that mis- 
 guided men might not in later ages wrest his words to 
 justify apostasy — might not be able on any pretence to 
 plead his authority for turning aside to trust in another 
 Saviour. 
 
 11. Christ in the Gospel establishes, on the same sphere, 
 a new spiritual family. 
 
 The Redeemer's mission was to re-establish the relations 
 which sin had broken between God and man, on the one 
 hand, and between man and man on the other. The re- 
 deemed on earth are united to their Head and to one another 
 by affections which are completely different from, but not 
 in any sense contrary to, the natural instincts. If any man 
 be in Christ he is a new creature : in the new creature a 
 multitude of new affections spring and flow, but being on a 
 higher level, they never run foul of the affections that ex- 
 patiate on the lower sphere of temporal things. Mind, con- 
 science, immortality, have been imparted to man, and these 
 faculties have free scope for action ; but those operations of 
 the higher nature do not in any measure impede the in- 
 halation of air, the circulation of the blood, or any of the 
 other processes which belong to us in common with inferior 
 creatures. Now, as mind, acting in another sphere, comes 
 not into collision with the functions of the body, so the new 
 
120 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 spiritual affections, which belong to us as Christians, do not 
 interfere with the original afiections which belong to us as 
 men. 
 
 It is a great thing to be in the regeneration a child of 
 God ; it is a great thing to be a brother or a sister in that 
 family, which is already like the stars of heaven in number, 
 and will yet be like them in purity and glory. The new 
 relation is formed, and through the earlier stages of its 
 growth consolidated, while the old relation remains in vigour. 
 The germ of the new sonship and brotherhood is rooted 
 in the heart unseen, without disturbing the sonships and 
 brotherhoods of the present world, which grow thick and 
 fresh all around. 
 
 There is a process in agriculture which presents an in- 
 teresting parallel to the simultaneous and commingling 
 growth of relations for time and relations for eternity in 
 human hearts. A field is closely occupied all over with a 
 growing crop which will soon reach maturity, and will be 
 reaped in this season's harvest. The owner intends that 
 another crop, totally different in kind, shall possess the 
 ground in the following year ; but he does not wait till the, 
 grain now growing lias been reaped — he goes into the field 
 and sows the seed of the new while the old is still growing 
 and green. In some cases a method is adopted which is, 
 from our present point of view, still more suggestive : the 
 seed which shall complete its functions within the present 
 season, and the seed which, springing this year, shall bear 
 its fruit upwards, are mixed together in the same vessel 
 and scattered together on the same ground. Nor does the 
 one lie dormant for a season while the other monopolizes 
 the soil ; both spring up at the same, or nearly the same 
 time. The plant for the future germinates at once, but it 
 
THE TWO FA?iIILIES. 121 
 
 does not reach maturity till the following year ; the plant 
 intended for the present season — the wheat or the barley — 
 grows rapidly and ripens ere the winter come. Lowly, 
 meekly at the roots of the waving grain springs the plant of 
 the future ; it passes through its earlier stages while the tall 
 stalks of the wheat are towering over its head. It springs 
 although the grain is growing on the same spot, and springs 
 better because the grain is growing there. The vigorous 
 growth of another species all around it shelters its feeble 
 infancy ; and after the winter has passed, in another season, 
 it starts afresh and comes forth in its own matured 
 strength. 
 
 Thus the affections and relations that belong to the 
 future spring and grow under the shadow of the affections 
 and relations that belong to the present. The Sower who 
 came forth into time to sow a seed that ripens in eternity, 
 did not first cut down and cast away as cumberers of the 
 ground all the natural affections which he found covering 
 its surface with a luxuriant growth ; he sowed the seeds 
 of the future among the growing crop of the present, and 
 these seeds grow better there than in a soil bared of human 
 loves and joys. The seed of the word for eternal life, 
 other things being equal, thrives better in a heart where all 
 the natural emotions of the family circle swell, than in a 
 heart that has been prematurely shorn of human affections, 
 and caged in a cloister for protection from the world. The 
 two seeds are of different kinds, and for different seasons ; 
 there is not a collision of interests when both grow on the 
 same spot and at the same time. 
 
 The question whether or how far the ties of nature, as 
 we know them here on earth, will survive or revive in the 
 resurrection, has been often raised, but from the nature of the 
 
122 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 case cannot be fully answered. The family relations, as 
 they are exercised here, do not go into heaven in the lump,^ — 
 to this extent the Scriptures definitely inform us ; but how 
 many and how much of them may be permitted to pass 
 throucrh the narrow gate we cannot tell. I would not 
 venture to pronounce that the bonds which so sweetly bind 
 heart to heart on earth, leave no mark of their existence in 
 the world to come. I think it is not probable that those 
 lines which have graven themselves so deeply into our 
 being here will be all blotted out in the middle passage. 
 
 One thing strongly favours the supposition that the 
 affections of nature will in some form survive, — the long- 
 ings of believing hearts certainly do go out with great 
 intensity after their own who die in the Lord. It would 
 seem contrary to the analogy of his ways in other depart- 
 ments, that our Father should plant that desire, or permit it 
 to flourish in his children, if he had provided no satisfaction 
 for it at his own right hand. In this matter I would 
 venture to apply and appropriate the promise of the Lord, 
 " Blessed are they that hunger and thirst : for they shall be 
 filled." 
 
 But while we are straining to see where there is hardly 
 any light, a thought, containing all the force of an axio- 
 matic truth, rises up to cheer us, — if those best earthly 
 bonds survive not — if, in heaven, all be the same to all, the 
 absence of individual affections will not constitute any 
 diminution of happiness. If such a levelling of distinctions 
 shall take place in the better land, it will be because love 
 to all the saved brotherhood has risen to such a height that 
 particular affections have been overwhelmed in the flood. 
 If those particular preferences which stand out, to our 
 view, like mountains on the horizon of time, are in eternity 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 123 
 
 altogether lost, they are lost because love to the Lord and 
 all his redeemed has covered them as the ocean covers the 
 vegetation in its bed. If those deep traces of affinity and 
 consanguinity shall be blotted out, they will be blotted out 
 by a river of blessedness that will leave them unregretted, 
 as the childish things which in manhood we forget. Most 
 certainly if, in the place of rest, mother be nothing more 
 to son, and son nothing more to mother, than any of all the 
 redeemed, the love of all to each, and of each to all, in 
 eternity, will be immeasurably greater and sweeter than the 
 most loving heart has ever been able to conceive in this 
 place of pilgrimage. If mothers and brothers melt into the 
 mass, it is not because mothers and brothers become less 
 dear in heaven than they were on earth, but because Christ 
 and all the saved become more dear. 
 
 Those stars that studded the dark blue canopy of the 
 sky were lovely : often through the weary night did the 
 lone watcher lift his eyes and look upon them. They 
 seemed to him a sort of company, and, while he gazed on 
 the bright glancing throng, he felt himself for the moment 
 somewhat less lonely. Yet you hear no complaint from 
 that watcher's lips when those stars disappear ; for the 
 cause of their disappearance is the break of day. Either 
 the many fond individual companionships which cheer dis- 
 ciples in the night of their pilgrimage will remain with 
 them, as bright particular stars in the day of eternity, or 
 they will fade away before its dawning : if they remain, 
 their company in holiness will be a thousand-fold more 
 sweet ; if they disappear, it will not be that those joys 
 have grown more dim, but that we do not observe them in 
 the light of a more glorious day. 
 
 Two practical lessons, one in the form of a warning, and 
 
124 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 the other in the form of an encouragement, depend from 
 the subject visibly, and claim a notice at the close. 
 
 1. Reverting again, for a moment, to the analogy of 
 seed for the future sown and springing under the shade of 
 a crop that is growing for the present season, we may. 
 gather from nature a caution which is needful and profit- 
 able in the department of grace. When this season's crop, 
 amidst which next season's seed was sown in spring, has 
 been cut in harvest and carried home, I have seen the field 
 in whole or in part destitute of the young plants which 
 ought at that time to have covered its surface, the hope of 
 future years. Sometimes after this season's harvest is 
 reaped, no living plant remains in the ground. As you 
 walk over it at the approach of winter, you see rotting 
 stubble, the decaying remnants of one harvest, but no 
 young plants, the promise of another year. Why ? 
 Because the first crop has grown too rank in its robust 
 maturity, and overlaid the second in its tender youth. It 
 is somewhat like the heavy slumber of a drunken mother, 
 that quenches the life of her child by night. Ah, it is not 
 safe to feed and fatten too much either the corn of our 
 farm or the natural affections of our hearts : when either 
 grows too gross, it both injures itself and oppresses a more 
 precious plant that is seeking shelter underneath. 
 
 The principle of this lesson applies to the business of 
 life as well as the reciprocal affections of kindred. Beware ! 
 Open your hearts and take the warning in. Have you 
 hope for pardon and eternal life in the Son of God, the 
 Saviour ? Then bear in mind that, under the shade of 
 your city-traffic and your home-joys, a tender plant is grow- 
 ing, native of a softer clime — a plant whose growth is 
 yuur life, whose decay your ruin, in the great day ; a plant 
 
THE TWO FAMILIES. 125 
 
 that needs indeed the shelter of honest industry and pure 
 family affections, but dies outright under the choking 
 weight of their over-growth ; and see to it that the profits 
 and pleasures of time do not, by their excess, kill the hope 
 for eternity. What is a man profiited although he gain the 
 whole world, if he lose his own soul ? 
 
 2. It is ever true, according to the symbolic prophecy of 
 the Apocalypse, that the earth helps the woman — that the 
 occupations and affinities and friendships of this life may 
 and do cherish the growth of grace in the soul. In many 
 ways the loves and cares that appertain to the family 
 institute, growing normally, healthfully vigorous, and not 
 morbidly, feebly rank, do in point of fact shield and stimu- 
 late the seed of eternal life that has been sown, and is 
 springing, in the heart. Many a son can tell, and will tell 
 in heaven, that the good seed of the word would have been 
 scorched and blasted, if it had not lain for a time under the 
 kindly shade of home. Many may say with truth, If I 
 had not been born at first in such a family on earth, I 
 probably would not have been born again into the family 
 of God. 
 
 Let us be content with our lot ; especially let us beware 
 of fretting against family responsibilities, and the demands 
 of lawful business, as if these were necessarily impediments 
 to the growth of the spiritual life. If these affections and 
 occupations were taken away, the spiritual life, deprived of 
 its shelter, would be burnt by the heat or blasted by the 
 wind. Beware of that intemperate rankness in the growth 
 of temporal affairs which would kill in its infancy the 
 planting of the Lord in your heart ; but fear not when the 
 lawful cares and aflfections of time spring thick and grow 
 vigorous : God has sown these seeds with his own hand 
 
126 THE TWO FAMILIES. 
 
 in creation, and he will employ them to cherish and protect 
 that " Christ in you " which is his own special delight. For 
 the safety and the increase of the life of faith, the best 
 place to be in is the place in which God has put you. He 
 that believeth shall not make haste : it is not change of 
 place, or change of occupation, that will make you safe or 
 holy. Shake off sins, as Paul shook the viper from his 
 hand into the fire ; but as to the affections and cares that 
 spring in nature, and accord with the divine law, fear them 
 not when you feel them penetrating your being and 
 warping round all your faculties. All things work together 
 for good to the people of God. His children may thrive 
 equally in circumstances the most diverse ; but if it were 
 his will to give me my choice, I would, even with a view 
 to the prosperity of my soul, request him to plunge me 
 into the tide of merchandise that flows through London, 
 rather than send me, an unemployed annuitant, to some 
 rural retreat ; or to hang on my shoulders the cares of 
 a large family, rather than leave me with nothing but 
 myself to bear. The affections of nature in time, will help 
 and not hinder the afiections of grace for eternity; for, each 
 in its own place, both are equally the planting of the Lord. 
 
IX. 
 
 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 PART I. 
 
 'Make the tree good, and his fruit good." — Matt. xii. 33. 
 
 HERE are two kinds of religion in the world ; and 
 perhaps we would not greatly err, if we should 
 say, there are two only. They stand over 
 against each other, not only different but oppo- 
 site in their essential characteristics ; and the manifold 
 varieties that have sprung up in diverse periods and diverse 
 regions, may be classed under the one or .the other of these 
 two great normal types. 
 
 These two kinds of religion, so radically distinct that 
 they cannot by any art be amalgamated, and yet so com- 
 prehensive that they include all religion under their ample 
 folds, are not Christianity and Paganism, — are not Protest- 
 antism and Popery, — are not Presbytery and Episcopacy, — 
 are not the Church spiritually free and the Church sub- 
 mitting to Erastian control. The two great genera, which 
 between them comprehend all subordinate S23ecies, have 
 distinct natures, but not distinguishing names. They can- 
 not be designated by single words ; they must be described 
 by their essential features. 
 
128 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 One kind of religion teaches that men are not so holy 
 as they should be, but that by a little attention they may 
 be improved ; the other kind of religion confesses that 
 men are all and only evil, and must be made new creatures 
 ere they can be pleasing to God or fit for his presence. 
 The first starts with the assumption of something good to 
 begin with, and busies itself in making good better ; the 
 second starts with the assumption that all is evil, and seeks 
 from God the grace to change the evil into good : the one 
 mends, the other makes. 
 
 The one looks up to heaven and says, " I am not as other 
 men; I fast, I pray, I give alms:" the other looks down 
 to the earth and cries, " God be merciful to me a sinner," 
 The one builds his house upon the sand, which, while the 
 weather is fair, seems to his eye firm enough : the other 
 refuses to build at all until he get down to the living rock. 
 
 Both confess failing ; both seek help ; and both seek 
 help from Christ. In outward aspect they are like each 
 other ; so closely do they resemble each other, that in some 
 aspects they are distinguished only by one little word. One 
 says, Christ and I : the other says, Christ, not I. The one 
 says, I cannot live alone, but I can live if Christ is near 
 me : the other says, I live ; nevertheless not I, but Christ 
 liveth in me. The Lord and my righteousness, says this 
 man : the Lord my righteousness, says that. 
 
 Of these two that seem so familiar, the one is falsehood, 
 the other truth ; the one is darkness, the other light. 
 
 The great Teacher himself took pains with his pupils on 
 this point. At one time he allowed a self-righteous man 
 to try his own method, that by the fall which it entailed he 
 mio-ht be crushed out of his error. " Good master," said a 
 promising scholar once, " Good master, what shall I do that 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 129 
 
 I may inherit eternal life ?" " Keep the commandments." 
 "I have kept them ; what more ?" " Go sell all that thou 
 hast, and give to the poor, and come follow me." Under 
 this pressure the good resolution broke down ; he went away 
 sorrowful. On another occasion the Lord taught the same 
 lesson in a gentler form to a more gentle inquirer : "Except 
 a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." 
 
 It behoves us to know well this human error that under- 
 mines the spiritual life. It springs within, and circulates 
 secretly but mightily, like the blood in the veins. By making 
 light of the disease, it makes light also of the cure pro- 
 vided. By failing to estimate aright the fall, it forms a 
 false judgment regarding the unspeakable gift of God. 
 
 It is not indeed written in the creed that mankind are 
 lioly in nature and in life ; but the habit of the heart's 
 thoughts, flowing strong and steady like a river, counts the 
 man in the main good, and seeks in religion not the new 
 creation of the lost, but the gradual improvement of the 
 defective. 
 
 This system takes the word of Christ and turns it upside 
 down. Christ says. Make the tree good, and his fruit good ; 
 but it says. Make the fruit good in the first place, and the 
 tree will improve of its own accord. Leaving the tree as 
 it grows, this system directs all its energies to the task of 
 making the fruit good, or at least seem good. It is the 
 weary work of dropping buckets into empty wells and 
 growing old in bringing nothing up. It is the labour of a 
 life-time to gather grapes off thorns and figs off thistles. 
 
 The tree has grown from seed. For a while in its in- 
 fancy it bears no fruit, and it is not expected to bear any. 
 Before its nature is developed, it neither does good nor evil, 
 in a tangible or practical form. Its nature and tendencies 
 
 (753) 9 
 
130 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 are fixed, but they are not known. People who look on 
 the tender plant putting forth its leaves, expect that when 
 it comes to maturity its fruit will be good. At length, 
 while the tree is yet young, it begins to bear fruit. There 
 is not much at first. The quantity is diminutive, but the 
 quality is well defined. There is no mistake here. The 
 fruit is bitter — is bad. But it is young. What could you 
 expect ? Wait for wisdom. They wait, they fence, they 
 water ; but the fruit is still bitter. 
 
 In the case of the tree, as long as you look only on its 
 fruit, you may be deceived in your judgment. The fruit 
 may be thoroughly evil, and yet in colour and shape it may 
 be like good fruit. It is only by tasting it that you can 
 certainly determine its character. 
 
 Our Father is the husbandman, and we are his hus- 
 bandry. When we bear fruit, he is not contented with 
 looking on its external appearance. He comes near and 
 tastes it. A man cannot certainly determine the taste of 
 the fruit that his neighbours bear— cannot certainly deter- 
 mine the taste even of his own. " Ye know not what 
 spirit ye are of." Peter did not discern what was the 
 taste of his own soul's emotions ; but his Master knew and 
 loathed it : " Get thee behind me, Satan." 
 
 The outward appearance of a gift, for example, may 
 have all the lineaments of charity ; yet to Him who looketh 
 on the heart, it may be a nauseous outgrowth of selfishness 
 or pride. We must be purged from dead works as well as 
 from bad works ere we can acceptably serve the living 
 God. Dead works, though in form they may be the fulfil- 
 ment of his law, are not sweet to his taste. That is a 
 dreadful sentence which the risen Saviour pronounced on the 
 fruit of a bitter tree : " I will spue thee out of my mouth." 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 131 
 
 I shall assume that the reader knows in the main how 
 the common fruit trees of our o^ardens are made irood. In- 
 stead of explaining the process of engrafting, I shall take 
 for granted that it is known, and proceed at once to deduce 
 and apply the lessons which the Lord's brief parable sug- 
 gests. The essence of the art consists in this, that the tree 
 is not mended but made new. The old tree is cut off and 
 cast away, and another is inserted in its stead. It is not 
 amelioration, but regeneration. As in man's husbandry, so 
 in God's. Good fruit is attained by snaking the tree good. 
 
 I shall now submit a series of lessons suggested by the 
 analogy. Let us prolong for a little our walk through 
 these avenues of nature, gathering as we go the precious 
 fruits of grace. Among these trees of the garden we may 
 now hear, not for judgment, but for mercy, the voice of the 
 Lord God. 
 
 I. Although the tree has been made good by engrafting, 
 and has consequently begun to bear good fruit, the young 
 trees that spring from the seed of that good fruit, when it 
 is sown again, take after the original bitter root of the 
 parent tree, and not after the sweetness subsequently im- 
 parted to it. Trees that spring from the seed of an evil 
 tree that has been made good, are not good but evil. 
 Bitter is every one, and bitter the fruit it bears, unless and 
 until it put off itself and put on another. 
 
 Such is our condition as fallen ; such is the law that 
 lives in our members, whether we find out that law or not. 
 The child of a Christian man is not by birth a Christian. 
 We are born into the condition which our parents had by 
 nature, not into the condition into which they may have 
 been brought by grace. It is true that blessings exceeding 
 
132 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 rich and precious accrue, in God's covenant, to the children 
 of believers, in virtue of their relation to godly parents ; 
 but the benefits do not include or amount to safety and 
 holiness throusrh the natural birthriMit. " Born not of 
 blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, 
 but of God" (John i. 13). Children, you may learn from 
 the trees of the garden, and by the teaching of the Lord, 
 that although your parents are saints on earth or in heaven, 
 except ye be born again, ye cannot enter their home or 
 join their company. So far am I from undervaluing the 
 privilege of descent from the people of God, that every day 
 1 live I learn to give more fervent thanks to God that I 
 was in this sense the seed of the righteous. I have no 
 memory of my mother, for soon after my eyes were opened 
 hers were closed ; but something clearer, stronger than 
 memory — something allied to faith, but not to sight — has 
 for many years kept her by my side, as one that walks 
 with God in white, and gently beckons me to follow her as 
 she followed Christ. I do not undervalue the privilege of 
 being by natural birth the seed of the righteous : I know 
 it ; I enjoy it ; I have been enriched by it, more than they 
 whose corn and wine have most increased. But I warn all 
 who enjoy the privilege, that it will not save them. There 
 is only one Saviour. You cannot be carried into heaven 
 by clinging to a parent's skirts. Your place in the family 
 of God's children will aggravate your condemnation, if you 
 do not yourselves accept Christ as your own ; as they who 
 fall from the greatest height are most deeply bruised by 
 the fall. 
 
 II. As the first lesson is one of warning to those who 
 presume upon their privileges, the second lesson is one of 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 133 
 
 encouragement to those who have had in youth no privi- 
 leges to presume upon. This lesson, too, we shall read from 
 the tree that is made good. 
 
 Although a young tree has sprung from the seed of an 
 evil tree, it may be made good by engrafting as easily and as 
 effectually as if its parent had been the best in the garden. 
 These two lessons, both on the natural side and the spiritual, 
 are precisely the converse of each other. The first is 
 gathered from the natural fact that the tree which springs 
 from the seed of one that has been made good needs to be 
 engrafted ere it can become good like its parent ; the 
 second is g-athered from the natural fact that a tree which 
 has sprung from a parent not made good may by engraft- 
 ing attain the goodness which its parent never knew. The 
 one fact teaches that the privileged should not presume ; 
 the other fact teaches that the unprivileged need not be 
 despondent. 
 
 In point of fact, the cultivator of fruit trees does not 
 make much distinction between the trees that have sprung 
 from renewed and those that have sprung from unrenewed 
 parents. He looks not to the parentage of the original 
 root, but to the character of the new branch which is 
 inserted. This new good branch is necessary to the plant 
 that came from the seed of the best tree ; and it is suf- 
 ficient for the plant that came from the seed of the worst. 
 The rule that the character of the tree follows the branch 
 that has been grafted on as head, and not the root out of 
 which it has sprung, points equally in two opposite direc- 
 tions and tells in two different results. Pretensions of 
 good in the root, and fears of evil, are equally destitute of 
 validity. Those do not count in favour of the tree, and 
 these do not count ao-ainst it. 
 
134 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 Most necessary and most precious is the corresponding- 
 fact in the spiritual sphere. As we have already seen that 
 the goodness of the parents, although they are new creatures 
 in Christ, cannot pass through the natural birth into the 
 children, so as to save them, so we now, in the second 
 place, assuredly gather, that the badness of parents, although 
 they remain in the gall of bitterness and the bond of 
 iniquity, does not penetrate through the conversion of 
 children so as to condemn them. As certain substances, 
 although in quantity small as a quivering film, act as non- 
 conductors, and, when interposed effectually, bar the pas- 
 sage of electricity, however strong may be the current, or 
 however near may be the congenial receiver, so generation 
 is a non-conductor of grace, and regeneration a non-con- 
 ductor of corruption. Grace, though pulsing strong in the 
 parent, cannot pass through birth into the child ; corrup- 
 tion, though pulsing in the parent, and communicated also 
 to the child, cannot pass the regeneration, and reduce the 
 child who is born, again into the spiritual condition of the 
 unconverted parent. 
 
 The cultivator of fruit trees can make as good a tree 
 from the progeny of an evil parent as from the progeny of 
 a good parent ; so our Father, the husbandman, is wont, in 
 his own inscrutable purposes, to create again in Christ many 
 children whose parents remain in sin. 
 
 I have endeavoured to utter a needed warning to those 
 who are descended from godly parents : Beware of a false 
 hope ; ye wmst be born again. 1 now, in turn, address a 
 word of fflad encoura2:ement to children who have not 
 known these privileges : Give not way to false fear ; ye 
 infiay be born again. 
 
 The promise runs not, Him that is born of a godly 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 135 
 
 parent, but, Him that cometh, I will in nowise east out. 
 Some of the bitterest reproaches cast against Christ in the 
 days of his flesh became hymns to his praise. The wrath 
 of man praised him when enemies exclaimed, " This man 
 receiveth sinners." 
 
 To those who were not in childhood brought up in the 
 nurture and admonition of the Lord — who either had no 
 living father, or, sadder still, a father of whom they had 
 cause to be ashamed — comfort and encouragement spring 
 here. There is no respect of persons with God. The rule 
 of the kingdom is, Whosoever will. His father's light did 
 not bring one child into the kingdom, and his father's dark- 
 ness did not keep another out. The owner of a garden, 
 when he is about to make his young trees good by 
 engrafting, scarcely inquires which of them sprang from 
 renewed trees, and which from trees that remained in 
 the bitterness of nature. Placing all on a level, and 
 treating all alike, he engrafts them all, and all the en- 
 grafted become good : in due time all bring forth good fruit 
 together. 
 
 Of these two classes, the church on earth — of these two 
 classes, heaven on high is full ; and, as they mingle in the 
 praises of their Lord, nor man nor angel can distinguish 
 between them. In the general assembly and church of 
 the first-born, it will never be said, This one was the son 
 of a saint, and that one the son of a sinner. These dis- 
 tinctions are lost ; they were written only in the earth, and 
 the earth with its records will be burnt up. The son of a 
 saint cannot be distinguished in the circle ; he wears not a 
 whiter robe, he bears not a fresher palm, he sings not a 
 sweeter song than his neighbour. One baptism has blotted 
 all distinctions out, and one description serves to designate 
 
136 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 all the throng, — They have washed their robes and made 
 them white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
 Privileged, beware ! What will your name to live avail 
 you if you be dead ? If you are not " found in Him," 
 nothing in heaven or earth can open the door to let you in. 
 
 Destitute, be encouraged ! Arise, lo He calleth you. If 
 you come at his call, all the sins that ever defiled man, and 
 all the devils that ever tempted him, cannot shut the door 
 to keep you out. 
 
X. 
 
 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 PART II. 
 
 " Make the tree good, and his fruit good." — Matt. xii. 33. 
 
 III. 
 
 LTHOUGH an evil tree ought to be made good 
 by engrafting while it is young, it may be made 
 good by engrafting after it has grown old. 
 Such also is the law of the kingdom in regard 
 to spiritual life. A man may indeed be born into God's 
 family when he is old ; but it is in all respects better if 
 he enters the childhood of grace before he has emerged 
 from the childhood of nature. 
 
 In fruit-trees fully grown you may sometimes observe 
 a ring round the stem, midway between the ground and 
 the branches, resembling somewhat the mark of a healed 
 wound on a living man. This indicates the place where 
 the natural stem was cut off and a new branch inserted. 
 You perceive at a glance that this tree has been engrafted, 
 and that it was well grown ere it was made good. In the 
 same garden another tree may grow which exhil)its no 
 such mark ; yet the owner docs not value it less on that 
 account. These two trees are equally good and equally 
 prolific. They differ not in their present character but 
 
138 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 in the period of life at which they were severally renewed. 
 This latter tree must have been engrafted when it was 
 very young : the cut was made close to the ground when 
 the stem was very slender ; and thus the mark has been 
 obliterated by the subsequent growth of the tree. The 
 cicatrice is concealed under the grass, or perhaps under the 
 ground. The renewing has certainly taken place, but 
 when or where no man can tell. The date of its new 
 birth is no longer legible. 
 
 Such similarities and such differences obtain also among 
 converted men. Some who were born when they were 
 old bear the mark of their regeneration all their days. 
 When the old nature was matured and developed before 
 the change, the memory of the fact is more distinctly 
 retained, and the contrast more vividly displayed. It was 
 thus in the experience of the Apostle Paul. The spiritual 
 man did not in his case obtain the sway while the natural 
 was yet young and tender and easily moulded. Paul was 
 a man, every inch of him, before he was a Christian. " I 
 verily thought with myself that I ought to do many- 
 things contrary to the name of Jesus of Nazareth ; which 
 thing I also did" (Acts xxvi. 9, 10). His principles and 
 his conduct were strong and consistent, while both were 
 contrary to God and man. When such a character was 
 changed, the change was manifest, and the mark of it 
 permanent. That fall and rising again on the way to 
 Damascus stood out a well-marked girdle round the mighty 
 stem of his life, even to its close. He frequently pointed 
 to that healed wound as evidence both of his enmity 
 against God and God's marvellous mercy to him. But 
 Paul's son Timothy was not less surely in the Lord, al- 
 though no such great landmark towered in the heart of 
 
TllEES OF IIIGIITEOUSNESS. 139 
 
 his history. This tree was made good while it was yet 
 young, and ere its native badness had got full room to 
 reveal itself. The healed wound in this disciple's life lay 
 so near the root that in maturity it could not be seen. 
 
 In heaven these two may lovingly contend with each 
 other, either striving to show that himself is the more 
 deeply indebted to sovereign, redeeming love. God showed 
 a peculiar mercy to me, says Timothy, in that he made 
 the tree good while it was young, ere yet it had begun to 
 bear visible fruit. But God showed greater mercy to me, 
 the apostle rejoins, in that he made the tree good, although 
 it had grown old in evil, and spread much bitter fruit 
 over the whole land. Those who, by a great rending, 
 have been converted in mature age, bear the fact in 
 memory, and weave it into their songs of praise ; but, on 
 the other hand, let not those who have been earlier and 
 more insensibly won to Christ complain that the mark of 
 their engrafting is not visible as a girdle round the middle 
 of their life. There are diversities of operation, but the 
 same Spirit. 
 
 All 's well that ends well : God's way is best ; all his 
 people will see this truth, and sing it yet. But if you 
 ask me what choice I should make, if choice in the matter 
 were given to me, I would rather be one of the converted 
 who could not tell the time or manner of his conversion, 
 than one of those who were born when they were old, 
 and bear many scars as monuments of the agony. The 
 aged are not shut out from hope, but the earliest time is 
 the best time. 
 
 It is a peculiar glory of the gospel that it holds out 
 free pardon and immediate peace to the chief of sinners, 
 whether that chiefdom in evil may have been won by 
 
140 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 quantity of work or length of service. The blood of Jesus 
 Christ cleanseth us from all sin. 
 
 You may see this glory of grace reflected from the field 
 of nature. Perhaps you have looked over the hedge and 
 seen, in a garden by the wayside, a sight that attracted 
 your eye and excited your curiosity. A tree, old, thick, 
 and rusty, has been cut off, not by the ground, but about 
 the height of a man, and the bare stump left standing. 
 On a closer inspection you see one or more small fresh 
 twigs fastened to the bark on the top of the desolate 
 trunk. They are budding and putting out green leaves. 
 It is a tree that had grown old, either barren or bearing 
 bad fruit. Its owner would not longer permit it to occupy 
 uselessly the precious ground. But it is not necessary 
 that he should cut it down and cast it away, in order to 
 make room for another tree. Even this tree, grown old in 
 evil, may be made good. It is not cut down, but cut off, 
 and a new nature engrafted on its stem. Even in old 
 age it will yet be fresh, and flourishing, and fruitful. 
 The owner of the garden counts that he will sooner get a 
 large return by engrafting the old tree than by rooting it 
 out and planting another. The tree was full grown and 
 in vigorous health. The owner will utilize all these 
 powers by sending the sap through a new and better 
 head. It is thus that our Father, the husbandman, takes 
 full-grown vigorous natures, charged with gifts of under- 
 standing, and eloquence, and zeal, that have been hitherto 
 occupied with evil, and makes them new creatures by his 
 power. Forthwith they are fit for able-bodied service in 
 the work of the Lord. 
 
 It is a very gladsome truth for an evil world — that a 
 man may be born when he is old. Blessed be God, it is 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 141 
 
 possible that he who has long been accustomed to do evil 
 may by union to Christ become a new creature. Certain 
 places, much desired under the government of the country, 
 are open only to the young. If you do not enter before 
 you attain a certain specified age you can never enter. 
 The rule there is not, Him that cometh, but, Him that 
 cometh while he is young. This is not the rule in the 
 kingdom of God. There is no alien on earth too old for 
 being admitted into the family of God. 
 
 The truth which I have stated is too precious to be 
 held back or only spoken in a whisper, lest some should 
 abuse it. It is true, self -deceivers will abuse it to encour- 
 age themselves in sin ; but if this truth were concealed, 
 they would find some other pretext. 
 
 Let the warning be distinctly, fully given on the other 
 side. If the tree is permitted to grow up and grow old in 
 evil, there is danger lest, by storm or fire, it should be de- 
 stroyed, and so never be made good. But even although 
 it were insured against all accidents, there is no reason 
 why another, and yet another year an evil tree should 
 cumber the ground, merely to put off" the time of its change. 
 Who would say, Permit it to bear bitter fruit all the time 
 of its youth, and make it good only when it has grown 
 old ? If any one should make this proposal, the fact 
 would prove that he was not sincere, that he did not wish 
 the tree made good. 
 
 The plea that there is time enough, when advanced by 
 way of deferring the period of decision, is not only delusive 
 and dangerous, it is positively false and dishonest. Men 
 postpone only what they dislike. You will not decisively 
 follow the Lord now, but you will some day. But if you 
 have no desire to be good and do good to-day, you have 
 
142 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 no desire to be good and do good any day. There is no 
 such thing as putting off for a time : it is simply, We will 
 not have this man to reign over us. You want to waste 
 the broad sunny surface of life in j)ursuing your own pleas- 
 ures, and you promise to throw a narrow strip of the out- 
 most edge of life, withered and tasteless, as an ofFerinsf to 
 the Lord. Be not deceived ; he who is weary of sin wants 
 to be quit of it now. He who hungers wants the bread of 
 life to-day, not to-morrow. Blessed are they that hunger. 
 
 IV. A tree that has been made good does not asfain 
 become evil ; but evil latent in its roots may, if it be not 
 watched and crushed, spring up and bear bad fruit, and 
 mingle with the good, and to a great extent outgrow and 
 choke the good. The same law obtains in the spiritual 
 sphere. The old man is more or less active in every 
 Christian. Thoughts and desires are continually springing 
 up from the old stock — thoughts and desires that do not 
 belong to the new creature. If these are not in good time 
 crucified, they will bear fruit in actual wickedness; and 
 when they are permitted to bear, the fruit of the better 
 nature will disappear for the time, or become very small 
 in quantity. 
 
 One clear example of this tendency I knew well in my 
 youth. I think it remains to this day, and I could point 
 to the spot. A grove given over, by the time I knew it, 
 for the purpose of affording shady pleasure-walks, had 
 originally been a fruit-garden. Some of the old fruit- 
 trees had been left standing as ornaments, when the owner 
 no longer looked for a profitable return. These trees were 
 left growing for the sake of their beauty merely, not for 
 the sake of their fruit. They M^ere allowed, accordingly, 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 143 
 
 to run wild, that their appearance might be more pictur- 
 esque. An aged pear-tree stood there, with a tall, bare, 
 straight stem and round bushy head like an Eastern palm. 
 But while not a single branch otcw on the naked trunk, 
 from where it emerged out of the moss to where its head 
 began to spread at three times the height of a man, a 
 number of lively vigorous shoots sprang from its roots, or 
 rather from its stem where it touched the ground. Thus 
 the long bare stem had a bushy head of branches on either 
 extremity. These lower branches had been permitted to 
 grow freely till they reached maturity on their own account, 
 and bore fruit of their own kind. I have seen fruit grow- 
 ing on these suckers, and fruit hanging at the same time 
 high over them on the tree's towering head, with a large 
 portion of the bare stem between. I have compared them, 
 and found that which grew from the old root hard and 
 bitter, while that which grew on the head that had been 
 made new, although somewhat deteriorated, retained still 
 the sweet flavour of its best days. 
 
 Here were two kinds of fruit growing at the same time 
 on one tree — evil fruit growing on the original root, and 
 good fruit growing on that which had been made new. If 
 the tree had been rightly cultivated for the sake of its 
 fruit, those suckers would have been without pity torn 
 oif in the bud as soon as they showed themselves, and 
 never have been permitted to open their blossoms or bring 
 forth their fruit. You do not ordinarily see these out- 
 growths from the old stock OTOwino; to the size of bearinir 
 on fruit-trees. This, however, is not because they do not 
 manifest a tendency to throw out these shoots, but because 
 the shoots are, in ordinary cases, wrenched off by the hus- 
 bandman as soon as they appear. 
 
144 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 Here is a parable. I saw that tree with its two kinds 
 of fruit, and got it insensibly photographed on my memory 
 as a curiosity, before I learned the lesson which it taught. 
 It remains before my imagination to-day, the same object ; 
 but it has now become a glass in which I see reflected 
 myself and my fellows. The lesson contains both reproof 
 and encouragement. 
 
 Keproof. — There remains in a Christian something of 
 the old carnal mind. This corruption in the root is con- 
 tinually sending out thoughts and purposes of its own. 
 These, if neglected, will soon ripen into manifold sins. 
 Forewarned, forearmed. Watch and pray. Crucify the 
 flesh with its affections and lusts. Kill those suckers that 
 spring from the carnal root. Kill them day by day as 
 they appear : beware of permitting them to make head. 
 
 Encouragement. — When acts appear in a Christian — 
 yourself or your neighbour — acts unlike his place and his 
 name, you should not thereby be driven into despair. An 
 unchristian act done by a man does not prove that the 
 man is not a Christian. Perhaps some may think this is 
 a dangerous doctrine. No ; it is a true doctrine, and 
 truth is safe in the long run. The contrary doctrine would 
 extinguish hope ; and wanting hope, what would become 
 of holiness ? If a sinful act done is held to prove that the 
 doer is not in Christ, the nerve that sustains eflfort is cut, 
 and the soul sinks soon in absolute despair. 
 
 In the man, as in the tree, two natures meet. The old 
 man has been made new ; and yet the old man, in a sense, 
 remains. From this remaining original evil the evil 
 thoughts and words spring ; while from the new man 
 spring thoughts and words that are good. He cannot sin 
 because he is born of God (1 John iii. 9). Two natures 
 
TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 145 
 
 struggle in the man, as two nations in the womb of the 
 Hebrew mother. In his perplexity and amazement, the 
 distracted spirit cries out. Why am I thus ? The true solu- 
 tion is that which brave Paul reached after a sharp conflict. 
 " It is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me." 
 
 That tree, with its two natures, and its two kinds of 
 fruit, which I knew so well in my youth, was the shadow 
 and the symbol of David the king. In his busy working 
 days his fruit was good. The tendencies of the old corrupt 
 nature were kept down. But when he sat upon a luxuri- 
 ous throne, and thought only of his pleasure, the old cor- 
 ruptions sprang up in strength, and vile fruit ripened on 
 the lower, baser part of his being. But even this, vile 
 though it was, did not cast the king out of the covenant. 
 Even this rank outgrowth from a bitter root did not wrench 
 the king's head from its place on high. It wasted his faculties 
 for a time in carnal indulgence, and left his better being 
 shrivelled and barren ; but when the Husbandman, displeased 
 yet loving, visited his tree, and by terrible things in rigliteous- 
 ness hewed off the low indulgences, the head revived again, 
 and even in old age was fat and full of sap and flourishing. 
 
 y. Although the natural head of the tree either in youth 
 or age is cut off, and the new good branch brought near to 
 touch it, unless the new branch take to the old tree, and the 
 old tree at its wound take to the new branch, so that they 
 become one, no change will be effected in the old tree. The 
 wounding — the cuttincr off with a view to engrafting — will 
 produce no effect if the process is interrupted before it is com- 
 pleted. The cutting of the tree makes it bleed — makes it 
 languish as in pain, but does not make it good. After that 
 wound it will grow again, and its fruit will be evil as before. 
 
 (753) 10 
 
146 TREES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS. 
 
 In this aspect also the law of the spiritual kingdom 
 follows the law of the natural. The sword of the Spirit 
 cuts deep into the heart and conscience. The terrors of 
 the Law overwhelm the soul like a flood. The counte- 
 nance that formerly was radiant is now iixed in gloom. 
 The fountains of the great deep are broken up, and the 
 penitent makes his bed to swim with tears. Oh, wretched 
 man that I am, who shall deliver me ? What is this ? Is 
 it the godly sorrow that leads to peace in believing ? We 
 cannot tell ; no man can yet tell what is the nature of 
 this sorrow, or what will be its fruit. As far as man can 
 observe, it is such a grief that goes before the living hope. 
 They who are now rejoicing in the Lord have passed 
 through such fire and water ere they reached their 
 wealthy place. But not every one who enters this deep 
 gets through it into safety on the other side. 
 
 The wounds of conviction prepare the way for Christ ; 
 but if the wounded do not in the end close with Christ, 
 his wounds will not make him safe or holy. If he has 
 been pierced by conviction, and thrown into alarm about 
 his sin, his pain should give the Saviour, the Healer, a 
 welcome into his heart ; but if, notwithstanding his fright, 
 he keep the door shut, the fright will not renew the man. 
 
 The great outstanding specimen of this process is the 
 experience of Felix. His convictions were terrible, but 
 they did not make his heart new. As the tree, after 
 being cut through, grows up again an evil tree, unless at 
 the wounded place a new branch has been inserted, so a 
 man that has trembled between a sight of his own guilt 
 and the approach of the judgment, grows up as unjust, as 
 unclean, as intemperate as before, unless, while he is in 
 distress, he close in simple faith with Christ the Saviour. 
 
LESSOI^^S OF GRACE 
 IE" THE LANGUAGE OF I^ATUEE. 
 
I. 
 
 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 "Adam who is the figure [type] of Hun that was to come." — Rom. v. 14. 
 
 ^?^ HIS is the earliest of all the types : in time, it 
 comes first ; in position, it lies deepest. There 
 are none before it — none beneath it. Bowing 
 clown from heaven in love, God the Spirit 
 grasps the first fact of man's history, and therewith prints 
 the lesson of man's redemption. There was no delay, for 
 the King's matter required haste. The Giver was prompt 
 and eager ; the receivers have been indolent and slow. 
 
 Mark the nature of the relation that subsists between a 
 type and its letter — between a seal and its impression. 
 There are at once likeness and diversity ; they are the same, 
 and yet they are opposite. The type, whether it be a 
 single letter or a varied landscape, is of the same size and 
 shape as the object which its impress leaves behind ; and 
 every several point or turn in the one has an equal and 
 corresponding point or turn in the other ; and yet there is 
 a complete and pervading difference, or rather contrariety, 
 between them. Look first to the engraving on a seal, and 
 then to the image which it has left on wax : the two are 
 in certain aspects the same, and yet they are reciprocally 
 opposite. They agree, and yet they are antagonist. The 
 
150 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 left of this is the right of that : where this reveals a 
 hollow, that exhibits a height ; where this is shaded, that 
 lies in the light. In their whole aspect they are the 
 reverse of each other. 
 
 After this manner is Adam a type of Christ. In some 
 aspects there is likeness ; and in others, not only diver- 
 sity, but contrariety. Observe first the agreement, and 
 then the difference. 
 
 I. The agreement or similarity. 
 
 1. Adam and Christ were the true sources or heads of 
 their respective families. 
 
 There are two conceivable methods of constituting 
 humanity. Whether both were possible, in consistence 
 with all the attributes of God, we cannot tell. One is, to 
 make men such that each should be absolutely independent 
 of all, and the conduct, good or bad, of any one should 
 have no effect, physical or moral, on the condition of any 
 of the rest. The other is, to constitute the race such that 
 the first man should be the head and source of humanity, 
 and that the state and tendencies of all should be deter- 
 mined by the standing or the falling of this one. 
 
 This latter method our Maker has adopted , and it is 
 useless to agitate the question whether the other method 
 would, in its own nature, have been honourable to God 
 and salutary for men. When the bird is shut up within 
 an iron cage, it is better for itself that it should not dash 
 itself against the bars. It was in an attempt to be as God 
 that our first parents fell. If we would escape their fault 
 and fate, we should abandon speculations on what might 
 have been and address ourselves to what is. We are men 
 —-creatures with a short lease and a narrow boundary. 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 151 
 
 Let us leave with God the things that arc God's, and 
 evidently require omniscience for their solution, and let 
 us mind our own business. 
 
 In point of fact we all come into the world with dark- 
 ened minds and wayward hearts. As water flows down 
 and sparks fly up, human beings, as they emerge succes- 
 sively into consciousness, turn aside into sin and fall into 
 suffering. The grandest of God's works is most awry and 
 out of joint. The highest creature falls furthest short of 
 fulfilling its destiny. The Scriptures, acknowledging this 
 fact, explain it by the Fall. 
 
 Some people complain much of the difficulties which 
 they find in the Scriptures regarding this subject. A 
 serious mistake is made, however, in the statement of the 
 question. The difficulty lies, not in the Scriptures, but in 
 the fact : it would have been all there although there had 
 never been a Bible. Creatures manifestly the head of 
 creation, having an intellectual and moral nature in con- 
 junction with an exquisite physical frame, under the 
 government of a Being who is at once omnipotent and 
 beneficent, lie weltering in sin and suffering, like the sea 
 when it cannot rest. This state of things has endured 
 from age to age, without intermission and without miti- 
 gation. This is the difficulty ; all the difiiculties that you 
 meet in the Bible are small when compared with this. 
 The aim of the Bible is to throw light on the darkness ; 
 but even if some parts of the scene remain obscure, we 
 have no right to lay the blame of the obscurity on that 
 which, to some extent at least, has brought us light. 
 
 The first man, according to the actual constitution of 
 humanity, stood as head and representative of the race. 
 His fall brought all down. At the head he stands, and 
 
152 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 from him the long Ime stretches away down the course of 
 time. Two hundred generations constitute the links of 
 the chain, and its length extends to six thousand years. 
 
 At first the line of march is narrow : on the apex one ; 
 and behind him two or three walk abreast : broader and 
 broader grows the stream as it recedes from the source, 
 until, in our day, the file of march is a million of millions 
 deep. Adam, like the point of the wedge, stands on the 
 summit, a unit alone ; the generations in the ranks imme- 
 diately beneath him are numbered by tens, and anon by 
 hundreds, until they have in our day reached a number 
 that can indeed be expressed in figures, but cannot be 
 adequately comprehended by finite minds. 
 
 On the other side stands the second Adam — he that was 
 to come. Alone he stands at the head ; and his also shall 
 be a numerous offspring. Here and there, in the earliest 
 ages, appears a righteous Abel offering faith's sacrifice, or 
 a righteous Enoch walking in newness of life with God. 
 Yonder a Noah preaches righteousness over a world lying 
 in wickedness ; and here an Abraham is called from his 
 home and his kindred to a better country and a higher 
 life. Broader now is the line of their marching since 
 Christ came in the flesh. Already a multitude, which no 
 man can number, tread the pilgrim's path, and shall in due 
 time enter the joy of their Lord. All the redeemed in 
 heaven and on earth are Christ's, — their life as certainly 
 flowing from and dependent on him as the natural life of 
 humanity flows from the first man. 
 
 The chief feature of similarity between the figure and 
 the greater fact which it predicts is that each stands for 
 all his own ; and this principle of God's government, intro- 
 duced at the beginning, runs through to the end. 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 153 
 
 The line of march was suddenly changed at the resur- 
 rection of Christ. Then the column left the narrow track 
 of Palestine, and overflowed on the wide field of the world. 
 Admitted into the capital of the Gentiles when Jerusalem 
 fell, it speedily found a larger sphere and became a more 
 numerous company. As centuries pass, it grows still 
 greater ; and now we look wistfully forward to that time 
 when it shall reach from sea to sea — when the kingdom of 
 Christ shall absorb the kingdoms of the world — when the 
 stream of the second Adam's children shall be co-extensive 
 and coincident with that of the first. 
 
 2. These two representatives stood side by side from the 
 first, and redemption began to flow from Christ as soon as 
 sin was brought in by Adam. The promise did not tarry ; 
 it sprang at the gate of Eden, an echo of the curse. When 
 the first man fell, and so entailed on all his posterity an 
 inheritance of woe, Christ, within the veil unseen, began 
 to be the head of a new and saved family. In eternity 
 within he dwelt, and there he began to act the head of the 
 redeemed the moment that the first man outside became 
 the head of a fallen race. An impenetrable partition veiled 
 off the unseen from the eyes of men ; but the Redeemer 
 within the veil, delighting from the first in his saving work, 
 approached the curtain, and often permitted softened rays 
 of his glory to shine through. 
 
 Let a veil be hung up impervious to light and vision ; it 
 may yet be such that a magnet within will, when brought 
 near the boundary, attract kindred objects on the outer 
 side. You may observe them to quiver and move, and lift 
 themselves mysteriously off" the ground. The magnetic 
 power from within grasps the objects that lie without, and 
 loads them whithersoever it will. Under the Patriarchal 
 
15i ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 and Jewish economies many felt the drawing of Christ's 
 love who never with the bodily eyes beheld Christ. Caught 
 by the deepest affections of their souls, they arose from the 
 dust, and quivered tremulously after him, whom having not 
 seen they had yet learned to love. 
 
 Similarly in the days of his personal ministry, although 
 he manifested himself only to the lost sheep of the house 
 of Israel, he had compassion on the surrounding heathen, 
 and hastened forward to the day of their redemption. On 
 one occasion he walked to the boundary of his allotted 
 sphere, and touched the coasts of Tyre and Sidon. In 
 that outer land a Syrophenician woman felt the drawing of 
 his love, and followed him — the first fruit of the Gentiles 
 to Christ. 
 
 3. Another point of likeness lies in this, that on both 
 sides equally it is by birth that the members are united to 
 their head and his destiny. It is by birth that we are knit 
 to our inheritance of sin. If we had not descended by 
 birth from a fallen father, we would not have been in this 
 condition of sin and misery. 
 
 The thought sometimes presses for admission — "What if 
 we had never been born ; or if we had descended from the 
 holy ?— but the conception is too hard for us. The mind 
 cannot bear its weight ; to entertain it long would over- 
 whelm our faculties. Not only is the thing impossible of 
 attainment ; the conception of it exceeds our power. 
 
 We have been born to this inheritance of sin and suffer- 
 ing ; we cannot shake it off We may weep over the dis- 
 covery of our sad condition, and cry with an exceeding 
 great and bitter cry, " Oh, wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me ?" but to that cry, apart from the gospel 
 revealed, no comforting answer can ever come. The depths 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 155 
 
 saith, "It is not in me:" it is not in earth, it is not in 
 heaven, to cause that to be not which is. By birthright 
 our dark heritage is ours, and the link that binds us to it 
 we cannot break. We are in it, and cannot escape. 
 
 But be of good cheer, prisoner of hope : the chain that 
 binds you by birth to the first Adam, it is true, cannot be 
 broken ; but if by a corresponding new birth you are one 
 with the second Adam, you have no cause to weep. Greater 
 is He that is for you than all that be against you. You 
 cannot, indeed, escape from being a man ; but if you are a 
 new creature in Christ Jesus, the second birthright is as 
 irrevocable as the first. If you are once born, nothing can 
 separate you from your heritage, except to be re-born. But 
 if you are born again, nothing can separate you from your 
 new inheritance. Both birth-bonds are indissoluble. Though 
 the weight of a world were fixed to you, and flung into 
 infinite space, it would not avail to wrench you ofi" your 
 stem in Adam, with all the twofold death that it involves ; 
 but though all the weight of a world were fixed to a 
 member of Christ, and flung free into infinitude, it could 
 not separate the living member from the life-giving 
 Head. 
 
 It is a fixed principle of natural science that species do 
 not change. In the material department of God's creation 
 there is no way over from one nature to another : once in 
 a nature always in it, without a new creation. But that 
 which is impossible with man is possible with God. He 
 has undertaken in the gospel to make a new creature. As 
 the principle operates in the first Adam's posterity, so it 
 operates in the second Adam's posterity. " I am persuaded 
 that neither death, nor life, nor things present, nor things 
 uo come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, 
 
156 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is 
 in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. viii. 38, 39). 
 
 II. The difference. 
 
 The chief point of contrast lies in this, that whereas 
 Adam's seed derive from their head sin and death, Christ's 
 seed derive from their Head righteousness and life. This 
 birth is meanness ; that is honour : this birth is darkness ; 
 that is light : this birth is death ; that is life. 
 
 One of the strangest facts in human history — a fact 
 which I suppose angels desire to look into, and yet shudder 
 when they see — is that multitudes of the human race are 
 proud of their first birth, and do not give themselves any 
 concern about a second. They count the little great, and 
 the great little ; the evil good, and the good evil. Woe to 
 them that so turn upside down the very ground themselves 
 must stand upon ! 
 
 This contrast between the type and the thing which 
 it represents is over all. The two are in this respect 
 not only unlike each other, but complete and absolute 
 contraries. 
 
 Under this, however, there are many specific points of 
 difierence. 
 
 1. While Adam's seed in this world possess the moral 
 nature of their head complete, Christ's seed possess the 
 moral nature of their Head only in part. We get the evil 
 in full, the good only in part. It comes about in this way: 
 When we derive a sinful nature from the first man, we 
 have previously no other and better nature, that may 
 mingle with it and mitigate its evil ; we possess the evil 
 all, and the evil only. The imagination of the thoughts of 
 his heart are only evil, and that continually. In me, that 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 157 
 
 is in my flesh — in all that I derive from man my father — • 
 there dwelleth no a^ood thinfj. 
 
 But on the other hand, the regeneration is not the birth 
 of a beino- who did not previously exist. It is the getting 
 of a new nature, indeed, and that a holy one, through union 
 in spirit with Christ, the holy Man ; but it is gotten by 
 one who previously possessed an evil nature, and that evil 
 nature is not wholly cast away. It is cast down from the 
 throne, but not cast forth from the territory. It no longer 
 reigns, but it continues to disturb. The old mingles with 
 and spoils the new. The two contend against each other ; 
 and there is not peace, but a sword. The actual life of a 
 Christian, accordingly, is neither wholly carnal nor wholly 
 spiritual — it is neither a straight line in the direction of 
 goodness, nor a straight line in the direction of badness ; it 
 is a sort of diagonal, traced by the opposite pressure of the 
 two forces. (See Rom. vii.) 
 
 The union with Christ in the regeneration is likened to 
 the grafting of a fruit-tree. Now the tree at the first, 
 which springs from seed, is wholly evil — root and branch. 
 When it is grafted it is made good ; but not so completely 
 as it was originally made evil. Its head is taken away ; 
 but its root, and the lower portion of the stem, are left living 
 in the ground. On this old stump a new and good branch 
 is grafted. It is the new branch that grows upward and 
 bears the fruit, but it must lean on and get its life-sap 
 through the old root and stem of the old evil tree. Although 
 the good head ingrafted always brings forth good fruit, the 
 old evil root is continually putting forth shoots and buds 
 and blossoms of its own, that are evil, and that waste the 
 strength which should go to the good. 
 
 A similar defect, from a similar cause, adheres to Chris- 
 
158 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 tians as long as they are in this life. They are still the 
 same persons that they were before. The lower parts 
 remain : the physical frame and the intellectual faculties 
 remain ; it is the higher or spiritual nature that has been 
 radically changed. The old spirit has been taken away, 
 and a new spirit inserted. The seed of Christ in the higher 
 part has been inserted in the seed of Adam in the lower 
 part ; and, alas ! the fruit that grows even on a Christian 
 tastes of the old corrupt root on which it still stands and 
 grows. 
 
 In some way, we know not how, the remnants of the 
 old will be filtered out in the dissolution of death ; and 
 nothing shall enter heaven that would defile its golden 
 streets or be a jar in its new song, 
 
 2. The two bands are not equally numerous. Adam's 
 company includes absolutely the whole of the human race ; 
 Christ's company is contained within it, and is therefore 
 necessarily smaller, as the whole is greater than a 
 part. 
 
 " As in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made 
 alive " (1 Cor. xv.). These words do not intimate that the 
 two companies are co-extensive and coincident : no man 
 with his eyes open can read the words in their connection, 
 and think that this is their meaning. The meaning is. In 
 Adam, Adam's all die ; in Christ, Christ's all live. It tells 
 that all who are in Adam die, and all who are in Christ 
 live ; but it does not tell how many either company con- 
 tains. We know certainly from other scriptures that Adam's 
 company consists of all the born, and Christ's of all the 
 born-again. To cleave to the letter here, and understand 
 it to announce that all the human race are actually saved 
 in Christ, contradicts the whole spirit of the Scriptures, 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 159 
 
 and makes both their exhortations and their warnin&s of 
 none effect. 
 
 God's creatures of the old and new creation seem to 
 envelop each other, after the manner of a sphere within 
 a sphere, the most precious being embedded in the heart. 
 Humanity, comparatively small in bulk, is surrounded by 
 the mightier mass of the inferior creatures, the beasts that 
 perish. Men, immortal, made in God's image, lie in the 
 heart like the kernel, and all inferior organized beinss 
 encompass it like a huge husk. 
 
 The husk will in due time rend and rot and return to 
 the dust. But within the mass of humanity that remains 
 is an inner seed, encased around by a harder, rougher shell. 
 In the heart of humanity lie the regenerate — the true, 
 vital seed of the kingdom ; and the crust that surrounds 
 them, compact and highly organized though it be, will 
 crumble and be cast away. The Bridegroom and they 
 that were ready went in to the marriage ; and the rest 
 were shut out. When the earth and all that it contained 
 have passed away, Christ and Christians will remain, inheri- 
 tors together and alone of the eternal life. 
 
 3. Another point of difference. Although we inherit 
 this corruption from the first man, we personally have no 
 immediate relation to him. We inherit directly from our 
 own immediate forefathers. With Adam we have no per- 
 sonal relation, in the matter of a descending moral taint. 
 Although it came from the first man originally, we received 
 it from the last that stood before us in the line. If we 
 could suppose our first progenitor to be from this time 
 forth annihilated, we should remain in the same state as 
 to inherited corruption. We derived it not immediately 
 from him, but from our nearest father. 
 
160 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 It is not thus in the relation between Christ and Chris- 
 tians. It is from him that their life flows as its fountain. 
 But further : each generation of believing men, down to the 
 end of the world, continue to draw their spiritual life and 
 justifying righteousness directly and immediately from the 
 person of Emmanuel. It is not that Christ gave forth a 
 germ of new spiritual life, once for all, and that each new 
 generation of Christians derive their better life from those 
 that went immediately before them. No ; the new creature 
 does not propagate its kind. A Christian now gets his life 
 as directly from Christ as those who lay in his bosom or 
 sat at his feet. Death once imparted at the sources of 
 humanity, runs down its stream ; but life imparted to one 
 man by the God-man Christ, needs to be equally imparted 
 to every saved sinner, by personal relation with the Saviour. 
 If the first Adam were annihilated, the born of the human 
 race would still be born in sin ; but if Christ were no more 
 Christ, there could be no more for any man a new, a holy life. 
 
 The difference is somewhat like that which may be found 
 in nature between a tree propagating its kind by seed on 
 the one hand, and a tree sustaining its branches on the 
 other. When once the seed is ripened and cast, the pro- 
 genitor tree may be burned ; from the seed, trees of the 
 same kind will spring. But even when the branch has 
 been put forth by the tree, the branch is every year, and 
 all the year, directly dependent on the tree. If the tree 
 should die, all the branches would die too. The corruption 
 we inherit from Adam, as the seed has come from the tree; 
 the new life we can only have in Christ, as the branch 
 lives in the vine. Adam might say, I was the tree, and ye 
 grew from the seed which I shed ; but Christ says, I am 
 the vine, ye are the branches. 
 
ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. IGl 
 
 And as Christians hold directly of Christ, Christ holds 
 individually by Christians. The Vine bleeds and languishes 
 when the branches are torn away : " Saul, Saul, why pcr- 
 secutest thou me ?" The Head endures pain when the 
 members are injured. How safe is that life which is hid 
 with Christ in God ! 
 
 4. Yet another point of difference. The gain by the 
 second Adam is greater than the loss by the first. The 
 scripture intimates, indeed, that there is a likeness, — that 
 Adam is a figure of Christ. But having made the intima- 
 tion of the similarity, it proceeds immediately to intimate 
 that there is also a dissimilarity : " But not as the offence, 
 so also is the free gift. For if through the offence of one 
 many be dead, much more the grace of God, and the gift 
 by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, hath abounded 
 unto many" (v. 15). The gain in Christ is not merely the 
 loss that we sustained made up. He pays our debt, and 
 makes us rich besides. He sets free the slave, and makes 
 him a son. " Where sin abounded, grace did much more 
 abound." A blessed word this " much more" ! 
 
 There is a mystery here. We may stand on the brink 
 of this great deep, and reverently gaze into its far-receding, 
 limitless light ; but this is a thing which we cannot fully 
 comprehend ; and attempts to be wise in it above what is 
 written may do us serious harm. In Christ we are far 
 better than we would have been as unfallen children of 
 Adam. Had we entered the society of heaven as men that 
 had kept their first estate, we should have been accepted 
 as perfect men ; but when a ransomed sinner is admitted 
 to the joy of the Lord and the company of angels, he enters 
 as one with Him who sits upon the throne. With man 
 unfallen, there would, as far as we can see, have been no 
 
 (753) U 
 
162 ADAM A TYPE OF CHRIST. 
 
 incarnation of the Eternal Son. God in Christ would not 
 have been so near to us ; we would not have been so near 
 to him. The unfallen would have been good servants ; 
 but the ransomed, by brotherhood of nature with the 
 Divine Redeemer, have attained the place of beloved chil- 
 dren. 
 
 Great was the joy set before our Redeemer when he 
 undertook our cause ; great is the joy he is reaping now 
 when his work is finished. He has gotten a multitude, 
 like the stars of heaven, nearer to himself, and higher than 
 the angels. God compels evil to become the instrument of 
 good on a wider sphere than this world. When a portion 
 of the angels fell, that fall, by omniscient forethought and 
 infinite love, was so directed that it set agoing a process 
 which never ceased until it had raised from the dust a 
 countless family of God's children to a higher place than 
 angels ever held. 
 
 This hope might be the source of unmeasured joy to 
 believers. This union to the Lord that bought us, and 
 this destined elevation to sit with him upon his throne, 
 should surely cheer us in the house of our pilgrimage. 
 This promised dawn should give us songs in the night. 
 But he who hath this hope in Him should purify himself 
 even as He is pure. No unfair or foul thing should lodge 
 in the bosom of the man who is already in a flutter of 
 expectation, as not knowing what moment he may be 
 called into the presence of the Great King. 
 
II. 
 
 EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 "Ye are our epistle written in onr hearts, known and read of all men 
 
 manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not 
 with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in 
 fleshy tables of the heart." — 2 CoK. iii. 2, 3. 
 
 ROM the example of the Master, Paul had acquired 
 the habit, in his teaching, of gliding softly and 
 quickly from a common object of nature to the 
 deep things of grace. In his conversation with 
 the woman of Samaria, for example, Jesus led his scholar, 
 ere she was aware, from the water of Jacob's well to the 
 water of life. In like manner, the apostle of the Gentiles 
 was accustomed to make any common topic that arose the 
 stepping-stone by which he carried his pupils over into the 
 concerns of the kingdom of God. 
 
 In this case, the question concerned the testimonials 
 which a minister or missionary might present when he 
 reached a new sphere. The practice of asking and obtain- 
 ing certificates seems to have been introduced at a very 
 early period into the Christian Church. Already, in Paul's 
 time, some abuses had crept in along with it. A minister 
 of very moderate gifts, or even of doubtful soundness, 
 might carry in his pocket a voucher signed by some great 
 names. We may gather from this epistle that some very 
 
IQi EPTSTLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 well recommended missionaries had been spoiling Paul's 
 work at Corinth. 
 
 Virtually challenged to exhibit his own certificates, he 
 boldly appeals to the profession and the life of those who 
 had been converted through his ministry. He does not 
 need to present letters of recommendation to them when 
 he comes to Corinth, or to request letters of recommenda- 
 tion from them when he goes away : " Ye are our epistle." 
 The work wdiich God had done by him is evidence that 
 God has sent him to work. He will not deign to submit 
 any other proof of his call. 
 
 But Paul always reckons himself a small subject. Al- 
 though compelled sometimes to introduce it, he will not 
 dwell on it. The conception of the disciples being an 
 epistle to recommend him is no sooner brought in than it 
 is abandoned. He glides instantly into a greater thing. 
 The Christians are an epistle of Christ. Their lives are a 
 letter in which men may learn the Lord. 
 
 Regarding these living epistles of Christ, consider, — - 
 
 I. The paper, or 'material, on which the marks are 
 made. — Many different substances have been employed in 
 successive ages of the world to receive and retain a written 
 lano'uao-e ; but one feature is common to all, — in their 
 natural state they are not fit to be used as writing mate- 
 rials. They must undergo a process of preparation. Even 
 the primitive material of stone must be polished on the 
 surface ere the engraving begin. All the rough places 
 must be made smooth, otherwise the writing would not be 
 legible. The precious stones containing the names of the 
 twelve tribes, and together constituting the high priest's 
 breastplate, were not capable of taking the engraving on 
 
EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 165 
 
 when first the Hebrews found them. Much labour was 
 expended ere all the sharp corners were rubbed off, and a 
 glassy polish imparted to the surface. The reeds, and 
 leaves, and skins, too, which were used as writing materials 
 by the ancients, all needed a process of preparation. 
 Therein they are like the living epistles of Jesus Christ, 
 who must be renewed in the spirit of their minds ere they 
 can show forth the Redeemer's likeness in their lives. 
 
 But the preparation of modern materials for writing, 
 although it was not before the apostle's mind when he 
 wrote this text, contains, in fact, more points of likeness 
 to the renewing and sanctifying of believers than any of 
 the ancient arts. 
 
 Although Paul does not here directly refer to paper — a 
 substance not invented when he wrote — there is a remark- 
 able likeness between the method employed in its manu- 
 facture and that work of the Spirit by which a human life 
 becomes fit to receive and exhibit an epistle of Christ. 
 Filthy rags are the raw material of the manufacture. These 
 are with great care and labour torn into very small pieces 
 and washed very clean. They are then cast into a new 
 form, and brought out pure and beautiful, ready to get a 
 new meaning impressed on their smooth, bright breast. 
 Paper from rags is, in an obvious and important sense, a 
 new creature. It has been cleansed from its filthiness. 
 There is now no spot nor wrinkle upon it, nor any such 
 thing. 
 
 A similar process takes place every time that a 
 writing material is prepared for receiving an epistle of 
 Christ. You might as well try to write with pen and 
 ink upon the rubbish from which paper is made, as to 
 impress legible evidence for the truth and divinity of the 
 
166 EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 gospel on the life and conversation of one who is still " of 
 the earth, earthy." 
 
 The paper manufacturer is not nice in the choice of his 
 materials. He does not reject a torn or a filthy piece as 
 unlit for his purpose. All come alike to him. The clean 
 and glancing cloth from the table of the rich, and filthy 
 rags from a beggar's back, are equally welcome. The 
 clean cannot be serviceable without passing through the 
 manufacturer's process, and the unclean can be made ser- 
 viceable with it. He throws both into the same machine, 
 puts both through the same process, and brings out both 
 new creatures. 
 
 The Pharisees were scandalized on observing that pub- 
 licans and sinners came in streams to Christ, and w^ere all 
 accepted. " This man receiveth sinners," they complained. 
 Yea, receiveth them : sinners are taken in between the 
 wheels at the commencement of this process ; but at the 
 end of it saints in white clothing are thrown out, fit for 
 the kingdom of heaven. Go ye into the highways and 
 hedges, and as many as ye can find bid to the marriage. 
 Christ does not find any pure on earth ; he makes them. 
 Those that stand round the throne in white clothinaf were 
 gathered from the mire. They were once darkness, though 
 they be now light in the Lord. 
 
 Let no man think he can go into heaven because he is 
 good ; but neither let any one fear he will be kept out of 
 it because he is evil. Him that cometh, the Lord will in 
 no wise cast out. Though your sins be as scarlet, they 
 shall be white as wool. The blood of Jesus cleanseth us 
 from all sin. 
 
 Not on tables of stone, like those on which the law was 
 graven, but on tables of flesh, must the mind and likeness 
 
EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 167 
 
 of Christ be written. Give him your heart. Surrender it 
 to him, that he may blot out its stains and mark it for his 
 own. The Lord hath need of epistles to recommend his 
 grace in this world : Lord, here am I ; use me. 
 
 II. The ivriting, or the mind and meaning which is 
 fixed on the prepared page. — It is not Christianity printed 
 in the creed, but Christ written in the heart. When that 
 writing is fixed on the heart, it shines through every 
 opening of the life, and conciliates favour for the 
 Lord. 
 
 It is well understood that a person's character may be 
 very well gathered from his letters. These seem to be 
 windows in his breast through which you can read his 
 true character. How eagerly the public read the letters 
 of a great man, if they are printed after his death ! People 
 expect to learn better by these than by any other means 
 what the man really was. 
 
 As our Lord left no monument of himself in brass or 
 marble, so he left no letters written by his own hand. He 
 did not write his mind on tables of stone or on sheets of 
 parchment. Even Rome, with all her rage for relics, does 
 not pretend to show a specimen of his hand-writing. Yet 
 he has not left himself without a witness. He has left 
 letters behind him which truly reveal his mind. " Ye are 
 epistles of Christ." 
 
 Disciples, when he desires to let the world know what 
 he is, he points to you. Nay, more, and further, when he 
 would have the Father to behold his glory, he refers him 
 to the saved : " Father, I am glorified in them." It is not 
 only that the world, in point of fact, judges of Christianity 
 by what it sees in Christians, but it has authority so 
 
168 EPISTLES OF CHEIST. 
 
 to do. The Lord himself consented that it should read 
 him there. 
 
 So Jesus sends a letter to the world — sends many letters 
 — sends a letter to every city, and every street, and every 
 house. A merchant who is a disciple of Christ goes to 
 India or China. He sells manufactured goods ; he buys 
 silk and tea. But all the time he is a letter, a living- 
 epistle, sent by Christ to the heathen. A boy becomes an 
 apprentice in a warehouse or factory ; but before he was 
 bound to a master on earth he has been redeemed by a 
 Master in heaven. He is now, therefore, a letter from the 
 Lord to all his shopmates. In his truth, and love, and 
 gentleness, and fairness, and generosity, they should learn 
 the mind of Christ. 
 
 I confess that this thought is fitted to make us afraid. 
 How shall we fulfil such a function ? The solution is — it 
 is the Lord's own method. He has chosen earthen vessels 
 in order that the glory may be to God. 
 
 HI. The ivriter. — This letter is written by the Spirit of 
 the living God. Some writings and paintings look well 
 for a while, but are easily rubbed off" by rough usage, or 
 grow faint with age. Only fast colours are truly valuable. 
 Human art has found the means of making them lastinsr. 
 The flowers and figures painted upon porcelain, for example, 
 are burned in, and therefore cannot be blotted out. As 
 long as the vessel lasts the painting remains bright. 
 
 How shall we get a writing or a likeness made durable 
 in a human heart ? One thing we know, — many features 
 which people admire are blotted out in the wear and tear 
 of life. Lessons which human hands lay on are not able 
 to stand the rouo-h usaGre of the world. The education 
 
EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 169 
 
 which can be obtained at schools is not sufficient. Its fair 
 characters may soon be stained by evil passions from within, 
 or scratched by cruel treatment from without. We cannot 
 make the writing deep enough on those mysterious tablets. 
 We cannot warrant the colouring. 
 
 No writing on a human spirit is certainly durable, ex- 
 cept that which the Spirit of God lays on. The process is 
 in one aspect like writing ; but in another it seems rather 
 a species of printing. The meaning is in the Scriptures set 
 up like types^ — once for all. Then the Scriptures are im- 
 pressed on the heart, as the types are applied to the page. 
 It is when divine truth, taken off the divine Redeemer, is 
 pressed on the human heart by the Spirit of God, that one 
 becomes a new creature. Old things pass away, and all 
 things become new. Henceforth the Christian bears about 
 on his character the likeness of Christ. 
 
 And there is also a kind of burning to make the writing 
 durable. In conversion there is a sort of furnace through 
 which the new-born pass. We must take up our cross 
 when we follow Christ. We must part with all that cruci- 
 fies the Lord, although it were dear as a right arm or a 
 right eye. Through such fire and water the Spirit leads 
 us ; but he brings us into a wealthy place. It is gladsome, 
 as well as safe, to pass from death unto life in conversion ; 
 but there is something to be stripped off", and something to 
 be put on, in the passage, which you will never forget. 
 
 In the wide-spread religious activity of the day some 
 marks are made on the people, — not made by the Spirit 
 of God. A cry ; a swoon ; a fear of wrath ; an imagina- 
 tion of the judgment-seat ; a gift of prayer ; a profession 
 of faith, — may be shown by the event to have been only 
 marks on the surface made by some passing fear or ner- 
 
170 EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 
 
 vous sympathy. The writing made by the Spirit does not 
 go out again. This baptism is a baptism of fire as well as 
 of water — it not only washes off the old ; it also burns in 
 the new. 
 
 IV. The pen.- — In writing the new name and new nature 
 on the tables of the heart, the Holy Spirit employs an 
 instrument. It is expressly said in the text that Paul and 
 the younger evangelists who assisted him had a hand in 
 the work. The terms " ministered by us " point to the 
 presence of man in the work of conversion and sanctifying. 
 It is not a high place that the human ministry occupies ; 
 but it is the right place, and it cannot be wanted. 
 
 In photography it is the sun that makes the portrait. 
 There is no drawing of the outline by a human hand, 
 and no shading of the figure by the rules of the painter's 
 art. The person stands up in the light ; and the light lays 
 his image on the glass. Yet even in this there is room 
 and need for the ministry of man. Without the ministry 
 of man the work could not in any case be accomplished. 
 A human hand prepares the plate and adjusts the lens. 
 Although in the real work of making the picture the artist 
 has no part at all — although he has nothing more to do in 
 the end than stand still, like Israel at the Red Sea, and 
 see the work done by the sun^ — his place is still important 
 and necessary. 
 
 A similar place is assigned to the ministry of men in the 
 work of the Spirit. God does not send angels to preach. 
 We learn the gospel from men of flesh and blood like our- 
 selves. Cornelius and his house will be saved ; but for 
 that end Peter must go from Joppa to Csesarea, and there 
 declare the way of life. The Ethiopian treasurer will find 
 
EPISTLES OF CHlllST. 171 
 
 the Saviour whom he seeks ; but not until Philip is sent 
 from Samaria, a skilful evangelist to guide the earnest but 
 ignorant African. It is thus that the Lord employs parents, 
 teachers, pastors, at the present day, as instruments to break 
 hard hearts and bind up broken ones. 
 
 This is the most interesting and honourable employment 
 in which any human being can be engaged. Whether he 
 be a ministering child or a ministering man, the agent who 
 stands between the living and the dead — a channel through 
 which the light of life may run— occupies the most honour- 
 able place and discharges the greatest function competent 
 to any creature. 
 
 Here above me is the depending extremity of the wire 
 whose upper end is dipped in heaven — dipped there in 
 everlasting love- — dipped in God, who is love ; and here 
 beneath me, within reach, is a brother " dead in trespasses 
 and sins." I grasp with one hand the conducting rod, and 
 with the other the cold, stiff hand of my brother ; then, not 
 from me, but through me, the light of life flows from its 
 eternal fountain into the empty soul. Here is an example 
 of the first resurrection. The living is now an epistle of 
 Christ, written indeed by the Spirit, but yet " ministered 
 by us." 
 
 Printing nowadays is done by machines which work 
 with a strength and regularity and silence that are enough 
 to strike an onlooker with dismay. Yet even there a 
 watchful human eye and alert human hand are needed to 
 introduce the paper into the proper place. Agents are 
 needed, even under the glorious ministry of the Spirit — 
 needed to watch for souls. 
 
 V. The readers. — They are a great number, and of 
 
IT-i EPISTLES OF CHRIbT. 
 
 various kinds. The terms of the text have a wide range — 
 " known and read of all men." The writing is not sealed, 
 or locked up in a desk, but exposed daily, and all the day, 
 to public view. These living epistles walk about upon the 
 streets, and mingle with the crowds in the market-place. 
 Every one may read them at will. 
 
 Some who look on the letters are enemies, and some are 
 friends. If an alien see Christ truly and clearly repre- 
 sented in a Christian, he may thereby be turned from 
 darkness to light ; but if he see falsehood, and anger, and 
 selfishness, and worldliness in one who is called a Christian, 
 he will probably be more hardened in his unbelief. Those 
 who already know and love the truth are glad when they 
 read it clearly written in a neighbour's life ; are grieved 
 when they see a false image of the Lord held up before the 
 eyes of men. 
 
 Here, however, in justice I ought to say that many 
 readers fail to see the meaning of the plainest letters. 
 None so blind as those who will not see. 
 
 Every one's life is an open letter. Every man, whether 
 he is a Christian or not, is written and is read. Some are 
 epistles of Christ ; some are epistles of vanity ; some are 
 epistles of covetousness ; some are epistles of selfishness ; 
 some are epistles of the wicked one. The main features 
 of the father of lies are written largely on the life of some 
 of his followers. The spirit that reigns within is more or 
 less visible in the outward conduct. 
 
 In some countries the master's name is branded in the 
 flesh of his slave, so that, if the slave should run away, 
 every one should know to whom he belonged. The cap- 
 tive may, indeed, be bought with a price ; and then he 
 receives the mark of his new master. Thus, whether we 
 
EPISTLES OF CHRIST. 173 
 
 like it or not, people may read in our lives, with a con- 
 siderable degree of accuracy, whose we are and whom we 
 serve. The surest way to appear a Christian, in all places 
 and at all times, is to be one. The surest way to make 
 people, when you go out, take knowledge that you have 
 been with Jesus, is really to be with Jesus. 
 
 Considering how defective most readers are, either in 
 will or skill, or both, the living epistles should be written 
 in characters both large and fair. Some manuscripts, 
 though they contain a profound meaning, are so defectively 
 written that none but experts can decipher them. Skilled 
 and practised men can piece them together, and gather the 
 sense where, to ordinary eyes, only unconnected scrawls 
 appear. Such should not be the writing on a disciple's 
 life. If it be such, most people will fail to understand it. 
 It should be clear and bold throughout, that he may run 
 who reads it. 
 
 Benevolent ingenuity, in our day, has produced a kind of 
 writing that even the blind can read. The letters, instead 
 of merely appealing to the eye by their colour, are raised 
 from the surface so as to be sensible to touch. Such, 
 methinks, should be the writing of Christ's mind on a 
 Christian's conversation. It should be raised in characters 
 so large, and sharp, and high, that even the blind, who can- 
 not see, may be compelled, by contact with Christians, to 
 feel that Christ is passing by. 
 
III. 
 
 CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 "Ye are the light of the world Let your light so shine before men, that 
 
 they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven." — 
 Matt. v. 14, 16. 
 
 HE first section of the Sermon on the Mount 
 (verses 1-10) represents God and his saints; 
 the second (11—16) represents believers and 
 the world. Redeemed men in the body are 
 exhibited first in their relation to God on high, and next 
 in their relation to the world around. In the first picture, 
 you behold believers in contact with their Friend ; in the 
 second, you behold them in contact with their foe. In the 
 first, you learn what good they receive ; in the second, 
 what evil they suffer. From the Father of lights, every 
 good and perfect gift comes down ; from the world, lying 
 in wickedness, every kind of danger springs up. 
 
 Between these two opposite poles the Christian life is 
 suspended and balanced. The fountain opened in heaven 
 supplies all a believer's need ; and the pressure of tempta- 
 tion in the world sends him the oftener and the closer to 
 his supplies. The Father's love draws, and the world's 
 enmity drives ; but though these forces spring on opposite 
 sides, they act in the same direction. Thus all things work 
 together for good to them that love God. A Christian 
 
CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 175 
 
 need no more fear to plunge into the current of life than 
 a planet to launch forth on its course. Opposite forces 
 conspire to keep them safe, and urge them on. 
 
 In the first section, you learn from the double line of 
 the seven beatitudes what God is to his people, and what 
 his people are to God. He blesses them, and they trust in 
 him. In the second section, you learn what the world is 
 to the disciples of Christ, and what they are to the world. 
 It is to them a persecutor ; they are to it a salt and a 
 light. 
 
 Omitting in the meantime the first of these analogies, 
 we fix our regards on the second. Let us fairly look in 
 the face this grand function assigned by the Lord to his 
 followers — to be "the light of the world." In verse 14th, 
 the function is defined ; and in verse 1 6th, a particular 
 instruction is ffiven rea-ardinfj its exercise. The first tells 
 disciples that they are a light in the world; and the second 
 exhorts them to keep it blazing. We shall explain shortly 
 the nature of this office, and then more fully enforce the 
 command to exercise it well. 
 
 I. It is the function of a livins: Church to be a lio-ht in 
 a dark world. In order that we may determine in what 
 sense the disciples of Christ are lights, let us read two 
 cognate scriptures, one in the Old Testament, and the other 
 in the New : " Arise, shine ; for thy light is come, and the 
 glory of the Lord is risen upon thee. For, behold, the 
 darkness shall cover the earth, and gross darkness the 
 people : but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his glory 
 shall be seen upon thee" (Isa. Ix. 1, 2). "That ye may be 
 blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke, 
 in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among 
 
176 CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 whom ye shine as lights in the world ; holding forth the 
 word of life" (Phil. ii. 15, 16). 
 
 From these texts we learn clearly that renewed men are 
 first receivers of light ; then and therefore givers. They 
 are not the source whence the light springs, but channels 
 through which it is distributed. The Lord alone is the 
 light of the world ; but he has been pleased to arrange his 
 covenant so that those who receive his beams also spread 
 them. It is so arranged also in the material world. Not 
 much of the light wdiich guides us in life comes in direct 
 lines from the sun : most of it reaches us at second hand, 
 reflected from surrounding objects. Thus, in the spiritual 
 sphere, the glory of the Lord arises and shines on Israel ; 
 then and therefore Israel is expected to arise and reflect 
 the light around to attract the Gentiles. The Philippian 
 converts, w^alking in the light of God, are expected to shine 
 among the heathen as lights. They are not rays, but 
 reflectors ; they give out, wdth more or less of truth and 
 fulness, the light which they receive from the Sun of 
 Righteousness after he has risen upon them. 
 
 The conception of Christians being lights, not as Source, 
 but reflectors, might perhaps be profitably examined some- 
 what more minutely. Reflectors are ordinarily either 
 metallic or vitreous. In either case, two preparatory pro- 
 cesses are necessary : there must be a melting first and 
 a polishing afterwards. Ah ! search and see that those 
 Christians who have really been eminently useful as 
 attractive lights — winning many from the world by the 
 beauty of their character — have been in the furnace, and 
 have there had the dross taken away ; have been under 
 the pressure of providential trials that have rubbed their 
 inequalities off. There is no royal — that is, no soft and 
 
CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 177 
 
 easy — road to eminence in the Christian calling. The good 
 soldier of Jesus Christ has suffered some privations and 
 seen some service. Men who have never seen any other 
 than parade service are not reckoned good soldiers in either 
 army. 
 
 If a stranger, ignorant alike of means and end, had been 
 permitted to see Lord Rosse engaged in preparing the 
 speculum of his great telescope, he would have formed a 
 false judgment regarding the usefulness of the work and 
 the wisdom of the operator. This huge, heavy casting, 
 cooled with so much care, — when it is at last removed from 
 its bed, it seems a coarse, black, shapeless, useless mass. 
 What is the use of it ? the observer inquires. To reveal 
 the stars that have hitherto lain hid in heaven. That 
 lump of black, irregular metal ! How can it reveal the 
 stars ? But the operator knows what he is about. This 
 uncouth mass will yet receive on its bosom the light from 
 burning orbs, so many and so distant that hitherto they 
 have seemed to be little white clouds, sailing without a 
 compass in the sea of infinitude. 
 
 The Day only will reveal the wdsdom and the pains 
 displayed by the omniscient Worker in preparing the 
 hearts and lives of his witnesses for receiving from himself 
 the light of life and spreading it around. 
 
 II. Leaving now the fundamental fact — that Christians 
 are lights, to rest on the Word of the Lord — we proceed to 
 examine more particularly the specific exhortation addressed 
 to them in that capacity, — to let their light so shine before 
 men, etc. 
 
 In the verse immediately preceding this injunction there 
 is an interesting reference to the elevation of the light as 
 
 (753) 12 
 
178 CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 a necessary condition of its usefulness. A lofty position, 
 breadth, and brightness, must be combined in order to pro- 
 duce the greatest effect. 
 
 In a trigonometrical survey of our country, it is necessary 
 often to obtain an exact view of an object placed at a great 
 distance ; and some ingenuity is displayed in overcoming 
 the obstacles. Goatfell, a mountain in Arran, is visible 
 from the summit of the Ochils, east of Stirling, a distance 
 of about seventy miles in a straight line. But at such a 
 distance you can scarcely distinguish between a mountain 
 and a cloud; no object can be seen wdth sufficient exactness 
 for the purpose of measurement. But they bring a looking- 
 glass to the top of Goatfell, scour its surface well, w^atch 
 for a sun-blink, and turn it then in the required direction. 
 On the summit of the Ochils they observe the flash, as a 
 single point of glory, like a star in the broad blue sky. 
 They measure their angle with security now. 
 
 A great elevation does not belong to every Christian. 
 This is a matter that does not lie in his own hands. It is 
 not like the climbing of the mountain by a man ; it is like 
 the uplifting of the mountain from the plain, which is the 
 prerogative of the Creator. Some he both elevates and 
 kindles, that their light may stream afar ; but he has use 
 for most of his lights on moderate elevations, and close to 
 the benighted world. 
 
 The great business of Christians is to keep their light 
 bright, and make it broad, that all who are within reach 
 may be compelled to see it. A mirror besmeared with 
 mud, although it is set in the sunlight on a mountain-top, 
 will not be seen ; whereas a bright burnished glass will 
 reflect the light truly over a greater or a smaller sphere, 
 according to the height which it may have attained. Thus, 
 
CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 179 
 
 Christians should take care that their light should be large 
 and pure, leaving it to God in his providence to determine 
 the height of their elevation and consequent radius of their 
 influence. All who have let their light shine, like all who 
 have used the intrusted talents, will be welcomed with the 
 same words, Well done ! whether their position has enabled 
 them to spread the truth among many or only among a few. 
 
 Among a crowd of placards, varying much in size and 
 subject, which jostled and overlapped each other on a piece 
 of neglected wall at the entrance of a large city, one 
 particularly arrested me. At the distance at which I 
 stood, it exhibited only these words : " Large Type Chris- 
 tians." Doubtless intermediate lines in smaller letters, in- 
 visible where I stood, informed the nearer reader that some 
 publisher had prepared a series of tracts in large type for 
 the special use of aged Christians. From my view-point 
 at the time only the larger letters were visible. 
 
 I passed on with what I had got, not desiring to ex- 
 change it for the meaning that a closer inspection would 
 have revealed. Large type Christians ! That is not the 
 conception which the writer of the handbill intended to 
 convey, but is the conception which in the circumstances 
 it conveyed to me, and I determined to retain it. This 
 shadow, which the publisher's circular projected on the 
 wall, was to me a tenfold greater thing than the circular 
 itself would have been. Large type tracts may be good 
 for the conversion of the careless and the edification of 
 believers ; large type tracts may be good, but large type 
 Christians are better. Tracts, large and legible, may win 
 their thousands of captives in the battle of the kingdom ; 
 but Christians large and legible, if we had them, would 
 win their tens of thousands. 
 
180 CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WOELD. 
 
 As young and struggling colonies advertise amid the 
 teeming population of the mother country for able-bodied 
 farm-labourers and skilled artisans, covertly hinting, by 
 their silence, that certain other classes would only be in 
 the way ; so the Church, charged to colonize and cultivate 
 the world for Christ, should distinctly own and loudly 
 proclaim her need of large type Christians. 
 
 We have many who are really Christians — more, per- 
 haps, than either a scoffing world or a desponding Church 
 would acknowledge ; but not so many who are clearly, 
 largely, unmistakably Christ-like, whatever they may be 
 doing, and whoever may be looking on. If the graces of 
 the Spirit, though real, are small and stunted, and especially 
 if they are overshadowed by a rank growth of vanity, 
 worldliness, and self-pleasing, they will not be seen by 
 those who most need their evidence. The careless passenger 
 will class you according to the earthlincss which is large in 
 your life, and not according to the heavenliness which is 
 small. If conformity to every vain show make up the 
 bulk of your history, while your compliance with Christ's 
 will can only be detected by the microscope, your influence 
 will, in point of fact, tell on the side of the world. 
 
 Christians, although the Light of life be within, yet, if 
 it is choked and hidden by an abounding worldliness of 
 spirit and conduct, you are in point of fact hindering the 
 kingdom of Christ, Let your light so shine before men, 
 that they may see your good works, and glorify your 
 Father who is in heaven. 
 
 Observe here how closely the lines of a true disciple's 
 life approach at certain points to those of a hypocrite's 
 course. The Pharisees gave their alms and repeated their 
 prayers that they might be seen of men ; and therein they 
 
CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 181 
 
 are condemned by the Lord : but when his disciples let 
 their good works be seen by men they are commended. 
 Paul was frequently in a strait betwixt two here. He 
 abhorred the Pharisees' ostentation, — I am less than the 
 least of all saints ; and yet, when he saw that he could 
 promote the kingdom by boldl}^ taking the place which 
 belonged to him, he flashed forth in the face of the world 
 the lofty claim that he was not a whit behind the chiefest 
 of the apostles. The hypocrite performs what are accounted 
 good works in order that he may be seen of men, and get 
 glory to himself ; the true disciple, doing necessarily the 
 things that please God, in conformity with his new nature, 
 endeavours carefully to do them in such a way as will best 
 commend the gospel to his neighbours, and so extend the 
 kingdom of Christ. 
 
 The redeemed should consider well the end of the Lord 
 in redemption. To save the perishing is not by itself the 
 aim and the hope which directed and animated the 
 Redeemer in his work. As a husbandman makes an evil 
 tree good by ingrafting, in order that he may enjoy its 
 Gfood fruit, so our Father in heaven saves us from condem- 
 nation, that he may delight in the new obedience of his 
 children, and employ them in his work. Man's chief end 
 is to glorify God and to enjoy him for ever. 
 
 What is contained in yonder vessel ? I inquire of a 
 stranger who, like myself, is passing by the door of the 
 threshing-floor where it stands. Chaff, he replies, turn- 
 ing a momentary glance towards the object, and so 
 passes on. 
 
 His answer is all that I could expect him to give ; and 
 yet it is not true. It was not true, for the vessel was 
 mainly filled with wheat ; but it was what seemed true. 
 
182 CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 
 
 for it was chaff mainly that met the traveller's eye. The 
 measure standing on the floor, while the process of thresh- 
 ing proceeded, w^as gradually filled with what fell from the 
 sheaves — with wheat and chaff commingled ; but as it has 
 been shaken somewhat roughly from side to side, the wheat 
 grains have for the most part sunk to the bottom, and the 
 chaff for the most part risen to the top. 
 
 In some such way many real but defective disciples are 
 set down as hypocrites in the books of a careless world, 
 because the things of the Spirit gravitate downwards, and 
 lie hidden in the secret parts of their life ; while the 
 vanities of time usurp and occupy almost all the visible 
 space on the surface of their history. 
 
 I do not know any means by which the gospel of Christ 
 is more effectually hindered. Alas ! the Lord knows we 
 have all too little of the true Christian life in the visible 
 Church ; but if even that which exists were well employed, 
 it would soon change the face of the world. Christians 
 have in them more of Christianity than they have the wit 
 to employ well in the cause of the kingdom. Oh, if the 
 talents that belong to our Master were as wisely and 
 vigorously laid out as those which we count our own, the 
 kingdoms of this world would be won over ! 
 
 That which is the fruit of the Spirit in Christians should 
 not be small, but large and full-grown — should not be 
 jostled out of its place by the urgency and impudence of 
 mere worldly fashion. That which is Christ-like in 
 Christians should not be hidden under a thick shade of 
 cares and pleasures. If you would let your light shine 
 before men, you must labour to cut down and kill off the 
 covetousness, the pride, the evil-speaking, the equivocation, 
 the falsehood, the dishonesty — all the bitter roots, whose 
 
CHRISTIANS THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD. 183 
 
 branches weave themselves together into a thick veil, so as 
 to turn your light into darkness. 
 
 You have asked the question, What must we do to be 
 saved ? and through the blood of sprinkling you have 
 obtained an answer of peace. Another question demands 
 now all the energy of a saved soul — the question, Lord, 
 what Vvdlt thou have me to do ? 
 
 There are many wandering in the darkness, and stum- 
 bling even to a final fall. To enlighten and win and save 
 them, the Lord hath need of you. Yield yourselves in- 
 struments of righteousness unto God. In particular, he 
 calls for lights. In us there is not a liq-ht wdiich can oive 
 life to any; but from the Lord the light of life is streaming 
 down like the rays of the sun : if we receive it and reflect 
 it, the light of life may through our means reach the 
 perishing. 
 
 Occasions turn up daily in every one's experience when 
 he must make a choice between faithfulness to Christ and 
 conformity to the world's w^ays. Take no hesitating, 
 double-minded course. Be on the Lord's side ; and be on 
 his side out and out. Let your Christianity be written in 
 large characters for the sake both of friends and foes. A 
 halting walk is a painful walk : plant your foot firm on 
 the path of righteousness, and a new joy will be infused 
 into your life. A life devoted because it is redeemed is 
 not a wearisome but a joyful thing. It is not like a stag- 
 nant pool, but like a sparkling river : bright is its course 
 over time ; blessed its issue in eternity. 
 
TV. 
 A COMPKEHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 " But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy 
 rags ; and we all do fade as a leaf ; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken 
 us away. And there is none that calleth upon thy name, that stirreth up him- 
 self to take hold of thee : for thou hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed 
 us, because of our iniquities." — IsA. Ixiv. 6, 7. 
 
 T is not enough to say of this brief prayer that it 
 is figurative in the form of its expressions. It is 
 a combination of many types. Natural analo- 
 gies are piled upon each other, as the penitent 
 strives to give all his emotions vent in language. It will be 
 our effort to analyze the compact conglomerate, and examine 
 in succession each of its constituent parts. 
 
 A quickened and repenting people in those ancient times 
 pour forth their confession through Isaiah's lips. The 
 speech is simple and sweet and tender, like the wailing of 
 a sufFerinsf child. The conscience has been reached and 
 melted, and here in our sight the confession flows. Ob- 
 viously this sinful man "pours out his heart unto God;" 
 he keeps nothing back. 
 
 Let us draw near and listen while an exercised human 
 spirit makes full confession of sin to God, that we may 
 make his prayer our own. 
 
 The confession consists of six several but consecutive 
 and closely comiected parts. We shall enumerate them as 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 185 
 
 they follow each other in the text, and then endeavour to 
 obtain for ourselves the lessons which they teach. There 
 is much meaning in each separate ingredient of this con- 
 fession considered by itself, and more in the relations and 
 union of the whole : — 
 
 1. The taint of sin, that from the springs of humanity 
 has poisoned all its streams — " We are all as an unclean 
 thing." 
 
 2. The worthlessness and positive loathsomeness of all 
 the efforts which a sinful man can make to set himself at 
 first right with God — " All our righteousnesses are as filthy 
 rags." 
 
 8. The frailty, uncertainty, and shortness of human life 
 — " We all do fade as a leaf." 
 
 4. The power and success of internal corruption in 
 hurrying the man away into actual transgressions — " Our 
 iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away." 
 
 5. The inability and unwillingness of these helpless 
 sinners, as they are drifting down the stream of sin to- 
 wards the gulf of perdition, to lift themselves up and lay 
 hold on God — " There is none that calleth upon thy name, 
 that stirreth up himself to take hold of thee." 
 
 6. God's method of dealing with such a case — " Thou 
 hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because 
 of our iniquities." 
 
 I. The taint of sin, that from the springs of humanity 
 has poisoned all its streams : " We are all as an unclean 
 thing." 
 
 What feature of his dreadful case is first revealed to an 
 awakening soul, we cannot tell ; the beginnings of life are 
 kept secret. Probably, as there are diversities of operation 
 
186 A COMPEEHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 in the process of bringing a man out of death into life, 
 there may also be diversities in the process of revealing to 
 him that he is dead in trespasses and sins. One man, 
 when conviction by the Spirit first begins, may have his 
 eye chiefly fixed on one feature, and another man on a 
 diflferent feature, of the carnal mind. But whether the 
 discovery begin with the root or the branches, — with the 
 deep rebellion of the heart or the manifold transgressions 
 of the life, — it is certain that when a really awakened 
 sinner proceeds to make an articulate confession to God, 
 he is inclined, like Isaiah in this text, to begin at the 
 beginning : " We are all as an unclean thing." When the 
 patriarch had learned at length to know himself and God, 
 and to bring the two together, a short formula best ex- 
 pressed his experience : " Behold, I am vile." This is the 
 confession of faith, on its under or subjective side, which 
 all who are taught of the Spirit are willing to sign. 
 
 This confession does not yet proclaim the way of salva- 
 tion, but it has unveiled the necessities of the lost ; it 
 points not yet to the sun in the heavens, but it owns and 
 laments the darkness which broods over the earth. This 
 darkness does not create the light, but it makes the light 
 welcome when God commands it to shine. 
 
 True confession of sin, like its counterpart, true faith in 
 Christ, is not partial, but universal. It belongs to all, and 
 it belongs all to each. There is none that doeth good, and 
 there is no good thing in any one. When one who has 
 been convinced by the Spirit takes words and turns to 
 God, he begins at the heart, as the spring whence the many 
 unclean streams of thoughts and words and deeds flow out 
 
 o 
 in the daily life. 
 
 This simjilicity is a mark of truth. It is not an in- 
 
A COINIPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 187 
 
 ventory of remembered shortcomings that disturbs the con- 
 science in the prospect of the judgment. He has looked 
 in on his own heart, and back over his past life, and for- 
 ward to the great Day, and upward to the righteous Judge, 
 and has discovered that his character is sin, his condition 
 misery. Around the circle of his life he sees no spot where 
 a troubled conscience can find a resting-place. When he 
 opens his lips to express his state, the complaint is not a 
 superficial gleaning of the bulkiest sins. He does not dally 
 on the surface ; he goes right to the root. An unclean 
 thing. He counts himself a defiling spot on God's fair 
 creation, and loathes the self which, notwithstanding, he 
 cannot fling away. " wretched man that I am ! who 
 shall deliver me from the body of this death ?" 
 
 II. The worthlessness and positive loathsomeness of all 
 the efforts which a sinful man can make to set himself at 
 first right with God : " All our righteousnesses are as filthy 
 rags." 
 
 Most naturally this ingredient of the confession comes 
 next in order. He looked first to his sins, and told what 
 he thought of them ; he next looks to his righteousness, 
 and we shall learn what his opinion is in regard to it also. 
 
 This is the natural history of the process — the process 
 of conviction. By this way the soul went in order to 
 reach true repentance. The path is rugged and painful. 
 It is a voyage of discovery, in which all that lies before 
 you is unknown, and where every increase of knowledge is 
 acquired at the expense of falls and bruises. When a sense 
 of guilt and a fear of wrath force their way into the eon- 
 science, nature s instinct prompts to the method of making 
 peace by doing better for the time to come. There is uo 
 
188 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 instinct more uniform than this recourse to self-righteous- 
 ness as soon as conviction of sin becomes alarming. After 
 the discovery of our sin, another discovery, still more ter- 
 rible, remains to be made — the discovery that our righteous- 
 ness will do no more for us in the judgment than our sins. 
 In the first stages of conviction, although one by one the 
 pretensions of innocence fail the culprit, he has still hope 
 in another resource, — a second line of defence, — in which 
 he may make a stand. If he must own that the sins 
 deserve wrath, he will betake himself to righteousness, in 
 the hope that, though it cannot be expected to be complete, 
 it may yet go far as a protector. 
 
 It is when the fugitive soul is driven from this inner 
 line of defence that the crisis of the case arrives. It is 
 this feature, — this step of the confession, — that we examine 
 now. 
 
 Perhaps the memory of some painful dream will afford 
 us more help in the examination of this point than any 
 phase of our waking experience. You have dreamed that 
 you were in a strange, unknown place, and that all imagin- 
 able dilBEiculties were gathering round you. Among other 
 misfortunes, by some unexplained and unaccountable neglect, 
 you were left without clothing far from home and from 
 friends. In the dreary, shuddering apprehension of the 
 moment you eagerly clutch at the first thing that lies to 
 hand, and wrap it round you with convulsive haste. Glad 
 to have gotten something that feels like a covering, you 
 proceed on your way somewhat more hopefully for a time. 
 The dawn, although it may be discerned in the east, does 
 not yet sensibly diminish the darkness that broods over 
 you and your path. You step forward with a comfortable 
 sensation of being at least clothed. Quickly the light in- 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 189 
 
 creases, and soon bursts into clay ; the path is leading to 
 frequented thoroughfares ; now you discover that the gar- 
 ment which you hastily snatched is a bundle of unconnected 
 rags, very poor and very filthy. This garment is a con- 
 spicuous badge of shame, and you have none other. A 
 sinking of the heart, and a choking in the throat, awaken 
 you from sleep, and you discover that it was but a dream. 
 Gradually the wildly-pulsing heart sinks down again into 
 its normal peacefulness, and nothing remains of the terror 
 but an involuntary sob at intervals, like a ground-swell 
 after a storm. 
 
 Not more naturally do you in such a perplexity snatch 
 any covering that lies within your reach than does a sinful 
 man, when convictions first begin to prick his conscience, 
 betake himself hastily to a self -wrought righteousness. 
 As uniformly and necessarily as a rebound in the opposite 
 direction follows the blow, a soul, when first alarmed by a 
 sense of sin, endeavours to deprecate dreaded wrath by 
 getting up a painful and forced obedience. How busily 
 the naked, when he discovers his nakedness, labours to get 
 a coverinir, and how loner he labours sometimes in vain ! 
 
 For a time a man may be so busy gathering the rags 
 and putting them on that he does not perceive their filthi- 
 ness : more terrible, on that account, is the discovery that 
 awaits him when the quickening Spirit sheds in a brighter 
 light, and he learns at length that the King is coming in, 
 while he is destitute of a wedding garment. 
 
 Those who have never experienced the distress which 
 the dream represents cannot, even in imagination, form a 
 conception of the dismay and sinking of heart that would 
 overwhelm them, if they found themselves, the observed of 
 all observers, entering the presence of royalty clothed in 
 
190 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION, 
 
 filthy rags. Your limbs would totter beneath you, and 
 your tongue would cleave to the roof of your mouth. 
 Your heart w^ould seem to be a heavy, hard, cold stone 
 lying within your breast and crushing it. 
 
 Such in kind, but inconceivably magnified in degree, is 
 the dismay that seizes a sinner wdio has been busy prepar- 
 ing a righteousness for the judgment-seat, when in the light 
 of the great white throne, now felt to be very near, he dis- 
 covers that the righteousness wherewith he has covered his 
 sins is yet more vile in God's sight than the sins which it 
 is employed to cover. 
 
 Nor let any one lightly deem that this representation is 
 introduced as the necessary filling up of a well-favoured 
 theological system. The scripture and reason concur in 
 demonstrating that the righteousness which the convicted 
 but unreconciled soul throws over its uncleanness is itself 
 at least equally unclean. Love is the fulfilling of the law; 
 and in these hasty, painful efforts to provide a satisfying 
 obedience there is no love. You make these efforts wdiile 
 you are strangers to pardon and reconciliation in Christ, 
 not because you trust in God's mercy, but because you 
 dread his holiness. These are peace-offerings flung to an 
 enemy, not love lavished on a friend. If you w^ere near a 
 lion and in his powder, you would throw him a piece of 
 flesh, in the hope that, soothed and satisfied with the morsel 
 you had given him, he might not be disposed to tear you. 
 Men, stung by apprehended wrath, and not reassured by 
 tasting mercy, treat God thus. Their diligent tread-mill 
 round of duty, and painful penances, and costly offerings, 
 are a stratagem cunningly contrived to occupy the attention 
 of the omniscient Watcher while they turn round a corner 
 and escape. 
 
A C0MPRP:HENSIVE confession. 191 
 
 Wanting paixlon and reconciling in the Mediator, there 
 is no love in the good works which men bring to God ; and 
 wanting love, there is no life in them ; and wanting life, 
 they are dead ; and the dead run to corruption ; and the 
 more of the dead you heap together, the ranker is the 
 decay. From dead works as well as from acts of sin we 
 must be purged through the blood of the covenant ere our 
 service can be pleasing to God. Such prayers and penances 
 add insult to injury. Hatred of God's holiness is the 
 motive of the deeds. As long as you toil unforgiven, un- 
 reconciled, unrenewed, to work a righteousness under which 
 you may be safe from God's displeasure, you are in effect 
 vainly trying to throw dust in the eyes of your enemy. If 
 you could be assured that he did not hate sin and would 
 not punish it, you would instantly cease to strive after 
 righteousness. Ah, these filthy rags ! how intensely loath- 
 some they seem to the dear child when Christ has made 
 him free. 
 
 III. The frailty, uncertainty, and shortness of human 
 life : " We all do fade as a leaf." 
 
 The time is short, and even the short time is uncertain. 
 Any day, any hour, thy soul may be required of thee. This 
 thought, coming on the back of the discovery that your 
 righteousnesses are filthy rags, adds to the agony. Our own 
 righteousness is worthless, and our breath may be taken 
 away before we have time to cast about for another. We 
 have suddenly awakened and found our lamps out and our 
 oil- vessels empty ; alas ! while we go to buy the Bride- 
 groom may pass and the door be shut. 
 
 You are in debt. It has been announced that you must 
 be ready with payment in your hand to meet your creditor 
 
192 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 face to face whenever he may call. You stand among a 
 crowd of fellow-debtovs in the outer court. From time to 
 time the awful voice of the judge resounds from within the 
 veil, calling now one and now another of your neighbours 
 by name into his presence. Every man rises and goes in 
 the moment that he hears the summons ; some enter cheer- 
 ful, and some with terror in their look and trembling in 
 their limbs, but all enter instantly as they are called. You 
 know well that your turn cannot be far distant, but you 
 know not at what hour or moment it will come. Will you, 
 in these circumstances, be at ease or in wretchedness ? 
 This depends on another question. Have you enough to 
 pay your debt, or have you nothing ? If you have enough, 
 you await your call with composure, and obey it when 
 it comes with a light heart ; if you have nothing to pay, 
 your heart beats hurriedly at every movement in the crowd; 
 and when your name is called, you faint and fall to the 
 ground. 
 
 It cannot be denied that many who Avould fain seem free 
 are, through fear of death, all their lifetime subject to 
 bondage. Two classes occupying the two opposite extremes 
 contrive to enjoy life, although its term is short and uncer- 
 tain : those on the one hand who have never been disturbed 
 by conviction ; and those on the other who have, through 
 the Mediator, entered into peace. But to the multitude in 
 the middle, who have been made aware of their own guilt, 
 and not yet got it washed away in the blood of the cross, 
 Death in the distance darkens by his shadow all the joys 
 of life. 
 
 The fading of a leaf supplies a correct and affecting 
 emblem of our mortality in both its main features — its 
 certainty and its uncertainty. In one aspect nothing is 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 193 
 
 more sure than the fall of the leaf, and in another nothing 
 more uncertain. Look to this fruit or forest tree : of all 
 the leaves that it bears to-day, glittering in the sunshine 
 and quivering in the breeze, not one will remain in winter 
 — all will be strewn on the ground. But when each leaf 
 will fall is secret and unsearchable as the purposes of God. 
 One, touched by an imperceptible mildew, may drop soon 
 after it has unfolded itself from the bud in spring ; a 
 second, bitten by a worm, may wither as soon as it has 
 fully spread out its surface to the sun of summer ; a third 
 may be shaken off by a boisterous wind, and a fourth 
 nipped by an early frost. On what day of the season any 
 leaf will drop no man knows ; but that all will drop ere 
 the season is over is absolutely sure. 
 
 Such is our condition in this life. We fade as a leaf 
 fades. The generation will in a few years be laid in the 
 dust, but the individuals composing it may be led away 
 at any hour into eternity. This is our condition. It is a 
 sad picture, but it is true ; and it would be foolish to hide 
 or forget it. We are on our warning, every one of us. We 
 know not what a day may bring forth. Every day we 
 perform a march, and every night lie down to sleep, a day's 
 journey nearer home. These busy hearts are beating the 
 dead march to the grave. But the hope in Christ turns 
 this sad world upside down ; to them that are found in 
 him, these pulsations mean a life-march to the rest that 
 remaineth. 
 
 IV. The power and success of internal corruption in 
 hurrying the man into actual sin : " Our iniquities, like the 
 wind, have taken us away." 
 
 It is a mark of true repentance when the penitent lays 
 
 (753) 13 
 
194 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 all the blame upon himself. He who tries to shift the 
 burden so as to lay it on his neighbour, has not yet, in 
 faith, gotten his burden laid on Christ ; on the other hand, 
 he who has gotten his sins laid on Christ, is not under the 
 necessity of shifting the guilt upon a fellow-creature. This 
 confession bears the mark of truth. Our iniquities have 
 carried us away. There is indeed a spiritual wickedness 
 in high places, as well as evil communications between man 
 and man ; but when a soul is truly convinced of sin by the 
 Spirit, and draws near to the Father in confession, these 
 outward enemies are forgotten, and the sin is felt to be all 
 the sinner's own. Every one is tempted when he is drawn 
 away of his own lusts and enticed. 
 
 Like the wind, in the secrecy of its origin and the great- 
 ness of its effects, is the spirit of evil as well as the Spirit 
 of grace. As the wind carries chaff away, so the impetu- 
 ous passions of an evil heart overcome every resolution of 
 amendment, and direct the whole volume of the life. It 
 is strange that this confession follows immediately upon the 
 reflection that we all do fade as a leaf. You might suppose 
 that if men believed themselves immortal they might dare 
 to sin with a high hand ; but that the knowledge of death 
 being certain, coupled with the uncertainty and suddenness 
 of its approach, would compel them to live soberly and 
 righteously and godly in the world. Vain expectation ! 
 The knowledge that death is sure, and the day of it uncer- 
 tain, does indeed exert a force in the direction of restrain- 
 ing sin. It is a power which, to the extent of its ability, 
 binds the evil spirit ; but it is like a green withe round 
 Samson's limbs. It opposes \vickedness, but it has not 
 power to stop its career, or even to diminish its speed. 
 
 A great ship is lying in deep water, close to a precipi- 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 195 
 
 tous beach, with two or three lines made fast to the shore, 
 and all her canvas spread. A breeze off the land springs 
 up, and increases to a gale. Will the ship retain her posi- 
 tion ? No ; she will be driven out to sea. But is she not 
 bound by these ropes to the shore ? Yes, these lines hold 
 her to the shore with all their might ; but when such a 
 blast fills the sails, they snap asunder like threads. 
 
 Such and so feeble is the thought of death to keep a 
 man back, when the passions of his own heart carry him 
 away like the wind. Sometimes — and the experience is 
 by no means rare — those whose business it is every day to 
 dig graves and handle the dead neither fear God nor regard 
 man. The scripture is entirely accordant with experience 
 when it intimates that the man who knows that he fades 
 like a leaf permits his own iniquities notwithstanding to 
 carry him away. The fear of death has not power to turn 
 us from sin. 
 
 V. The inability and unwillingness of these helpless 
 sinners, as they are drifting down the stream of sin towards 
 the gulf of perdition, to lift themselves up and take hold 
 on God : " There is none- that calleth upon thy name, that 
 stirreth up himself to take hold of thee." 
 
 Here again we might at first sight suppose, that as there 
 is help at hand, the feeble will grasp it, and be saved. 
 Because there is a God to lay hold of, we would think, 
 those who are carried away to perdition like chaff on the 
 wind will lay hold of God, that they may not perish. His 
 feet have well-nigh slipped into the pit ; but surely on that 
 very account he will stay himself upon his God. 
 
 Alas ! it is not so. If a man were carried down against 
 his own will by some external force, he would gladly grasp 
 
196 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 any friendly hand that might be stretched out for help. 
 But the state of the case is different, — is opposite. It is 
 his own iniquities that are carrying him away. To grasp 
 God's hand as it is in Christ stretched out would indeed 
 save him — would snatch him out of that impetuous flood, 
 and hide his life with Christ in God ; but this would tear 
 the man asunder — would separate the man from himself. 
 He would indeed be saved, so as by fire, leaving a right 
 eye and a right hand behind him. This kind of safety he 
 is not yet willing to accept. If he were invited to stir 
 himself up to lay hold of a safe heaven, he might make a 
 shift to obey ; but he has no inclination to stir himself up 
 to lay hold of a holy God, and to abide in the light of his 
 countenance. " Thy people shall be willing in the day of 
 thy power." " Put off the old man with his deeds." 
 
 VI. God's method of dealing with such a case : " Thou 
 hast hid thy face from us, and hast consumed us, because 
 of our iniquities." 
 
 The Holy One hides his face from his creatures while 
 they live in sin, 
 
 " And hast consumed us, because of our iniquities." I 
 prefer to take this clause in its most literal sense, as it is 
 given in the margin — " Thou hast melted us by the hand 
 of our iniquities." God melts the hardest sinners, and he 
 employs their own sins to make the flinty hearts flow 
 down. If this melting take effect in the day of grace, it is 
 repentance unto life. What a mystery is here ! All are 
 his servants. He can employ a man's own sins as the 
 burning coals poured on his head to melt him into confes- 
 sion and trust. We have often found souls undergoing 
 this process. There is great grief and great tenderness : 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 197 
 
 the fountains of the great deep seem to have been broken 
 up within them, and their eyes have become fountains of 
 tears. Ask what ails them, and from the groans, and cries, 
 and broken words you soon discover that their own sins 
 have in some way been lifted up and poured over them like 
 melted lead. 
 
 This is the hand of God. He is melting these high- 
 handed transgressors — melting them down in order to 
 mould them again as new creatures in Christ ; and the 
 means whereby he makes the stony hearts yield are their 
 own sins treasured up, and poured in a scalding stream 
 over their own consciences. Ah ! when they are softened 
 in that furnace they will be poured into another type, and 
 emerge new creatures. By terrible things in righteousness 
 the Lord is answering their cry. 
 
 But if the sinful are not so melted in the day of grace, 
 they will be melted when that day is done. By their own 
 iniquities, too, will the judgment be inflicted. Their own 
 sins on their own heads will be at least a material part of 
 the doom of the lost in the great Day. 
 
 Having examined somewhat fully what the text is, we 
 shall now, in a concluding sentence, point out where it lies. 
 Many lessons may be obtained from its contents ; at least 
 one, exceeding great and precious, may be drawn from its 
 position. After having looked to the text, we shall look 
 at that which touches it, before and behind. The gem is 
 the chief object of attraction, but its setting may be both 
 beautiful and precious. When a diamond of great size, of 
 historic interest and almost fabulous worth, now the prop- 
 erty of the Queen, was some years ago exhibited to the 
 public, it was supported on either side by the representa- 
 
198 A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 
 
 tion of a human hand made of gold, and artistically con- 
 structed to represent at once firmness and tenderness, as a 
 living human hand would hold fast and hold forth that 
 which is unspeakably precious. In that case, a measure of 
 interested attention was given by the spectators to the 
 setting, second only to that which the gem attracted to 
 itself. 
 
 Here, too, when, in the expanse of Scripture, a gem so 
 precious was about to be held up to view, care seems to 
 have been taken to give it a setting, precious in its own 
 nature, and in its form betokening tender care and deep 
 appreciation. A hand of gold protrudes from either side, 
 expressively and impressively holding forth the precious 
 and full-bodied confession of the ancient prophet. The 
 word that touches it on the one side (end of verse 5) is, 
 "We shall be saved;" the word that touches it on the 
 other side (beginning of verse 8) is, " But now, Lord, 
 thou art our Father." 
 
 It is not by chance that this great deep confession lies 
 between these two words — is held up and held out in these 
 two tender loving hands. " We are saved by hope," not 
 by terror. It is God's mercy that melts. If these arms 
 of love had not been thrown round the stony heart, the 
 stony heart would not thus have flowed down like water. 
 When they propose to melt the rugged ore, and bring the 
 precious metal out, they put a fire below it and a fire above 
 it, and fan both into a sevenfold glow. Between these two 
 fires the rock at length gives way. 
 
 It is thus that the melting of repentance and the outflow 
 of confession are produced. Terror alone, even the terror 
 of the Lord, does not avail. The weight of apprehended 
 judgment lying on the guilty will only compress the soul 
 
A COMPREHENSIVE CONFESSION. 199 
 
 into a harder, intenser atheism, unless redeeming love burst 
 through. Surround a fallen human spirit with the imme- 
 diate and certain apprehension of divine vengeance due to 
 sin — leave no chink in that wall of brass to admit a ray of 
 hope from the face of Jesus — confront the creature with 
 the Creator's almighty anger— and nothing more, nothing 
 else : you will not thereby melt that human spirit into 
 repentance and faith. That creature, though guilty now 
 and feeble, is, in his origin and nature, great and Godlike. 
 That spirit, despairing, will curse God and die — die hard. 
 
 It is another thing than divine anger that really melts 
 and remoulds the man. Isaiah, in this case a representative 
 man — for the word is not of private interpretation — Isaiah, 
 secretly conscious of sin, looks this way, and the signal 
 hung out is, " We shall be saved ;" looks that way, and the 
 signal displayed is, " Thou art our Father." Between these 
 fires the heart is melted, and flows down into the great 
 confession of the text. This, Isaiah, is " repentance 
 unto life ;" but the goodness of God, compassing thee be- 
 hind and before — " the goodness of God leadeth thee to 
 repentance." 
 
ROOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 " Rooted and grounded in love." — Efh. iii. 17. 
 
 IN bended knees and with bursting heart the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles, from his prison at 
 Rome, pleads with the God and Father of our 
 Lord Jesus in behalf of his beloved brethren at 
 Ephesus, that they may be " rooted and grounded in love." 
 These two distinct conceptions are very frequently 
 united in the Scriptures.* Two cognate conceptions — 
 one borrowed from the processes of nature, and the other 
 from human art — are employed to indicate at once the 
 life, the growth, the strength, and the stability of a Chris- 
 tian's hope. A tree and a tower are the material objects 
 which are used here as alphabetic letters to express a 
 spiritual thought. More particularly, as a tree depends 
 for life and growth upon its roots being embedded in a 
 genial soil, and a tower depends for strength and stability 
 upon its foundation, the apostle desires, by aid of these 
 conceptions, to express and illustrate the corresponding 
 features of the Christian life. If disciples are compared 
 to living trees, love is the soil they grow in ; if they are 
 compared to a building, love is the foundation on which it 
 stands secure. 
 
 * For examples of this union, see Ps. cxiiv. 12, and 1 Cor. iii. IS. 
 
EOOTED IN LOVE. 201 
 
 Dropping from view now the second of these associated 
 conceptions, we shall confine our regard to the first. A 
 believing man, pleading with God in behalf of fellow- 
 believers, prays that they may " be rooted in love." 
 
 The picture, thus limited, contains only two objects. 
 These are the ground that sustains the tree, and the tree 
 that grows in the ground. The ground in which the tree 
 grows represents the love that faith feeds on ; the tree 
 that grows on that ground represents the faith that leans 
 and feeds on love. 
 
 I. The soil in which the living tree is planted: it is 
 love. A question rises here at the outset which must be 
 settled ere we can advance a step with the exposition, — 
 What is the love in which the trees of righteousness are 
 rooted ? Whether is it God's love to man, or man's love 
 to God and to his brother ? The question admits of an 
 answer at once easily intelligible and demonstrably true. 
 The love in which the roots of faith strike down for 
 nourishment is not human but divine. It is not even 
 that grace which is sovereign and divine in its origin, but 
 residincr and actins: in a renewed human heart : it is the 
 attribute, and even the nature, of Deity, for " God is love." 
 The soil which bears and nourishes the new life of man is 
 the love of God in the gift of his Son. 
 
 The analogy introduced absolutely demands that the 
 text should be so understood. To explain it otherwise 
 would destroy the consistency of the analogy, and distort 
 the spiritual lesson which it is employed to teach. It 
 would be, in effect, to turn the parable upside down. 
 When Paul prays that the Ephesian Christians may be 
 rooted, he obviously thinks of them as living plants. 
 
202 ROOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 Whatever the soil may be in which the plant grows, it 
 must be something distinct from the plant itself. It 
 introduces an inextricable confusion of ideas to think of 
 believers as trees rooted in their own love — an emotion 
 that has its abode and its exercise within their own hearts. 
 The roots of a man's faith and hope must penetrate, not 
 inward into the love he exercises, but outward into the 
 love which is exercised towards him. The roots of a tree 
 grow, not into the tree itself, but into an independent soil, 
 which at once supports its weight and nourishes its life. 
 In like manner a Christian's faith does not lean and live 
 upon anything within himself ; it goes out and draws all 
 its support from God's love to sinners in the gospel of his 
 Son. 
 
 The same result may be obtained by looking to the twin 
 analogy of an edifice resting on its foundation. The term 
 " grounded " refers specifically to the foundation on which 
 a buildinof rests. " Foundationed," if there were such a 
 word in our language, would be a more exact and literal 
 translation. The two analogies here united in one clause 
 are obviously parallel throughout their whole length. The 
 foundation on which a house stands is something external 
 to the house itself ; and so the soil in which a tree grows 
 is something external to the tree. Love, on the spiritual 
 side of the comparison, corresponds both to the ground 
 which sustains a tree and the rock which sustains a build- 
 ing. That love, in both cases, is demonstrably something 
 completely distinct from the soul that leans on it. The 
 love which satisfies a soul is not emotion that springs 
 within itself. " God is love." Behold the Rock of Ages 
 on which the building stands ; behold the generous soil 
 which satisfies these towering trees of righteousness ! 
 
ROOTED IN LOVE. 203 
 
 But the question may be decided more shortly, if not 
 more surely, by a direct appeal to the written Word. In 
 the Epistle to the Colossians, where the same apostle about 
 the same time is discoursing on the same theme to a sister 
 Church, occurs an expression which, being precisely parallel 
 and yet not completely identical, brings out the significance 
 of our text in the manner of an algebraic equation. " As 
 ye have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him; 
 rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith " 
 (Col. ii. 6, 7). 
 
 No one can fail to perceive the identity of the two 
 associated conceptions as they occur in the two epistles. 
 In both letters alike, a tree rooted and a building founded 
 are brought together in the same order, for the purpose of 
 setting forth the spiritual life and steadfastness of believers. 
 Obviously the apostle meant to express to the Colossian 
 Christians the self-same idea by the term "rooted" that he 
 had already conveyed thereby to those at Ephesus ; but 
 while in the one epistle he writes " rooted in love," in the 
 other he writes " rooted in him," — that is, in Christ. Here 
 is demonstration that the love in which faith finds its 
 sustenance is God's love in the covenant to his own ; for 
 Christ, the unspeakable gift, is the issue and embodiment 
 of that love. In Paul's mind — that is, in the mind of the 
 Spirit — " Christ " and the love which faith lives on are 
 identical. The terms are used alternately and indifferently 
 to signify the same thing. To be rooted in him manifestly 
 means to be rooted in the love wherewith he first 
 loved us. 
 
 Having determined the first point, — that the soil in 
 which faith's roots can freely grow is found in God, not 
 in man, — we must now weigh well what attribute or mani- 
 
204 HOOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 festation of God it is that permits and invites the confidence 
 of the fallen. 
 
 The justice of God does not afford a soil on which the 
 hope of sinners can thrive. " Our God is a consuming 
 fire ; " and as often as the straining hopes of men stretch 
 forth in the direction of the judgment-seat, they are driven 
 back in dismay. As well might you expect the tender 
 roots of a living plant to strike kindly down into hot 
 ashes, as expect the trust of a guilty soul to go into the 
 righteousness of God for support. No ; there is nothing 
 on this side but a fearful looking for of judgment to 
 devour. 
 
 Neither can human hopes grow in a mixture of mercy 
 and justice such as men, in ignorance of the gospel, when 
 conscience is uneasy, may mingle for themselves. You 
 may indeed find some who for a time seem to grow in 
 such a mixture ; but the roots never go deep, and the hold 
 is never secure. In the plant so nourished there is no 
 freshness of life, no blossom of joy, no fruit of righteous- 
 ness. If the unclean conscience, apart from the blood of 
 sprinkling, qualify the divine justice with a proportion of 
 imaginary tenderness, and qualify the tenderness in turn 
 Math a proportion of avenging wrath, the result will be a 
 miserable halting between two. 
 
 There is only one place in which righteousness and 
 peace can meet without mutually destroying each other, 
 and that is in the cross of Christ the Substitute. In 
 Christ, but not elsewhere, God is at once just, and the 
 justifier of the sinful who believe. 
 
 Disturbed by an accusing conscience, and not j^erceiving 
 the way of righteous peace through the death of Christ, 
 the sinful strive to make matters right for the judgment- 
 
ROOTED IN LOVE. 205 
 
 seat ; but, striving unlawfully, never succeed. They throw 
 into their conceptions of God as much unappeased anger 
 as serves to destroy all the pleasure of their religion, and 
 as much softness for sin as serves to extract all its power. 
 Their God is not very kind, and therefore they have no 
 pleasure in his company ; their God is not very just, and 
 therefore they take liberties with his law. Thus " the 
 double-minded man is unstable in all his ways." 
 
 It is not in divine justice, nor in a spurious compound 
 of justice and indulgence, that human souls can securely 
 place their hope for eternity. If ever an immortal spirit 
 is rooted at all, it must be in love — in love that is infinite 
 — the love of God in the gift of his Son. " In him 
 dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily ; and ye 
 are complete in him." Those that are rooted in him live 
 and bring forth fruits of riofhteousness. These are not 
 plants growing for a few days on rocky ground. They 
 may plunge their roots down as far as their faculties and 
 their lives extend, they will never meet any obstacle to 
 check and repel their confidence. God is love ; and they 
 cannot by their penetrating pass through that and strike 
 a barren rock beyond. " Happy are the people that are in 
 such a case ; yea, happy are they whose God is the Lord." 
 
 II. The plant that is rooted in the ground represents a 
 believer getting all his support and all his sustenance from 
 the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. 
 
 Under this head, the first point that occurs is the very 
 obvious one, that before any measure of growth can be 
 obtained there must be life. Of what avail would rich- 
 ness of soil be to rows of dead branches ? A withered 
 branch draws no sap from the most fertile ground. Faith 
 
206 ROOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 fastens on God's revealed love in the covenant, and satisfies 
 itself from this inexhaustible treasury ; but who and what 
 first creates faith ? The living will, by the instincts of 
 nature, seek convenient food ; but how shall the dead be 
 restored to life ? Let it be granted that faith, appropriating 
 God's love, sustains the living, the question remains, Who 
 quickens the dead ? 
 
 In the last resource, an answer to this question must be 
 sought in the sovereignty of God and the ministry of the 
 Spirit ; but we must beware of so regarding God's part in 
 it as to miss or neglect our own. " Live " is the first thing 
 in the Spirit's ministry; but "Believe" is the first thing in 
 the duty of man. To God's eye, looking downward from 
 his own eternity, the order of events is. Live, that you may 
 believe ; but to our eye, as we stand on earth and look 
 upwards, the order of events is. Believe, that you may live. 
 Our part is not to produce life, but to exercise trust. 
 Honour God by referring the origin of life to his sovereign 
 grace and power ; but obey God by believing in Jesus 
 Christ whom he has sent. Let us neither intrude into 
 his province nor neglect our own. His command is, 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be 
 saved ; " " His commandments are not grievous." If we 
 in simplicity render this service, we shall find to our joy 
 in that day that his work was perfect before we responded 
 to his call. Here we may well appropriate to ourselves 
 the advice which the neighbours gave to the blind man 
 when Jesus was passing by : " Be of good comfort ; rise, 
 he calleth thee." The fact that he calls us should be 
 sufficient warrant for us to come. 
 
 Spirit, breathe upon the dead bones, that they may 
 live,— upon the dead branches, that they may grow ! 
 
ROOTED IN LOVE. 207 
 
 But even when the plant is living, many obstacles may 
 intervene to prevent it from freely pushing down its 
 roots and drinking up the richness of the soil. Stones of 
 stumbling lie in the way of the living root, and hinder 
 its growth. " An enemy hath done this." Desponding 
 thoughts, of various shape and source, may mar the 
 peace and stunt the growth of a disciple, but they cannot 
 quench his life. The natural history of faith's life on 
 earth will be an interesting study, when the day shall 
 reveal all its windings — all its days of drooping, and all 
 its days of growth. 
 
 Sometimes the history of vegetable life, concealed for 
 generations, is afterwards thrown open. When a forest 
 tree, that has outlived several generations of its owners^ is 
 at last thrown down by a tempest, and its roots all exposed 
 to the inspection of the passer-by, many secret passages 
 of its early history are at length revealed. Each bend of 
 those gnarled roots has a tale to tell, — of various efforts 
 and disappointments, and conflicts and victories. Here, in 
 the centre of the circular mass, the main stem was pointing 
 perpendicularly downward when the tree was young, per- 
 haps a century ago ; but ere it had gone far in that direc- 
 tion, it had struck against a stone. The fibre, then young 
 and pliable, had sensitively turned as soon as it felt the 
 obstacle, and grew for a little upward, as if retracing its 
 steps. Then it had bent to one side and crept along the 
 surface of the stone, intending, so to speak, to turn its 
 flank and plunge into the deep earth beyond its outmost 
 edge. Once or twice in its horizontal course it came to 
 hollows in the stone, and ever instinctively seeking down- 
 ward, penetrated to the bottom of each ; but finding no 
 opening, it came always up again, and pursued its course on 
 
208 ROOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 the horizontal line. But, long ere it reached the margin 
 of the great rock, it found a rent, narrow, indeed, but 
 thorough. Into this minute opening it thrust a needle- 
 like point. It succeeded in pushing that pioneer through. 
 Tasting thereby of the rich soil below, it thence drew new 
 strength for itself. Strong now in that acquired strength, 
 it increased its bulk and rent the rock asunder. You may 
 now see the two halves of the cleaved rock hanging on the 
 
 O O 
 
 mighty root that rent them. Now the victor has overcome 
 its adversaries, and makes a show of them openly. It holds the 
 remnants of its ancient enemy aloft as trophies of its victory. 
 
 It is thus that a living soul struggles against all obstruc- 
 tions, and either round them or through them penetrates 
 into the unlimited love of God as it is in Christ. There 
 the life satisfies itself and becomes strong. This man is 
 more than conqueror through Him that loved him. 
 
 A soul has been quickened by the Spirit. The new life 
 has begun ; the new tastes are felt ; the appetites of the 
 new nature are stirring. Why am I thus ? This thirsty 
 soul now longs for God, and strikes out for satisfying in 
 the direction of his covenant. But something comes in 
 the way. Through the wiles of the devil a great rock of 
 offence is cast right in between that sinner and the Saviour's 
 love. In one case, the stumbling-block is the doctrine of 
 election : If I am not among the chosen number, I need 
 not try. In another case, it is the sin against the Holy 
 Ghost : If I have committed the unpardonable sin, I need 
 not strive, for God will not hear me. In another case, it 
 is such a view of his own sins as leads him morbidly to 
 think that while there may be pardon for others, there 
 can be none for him. Ah ! this quickened soul, in the 
 beginnings of life, while the intelligence is yet feeble like 
 
ROOTED IN LOVi:. 209 
 
 an infant's mind, when feeling for the love of God in 
 Christ to live upon, often strikes upon a stone. This is 
 not God ; this is not love. Thus the root finds so many 
 stones, and these so close together, that it cannot reach 
 the rich ground underneath for nourishment ; but the root, 
 true to its nature, never gives up. It strives without 
 ceasing to reach its object. Worming its way along the 
 surface of the obstrviction, to find a passage round it — 
 fretted and frightened, and thrown back often, but never 
 despairing, never slackening — it holds on, until at length 
 between these opposing rocks it reaches and tastes the sap 
 of the unlimited soil beneath. Then it becomes strong 
 enough to throw the obstruction aside, and expatiate at 
 will in its element. 
 
 When the saved are drawn at length from the ground 
 in which the new life secretly grew, and all the history of 
 their redemption revealed in the better land, themselves 
 and others will read with interest the record of the struggle, 
 and the final victory. It will then be seen that every 
 hindrance which the tempter threw in faith's way only 
 exercised and so strengthened faith. They who have had 
 the hardest conflict in throwing obstacles aside that they 
 might freely draw from redeeming love in Christ, draw 
 most freely from that love when they reach it : as that 
 woman who had pined many years in disease, and spent 
 all her means on other physicians, drew proportionally a 
 larger draught from the fountain when she touched its lip 
 at last. As if surprised and delighted with the suddenness, 
 the eagerness, and the largeness of her demand upon his 
 healing power, the Lord stood and looked round and cried, 
 " Who touched me ? " So, I suppose, yet in his glory, 
 Jesus has occasion from time to time to say in glad sur- 
 
 (753) 14 
 
210 ROOTED IN LOVE. 
 
 prise to surrounding angels, Some one has touched me, 
 when a sinner who has long tried, and been long kept 
 back by stones of stumbling, at last gets the lip of thirsty 
 faith laid upon the fountain of living water. 
 
 " Fear not, little flock ; it is your Father's good pleasure 
 to give you the kingdom :" fear not, little roots ; the stones 
 which lie in your way are many and hard, but when you 
 work past them or through them, there is love infinite and 
 eternal, all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, in Christ, 
 that you may live upon and luxuriate in. Have you 
 been brought through fire and water ? Then all the more 
 sweet will the " large place " be when at length you reach 
 it. Seek, and ye shall find. 
 
 Many things go to increase the fruit-bearing, but all are 
 subordinate to this, — the free plunging of the living root 
 into the rich, unobstructed ground. Pruning, and watering, 
 and weeding will do nothing for the tree if its roots have 
 struck a rock. In like manner, the main requisite to a 
 productive Christian life is the liberty that the soul enjoys 
 to spread itself to the full extent of its capacity into the 
 love of God in Christ. It is the receiving that produces 
 the doing. The law of grace is not. Give freely, and you 
 shall in return freely receive: the law of grace is the op- 
 posite, — " Freely ye have received, freely give." 
 
 This analogy suggests many practical lessons ; but it is 
 not necessary even to enumerate them, for they spring 
 spontaneously before the reader's eye as soon as he has 
 apprehended the main features of the similitude. The 
 storm, for example, that shakes the living tree, ordinarily 
 serves but to compel its roots to take a deeper hold, and 
 make it stronger to bear the next onset. So afflictions 
 exercise and strensfthen faith. 
 
ROOTED IN LOVE. 211 
 
 Again — a needful lesson in an age of many words and 
 little tendency to silence — the roots grow best when they 
 are least meddled with. The child who pulls up his young 
 tree two or three times every day in order to show his 
 companions its roots, will soon have nothing but a dead 
 stem to show. Encourage by all means the meek con- 
 fession of a convert's hope, but do not lay open all the 
 spiritual experience of a novice to satisfy the curiosity of 
 some passing Talkative. 
 
 Once more, we have had fathers of our flesh Avho did 
 not give us a stone when we asked for bread. The more 
 we counted on their love the better pleased they were. 
 Let us beware of mistaking and distrusting the Father of 
 our spirits. Alas ! if our roots were exposed, they would 
 tell a tale of constraint and suspicion. How often even a 
 disciple refuses to plunge openly into offered love, and 
 draws back as if he expected a repulse. It was Jesus 
 who said, " The Father ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed 
 him." 
 
VI. 
 DRAWN AND DRAGGED. 
 
 " But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and 
 enticed." — James i. 14. 
 
 E are tempted, it seems — " drawn " into sin. 
 
 "Who tempts us — who draws us ? Not God. 
 
 He is perfectly holy, and by a necessity of 
 
 nature does good and not evil. God is our 
 
 friend — in all the ordinations of his providence and in 
 
 all the revelations of his grace. God is for us; who is 
 
 against us ? 
 
 There is indeed a tempter — an evil spirit unseen, the 
 enemy of man ; but let us beware what use we make of 
 the scriptures which reveal the fact. If any one should 
 be disposed to excuse himself on this ground, James, the 
 Lord's brother, gives him here a clear warning. The evil 
 spirit has no power at all over any of us, except what 
 we concede to him. He " goeth about seeking whom he 
 may devour : " he cannot devour whom he will. Only 
 they who " give place " to the devil — and that place within 
 their own bosoms — can be hurt by his fiery darts. The 
 tempter is elsewhere described as " the prince of the power 
 of the air, the spirit that now worketh in the children 
 of disobedience " (Eph. ii. 2). These two branches of the 
 
DRAWN AND DRAGGED. 213 
 
 definition explain and qualify each other. As the prince 
 of the power of the air, he could do a soul no harm : it is 
 when he is admitted and welcomed within a man's own 
 heart that he defiles and ensnares. 
 
 So then, in the last resort, as we have it in James, 
 " every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his 
 own lust, and enticed." 
 
 From the striking figures here employed we learn some 
 specific features of the sad process. The two terms are 
 literally, " drawn out, and hooked." 
 
 The first expression does not yet mean drawn by the 
 hook ; it means rather drawn to the hook. There are two 
 successive drawings, very diverse in character. In classic 
 Greek, the first term is indifferently applied to both ; but 
 in this case the circumstances confine it to one. The first 
 is a drawing towards the hook, and the second is a drag- 
 ging by the hook. The first drawing is an invisible 
 spiritual power, the second is a rude and cruel physical 
 constraint. The first is a secret enticement of the will, 
 and the second is an open and outrageous oppression by a 
 superior force, binding the slave and destroying him. 
 
 The first process, as applied to hunting and fishing, is 
 well known and easily understood. This part of the 
 process is carried on with care and skill and secrecy. No 
 noise is made, and no danger permitted to meet the eye of 
 the victim. Everything is artfully and falsely made to 
 assume the appearance of innocence and safety. With 
 quiet stealthy steps the hunter or the fisher moves about. 
 When necessary, he will lie down on the ground, that he 
 may the better conceal himself. His whole art consists in 
 these two things — exposing an enticing bait, and conceal- 
 ing himself and his snare. By smell or by sight, the fish 
 
214 DRAWN AND DRAGGED. 
 
 or the wild animal is " drawn " from the safe, deep hidino*- 
 place in the bush or in the river. The victim, not per- 
 ceiving the danger, is by its own " lust " — its own appetite 
 — drawn to its doom. 
 
 It is thus that a man is drawn — but mark it well, by 
 his own lust, his own appetite for pleasure — out of safe 
 paths and into danger. Forewarned, forearmed. Oh, 
 " watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." 
 
 The next part of the process is the act of fixing the 
 barbed hook in the victim's jaws. The word is " baited ; " 
 that is, enticed by the bait to swallow the hook — the hook 
 that is in the first instance unseen and unsuspected. When 
 the hook is fastened, there is another drawing ; but oh, 
 how diverse from the first ! The angler does not now 
 hide himself, and tread softly, and speak in a whisper. 
 There is no more any gentleness. He rudely drags his 
 helpless prey to shore, and takes its life. 
 
 I have often seen the same process, wdth the same 
 difference between its commencement and its conclusion, 
 in the tempting and ensnaring of human souls. At first 
 all care is taken not to alarm the conscience. It is a 
 temperate cup, and it contributes to health and friendship. 
 It will refresh and cheer you, and it will bind you in 
 warmer love to your brother. But when the barb goes 
 into the flesh — when the drug has bitten — when the appe- 
 tite, insatiable as the grave, has been generated, the poor 
 slave is dragged, without disguise and without ceremony, 
 through the mire. His morbid, fiery appetite is now his 
 governor, and he is dragged about, exposed as a spectacle, 
 " whithersoever the e^overnor listeth." 
 
 The best, the only real preventive against these baited 
 
DRAWN AND DRAGGED. 215 
 
 hooks, is to be satisfied with a sweetness in which there 
 are no sin and no danger. The creature that is hungry 
 greedily takes the bait and is caught. The human soul 
 that is empty — that is not satisfied with the peace of God 
 — is easily drawn into the pleasures of sin. 
 
 In a certain Highland lake, I have been told, sportsmen 
 at one season of the year expect no sport. There are 
 plenty of fishes, but they will not take the bait. Some 
 vegetable growth on the bottom at that period is abundant 
 and suitable as food. Being satisfied at home, they will 
 not go away to follow the offer of a stranger. As long as 
 they have enough in their own element, the fisher dangles 
 his bait in vain over the surface of the water. They 
 cannot be dratvn to the hook, and so they are not dragged 
 hy it. 
 
 I have observed, in the process of fishing, that on the 
 part of the victim there are two successive struggles, both 
 violent, both short, and both, for the most part, unavailing. 
 When first it feels the hook, it makes a vigorous effort to 
 shake itself free. But that effort soon ceases, and the 
 fish sails gently after the retreating hook, as if it were 
 ofoinof towards the shore with its own consent. What is 
 the reason of its apparent docility after the first struggle ? 
 Ah, poor victim ! it soon discovers that to draw against 
 the hook, when the hook is fastened, is very painful ; 
 therefore, for the sake of immediate ease, it yields and 
 follows. Then, when it feels the shore, and knows in- 
 stinctively that its doom has come, there is another desper- 
 ate struggle, and all is over. 
 
 I think I have observed these two struggles, one at the 
 beginning and one at the end, with the period of silent 
 resignation between them, in the experience of an immortal 
 
216 DRAWN AND DRAGGED, 
 
 man, my brother. There is an effort to resist the appetite, 
 after the victim discovers that he is in its grasp. But the 
 effort is painful, and is soon abandoned. " I will seek it 
 yet again," is the silent resolution of despair. The struggle, 
 with all the agonies of remorse, may be once more renewed 
 when the waters of life grow shallow, and the soul is graz- 
 ing the eternal shore. The result ? Alas ! the darkness 
 covers it ; we know it not. 
 
 After the first drawing, which is soft and unsuspected, 
 the way of transgressors is hard. The fish with the hook 
 in its jaws is the chosen glass in which the Scripture 
 invites us to see it. The snare of intemperance is the one 
 in which the victim is tormented, and made a show of 
 openly, in sight of the world. There are other snares that 
 are secret in the second stage, as in the first : because they 
 are secret, they cannot be freely named among us ; but, 
 oh ! many strong men are caught and destroyed by these 
 baits. 
 
 It is blessed to be free. " If the Son make you free, ye 
 shall be free indeed." Hear ye him : " Take my yoke 
 upon you and learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly in 
 heart : and ye shall find rest unto your souls. For my 
 yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 
 
VII. 
 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 He shall not be afraid of evil tidings : his heart is fixed, trusting in the 
 Lord." — Ps. cxii. 7. 
 
 IHIS psalm is a fine full-length portrait of a godly 
 man. Is it drawn from life ? Did the painter, 
 or any of his contemporaries, sit for this like- 
 ness ? " Of whom speaketh the prophet this ? 
 of himself, or of some other man ?" 
 
 Neither of himself, it must be confessed, nor of any other 
 man, could the prophet speak all this. This is not the por- 
 trait of any mere man that ever lived ; and yet it is a true 
 portrait. Artists paint ideals on canvas, combining in one 
 figure the finest features gathered from many specimens. 
 The result is true to nature ; and yet no living man ever 
 answered to the likeness. The picture represents what 
 man might be, rather than what he is. 
 
 Sketches of saints occasionally occur in the Scriptures 
 wanting the blemishes which more or less mar the beauty 
 of every actual life. These representations show what the 
 redeemed may become when they are fully conformed to 
 the image of Christ. They exhibit the new man when he 
 has attained the perfect stature. It is right that the high- 
 est standard should be set before us ; but the best has 
 
218 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 many things to forget and leave behind, and many steps to 
 press forward, ere he gains the prize of this high calling. 
 
 The pattern saint of this psalm is happy as well as holy. 
 It concerns us specially to inquire how his happiness is 
 secured while he inhabits a frail body and lives in an 
 evil world. Among other sorrows from which the shield 
 of faith defends him is " the fear of evil tidings." Mark 
 the word ; for there is no promise, even to the most 
 matured saint, that evil tidings shall not reach his ears. 
 He, like his neighbour, is exposed both to the wars and 
 the rumours of wars that shake the most stable thrones. 
 Both the announcement of coming evil, and the evil that 
 has been announced, come upon those that are God's dear 
 children, as upon other people. The sound of the mid- 
 night tempest boding evil, and the wreck that it boded, 
 reach the good man as well as the wicked ; and both are 
 like iron entering into his soul. The peculiar privilege 
 that belongs to victorious faith is exemption from the fear 
 of evil tidings. Evil tidings, when they come, will pierce 
 a good man's heart ; but in two things he has an advan- 
 tage over those who know not God : first, he is not kept 
 in terror before the time by the anticipation of possible 
 calamity ; and next, even when calamity overtakes him, 
 he does not look upon it in blank despair. He knows that 
 it is the chastening of a Father, and is sure that love is 
 wielding the rod. 
 
 This, then, being the kind and degree of exemption 
 which a godly man enjoys, we must now inquire into the 
 means whereby he attains it. How comes it that evil 
 tidings have not the same terror for him that they have 
 for other men ? Expressly, the text declares, because " his 
 heart is fixed, trusting in the Lord." 
 
THE FIXED COMPASS. 219 
 
 This man has a solidity and an independence which others 
 never know. His heart is fixed. It is something to have 
 one's mind made np and settled. No man can be happy 
 as long as he does not know his own mind — does not know 
 what he would be at. " A double-minded man is unstable 
 in all his ways." On the contrary, " if thine eye be single, 
 thy whole body shall be full of light." To have an object 
 in view, and to go straight at it, constitutes in a great 
 measure the difference between a useful and a wasted life. 
 
 But while there is very little of either happiness or use- 
 fulness in a life as long as it shifts about from one object 
 to another — one thing to-day, and another to-morrow — it 
 does not follow that all will go well when you have chosen 
 your object, and pursue it steadily. As much depends on 
 the object that the heart is fixed upon as on the fixing of 
 the heart. Even after you get your heart fixed, you may 
 be as far from happiness and safety as before. Your heart 
 is fixed ; but what is it fixed on ? On houses and lands ; 
 on emoluments and honour ; on youth, and health, and 
 pleasure ; on wife and children ? Alas ! it is easy to fix 
 on any of these ; it does not require any vigorous act of 
 the will, or any heavy labour of the hands, to fasten your- 
 self to objects like these. Your heart-strings warp them- 
 selves around and through and through these objects 
 spontaneously, when they lie within reach, as ivy clasps, 
 and even interpenetrates, an old wall, without any nail- 
 ing up. 
 
 A beautiful object is that same ivy when it has clasped 
 the wall with a thousand tendrils, and covered the wall even 
 to its copestone with woven tasselled green — beautiful 
 as the matted foliage quivering in the wind and glittering 
 in the sunshine. But have you seen the ivy after the old 
 
220 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 wall has fallen ? Then it is a sisjht that mio^ht make the 
 observer weep. Prostrate, broken, torn, soiled, withering — 
 ah, how is its glory gone ! And, alas ! it cannot be re- 
 stored. Those tendrils that have grown so closely in, and 
 have been torn so rudely out, cannot now ply into another 
 support, though another and solider support were at hand. 
 The towering and stately but feeble branches cannot now 
 be attached to another prop. Nothing for them now but 
 to be cut down and cast into the burning. Possibly, in 
 another season, the old bare root may send out young 
 shoots again ; but it is only by such a death and resurrec- 
 tion that the parasite which held so closely, and was rejected 
 so rudely, can possibly be attached to another and a better 
 stay. 
 
 In the fallen, broken, draggled ivy, lying along on the 
 earth, and crushed by crumbling stones, you see the image 
 of a human being whose heart has been fixed on a perish- 
 ing portion, when that portion has fallen or fled. Woe, 
 woe to those who have grown with, and grown for, and 
 grown into, some tottering wall ! When the wall crum- 
 bles, what of the life that leant on it ? Woe is me ! How 
 many heart-strings we see rent in the various calamities of 
 life ; and how many heart-strings are preparing for them- 
 selves a dread rending, by going for the soul's support into 
 something that is rotten at the root, and will yield to the 
 strain of the next storm ! 
 
 Look at David's ideal man : not what this man and that 
 man is, but what any man through divine grace may be. 
 See the source of his peace and safety : " His heart is fixed, 
 trusting in the Lord." 
 
 We obtain here an interesting glimpse of the true rela- 
 tion in which the children stand to our Father in heaven. 
 
THE FIXED COMPASS. 221 
 
 It is a matter of the heart, more than even of the intellect. 
 True religion is not a matter into which a man is driven 
 against his will ; it is a matter that he seeks with desire, 
 as the hart panteth for the water-brooks. It is not a 
 demonstration that God is a righteous judge, and therefore 
 the guilty must tremble before him ; it is a tasting that the 
 Lord is gracious, and a consequent clinging to his bosom, as 
 a frightened infant clasps its mother's breast. The heart 
 goes to God ; the desires of the new nature flow out in 
 that direction : " Nearer to thee, my God ; nearer to thee." 
 And then, when you come nigh in the covenant, God is 
 not a terror, but a trust. 
 
 The profane and unbelieving are often far out of their 
 reckoning when they try to understand a believer's faith. 
 They suppose that a devout man submits to some dark cold 
 restraint, in order to secure some future expected benefit. 
 Their conception is as near as may be the opposite of the 
 truth. They who get nigh through the blood of the cove- 
 nant give way to their hearts' longings when they walk 
 with God. If you could by any means convince them that 
 there is no God, the light of this life would be extinguished, 
 as well as the hope of another. Indeed, nothing but a trust 
 in God will keep a human heart near him. We cannot 
 resist the laws of nature in things spiritual any more than 
 in things material. It is a law of nature that the human 
 spirit keeps at a distance from that which it dislikes and 
 dreads. There is no way of keeping our spirit near to God, 
 except by learning to trust him. And conversely, when 
 you trust him, you do not need external compression to 
 keep you near. It is well that the heart should be fixed 
 on the unchangeable and eternal One ; for no other anchor 
 for the soul is sure and steadfast. 
 
222 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 In proportion as the heart of a believer is fixed on high 
 it becomes looser to all beneath. As it gets firmer hold of 
 things unseen and eternal, it relaxes its grasp of things 
 seen and temporal. A soul cannot be made fast on both 
 sides. " Ye cannot serve two masters." Serving one mas- 
 ter, you may have many important and tender relations 
 with fellow-servants. Faith in God does not rend the ties 
 that bind man to man. The expectation of a rest that 
 remaineth does not interfere with needful labour on our 
 present field. You may — you must take many other 
 things into your hands ; but only one should be permitted 
 to glue your lieart indissolubly to itself. 
 
 The magnet of the ship's compass is in this aspect very 
 like a godly man in the course of his earthly pilgrimage. 
 The magnet on the sea and the believing soul in this life 
 are firmly fixed on one side, and hang loose on every other. 
 Both alike are fastened mysteriously to the distant and 
 unseen, but are slack and easily moved in all their material 
 settings. Precisely because they are unattached beneath, 
 they are free to keep by their hold on high ; and precisely 
 because of their hold on high, they do not turn round with 
 every movement of their material supports. 
 
 The magnet is by far the slackest, loosest thing in the 
 ship. It is the only slack, loose thing there. It is not 
 tied to the spars or nailed to the deck ; it is not even laid 
 down and left to the force of its own gravity. An elabo- 
 rate machinery has been constructed for the purpose of 
 reducing the friction, both vertical and horizontal, to a 
 minimum, and so leaving it nearly as free to move as if it 
 were imponderous. I need not describe the contrivance in 
 detail : suffice it to say, that it is so softly poised on a 
 needle-point in the middle, that if it chooses to fix itself by 
 
THE FIXED COMPASS. 223 
 
 its own nature — as it were by the tendency of its heart — 
 to a known but unseen point in heaven, it is at liberty to 
 do so, and nut obliged to turn with every turning of the 
 ship that bears it. 
 
 The ship rolls from side to side ; the ship pitches, now 
 her bow and now her stern raised high above the water ; 
 the ship changes her tack, now going east, and now west, 
 and anon driving before the wind. All things in the ship 
 move with her except the magnet of the compass. It 
 alone keeps ever one attitude, whatever changes of attitude 
 take place in the ship ; or if it turn partially and momen- 
 tarily, with the sudden heavings of the labouring vessel, it 
 is only for a moment — it rights itself again. Steady and 
 still otherwise, it is when driven for a little out of its 
 normal attitude that the magnet moves — moves, trembling 
 and uneasy, until it regains its own place, and there it 
 rests. 
 
 It is thus that a heart is loose to the world if it is fixed 
 on Christ. It may have needed many rendings to slacken 
 the heart's hold of things seen and temporal. There are 
 sometimes more of these, and sometimes less. There are 
 diversities of operation. Some are more gently set loose, and 
 some are severed only by the wrenching of God's own 
 hand, leaving a right arm cut off, or a right eye plucked 
 out, behind. But whether he comes in an earthquake or 
 in a still small voice, it is the doing of the Lord, when the 
 bonds are loosed that bound a soul to the dust, and the 
 soul, delivered, swings round free to follow the Lord. 
 
 But still, however lightly and loosely poised ujDon its 
 bearings the needle might be, it would turn with all the 
 ship's turnings, and never hold its head to the pole, unless 
 it were magnetized. The needle of the compass is a bit of 
 
224 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 steel ; but a bit of steel, though rightly framed and nicely 
 balanced, could not serve the purposes of a compass. They 
 take the bit of steel and hang it on a thread at a particular 
 angle to the horizon, and give it a certain stroke with a 
 hammer. Then and thereby it is magnetized. Its nature 
 seems new. There are life and purpose in the iron now, 
 and its life is manifested by a sure fixed pointing to the 
 pole. The freeness of its poising did not make it point to 
 the pole : it is a mysterious change of its own nature that 
 gives it this tendency, and the freeness of its balance in the 
 gearing permits it to obey that tendency without obstruction. 
 In like manner, the setting free of the heart from all 
 idolatrous cleaving to things seen, though necessary, is not 
 enough. Without it you cannot succeed, but even with it 
 you may fail. Alas ! we have seen a man by the strokes 
 of God set adrift from all his moorings on the earth, and 
 yet not fastened by faith to the anchor of the soul within 
 the veil. When all the evil spirits are cast out of a man, 
 it does not follow as a matter of course that he shall take 
 Christ to fill up the empty room : he may leave it empty, 
 until the evil spirits return and regain possession. Weary 
 of the world is not all at once ready for heaven. Except 
 a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom with his 
 understanding, or cleave to the King with his heart. As 
 the fashioned and poised steel did not turn to the pole 
 before it was magnetized, so the unrenewed heart is not 
 fixed in a trust on God, although all its earthly portion has 
 been taken away. A mysterious touch is needed to bring 
 the heart into unison with Christ, so that it shall ever 
 afterwards point to this pole, — the miqistry of the Spirit 
 in regeneration. " Create in me a clean heart, O God ; and 
 renew a right spirit within me." 
 
THE FIXED COMPASS. 225 
 
 Ev'en after the heart has got its bias, and is by the law 
 of a new nature fixed on Christ, the pointing is not per- 
 fect or constant. Many things hinder. The most common 
 cause of the magnet's aberration — an aberration that often 
 causes shipwreck — is an unsuspected mass of attractive 
 matter lying underneath the deck, which draws the magnet 
 from its pole. Alas ! even after the heart has been truly 
 turned to the Lord, how often is it drawn aside by certain 
 heaps of stuff that secretly attract it. " Watch and pray, 
 that ye enter not into temptation " — " Set your affection 
 on things above, not on things that are on the earth " — 
 " Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world." 
 
 There is a comfort which belongs to the children of the 
 kingdom, and yet cannot easily be stated without a risk 
 of soothing the worldly into a deeper sleep. The tumult 
 of griefs and repentings — of regretted backslidings, and 
 eager, agitating returns to the Lord — the fisfhtinofs without 
 and the fears within — that to a greater or less extent 
 chequer a disciple's life, do not by any means throw doubt 
 upon his interest in the Saviour. These are symptoms of 
 a true faith. While the ship is at sea, the magnet shakes 
 and moves more than any other part of the ship ; and that 
 precisely because its heart is fixed on the distant and the 
 unseen. When, by a sudden turn or lurch in the storm, 
 it is driven partially aside, it does not rest there ; it imme- 
 diately begins to struggle back again into its right position. 
 Other objects, when they are turned away with the turn- 
 ing of the ship, continue in that attitude. But the magnet 
 cannot remain averted ; therefore, while the ship is at sea, 
 it is constantly quivering. The paradox becomes at once 
 true and easily understood, — because it is fixed it is never 
 at rest. 
 
 (753) J 5 
 
226 THE FIXED COMPASS. 
 
 Souls that have their trust in the Lord are in this way 
 restless. They are always tremblingly struggling back into 
 their right position before the Lord. This is proof of life, — 
 that they rest not in an averted attitude. " Turn us again, 
 O God, and cause thy face to shine ; and we shall be 
 saved." 
 
 But perhaps the greatest difficulty and danger to the 
 pilgrim on this part of his course lie in the relations, close 
 and tender, that he must and should maintain to objects 
 lower than the Lord — objects on earth which cannot con- 
 tinue by reason of death. Must one who would have his 
 heart fixed, trusting in the Lord, keep more distant and 
 more cold than others in the relations of kindred and 
 friendship ? No, verily. The heart that is fixed on the 
 Lord may twine round loved ones on earth as closely as 
 the heart that has no hold on heaven. This is possible, 
 but I do not say this is easy. Dangers and temptations 
 lie thick here. Where does the fowler lay his snare ? Pre- 
 cisely on the path that his victim most frequently treads. 
 Among our most binding duties and our purest enjoyments 
 lie some of our greatest dangers. 
 
 There is a way of safety, if we have grace to choose and 
 follow it. We must not cling to anything mortal, as the 
 ivy clings to the old wall. There is a possibility of holding 
 fast and yet holding loosely. It is thus that a workman 
 grasps his tool. He holds it fast for an efficient stroke, but 
 he can easily lay it down the next moment. 
 
 When a human heart is rightly balanced, the unre- 
 strained exercise of all pure natural affections does not 
 hinder, but rather helps, the faith that fastens on the 
 Supreme. See how the analogous relations have been 
 arranged in the motions of the spheres. The moon does 
 
THE FIXED COMPASS. 227 
 
 not need to abjure its relations to the earth in order to 
 maintain a supreme allegiance to the central sun. All the 
 planetary bodies revolve round the sun ; but that paramount 
 law does not interfere with the circulation of the satellite 
 also, and at the same time, round the earth — the globe that 
 lies nearest to it. 
 
 Our moon is as obedient to the sun as any globe in the 
 solar system. Its course around its great centre is as true 
 as the orbit of any planet, and far more beautiful. Whereas 
 the chief planets circulate in a prosaic line, the moon in its 
 movements describes a spiral track, which adds grace and 
 beauty to the landscape of space, as climbing, flowering 
 shrubs relieve the monotony of a forest. The first and 
 great commandment is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
 with all thy heart ;" and the second, which is like unto it, 
 and consistent with it, is, " Thou shalt love thy neighbour 
 as thyself." If we obtain grace rightly to divide the affec- 
 tions of our hearts as well as the word of God, we shall 
 find that the subordinate relations of time, instead of chok- 
 ing, shelter and cherish the precious seed of a better life. 
 When, through grace, the heart is fixed, trusting in the 
 Lord, the full, free exercise and enjoyment of all pure 
 human relations will be safer for ourselves and more 
 attractive as an example to others than if, in order to make 
 sure of our hold on heaven, we should abandon the duties of 
 time and crush the affections of nature. 
 
YIII. 
 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 "I lay down my life for the sheep. And other sheep I have, which are not 
 of this fold : them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice ; and there 
 shall be one fold, and one shepherd." — John x. 15, 16. 
 
 HE relation between the shepherd and his sheep 
 is employed frequently and freely in the Scrip- 
 tures to set forth the loving care of Christ on 
 the one hand, and the blessed privileges of 
 Christians on the other. Several aspects of the analogy — 
 some of them unique and peculiar — are presented in this 
 text. 
 
 Before we proceed to deal directly with the parable, 
 however, it will be very instructive to glance for a moment 
 at the words which go immediately before it. Here the 
 preface to the parable is greater than the parable itself. 
 Christ tells his disciples first that he died for them, and 
 then that he lived for them. His first intimation is, " I 
 lay down my life for the sheep ;" and his second is, " I 
 have other sheep, and them also I must bring." There is 
 a grand reason why these two are brought together, and 
 arranged in this order. In the plan of this wise Master 
 Builder, the foundation is first laid, and then the super- 
 structure is reared. It is first his satisfying atonement, 
 and next his ingathering ministry. 
 
THE GOOD SHKPHERD. 229 
 
 The estimate that should count resistance to the doctrine 
 of the atonement the chief ingredient in the sceptical spirit 
 of the aofe would not be far wide of the mark. It is free 
 salvation through the sacrifice of the Substitute that most 
 offends human philosophy in our day. The great Prophet 
 himself, seeing the end from the beginning, and seeing in 
 the end of the world that specific form of enmity to the 
 cross, presciently supplied the antidote in his Word. He 
 speaks first of his atoning death, and next of his minister- 
 ing life. No eflfective ministry without a full expiation : 
 on the sacrifice the ministry leans, as a structure on its 
 foundation. 
 
 " I lay down my life for the sheep." Here, in a few 
 simple words, is recorded the greatest fact in the course of 
 time. Here lies the reason of the hope that is in be- 
 lievers. " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the 
 sin of the world !" He who clothed himself with a human 
 body clothes his thoughts towards us in forms which, being 
 taken off" humanity, fit humanity again. He is the Shep- 
 herd, and his people are the flock. The Shepherd lays 
 down his life for the sheep. He takes their place, that 
 they may enjoy his ; he bears their guilt, that they may 
 wear his righteousness ; he endures their curse, that they 
 may inherit his glory. " He saved others ; himself he 
 cannot save." Because he saved others, he could not save 
 himself. If he had come down from the cross we could 
 never have ascended to the crown. 
 
 When sin gnaws in your conscience, and the judgment- 
 seat gleams before your eyes, here lies your help. Listen 
 to the voice of Jesus : " I lay down my life for the sheep." 
 From an accusing conscience and a condemning law hide 
 in the suffering Redeemer, as the Hebrews hid under the 
 
230 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 sprinkled blood till the night of death passed over and 
 salvation came with the dawn. 
 
 This is the turning-point; this is the key of the position. 
 Around this spot the conflict cf ages has raged. Christ 
 was for this sacrifice, and the devil against it, from the 
 beginning. When the Lord intimated to his disciples that 
 he was about to lay down his life, Peter, or rather Satan 
 within him, replied, " Far be this from thee. Lord." The 
 cross is still to the Jews a stumbling-block and to the 
 Greeks foolishness ; but to them that are saved it is the 
 power of God, and the wisdom of God. 
 
 In this his greatest plan and greatest work, God has not 
 missed his mark. The Eternal Son has not thrown his life 
 away ; he laid down his life to save. I shall trust him 
 that he knew what he did, and did what he meant to do. 
 It is his life laid down that shall support me in my depths. 
 Into this ark I enter when the fountains of the great deep 
 are broken up and the flood overwhelms the world. 
 
 After the shortest and simplest announcement of his 
 atoning death comes a description of his saving ministry : 
 " And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold." 
 
 1. " This fold :" the seed of Israel — the visible Church of 
 those times. It became Christ to fulfil all righteousness. 
 He came not to destroy the law^ but to fulfil. He was 
 born in Bethlehem. He came in the track of the old sacri- 
 fices, and came unto his own. The faithful in Jerusalem 
 were w^aiting for the Consolation of Israel ; and at the 
 appointed time the Consolation of Israel appeared. 
 
 By his own personal ministry he founded the kingdom 
 in Israel, and left to his followers the task of propagating 
 it throuijh the world. Some of the seed of Abraham were 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 231 
 
 gathered in. The common people heard him gladly, and 
 here and there a ruler also was subdued. At the word of 
 Jesus, living children of Abraham's faith sprang from those 
 stones which then constituted the bulk of his natural off- 
 spring. The Redeemer's soul was from time to time satis- 
 fied as he felt the parched lips of a daughter of Israel 
 pressed to himself, the Fountain of living water. He was 
 filled with joy as he felt branch after branch growing into 
 himself, the Vine, for life and fruitfulness. They got life 
 — he gave it : both were blessed, but the Giver most. In 
 " this fold" he had some of his flock gathered and sheltered 
 and fed, even during the time of his own personal ministry. 
 But— 
 
 2. " Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold." 
 Here the expansive love of Jesus breaks forth. He began 
 at Jerusalem, but he did not end there. Even while his 
 feet stand on the soil of Palestine, the longings of his heart 
 go out to the ends of the earth. He was getting some, but 
 he longed for more ; his appetite was not satisfied. The 
 King is still sending out relays of servants into the high- 
 ways and hedges of the world to compel the poor to come 
 in, that his table may be furnished with guests. After he 
 has gathered into his fold a flock more numerous than the 
 stars that stud the plains of heaven, he still cries, " Other 
 sheep !" " Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy 
 laden, and I will give you rest." 
 
 Besides the expansive out-going of the Redeemer's love, 
 you may mark here its all -encompassing sovereignty: "other 
 sheep I have." He does not say, I may acquire others at 
 some future time ; he has them already. They were his 
 in the covenant from the beginning, and he held them, 
 every one, at that moment, in distinguishing love ujDon his 
 
232 THE GOOD SHEPHEED. 
 
 heart. At a time when they had not learned to follow 
 him — when they were neither born nor born again — he 
 counts and calls them his. Ah, believing brother, thy soul 
 lay on the Redeemer's heart that day. Thy backsliding 
 hurt him, but did not make him change. Thy sins wounded 
 him, but did not provoke him to let thee go. " I am 
 Jehovah ; I change not : therefore ye seed of Jacob are not 
 consumed." 
 
 8. " Them also I bring." There is no respect of persons 
 with God. Of every nation, and kindred, and tongue will 
 be the multitude, which no man can number, who stand 
 round the throne in white clothing. " Them also." No 
 poor slave will be left out because he is black, or bears the 
 mark of lashing ; no servant is pushed aside to make way 
 for his master ; no rich or powerful man who cleaved to 
 Christ is kept out at the cry of a mob that envied him. 
 If any were kept back, the Lord would pause as he came 
 across the sky like the lightning — would pause and say, as 
 he beckoned to attending angels, " Them also." Gather up 
 the fragments, that none of them be lost. O ye least in 
 the kingdom of God, I have never heard that the law of 
 gravity, God's servant, attended to the worlds and moun- 
 tains, letting the drops and atoms go because they were 
 small ! Be assured God, the master of that law, and of all 
 laws, will not permit his little ones to slip through an 
 opening in his love. " Them also " is a cheering word. I 
 like to hold it in my hand ; I like to roll it as a sweet 
 morsel under my tongue, to taste it long and leisurely. 
 Lazarus, with his sores all healed now, must not glide into 
 his old habit of lying at the door ; he also must come into 
 the palace of the great King, and there abide. The prodi- 
 gal, who went far from his father, and remained long, and 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 233 
 
 had nothing to recommend him when he returned, he also 
 must come in, and come as a son to a father's bosom, with- 
 out a fear. And these, who only came to Christ when they 
 grew old, after spending their lifetime for the world ; and 
 these, who, though they came in youth, came not till they 
 felt the hand of death upon their hearts — come in. The 
 Master stands and says, " Them also." Manasseh, Saul of 
 Tarsus — the blood of the martyr Stephen all off his hands 
 at last — " them also." 
 
 " Them / bring." He sends none forward to make or 
 find their own way. He goes before them, and bids them 
 follow ; he goes with them, and bears them through. They 
 are not alone in trouble ; for in all their afflictions he was 
 afflicted, and the angel of his presence saved them. He 
 does not permit them to cross the valley of the shadow of 
 death alone : the High Priest goes into the midst of Jordan, 
 and therefore they pass safely over. " I will fear no evil, 
 for thou art with me." He will not send any disciples to 
 the judgment-seat to make the best of their own case ; he 
 will be there before them, and will bring them to himself. 
 Once more it may be recorded, " Then were the disciples 
 glad when they saw the Lord." Those guilty brothers, 
 although they trembled at the first hint of Joseph's power, 
 were, after full reconciliation, glad to find that Joseph ruled 
 the kingdom. When they were convinced of their brother's 
 love, they rejoiced in their brother's regal power. Although 
 I find upon the throne of judgment Him whom I have 
 crucified, yet when he manifests his forgiving love, I shall 
 rejoice with a joy unspeakable to find that all judgment 
 has been committed into his hands. We learn (Eph. v. 27) 
 that when Christ has washed and sanctified his Church, he 
 will present it to himself, without spot or wrinkle, in that day. 
 
234 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 He brings his sheep home by going before them. He 
 makes a way through the sea of wrath, that they may safely 
 pass. " I am the way, and the truth, and the life ; no man 
 Cometh unto the Father but by me." When he brings them 
 to the Father, they are welcome home. " Who shall lay 
 anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is Christ that 
 died." 
 
 He brings them through the regeneration into the fold 
 during their life on earth. It often takes much bringing to 
 bring the distant nigh — the prodigal home ; but all power 
 in heaven and in earth is given to the Captain of our sal- 
 vation. He will not fail nor be discouraged. To bring a 
 drunken father home from his cups and his companions 
 may take much power — more than weeping wife and 
 hungry children can exert ; but when the love of Christ 
 gets hold of him by the heart, it leads him whithersoever 
 it will. That love has laid hold of a miser, and drawn 
 him from his gold ; that love has laid hold of a sinner, 
 whose right hand was bound indissolubly to his lust, and 
 drawn the man to heaven, leaving his right hand behind. 
 "Art thou a king then?" they said to Jesus, at that 
 unrighteous tribunal ; and he condescended to tell them 
 that they had stumbled upon the truth : " Thou sayest." 
 He is a King, and acts in a kingly way: he says, "I bring;" 
 and when his strength is put forth, the threefold chains of 
 the devil, the world, and the flesh give way like threads. 
 He leads ; they follow. Thy people. Lord, shall be willing 
 in the day of thy power. At his bringing they come from 
 east and west ; at his command the north gives up, and 
 the south keeps not back. Those that cleaved most firmly 
 to the dust fly as doves to their windows, their wings 
 glittering in beauty like yellow gold. 
 
THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 235 
 
 That same bringing power, that rent asunder the chains 
 of sin and liberated the soul, shall prevail to burst the 
 gates of death, and bring the body in life and beauty from 
 the grave. " I am the resurrection and the life," said Jesus : 
 them also — the bodies of his saints, as well as the spirits — 
 I bring with me ; that where I am, they may be. 
 
 " Arise, yea, rise again thou must. 
 After a little rest, my dust : 
 Thee God thy Maker gives 
 Life that for ever lives. Hallelujah !" 
 
 4. " Them also I must bring." What a word is this ! 
 He commands the winds and the sea, and they obey him : 
 who then can stand over him with authority, compelling 
 him to fulfil his task ? It is the mightiest of all task- 
 masters, his own yearning love. It is not only that he 
 will or may bring his other sheep home to the fold ; he 
 must bring them. He has laid this necessity upon himself 
 in the well-ordered covenant, and the self-imposed necessity 
 is sweet to his soul. "How shall I give thee up, Ephraim?" 
 The Good Shepherd does not know how to abandon any of 
 his flock. The whole body of the ransomed is in Scripture 
 expressly said to be " the fulness of him that filleth all in 
 all." A part of his own fulness would be wanting, if he 
 should leave any fragment behind. 
 
 Shreds from this divine necessity of doing good drop 
 down from the Head and beautify the life of the members, 
 as rays from the sun glitter on the leaves of the grove or 
 on the pebbles of the beach. Those things that " must be " 
 — these inevitable deep necessities — are the most lovely 
 features of the free. Here is a mother with a sick infant 
 on her knee. The infant's eyes are open, but they see not; 
 they roll at random — lightless, lifeless. The parched lips 
 
236 THE GOOD SHEPHERD. 
 
 utter at intervals a faint, uneasy shriek. Thus has the 
 infant lain for several days and nights. The sun has set 
 once more upon the scene, and the city lays itself down to 
 rest. But that mother rests not ; although her head is 
 weary, she does not lay it down. Why ? Ah ! she Tiiust 
 sit there and hold her child in the safest place, and look 
 into those eyes that give her back now no answering look ; 
 she must sit and hold the child till she see the end. An 
 overmastering love compels her, and will take no denial. 
 It is a "must" of this kind, but mightier, that binds the 
 Good Shepherd to bring the most distant and most feeble 
 sheep home to the fold. Can a mother forget ? She may ; 
 but thy Redeemer will not forget thee, O Zion ! The high 
 priest stood in the midst of Jordan till all the people passed 
 over. 
 
IX. 
 
 PERSONAL ADOENING. 
 
 "Whose adorning let it be the hidden man of the heart, in that whicli is 
 
 not corruptible, even the ornament of a meek and quiet spirit, which is in the 
 sight of God of great price." — 1 Peter iii. 3, 4. 
 
 N our day some books and magazines devote them- 
 selves exclusively to female dress and ornament. 
 When you open them you expect nothing else 
 than pictorial representations or artistic descrip- 
 tions of the newest fashions and the most admired adorn- 
 ments. But the Bible! when you turn to it, you consider 
 that you bid farewell to all these trifles, and plunge into 
 the deepest things of the human spirit — plunge, in some 
 measure, according to your capacity, even into the deep 
 thinsfs of God. 
 
 Yet here, in the Word of life, we have fallen upon a 
 text that deals with female attire, condemning one style of 
 adorning, and commending another. Let us listen to what 
 our Maker says to us regarding the most becoming dress 
 and the most effective ornaments. He who formed our 
 Ijodies, and breathed into them living souls, knows best 
 what we should put on in order to set off his workmanship 
 to the best advantage. Hear our Father in heaven when 
 he tells us what style of apparel will make his children 
 beautiful, 
 
238 PERSONAL ADORNING. 
 
 God loves beauty of every kind, both the beauty of 
 nature and the beauty of holiness. How do we know that ? 
 Because everything that he makes is beautiful. There is 
 nothing ugly in creation as it comes from his hands. All 
 the works of God are useful indeed, but all are ornamental 
 too. The tree shows lovely flowers before it bears nourish- 
 ing fruit. Such is creation as a whole. Flowers and fruit 
 are everywhere combined. The sky, whether it is studded 
 with stars by night, or strewn with fleecy clouds by day, is 
 beautiful. The dome of heaven is grander than any that 
 men have ever made. The carpet that covers the ground 
 is studded with flowers, as well as the canopy that over- 
 hangs our dwelling. What work of man is so exquisitely 
 ornamented as the leopard's skin and the butterfly's wing ? 
 Our works of taste are nothing but imitations, more or less 
 successful, of the patterns which have been given to us in 
 the mount — in the higher sphere of creative art. The 
 chief works of our greatest masters are not original. The 
 sunset, the sea, the landscape, outspread on canvas, and 
 hanging in royal halls, on which successive generations have 
 gazed admiring, are only copies more or less accurately 
 taken from the divine originals. 
 
 The works of nature are beautiful on all sides, and on 
 all sides alike beautiful. It is not a bright exterior, and a 
 rough ungainly interior ; it is not a polished side to the 
 public road, and a slovenly rubble wall on the shaded side. 
 True beauty is beauty all over, whether any observing eye 
 should see it or not. Nor is the most elaborate design or 
 the most exquisite colour reserved for the most enduring 
 objects. The snow crystals, and the frosted tracery on the 
 windows, are as perfect in design and execution as the 
 monarchs of the forest that outlast fifty human generations. 
 
PERSONAL ADORNING. 239 
 
 Man is the chief of God's works, and enjoys most of his 
 care. Man was placed highest, but has fallen from his high 
 estate. He was made most beautiful, but has disfigured 
 himself by sin. When his best work was damaged, the 
 Creator did not give it up, and give it over. He framed 
 a plan to restore. He desires to have his own image 
 renewed. He desires to look upon his world again with 
 complacency, and to call it good. 
 
 When the prodigal returned to his father he was in a 
 wretched plight. He bore the marks of his sin and misery. 
 His countenance was wan through want and his clothing 
 was filthy rags. The swineherd bore traces of his mean 
 employment when he appeared again in his father's sight. 
 " Bring forth the fairest robe, and put it on him : put 
 a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet." The father 
 gave commandment for becoming ornaments as well as 
 the necessary covering. Thus our Father in heaven, when 
 we return to him, sees us defiled and dishonoured ; but 
 he will not permit us to remain in an unsightly and dis- 
 honoured plight. He will make his adopted children fit 
 for their place and their company. He will make them 
 like the children of a king. Beggars come to Christ ; but 
 none remain beggars in his presence. 
 
 A man of feeble intellect, in the north of Scotland, was 
 wont, like most of his class, to be very slovenly in his 
 appearance. To this weakling the gospel of Christ came 
 in power. He accepted God's covenant love, and found 
 himself a child of the family. Soon after this change the 
 minister met him on a Sabbath morning, and was struck 
 with his unwonted cleanness, and the efforts he had made 
 in his own fashion to ornament his person. Accosting him 
 kindly, the minister said, " You are braw to-day, Sandy," 
 
240 PERSONAL ADORNING. 
 
 " He was braw Himsel' the clay," replied Sandy reverently; 
 meaning that Jesus, when he rose from the grave on the 
 first day of the week, was arrayed in the divine glory and 
 the beauty of holiness. The Lord on high, who rejoices to 
 receive the little ones, would, methinks, be pleased to see 
 Sandy's Sunday clothes and to hear Sandy's simple answer. 
 
 When a gold coin of the kingdom has by long usage lost 
 the image and superscription of the king, they bring it 
 back to the sovereign from whom it originally issued. The 
 king will renew and restore. None other can. But the 
 process cannot be accomplished by rubbing the surface. 
 The defaced coin must be cast into the furnace and melted. 
 Then it is recast, and comes out a new creature. In the 
 act of renewing, the king's image is restored. By such a 
 process, and not otherwise, may God's image be renewed in 
 a soul that has lost it by sin. " Put off the old man, and 
 put on the new." 
 
 There is a true analogy between physical beauty and 
 spiritual holiness. In all languages the same names are 
 applied to both. These parallels abound on all sides. For 
 example, truth is like a straight line, and falsehood like a 
 crooked one. Every one comprehends easily what is meant 
 by the great ivhite throne. And the fine linen, clean and 
 white, is expressly defined to be "the righteousness of saints." 
 
 " This man," said the Pharisees, speaking with their lips 
 a truth which they did not comprehend, " this man re- 
 ceiveth sinners." Yea, receiveth sinners. On this side they 
 are poured in sinners ; on that side they emerge saints. 
 Who are these, then, who stand around the throne in white 
 clothing, with palms in their hands ? These are they who 
 entered at the gospel call, in filthy ragS; and have washed 
 their robes in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
PERSONAL ADORNING. 241 
 
 Peter in this text undertakes to tell how the uncomely 
 may be rendered beautiful. Here is the true adorning ; 
 and it is for us, for all. Whosoever will, let him take it. 
 The call of the gospel compels the homeless, naked, hungry 
 wanderers to come into the banqueting hall ; and if any 
 one is found there without the weddino^ e^arment, his want 
 is due to his own obstinacy, for the King offers it free to 
 all his guests. 
 
 Still deeper goes the apostle's thought when he arrives 
 at the details of the recommended ornaments. " Not that 
 outward adorning of plaiting the hair, and of wearing of 
 gold, or of putting on of apparel ;'" — what then ? " Let it be 
 the hidden man of the heart." Strange prescription ! when 
 the guests, picked up from the highways and hedges in all 
 their rudeness and rags, must be made fit to sit at the 
 King's table. Get them suitably adorned at once. How ? 
 " The hidden man" in the heart of each. So then the orna- 
 ment which will make human beings really comely is called 
 " the man." What man ? The hidden man. He is him- 
 self invisible, and yet it is his indwelling that will make 
 the wearer's face to shine. 
 
 Adam was the first man. He was beautiful when he came 
 from his Maker's hands, but he was not hidden. He was 
 the visible head of creation when God pronounced it good. 
 Behind him, unseen, was another Man — the original, the 
 pattern Man — in whose image Adam was formed. Adam 
 was but a copy of the divine original. Adam was dis- 
 figured by his fall into sin. Then, it was not another copy 
 taken, which might have been spoilt like the first, but the 
 hidden Man himself who came into the world, and revealed 
 himself to restore humanity. 
 
 When he had finished transgression and made an end of 
 
 (753) 16 
 
242 PERSONAL ADORNING. 
 
 sin, and brought in an everlasting righteousness, he ascended 
 again to heaven, and remains hidden from our sight. But 
 he who said, " It is expedient for you that I go away," said 
 also, " Lo, I am with you alway." It is Christ dwelling 
 in a Christian that makes him beautiful. It is not, Lo, 
 here, or, Lo, there; — the kingdom of God is within you. The 
 apostolic expression, " Christ in you, the hope of glory," 
 explains how the hidden man of the heart imparts more 
 than earth-born winsomeness to the countenance and the 
 life of those who walk with God in the world. 
 
 There is a whole Christ in every disciple who lives up 
 to his privileges, as there is a whole sun in the cup of 
 every flower that opens to his shining. Suppose the sun 
 should say to the flowers, " Lo, I am with you always," and 
 afterwards remain high in the heavens ; the flowers could 
 not complain that the sun had broken his promise. It is 
 expedient for them that he should remain distant : by re- 
 maining distant he is able to dwell in the heart of each, its 
 light and life. It is thus with our Sun of Righteousness : 
 "If any man open, I will come in." 
 
 When this ornament is worn in the heart within, its 
 beauty is seen on the outward life. I once met with an 
 unexpected and interesting illustration of this principle in 
 the Gobelin Tapestry Factory near Paris. The web, in 
 course of construction, was suspended perpendicularly from 
 the ceiling to the floor. The operator was concealed behind 
 it. Beside him — for I was permitted to go within the veil 
 to inspect his work — he had a fine picture by a master on 
 canvas. At every thread that he shot through the extended 
 work he took another look of this picture. He was repro- 
 ducing on the external surface of the web, feature by 
 feature, the picture, in this case of a royal personage, 
 
PERSONAL ADORNING. 243 
 
 which he kept beside himself under the veil unseen. He 
 continually looked at his hidden pattern, and continually 
 advanced with the visilile duplicate, that grew into form 
 and beanty in his hands. 
 
 The sight, wdth the thought which it suggested, startled 
 me. Here is the picture of a true Christian life. The 
 workman's business is to make his visible life an epistle of 
 Jesus Christ. But he must have the model beside himself 
 — within. On this pattern he must frequently look, that 
 he may reproduce outwardly the exact features of the 
 original. When it is Christ in you — " the hidden man of 
 the heart" — some faint but true features of the Lord will 
 be legible on your life and spirit. 
 
 In general, a likeness of Christ is in the life of a Chris- 
 tian ; and, in particular, " a meek and quiet spirit." This 
 is not the only ornament which the children of the family 
 put on, but it is one of the most decisive marks of their 
 birthright and their station. It w^as the feature which the 
 Lord expressly specified when he invited his disciples to 
 imitate his ways : " Learn of me ; for I am meek and lowly 
 in heart" (Matt. xi. 29). As this is the most characteristic 
 feature of a disciple, it is, perhaps, as the world goes, the 
 most difficult to acquire and exhibit. But though it be 
 the chief, it is not the only fruit and evidence of faith. 
 Indeed, if it stood alone, it would not be so precious. It 
 must have others to lean upon. It so happens that in the 
 specific case recorded in the Acts, in which the world out- 
 side recognized by the conduct of the apostles that they 
 were Christ's, it was the opposite quality of courage that 
 constituted the distinguishing feature. It was when they 
 saw the boldness of Peter and John that they took know- 
 ledge of them that they had been with Jesus, 
 
244 PERSONAL ADORNING. 
 
 One of the instructions given by Paul for the conduct of 
 life runs in these terras : " In the midst of a crooked and 
 perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the 
 world; holding forth the word of life" (Phil. ii. 15, 16). 
 The lantern of the lighthouse has many sides, and it re- 
 volves. It does not always present the same side to the 
 observer. The sides, moreover, may be of different colours, 
 so that now the lantern throws over the waters a white, 
 now a green, and now a red light, — all lights and all use- 
 ful, and all exhibited from the same beacon-tower, but all 
 diverse the one from the other. Thus stand Christians 
 conspicuous — set on a hill, and seen from afar. As they 
 turn round in the varied business of life, they display now 
 one and now another grace of the Spirit ; but if they are 
 true, and not too much blotted by contact with the earth, 
 on every side they give forth evidence that they have been 
 with Jesus. 
 
 As a meek and quiet spirit is one of the most useful 
 features to bring out of a believer's life, it is one of the 
 most difficult to get in. When, in the processes of art, a 
 new and beautiful colour is about to be transferred to a 
 fabric, the hardest portion of the task sometimes is to dis- 
 charge the dyes that are already there. A terrible process 
 of scalding must be applied to take out the old ere you 
 can successfully impart the new. In like manner, the 
 anger and pride and selfishness that have first possession 
 present the greatest obstacle to the infusion of a meek and 
 gentle spirit into a man. If there be a royal, there is cer- 
 tainly no easy, road to this consummation. Nothing will 
 suffice but the old apostolic prescription — " Put off the old 
 man, put on the new." 
 
 It is a striking, bold, and original conception, to propose 
 
PERSONAL ADORNING. 245 
 
 that an ornament should be hidden in the heart. Ordi- 
 narily, we understand that an ornament, from its very 
 nature, must be worn in a conspicuous position. When it 
 is hidden, how useful and valuable soever it may be, it 
 ceases to be an adorning. But in the spiritual sphere the 
 law is reversed. That which is put on makes the wearer 
 loathsome ; that which is hidden within makes him beauti- 
 ful. Meekness is spoiled when it is set up for show. The 
 bloom was rubbed off from the devotion of the Pharisees 
 when it was exposed at the corner of the streets ; their 
 charity was soured by the sound of a trumpet, like milk in 
 a thunderstorm. The meekness that is hidden is the meek- 
 ness that adorns. When it is not hidden, it is no longfer 
 meekness. 
 
 This ornament, moreover, is incorruptible. This epithet 
 is peculiarly relevant. With the exception of the metals 
 and minerals, ornaments are, for the most part, perishable 
 commodities. Rain soils them ; the sun burns their beauty 
 out. In the accidents of life they are worn or torn, or 
 stolen or lost. The rose and lily that bloom on the cheek 
 are not perennial ; the wrinkles of age are creeping on to 
 drive them off and take their place. All these adornings 
 are corruptible. This text recommends one that will never 
 fade. Age makes it mellower, but not less sweet. As it 
 is not a colour of the decaying body, but a grace of the 
 immortal spirit, it will pass unharmed through the dark 
 valley, and bloom in greater beauty on the other side. It 
 will make the ransomed from among men very comely in 
 the eyes of angels, when they stand together round the 
 throne, and serve their common Lord. 
 
 One grand concern with buyers is to obtain garments 
 that will last — garments whose fabric will not waste, and 
 
246 PERSONAL ADORNING. 
 
 whose colours will not fade. There is one Seller in the 
 great market of the world who assures the permanence of 
 his wares. Hear ye him : " Buy of me gold tried in the 
 fire, that ye may be rich ; and white raiment, that ye may 
 be clothed." In this apparel the redeemed shall shine, 
 when the sun shall have grown dim with age and the 
 stars fallen from heaven like unripe figs. 
 
 Yet another quality is noticed of the recommended 
 adorning — it is costly. In the sight of God, and of the 
 godly, it is " of great price." In the market of the world, 
 alas ! we, like inexperienced children, are often cheated. 
 We pay a great price for that which is of no value. We 
 are often caught by the glitter, and accept a base metal for 
 gold. He who counts this ornament precious knows its 
 worth. 
 
 The righteousness of the saints is dear to God in a 
 double sense. It is both beloved and costly. " Father, if 
 it be possible, let this cup pass ;" but it was not possible. 
 " He saved others ; himself he cannot save." The price 
 must be paid. The just gave himself for the unjust. The 
 beauty of a new nature and an immortal life for fallen 
 man were bought with a great price. The " unspeakable 
 gift" of God was laid down to obtain it. It cost the 
 Redeemer much to get the " filthiness purged out" of his 
 people, and get them made meet for the inheritance of the 
 saints in lisfht. Nothino; shall enter that defileth : the bride 
 shall be adorned to meet her Husband. 
 
 The ransomed of the Lord, when they come to Zion, will 
 constitute the crown that adorns their Redeemer's brow. 
 These are the jewels for which he paid an unspeakable 
 price, and which he will wear as his crown of rejoicing in 
 that day. 
 
PERSONAL ADORNING. 247 
 
 The practical lesson is very clear and very forcible. We 
 should be fellow-workers with God in keeping oti", or cast- 
 ing off, with all diligence, every spot from our own hearts 
 and lives which the Lord that bought us would not like to 
 look upon. " Blessed are the pure in heart : for they shall 
 see God." 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 '"Ye are tlie salt of the earth." — Matt. v. 13. 
 
 HIS ivS a short, pointed, condensed sentence. It 
 gives us much matter in little room. The 
 words were spoken by Jesus, and addressed to 
 his own disciples. Come and let us sit at his 
 feet, and hear him, as it were, speaking them over again. 
 If we come to him as scholars, he will be our teacher still. 
 He will bestow the Spirit at our request, to open the 
 parable and make all its meaning plain. Although the 
 expressions are figurative, they are by no means diffi<iult. 
 The two chief words are, the earth and the salt. We shall 
 consider them separately, and then apply the lesson from 
 both combined. 
 
 I. The earth and its need. — It is quite true that the term 
 " earth," when employed in Scripture as a figure to express 
 moral relations, is not always employed in the same sense. 
 Had it stood alone here, it might have been difficult to 
 determine which of several possible meanings should be 
 attached to it ; but its connection with the other word 
 " salt " renders such an examination unnecessary. " Salt " 
 stands like a mirror before "earth," to receive and exhibit its 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 249 
 
 precise import. We are not left to guess which of its figu- 
 rative meaninofs the word "earth" here bears. The meaninof 
 is fixed, and shown to be that which needs purification and 
 preservation. Obviously the earth, considered as requiring 
 salt, is human kind lying in the corruption of sin. It 
 means all mankind ; and all lying in wickedness. The 
 Lord Jesus speaks of man, made in God's image, as the 
 head of creation, and speaks of him as tainted by sin. A 
 fly alighted on creation while it was yet young, and its 
 mass became morally a noisome carcass. No portion of 
 the race has escaped the infection. It is, moreover, the 
 law of moral as well as of material corruption, that the 
 evil assumes an ao-OTavated form wherever lar<xe masses 
 are collected together. As men multiply, sin increases. 
 The larger the heap of corruptible matter, the more rapidly 
 it decays. Hence the kind and quantity of depravity in 
 large cities. 
 
 The use of the single term "earth" in this sense by Him 
 who came to redeem it is calculated to awaken and alarm 
 us. It is not a part of the world that has gone astray, but 
 the whole. This last and chief of God's works — this corner- 
 stone of creation — has fallen from purity. It is corrupt to 
 the core. There is no soundness in it. The only kind of 
 beings on earth that are capable either of holiness or sin 
 have fallen from holiness, and are lying helpless in sin. 
 The earth, as represented by the moral and spiritual being 
 at its head, is altogether an unclean thing. 
 
 By birth and nature a part of this corrupt mass, we 
 grow up without uneasiness or alarm, unless and until we 
 be awakened by another voice than our own. The corrupt 
 do not loathe their own corruption. Sinners do not of 
 their own motion grow weary and ashamed of sin. They 
 
250 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 have no desire to escape from the miry pit; they resist and 
 resent every offer of aid. Although all intelligent beings 
 who are not in the pit, whether they be angels who never 
 fell, or saints who have been lifted up, look on with inex- 
 pressible disgust and pity, those who lie unclean in that 
 place of uncleanness are contented with their lot. Corrup- 
 tion is the element of the corrupt. So far from naturally 
 desiring freedom, and welcoming a deliverer, they dread 
 the approach of the hand that would save them. When 
 the maniac's heart was a nest of unclean spirits, his lips 
 cried out, " What have we to do with thee, thou Jesus ?" 
 Holiness, instead of being the inborn delight of the carnal 
 mind, is the object of its strongest aversion. It is in a day 
 of almighty power that the im]3ure are made willing to be 
 led into purity. 
 
 Here lies the most dreadful feature of our case : we are 
 not only vile, but vileness is our nature , so that we cleave 
 to it with the strength and steadiness of an instinct. If the 
 case of a sinner in his sin could be justly compared to the 
 case of a man who has fallen into the water, and is in 
 danger of being drowned, all would be easy. To help the 
 willing is a simple task, and is generally successful. But 
 the actual condition of the problem is precisely the reverse. 
 Souls in sin love to be in it ; the spiritually corrupt love 
 corruption. 
 
 It behoves us to look this matter in the face, and be 
 aware of the desperate state of the fallen, ourselves and our 
 neighbours. It is not by a wish for heaven that the cor- 
 rupt can escape from their corruption and become new 
 creatures. From its first plan to its final consummation in 
 glory, sovereign free mercy has done all the work of re- 
 demption. " Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 251 
 
 ti right spirit within me." The first faint uneasiness under 
 s:uilt, and the first faint desires to be free, are marks of the 
 Spirit's motion in my heart : let me not quench the Spirit, 
 lest that blessed messenger depart and leave me ; let me 
 yield to the drawing which I now feel, and these everlast- 
 ing arms will draw me more. 
 
 II. The salt and its properties. — Jesus, addressing his 
 own disciples, said, " Ye are the salt of the earth." A por- 
 tion of the corrupt mass cannot become the salt to preserve 
 the rest of it. The salt is difierent from the earth. It is 
 new. It is the work of God in the regeneration. 
 
 Those who have been forgiven and renewed are the salt ; 
 but why has their Redeemer given them that peculiar name ? 
 What feature of their character, or form of their usefulness, 
 does this figurative expression indicate ? The word teaches 
 us something about the new creature in respect both to 
 what it is and to what it does ; a lesson regarding both its 
 nature and its use lies wrapped in the parable. 
 
 In nature the new creature is not allied to the corrup- 
 tion that is in the world. It is an incorruptible thing. 
 Left to itself it does not become noisome ; it continues 
 pure. There are indeed mixtures of the old man in a 
 Christian while he remains in the body ; but the new life 
 from the Lord which has been quickened within him is like 
 its origin and its Author. Although it be lodged among 
 earthly things, itself is not earthly. Although it is sadly 
 true that even a Christian falls frequently into sin, yet the 
 new man created within him " cannot sin, because he is born 
 of Cod." 
 
 As to the use of Christ's disciples in the world, the Lord 
 clearly and impressively made known his mind when ho 
 
252 THE SALT OF THE EARTH 
 
 called thein " the salt of the earth." This designation 
 should be as easily and correctly understood as the speech 
 of a commander who cries aloud to his soldiers, " Ye are 
 the defenders of your country," as he leads them forward 
 to repel an invading foe. If we confine our view to what 
 the Lord has done for his people, we shall run away with 
 half a truth, and convert it into a full error. He does 
 something for them — something greater than eye hath 
 seen, or ear heard, or heart conceived ; but he does some- 
 thing with them too. Nay more : he works for them iirst, 
 in order that he may work hy them then. He buys them 
 off from Satan's bondage with the price of his own blood, 
 in order that he may have a band of sons and daughters 
 who shall yield themselves willing instruments unto him, 
 for his work of righteousness in the world. He redeems 
 them from their sin, that he may employ them in his own 
 service. As to the fact that true disciples are of use to 
 their Lord, the whole Bible is full and clear ; and as to the 
 manner in which he turns their talents to account, a world 
 of meaning is contained in the one word " salt." When he 
 has forgiven and renewed some, he places them in contact 
 with the remaining mass, as an instrument to preserve and 
 purify it. The errand on which he came is to save the 
 lost ; he is straitened till his work be done ; his disciples, 
 partaking of his spirit, should be straitened too. Paul 
 greatly longed after certain inhabitants of Philippi whom 
 he knew ; but he longed after them " in the bowels of Jesus 
 Christ." It was as a member of Christ's body that he felt 
 that throb of compassion for human kind. It was the 
 Saviour's own compassion circulating through the soul of 
 the saved man that stimulated him to zeal for his brethren. 
 The word of Christ is, as it were, a two-edged sword ; it 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 253 
 
 is a promise and a command in one. He gives what he 
 demands, and demands what he gives. The same master 
 both gives the talents and requires an account of their out- 
 lay. He sends none on a warfare at their own charges ; 
 but when he has been at charges with any one, and fully 
 furnished him, he does not exempt him from the warfare. 
 " Ye are the salt of the earth." Look to the upper side of 
 that word, and its meaning is — Christ has redeemed and 
 purified his own ; look to the under side, and its meaning- 
 is — Christians should be in the world witnesses of Christ 
 and winners of souls. Elsewhere this double truth is 
 divided, and both its sides separately displayed, — " Ye are 
 bought with a price ; therefore, glorify God." 
 
 Now for the lessons. 
 
 1. There is onitch of the " earth" still. — The portion that 
 has been broken off and purified is comparatively small ; 
 the bulk of the world lies in a state of corruption. The 
 majority of mankind worship the work of their own hands. 
 The nations, without knowing the reason, have rejected the 
 living God, because impurity does not like to come near 
 the consuming fire. It is not an innocent and childlike 
 form of worship into which the nations have fallen. It is 
 evil in its nature and its effects. It dishonours God and 
 destroys men. 
 
 But even in countries where divine truth is known, and 
 divine worship set up, great numbers remain almost as 
 deeply corrupt as the heathen. Certain districts of our 
 great cities, and certain classes of our teeming population, 
 live without God in the world. Even within the com- 
 munion of Christian churches, and within the circle of 
 Christian families, much of the " earth" remains unchanged. 
 
254 THE SALT OF THE EAETH. 
 
 Oh ! if there were missionaries ready for the work, the 
 mission field is wide and near. A mighty work must be 
 done ere the earth be penetrated and pervaded by the salt 
 of divine truth, held in the life and conversation of con- 
 sistent Christians. 
 
 2. There is little of the salt. — There are not many 
 nations in the world called by the name of Christ ; and 
 even of these, comparatively few have actually been trans- 
 formed into his likeness. Alas ! Christians are still a little 
 flock. 
 
 But we must beware lest we stumble here on the other 
 side. It would indeed be an error indolently to assume 
 that all are Christians who assume the name ; but it would 
 be also an error on the other side peevishly to make the 
 number of Christians less than it is. It is as much our 
 duty to own what God has wrought in the world by his 
 grace as to lament the corruption that still so widely pre- 
 vails. If it be true on the one side that there is little salt, 
 it is true on the other side that there is a little. There 
 has been a little all along, and the Spirit poured out is at 
 present creating more. While we grieve that the number 
 of true Christians is so small, we ought also to be thankful 
 that it is so great. Many have been added to the Lord in 
 our own day, and he would, be offended if we should refuse 
 to own the fact. True Christians are so many that we 
 should greatly rejoice in God's goodness ; and yet true 
 Christians are so few that we should not sit down satisfied 
 with the state of the world. The Lord hath done great 
 things for us ; whereof we are glad. What has been done 
 should effectually rebuke our repining ; but what remains 
 to be done should prevent us from making this our rest. 
 The true attitude of Christians at the present time, on 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 255 
 
 either side, is to thank God for giving us much salt, and 
 give him no rest till we get more. Indeed, the design of 
 our Father in giving us drops is to stimulate our desire 
 for showers. When we are permitted to see sinners coming 
 to Christ by tens, he expects that the sight will send us to 
 his throne with ceaseless supplications that he would arise 
 in the power of his love and draw them to himself in thou- 
 sands. 
 
 3. There is little saltness. — We have already pointed 
 out that there is not much salt in the ffreat mass of a cor- 
 rupt world ; and it is our duty now to point out, further, 
 that there is little savour even in the salt itself. Christians 
 are few in the world ; and grace is feeble in Christians. The 
 Lord himself, in his lessons on this subject, clearly indicated 
 that even the salt may, in some measure, lose its pungency 
 and power. It is a sad and obvious fact, which may be read 
 on the surface of society, that even true disciples are more 
 or less conformed to the world in which they live. Indeed, 
 it seems, in some cases, to be the specific aim of the " salt " 
 to be as like " earth " as it can. The preserver labours to 
 become indistinguishable from the corruption which it is 
 sent to. cure ; and, alas ! it often labours in this direction 
 with abundant success. Christians, with much trouble and 
 care, disguise their Christianity. The saltness is persever- 
 ingly bleached out of the salt, lest the neighbouring corrup- 
 tion should smart under its pungency. 
 
 This is not the discontented complaint of one who can 
 see no good among his fellows. It is not a wholesale and 
 indiscriminate sentence of condemnation spoken by croaking 
 lips and guided by a jaundiced eye. It is the truth ; and 
 it is plainly spoken, because truth is necessary and salutary. 
 I speak it from the certain knowledge that the case requires 
 
256 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 it, and with a fervent hope that to speak it plainly will do 
 good. I give forth the warning, not from a despairing 
 but from a hopeful heart. In dealing with the vineyard, 
 I would fain follow the steps of our Father the husband- 
 man : if the tree were hopelessly barren, I would let it 
 alone ; but when a tree is bringing forth some fruit, I would 
 like to prune it that it may bring forth more fruit. There 
 is some savour in the salt ; but why should there not be 
 more ? Great is the bounty of the Giver, and great is the 
 world's need. 
 
 What is the rule which secretly, habitually, effectively 
 shapes your conduct ? Is it the way of the world, or the 
 will of your Saviour ? This is a great question, and it is 
 not necessarily very difficult. We do not drag you through 
 minute details. We ask your attention only to the chief 
 motive power. The flowing stream which drives all the 
 complex machinery of your life — is it the frothy fashion 
 of the world, or the strong deep love of Christ in giving 
 himself for you ? The wheel which the fashion of the 
 world drives is, like those of Ezekiel's vision, so high that 
 it is dreadful ; but, unlike them, it is not full of eyes 
 round about — it is blind all over. An uncounted number 
 of busy little wheels are dependent on its power. Great 
 are the noise and dust ; great the sweat and toil. Do you 
 grind in that treadmill ? If you do, you may be weary, 
 but you will not get rest. 
 
 " On the other side of Jordan, 
 In the sweet fields of Eden, 
 Where the Tree of Life is blooming. 
 There is rest for the weary " — 
 
 the weary who walk with Christ and work for his cause ; 
 but though the god of this world gives his worshippers 
 
THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 257 
 
 hard work, he has no rest remaining for them when the 
 work is done. 
 
 But the fashion of the world is not only made in secret 
 the real motive power in life ; it is in many cases openly 
 confessed as the rule. Others did the same ; it was com- 
 mon in the place ; what would the world say if we should 
 take another course ? — these and other similar current 
 phrases, like floating straws, show the direction and the 
 force of the current. The plea is worthless. It will not 
 stand in the judgment of the great day ; it will not even 
 stand the scrutiny of common sense. For the food, the 
 drink, the dress, the education, the company, the conduct 
 of yourselves and your children, fling away at once and 
 for ever the fashion of a giddy world, and take as your 
 guiding rule the will of the Lord that bought you. As 
 long as you meanly tread in the track of a corrupt world, 
 you do the world no good. Your salt has lost its savour. 
 To be near you does not trouble an unconverted man. 
 Your way is so like his own that your presence is no 
 reproof. The profane may count you a good fellow ; but 
 Christ counts you an unfaithful witness. On the other 
 hand, if you were enabled to walk in the Spirit and with 
 Christ, your presence would be a reproof to wickedness, 
 your footprints a guide to the wanderer, your faith a sup- 
 port to younger disciples. Salt of the earth, do not let go 
 your savour. Christians, let the mind which was in Christ 
 be also found in you. 
 
 4. The salt is too seldom laid upon the decaying to 'pre- 
 serve and restore it. — Even where there is salt with the 
 savour in it, the benefit is in a great measure lost for want 
 of the needful contact. It is not enough that there is salt 
 here and corruption yonder — salt, it may be, in the square, 
 
 (763) 17 
 
258 THE SALT OF THE EARTH. 
 
 and corruption in the lane ; unless they meet, the one can- 
 not enjoy the blessedness of receiving, nor the other the 
 greater blessedness of imparting, good. The preserving 
 salt must interpenetrate the body which needs preserva- 
 tion, and lie in contact with all its parts. Thus the Saviour 
 did, and thus should the saved do. He was the friend of 
 publicans and sinners ; the friend of publicans and sinners 
 should I also be. 
 
 This is the true secret of a home mission. The best 
 Christians are those who are most like Christ. The Holy 
 One came from a holy heaven and dwelt in a sinful world ; 
 while there he cast himself in the way of the worst, and 
 wept over them when they would not permit him to come 
 near. Go, ye who are bought by his blood, and bear his name 
 — go, and do likewise. By close communing with the Lord 
 Jesus, keep the savour in your salt ; and by close contact 
 with those who are dead in sins, let the earth in its cor- 
 ruptest parts get the benefit of a pungent reproof. Be 
 alternately much with the great Giver, God in Christ ; and 
 the needy receiver, a godless world. These are the two 
 things worth living for — getting from the Saviour, and 
 giving to the lost. " Freely ye have received, freely give." 
 It is when Christians have a " savour of Christ" upon their 
 spirit and conduct that they become "a savour of life" to 
 those who are dead in sin. 
 
EEADi:i^GS IlSr FIEST PETEE. 
 
PETER, AN APOSTLE. 
 
 "Peter, an apostle of Jesiis Christ." — 1 Peter i. 1. 
 
 CCASIONS for critical remarks may occur here 
 and there as we proceed, but I do not propose 
 to introduce any general discussion of cognate 
 subjects as a preface to my work. There is not 
 time nor space for that. It suits my purpose better to 
 plunge at once into the matter of the Divine Word. We 
 do not assume here the position of Israel when first the 
 manna fell — that of the questioner, " What is it ? " We 
 assume at once the position of the people after they had 
 tasted it. Being hungry, and seeing the bread from heaven 
 spread out around our tents, we propose to gather and eat 
 — eat, and live thereby. If, through the blessing of God, 
 any gainsayer should be convinced by these expositions, the 
 effect would be incidental : our direct aim is gently to lead 
 inquirers through the open gate into life, to instruct the 
 little ones of the family, and to edify strong men into a 
 still stronger faith. 
 
 This letter, like those of Paul and ancient letters gene- 
 rally, throws into its forefront the writer's name and office. 
 The reader desires to know who his correspondent is ; and 
 the practice of placing that information at the beginning 
 
262 PETEE, AN APOSTLE. 
 
 seems more convenient as well as more natural than our 
 modern method. This man is not now ashamed of his 
 name, nor of the cause which it supports. He will not 
 undertake to vindicate all his antecedents; but now he 
 knows his position and bearings. The latter end is peace. 
 Peter ! the Galilean fisherman ; the forcible yet fickle dis- 
 ciple ; the cowardly denier, yet the ardent lover and heroic 
 confessor of the Lord ! A number of different and even 
 opposite qualities go to constitute this man's history and 
 character. Two kinoes and two kino:doms strove asjainst 
 each other for the mastery in the fisherman's capacious 
 breast. Ishmael, or the world power, had first possession, 
 and had grown into strength before Isaac, the child of 
 promise, was born. The son of the strange woman lorded 
 it long over the heir in Peter's history, as in Abraham's 
 house ; but in the end, the child of promise prevailed, and 
 possessed all. At the date of this letter, Peter, with all 
 his force and fire, is on the Lord's side. 
 
 " Peter, an apostle." Ah, Peter, is this another piece of 
 cowardice ? An apostle, and no more : are you not the 
 prince of the apostles ? Are you not the representative of 
 God on earth, and the infallible interpreter of his will ? 
 Are you not the head of the Church, before whose word 
 Paul and all thfe rest must humbly bow on pain of per- 
 dition ? 
 
 Mark : if Peter ever possessed these prerogatives, he 
 possessed them then. He received no subsequent advance- 
 ment from the Divine Head. If Peter were infallible, what 
 of Paul who withstood him to the face ? Oh the silliness 
 as well as the wickedness of men ! I suspect, however, 
 that people will never be argued out of Papal Infallibility : 
 they were not reasoned into it, and we need not expect 
 
PETER, AN APOSTLE. 263 
 
 that they can be reasoned out of it. The human mind is 
 voluntarily crushed in order to let that dogma in, and 
 therefore it has no power to arise and cast the intruder out 
 asfain. It is not that men are convinced that the bias- 
 phemous pretension is true ; it is that they are given over 
 to believe a lie. 
 
 The title which Peter assumes is at once dignified and 
 modest. He assumes all the authority he possessed — all 
 that his Master gave him. If he had a right to more, he 
 should have claimed it, in order to add weight to his word. 
 He was bound to keep nothing back. Yet, according to 
 Romish teaching, Peter and all his successors have from 
 that day to this possessed a divine power of infallible 
 knowledge intrusted to them for the good of the world, 
 and especially for settling all controversies in religion; and 
 they have never told that they possessed the precious trea- 
 sure, — never known that they possessed it, for that matter, 
 — till now ! " Fie on't, oh, fie ; it smells rank." 
 
 The Greek term apostle, and the Latin term missionary, 
 mean the same thing, — " one sent out." Those ministers 
 who dwell at home at ease, however useful they may be in 
 their own place, have no peculiar claim to be accounted the 
 successors of the apostles. The men to whom the Master 
 gave that office thought it needful to offer an apology for 
 remaining in one place a whole year. If any class of 
 ministers more than another had a claim to this distinc- 
 tion, it would have been foreign missionaries. 
 
 Moses was a missionary. The I Am, from the midst of 
 the burning bush, first drew him near and then sent him 
 out, — " Come ; I will send thee." From the embrace of 
 the suffering Saviour, in the old time, Moses was sent into 
 Egypt to lead the exodus. From the embrace of the 
 
264 PETER, AN APOSTLE, 
 
 Saviour more fully manifested apostles were sent out in 
 the fulness of time to win the world. From that glow of 
 divine love Peter issued all on fire — a messenger sent out 
 to seek his Lord's lost and lead them back to his Lord. 
 
 By special providence Peter's case has been left on record 
 as a type of the manner in which real apostles are made. 
 Behold the Master (John xxi. 15) bending over him, at 
 once healing the old backsliding and kindlino- the flame of 
 a new love : Lovest thou me ? lovest thou me ? lovest thou 
 me ? There is some smoke yet in that bundle of flax over 
 which he is tenderly bending : methinks I hear the thrice 
 repeated gentle breathings, — not energetic blasts that might 
 have quenched the feeble spark, but breathings to cherish 
 the dull heat into a flashing flame. Out from this furnace 
 sprang an apostle ready-made, who needed now but to get 
 his specific commission : " Feed my sheep ; feed my lambs." 
 
II. 
 
 APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. 
 
 "To the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, 
 and Bithynia, elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through 
 sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus 
 Christ : Grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied. Blessed be the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." — 1 Peter i. 1-3. 
 
 10 the Christians scattered throughout the various 
 provinces of Asia Minor the letter is addressed. 
 The regions enumerated coincide in the main 
 with those in which Paul and his companions 
 founded churches. Did Peter transgress the rule which 
 forbids one missionary to interfere with the sphere and 
 labour of another ? No : we may not be able to explain 
 everything, as we are not acquainted with all the circum- 
 stances, but we may rest assured there was an understand- 
 ing between those primitive missionaries. Had Paul by 
 this time been taken away ? or had Mark brought word 
 that a letter from Peter to the Asiatic churches would be 
 welcome to the members, and even strengthen Paul's hands, 
 especially with the Jewish portion of the Christian com- 
 munities ? 
 
 These disciples were " elect [chosen] according to the fore- 
 knowledge of God." What is called the doctrine of Election 
 should not be a stumbling-block to any who acknowledge 
 the divine authority of the Scriptures. There it is, as fully 
 
266 APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. 
 
 and articulately expressed in the Word of God as it can be 
 in any human creed. 
 
 The Bible says they were chosen according to the fore- 
 knowledge of God; and who shall say they were not ? We 
 may well stand in awe on the margin of this unsearchable 
 deep. We may not be able to comprehend it in all its bear- 
 ings ; but there it is. " Be still, and know that I am God." 
 This great word should make human hearts bow in deep 
 humility, and accept offered salvation all of grace. And as 
 to inferential difficulties, the freedom and responsibility of 
 men are as clearly revealed as the sovereignty of God. 
 " Repent ye," is the commandment ; and the sanction fol- 
 lows it, " Except ye repent, ye perish." So the sovereignty 
 of God does not stand in the way of his free offer and 
 man's full responsibility. He knows his own way through 
 the difficulty. These two ends meet in the deep things of 
 God; and "the day" will reveal the meeting-place. Enough 
 for me : he has said, " Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
 thou shalt be saved." Even so, " Lord, I believe ; help thou 
 my unbelief." 
 
 In this verse the Father is revealed in connection with 
 election and foreknowledge ; the Spirit in connection with 
 the sanctification of believers ; and the Son in connection 
 with the sprinkling of the blood that saves. It is parallel 
 with that word in the Lord's own prayer : " Thine they 
 were ; and thou gavest them me : and they have kept thy 
 word " (John xvii. 6). 
 
 While this beautiful introductory salutation, " Grace unto 
 you, and peace," is a formula common to all the apostles, it 
 is also an exact theological definition, rightly dividing the 
 word of truth. The right thing is put foremost here. The 
 living root lies in the ground below, and the fruit-bearing 
 
APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. 267 
 
 branches tower above it. It is grace first, and peace fol- 
 lowing it. When God and man meet, it is pardon first, and 
 then a mutual confidence. When he in the Mediator dis- 
 penses freely his favour, you in the Mediator draw near 
 without dread. He manifests himself a forgiving Father, 
 and that very thing infuses into your heart the spirit of a 
 trusting child. 
 
 " May grace and peace be multiplied." In the Old Testa- 
 ment (Isa. xlviii. 18) there is a promise that his people's 
 peace "shall be like a river" — gaining affluents from either 
 side as it flows, and at the last opening out into " a right- 
 eousness like the waves of the sea." 
 
 Now, after the designation of the writer and the readers 
 has been given, the matter of the letter begins, — begins 
 with glory to God in the highest. With remarkable 
 unanimity the sacred writers make this their starting- 
 point. From Moses to Peter, the first commandment is 
 glory to God, and the second is duty to men. 
 
 There is a distinction maintained in Scripture between 
 " blessed " as applied to God, and " blessed " as applied to 
 men. Although we are obliged to use the same term 
 for both in our language, they are distinct in the Greek. 
 That which is applied to God means to be pronounced 
 blessed; that which is applied to men means to be made 
 blessed. 
 
 Of all the aspects and attributes of the great God, that 
 which first leaps to the lips of this apostle is, " the Father 
 of our Lord Jesus Christ." How real and vivid was spiritual 
 life in those primitive Christians. Faith really dominated. 
 Farm and merchandise receded into the backofround, and 
 the relations of the soul with God and eternity bounded 
 to the front. And mark how Peter finds it possible to draw 
 
268 APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION, 
 
 near to God : he takes refuge in the Mediator. When he 
 sees God as the giver of the unspeakable Gift, he comes for- 
 ward with boldness. In point of fact, unless we recognize 
 him in that character, we cannot relish him in any. " With 
 Him, how shall he not freely give us all things ?" These 
 men were skilful. They knew where consolation lay ; they 
 grasped God by his title of Father of our Lord Jesus, 
 and so were enabled to cling in fond confidence as dear 
 children. 
 
 There is an amazing wealth and grandeur of thought 
 and expression here. Whence hath this man his wisdom ? 
 The fisherman is here the vessel chosen and employed by 
 the Spirit to pour out in all its fulness the gospel of the 
 grace of God. The Epistle at this point where it begins to 
 flow is like one of those infant rivers which burst full- 
 bodied at their birth from a arreat inland sea in which their 
 waters have been gathered. Unlike the waters of Ezekiel's 
 vision that gathered volume as they flowed, this is a river 
 to swim in the moment that it breaks away from the foun- 
 tain-head. This testimony from an unlearned Galilean is 
 already a Christian evidence. The book is a witness to 
 itself. 
 
 Who is this of whom the prophet speaks ? — God. 
 
 In what aspect does the Supreme present himself ? — As 
 the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 What has he done ? — Begotten us again ; made us new 
 creatures. 
 
 From what motive has he acted I — According to his 
 abundant mercy. 
 
 By what means has he accomplished this great change ? 
 • — By the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. 
 
 To what end in the experience of his people does he thus 
 
APOSTOLIC BENEDICTION. 269 
 
 work ? — To a living hope burning in their hearts here, and 
 an inheritance incorruptible beyond the grave. 
 
 At the opening here made in heaven a great cluster of 
 stars appear. Their united light shines like a sun, and 
 each constituent of the constellation is a separate orb of 
 glory. Nor does the brightness dazzle the sinner's uplifted 
 eye, for it is the glory of God streaming from the face of 
 Jesus, mighty to save. 
 
III. 
 
 THE HEIRS AND THEIR INHERITANCE. 
 
 "Which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively 
 hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incor- 
 ruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." 
 —1 Peter i. 3, 4. 
 
 OPE is enjoyed here, possession hereafter. But 
 the enjoyment of the inheritance is real, although 
 it is as yet held only by hope. The hope is 
 living. Not only will it surely be substantially 
 satisfied in the end, but even in the meantime it secures the 
 enjoyment. An inanimate cord might bind together the 
 expecting heir and his ultimate inheritance, so that they 
 could not finally miss each other ; but a living nerve, ex- 
 tending from the new creature here in the body to the 
 kingdom that is not of this world, conveys even now the 
 revenue of the inheritance before the time, according to the 
 Master's own aspiration, " That my joy might remain in 
 you, and that your joy might be full " {John xv. 11). 
 
 How may we be introduced into such a hope ? Through 
 the new birth. Peter's doctrine here is in strict accord 
 with the word of the Lord to Nicodemus : " Except a man 
 be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God," — neither 
 behold it in living hope now, nor enter it at last. These 
 two terms, " begotten again " and the " incorruptible inherit- 
 
THE HEIRS AND THEIR INHERITANCE. 271 
 
 ance," are made for each other, like the two valves of a 
 sea-shell. They shut accurately upon each other, but upon 
 nothing else. Our inheritance by the first birth is neither 
 undefiled nor unfading. To escape the curse of the first 
 birth-right, we must have another birth. The new creature 
 in Christ is joint-heir with him — heir of all things. 
 
 The resurrection of Jesus Christ was the closing and 
 culminating act of the redemption that he wrought. If 
 the work had not thereby been completed, it would have 
 been of no avail. The Spirit, through Paul, has clearly 
 borne witness that unless the Redeemer's work had been 
 crowned by his resurrection, our hopes would have been in 
 vain (1 Cor. xv. 17). The meaning is, that the completed 
 work of Christ saves his people from sin, and gives them a 
 riofht to the eternal inheritance. Those who are born again 
 rise with him into resurrection life. The life that they 
 now live in the flesh, they live by the faith of the Son of 
 God. Earth becomes to these heirs the vestibule of heaven. 
 
 The characteristics of the inheritance are all negative. 
 The features that ordinarily go to mar an earthly heritage 
 are enumerated for the purpose of declaring that they do 
 not adhere to the rest that remaineth for the people of God. 
 The inheritance is (1) incorruptible. It is not liable to 
 complete dissolution, like a dead body that returns to dust. 
 It is (2) undefiled. It is not liable to have all its beauty 
 dimmed by some unclean spot falling on its form. Often 
 an earthly inheritance, while its substance abides the same, 
 loses all its attraction for the owner. The eldest son, per- 
 haps, for whom it was fondly cherished, has thrown away 
 his good name. Henceforth the father cannot look with 
 complacency on his green fields and waving woods. A 
 glance at the landscape makes him shudder. His inherit- 
 
272 THE HEIRS AND THEIR INHERITANCE, 
 
 ance is defiled. Not so tlie heritage to which the children 
 of God have, in the regeneration, been served heirs. The 
 inheritance is (3) unfading ; its bloom will never wither. 
 It is not subject to alternations of darkness and light, of 
 winter and summer. The Lamb is the light thereof ; and 
 there shall be no night there. In exact accord with the 
 imagery of John is the plain, earnest prose of Paul, when 
 life and death were trembling in the balance. To be with 
 Christ was the bright expectation which took all the terror 
 out of death when it seemed very near (Phil. i. 23). 
 
 The silence of Scripture, especially in contrast with the 
 coarseness of earth-born systems, is sometimes as emphatic 
 a testimony to its divine origin as its positive revelations. 
 Lights on the shore flash far over the ocean, and conduct 
 the voyager to the land ; but they do not reveal to him, 
 while at sea, the particular features of the landscape. It 
 is thus that the Bible exhibits lisfhts sufficient to sfuide in- 
 quirers safe to heaven, but not sufficient to reveal its interior 
 beavities. Those who reach the better land will discover its 
 glories after they arrive. 
 
 Some are born to a great inheritance, and yet miss it. 
 In our days thrones are frequently shaken, and their occu- 
 pants cast off Princes who were born to a royal heritage 
 wander as exiles in a foreign land. But there are no 
 revolutions in the kingdom of heaven. Every one gets his 
 own there. The laws of nature give a token of the cer- 
 tainty that prevails in the region where the Lord reigns. 
 Although a globule of air were imprisoned for a thousand 
 3^ears within a shell at the bottom of the ocean, the moment 
 its prison-house decayed it would rise sheer through the 
 water, though it were miles in depth, and never halt till 
 it emerged with a bound into its native element, the sky. 
 
THE HEIRS AND THEIR INHERITANCE. 273 
 
 Behold a specimen of his power, who has promised " none 
 of them shall be lost." 
 
 Here are two keepings promised ; and the two constitute 
 a pair. The inheritance is preserved for the heirs, and the 
 heirs are preserved for the inheritance. Both keepings arc 
 needed ; and both are provided in the covenant. The 
 danger was not all over when Pharaoh consented at last to 
 let Israel go. The danger was not all over even when the 
 emancipated Hebrews reached the Red Sea's farther shore. 
 They were saved ; and yet they needed salvation. The 
 returning waters overwhelmed the enemy, and protected 
 their rear ; but a howling wilderness lay between them 
 and their rest. They needed keeping by an Almighty 
 hand, those feeble heirs. They sing. Have they not begun 
 their song too soon ? Are they not hallooing before they 
 are out of the wood ? Have they not something harder 
 than hymns to deal with ? They have ; and yet they have 
 not too soon begun their song. They should rejoice in 
 salvation already wrought, and go forward to work out 
 their own salvation. Getting manna from heaven, and 
 water from the rock, they must tread the rugged path and 
 fight the cruel foe ; and toiling forward, never breathe 
 freely till, in the wake of the forerunner high priest, they 
 pass the parted Jordan, and feel their footing firm in the 
 promised land. 
 
 (753) 13 
 
IV. 
 MIGHTY TO SAVE. 
 
 "Who are kept by the power of God through faith." — 1 Peter i. 5. 
 
 HAT is done for the heirs while they are here in 
 
 the body ? They are kept. Nothing more is 
 
 needed here than to give a definition of the 
 
 word and its meaning. There are various kinds 
 
 of keeping. It concerns us to define exactly what kind is 
 
 promised here. 
 
 In the first place, it is a keeping within walls and gates. 
 To this meaning the term is limited by the well-known 
 usage of the original language. But even within these 
 limits there are two kinds of keeping, very diverse in 
 design and effect. Stone walls may close around you either 
 for the purpose of keeping you in, or for the purpose of 
 keeping your enemy out. The first is a prison, the second 
 a fortress. In construction and appearance the two species 
 of fastness are in many respects similar. In both cases 
 the walls are high, the gates strong, and the guards trusty. 
 But they differ in this — that the prison is constructed to 
 prevent escape from within, the fortress to defy assault 
 from without. In their design and effect they are direct 
 and exact contraries. The one secures the bondage, the 
 other the freedom, of its inmates. In both cases it is a 
 
MIGHTY TO SAVE. 275 
 
 heep, and in both the keep is strong : the one is strong to 
 keep the enemy out, the other is strong to keep the 
 prisoner in. In the Greek of the New Testament two 
 completely distinct words are employed respectively to 
 designate these two places of strength. Both terms alike 
 signify to guard ; but the one ((jjvXaKr)) signifies a prison, 
 the other {(ppovpt]) signifies a fort. The word employed 
 here is not prison, but fort. It is a place strong to preserve 
 liberty, not to take it away. 
 
 From David downward, the godly in times of trouble 
 have ever found and confessed that God is a strong tower, 
 in which the righteous are safe. In times of persecution 
 the name is best understood, and the thing most valued : 
 when and where war rages, strongholds are desired and 
 appreciated. 
 
 In this life a Christian is safe ; but his safety consists 
 in the protection of a fort. He is neither the slave of a 
 tyrant on the one hand, nor beyond the reach of assault on 
 the other. He is no longer in the kingdom of darkness, 
 but neither has he been admitted yet into the mansions of 
 the Father's house. He is in a middle region ; and in all 
 that region he is safe, but his safety cometh from the Lord. 
 Before he was converted, he did not get this keeping ; and 
 when he is glorified, he will no longer need it. Before he 
 came over to God's side, he was not preserved from his 
 enemies; after he is taken to God's j^'^esence, there will 
 no longer be any enemies to be defended from. But all 
 through this middle passage, between Egypt and Canaan, 
 he needs and gets his Redeemer to be a wall of fire round 
 about him. This is the kind and measure of safe-conduct 
 which the King bestows upon the pilgrim : " I pray not 
 that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that 
 
276 MIGHTY TO SAVE. 
 
 thou shouldest keep them from the evil." This is precisely 
 what the Mediator asks and the Father bestows. 
 
 Some, mistaking the fortress for a prison, refuse to enter 
 it. They give a wide berth to all earnest personal religion, 
 as a dungeon in which, if they should venture too near, 
 they might possibly be immured for life. The enemy of 
 souls, taking advantage of this terror, which is natural to 
 the guilty, sends scouts all over the plain through which 
 the pilgrims are marching, who falsely tell them that this 
 stronghold which the King has built for their protection is 
 a prison in which they will be cruelly shut up. If vice 
 and unbelief slay their thousands, ten thousand fall under 
 the false opinion that to come personally to Christ, though 
 necessary for safety at the end of life, is to dwell in a 
 prison through its course. Believe not this false testimony. 
 " Godliness is profitable unto all things, having the promise 
 both of the life that now is and of that which is to come." 
 
 Whereby are the heirs kept ? By the poiver of God. 
 Omnipotence is pledged on their behalf. But it is a 
 different exercise of divine power from that which is 
 exhibited in creation. It is specifically described in Philip- 
 pians iv. 7 : " The peace of God, which passeth all under- 
 standing, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ 
 Jesus." This is a most interesting and instructive definition. 
 It tells both that in God which he holds them with, and 
 that in men which he holds them by. In him it is " the 
 peace of God " that takes hold ; in them, it is " the heart 
 and mind " that it seizes. God's peace streaming forth 
 through the Mediator, and wrapping itself round the heart 
 and mind,- — behold the specific exercise of divine power by 
 which the heir is kept for his inheritance. 
 
 Through what means are believers kept ? Through 
 
MIGHTY TO SAVE. 277 
 
 faith. The cause is God's power ; the manner, through our 
 believing. Men are not kept from falling into sin precisely 
 as the worlds are kept from falling away into unlighted 
 space. Both effects are produced by the power of the 
 same God ; but there are diversities of operation. In the 
 case of those coursing worlds, it is power on the one side 
 and nothing on the other ; it is simple omnipotence. With 
 all their bulk and all their brightness, they lie like clods 
 in the law of God. Worlds were made by God's word ; 
 but man was made in his image. Renewed man, living 
 and sensitive, feels his Creator's hand around him, and 
 responds by a reciprocating grasp. This feeble people 
 have no strength, but they make their nest in the Rock of 
 Ages. A believer is not like a god on the one hand, and 
 not like a clod on the other. He does not save himself ; 
 but neither is he saved by mere omnipotence. He stands 
 in the middle between these two. He is like a piece of 
 matter in its weakness, but like God in having an intelli- 
 gent will to choose and refuse. Equally with inanimate 
 matter, he is indebted to divine power for his upholding ; 
 but unlike it, he knows his need, and gladly casts his 
 burden on the Lord. God holds him up, and he trusts in 
 God. 
 
 Take a glance at these two points now, in their union 
 and relations. They are the two sides, the upper and the 
 lower, of one salvation. The double seal is elsewhere 
 exhibited with both its inscriptions in view : " The Lord 
 knoweth them that are his. And, Let every one that 
 nameth the name of Christ depart from iniquity " (2 Tim. 
 ii. 19). He hath done all things well. He acts as becomes 
 himself ; and he exercises also the faculties which he has 
 imparted to his creatures. Nothing unnecessary is intro- 
 
278 MIGHTY TO SAVE. 
 
 duced, and nothing is left undone. Both on the heaven- 
 ward side and the earthward side salvation is secure. The 
 strongest thing in heaven and the strongest thing on earth 
 are entwined into each other to bear up a believer, that he 
 may not in time of temptation drop away. The strongest 
 thing in heaven is the power of God, and that on high 
 holds fast a Christian ; the strongest thing on earth, 
 removing mountains if need be, and overcoming the world 
 — the strongest thing on earth is man's faith, and that 
 below makes fast a Christian. If one of the least of these 
 should begin to say, Oh ! wretched man that I am, my 
 faith is weak ; some day the adversary will gain an advan- 
 tage over me, and I shall let go my hold, — the reproof and 
 encouragement are ready here. It is not by your faith 
 that you are kept, but by God's power. Behold, he that 
 keeps Israel, he slumbers not nor sleeps. Again, if the 
 subtle temptation is injected into his heart, If God keeps 
 me by his power, I need not be at the trouble of keeping 
 myself, — he will find in this text a scourge ready plaited 
 to his hand wherewith he may drive the tempter out. My 
 God, who keeps me, keeps me through my own faith. He 
 gives me himself to lean on ; but he expects me to lean on 
 himself. If I in carelessness or presumption neglect to 
 hold, I fall, and my perdition is my own deed. 
 
 But in such a case the purpose to escape the trouble of 
 holding, on the plea that omnipotence is enough, is already 
 evidence that this soul has no part in the salvation of 
 Christ. He is a God, not of the dead, but of the living. 
 If the soul lives, it will grasp its almighty Protector's arm; 
 and if it does not grasp, the fact is evidence that it lives 
 not yet. The mother holds her infant, when danger presses; 
 but the infant, if it is living, also grasps the mother. If it 
 
MIGHTY TO SAVE. 279 
 
 is dead, it does not ; and if it does not, it is dead. It is 
 the mother's hold of the infant, and not the infant's hold 
 of the mother, that really secures its safety ; but if the 
 infant cease to meet the mother, in time of danger, with 
 an answering grasp, the mother will fling the child away — 
 will hide the dead in the earth out of her sisrht. 
 
V. 
 THE LATTER END IS PEACE. 
 
 'Unto salvation ready to be revealed in the last time." — 1 Peter i. 5. 
 
 'NTO what end are Christians kept ? " Unto 
 salvation ready to be revealed in the last 
 time." 
 
 The word is expressly spoken to Christians. 
 The Lord tenderly regards thern, and sends them messages 
 of love to cheer them in the house of their pilgrimage. 
 
 1. They are kept unto salvation, not to perdition. It 
 is the fortress of their King in which they are enclosed to- 
 day ; and when at length they are led forth from it, they 
 are led to the palace of the King, that they may be princes 
 there for ever. There are many dark pages of this world's 
 history connected with those who have been long kept in 
 a stronghold, and led forth at length, — led forth to execu- 
 tion. The bridge across the narrow canal in Venice, be- 
 tween the duke's palace and the prison, consisting of a 
 secret path for leading the prisoners to and fro, is called 
 the Bridge of Sighs ; and the sight of its solemn gray mass 
 spanning the narrow opening aloft upon the sky, makes the 
 spectator stand and sigh to-day, if he knows some points 
 of its awful history. Many a death procession marched 
 across that gloomy bridge in those gloomy times. Often 
 
THE LATTER END IS PEACE. 281 
 
 the great and noble were kept long in those strongholds — 
 kept unto a cruel death at last, 
 
 Christ keeps his people not in a prison. If the Son 
 make you free, ye shall be free indeed. He keeps unto 
 salvation. O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou 
 doubt ? Our Lord does not desire that we should pass a 
 life of terror, as prisoners held over for execution. The 
 express design of his sacrifice was " to deliver them who 
 through fear of death were all their life-time subject to 
 bondage" {Heb. ii. 15). He offers us deliverance from 
 the bondage of fear. He offers us blessed hope ; he com- 
 mands us to rejoice in the Lord. When one of Christ's 
 disciples is led away, it is to life eternal. It is to depart 
 and to be with Christ. 
 
 And many of those who have been by wicked men kept 
 in prison, and led forth to die, have gone forth with glad 
 songs, knowing that they would soon be with their Lord. 
 Argyle's sleep on the night before his execution was 
 sweeter than that of his persecutors. The hope and joy of 
 the martyrs in the immediate prospect of complete deliver- 
 ance have usually been brighter and stronger than other 
 believers enjoyed, on the principle of compensation which 
 may be seen running through both the kingdom of nature 
 and the kingdom of grace. 
 
 2. Salvation is ready. Salvation has two sides, and 
 both are ready. One of its sides is in heaven, and the 
 other is in a believing soul. The kingdom of heaven is at 
 God's right hand for evermore ; and the kingdom of heaven 
 is also within you. On both sides it is ready for any 
 sudden call. On high, Christ's work is perfect ; his 
 covenant is sure ; his sacrifice has been accepted ; his 
 people have already been accepted in his righteousness, and 
 
282 THE LATTER END IS PEACE. 
 
 their names are recorded in the Lamb's book of life. They 
 shall not come into condemnation — into judgment — because 
 they have believed in the only-begotten Son of God. They 
 shall not be tried and judged for life at all. That trial is 
 past. They have, in Christ their Substitute, already stood 
 before that tribunal and been approved. The place is 
 ready, the mansions of the Father's house, to receive his 
 children. The company is ready — ten thousand times ten 
 thousand, — all the unfallen, and all the fallen vi^ho have 
 been redeemed and taken to glory. Here, on earth, too, 
 the salvation is ready. There is a Christ in the midst of 
 the throne, and a Christ in each Christian indwelling. 
 The salvation is ready within the saved : they have passed 
 from death unto life ; there is now to them no longer any 
 condemnation. They have been sprinkled from an evil 
 conscience, and reconciled to God. 
 
 3. The salvation is ready to be revealed. Mark this 
 well. It is now concealed. On neither of its two sides 
 is it exposed to the view of men. The finished work of 
 Christ, the prepared home in heaven and the peace of God 
 within a believer's heart — these are both and both alike 
 hidden, secret things. 
 
 But these things are, although they are not seen. They 
 are all ready underneath the covering veil ; and when that 
 veil is removed, every eye shall see them. When the Lord 
 shall come again, his coming will be like the morning. 
 As the daylight reveals the green herbs and growing- 
 flowers, which the veil of night had concealed, the coming 
 of the Lord will expose to view a new heaven and a new 
 earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. The flowers and 
 forests, the hills and streams, were all there in the night, 
 though they were not seen. They needed not to be made 
 
THE LATTER END IS PEACE. 283 
 
 in the morning. They were ready to be revealed. Suppose 
 a creature with the intelligence of a man, but with the 
 term of life allotted to some of the insects — a day. Sup- 
 pose that creature's life begins after sunset. At midnight 
 and in the early morning watches he looks around, but 
 sees nothing. He reasons, and loses himself in dark spec- 
 ulation. A voice from the abyss above reaches his ear, and 
 tells him that a beautiful, furnished world is ready to be 
 revealed, and will be revealed in the morning. He be- 
 lieves, and waits : the promise is fulfilled. The glory of 
 the world when the sun is up surpasses all his expectation. 
 Such a creature is redeemed man. All is ready. The 
 inheritance needs only to be unveiled. The unveiling only 
 remains for the last time. Now is the time for seeking 
 and obtaining it : then, it only remains that it should be 
 fully displayed. 
 
VI. 
 REJOICING IN TRIBULATION. 
 
 "Wherein ye greatly rejoice, though now for a season, if need be, ye are in 
 heaviness through manifold temptations : that the trial of your faith, being 
 much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, 
 might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus 
 Christ." — 1 Peter i. 0, 7. 
 
 iN a somewhat formal logical definition Paul 
 declares the kingdom of God to be "righteous- 
 ness and peace and joy." Gladness is one con- 
 stituent of a living faith. They are completely 
 out of their reckoning who think that earnest religion 
 means the sacrifice of happiness in this world for the sake 
 of securing it in the world to come. The faith that makes 
 eternal life secure also sheds a blessed light over the life 
 that now is. This may be gathered from the nature of the 
 case. To pass from the condition of a criminal under con- 
 demnation to the place of a son and the right of an heir, 
 cannot but gladden a man's heart. 
 
 That which the terms of the gospel would lead one to 
 expect appears everywhere in its history. When Philip 
 preached Christ with success in Samaria, " there was great 
 joy in that city ; " and when the Ethiopian treasurer heard 
 and accepted the same message from the same preacher, " he 
 went on his way rejoicing." In our own day the same 
 effects spring from the same cause. There is no feature 
 
REJOICING IN TRIBULATION. 285 
 
 more distinctly characteristic of present religious earnestness 
 than the gladness which springs in the hearts and shines in 
 the faces of the converts. The absolute identity of results 
 produced by a hearty acceptance of the gospel in the days 
 of the apostles and in ours, is itself a proof that the word 
 of God is a living and reproductive seed — that it " liveth 
 and abideth for ever." 
 
 Peter had himself experienced peace and joy in believ- 
 ing ; and writing to the scattered converts, he takes for 
 granted that in their experience like causes would produce 
 like effects. On this point he plants a firm foot ; there is 
 no wavering. He counts on it as confidently as on the 
 sequences of nature, that those who had accepted Christ as 
 their own Saviour were made glad thereby. 
 
 Nor is it an ordinary satisfaction, as when corn and wine 
 abound. It is an exuberant, exultant, passionate joyfulness. 
 The term implies an articulate and demonstrative happiness 
 that cannot be concealed. It must reveal itself by leaping 
 and singing. Such, moreover, is its strength and persist- 
 ence that a great weight of grief will not quench it. " Ye 
 greatly rejoice, though now ye are in heaviness through 
 manifold temptations." 
 
 A vivid illustration of this principle appears in Old 
 Testament history. Elijah (1 Kings xviii.) would convict 
 the priests of Baal, and convince the people, by fire from 
 heaven consuming the sacrifice. But first he directs that 
 the wood should be soaked and the ditch filled with water. 
 When the fire burned the soaked wood, and licked up the 
 water in the trench, there was a great demonstration of its 
 power. So here : it is not an ordinary contentment ; it 
 is a joy that burns so fiercely that many waters of grief 
 cannot quench it. The joy overcomes and swallows up 
 
286 REJOICING IN TRIBULATION. 
 
 the antagonist element, and the presence of the antagonist 
 increases its triumph. 
 
 Witnesses, in number constituting a great cloud, have 
 appeared in various ages and in various countries, to show 
 that the joy of faith in Christ triumphed over all the 
 tortures which ingenious superstition was able to invent or 
 the most callous executioners were able to inflict. The 
 hymns which the martyrs have sung in the flames are 
 measures of the strength to which the Holy Spirit may 
 bring the grace of joy in the heart of believers in the 
 body. 
 
 The sorrow with which believing joy in those primitive 
 Christians must needs contend sprang from many and 
 various sources. At one time it was persecution for Christ's 
 sake ; at another time it was loss of goods, sickness, 
 bereavement. But when the stream of suffering was 
 swollen by the addition of all these affluents, faith still gave 
 them victory, and they rejoiced in their Lord. 
 
 Two circumstances, expressed in two quiet parentheses, 
 come in here to limit the great flood of affliction, — two 
 touching, tender memorials of a Father's pitying eye and 
 all-encompassing arm. These are (1) "if need be," and (2) 
 " for a season." Only if, and when, and as far as there is 
 a necessity for them, are the trials permitted to come at all; 
 and even when they come, their duration is limited. In 
 both cases the Father is himself the judge, and he doeth 
 all things well. Elsewhere in Scripture the believing 
 sufferer is taught the art of diminishing the weight and 
 shortening the term of sorrows. They seem " light " when 
 compared with the exceeding great weight of the glory 
 that shall follow, and " but for a moment " when compared 
 with the eternal rest. It is thus that faith o-ains the victorv 
 
REJOICING IN TRIBULATION. 287 
 
 over the world. It is on this principle that the disciples, 
 when they find their hearts sinking under trials, say imto 
 the Lord, Increase our faith. 
 
 The disciples are taught to regard their sufferings in the 
 aspect of trials ; at once tests to determine whether their 
 faith is ofenuine, and exercises to increase its strength. It 
 is not faith, but the trial of faith, that is here pronounced 
 to be precious. Precisely because faith is the link by which 
 the saved are bound to the Saviour, it is of unspeakable 
 importance to have faith tested in time and proved to be 
 true. The trial of gold is precious ; for if you sell all that 
 you have, and give away the proceeds for a field that seems 
 to contain the treasure, it is beyond all things necessary to 
 test the glittering heap before the transaction is completed, 
 in order to ascertain that it is really gold. Here the fire 
 and the crucible are the most valuable of all things for the 
 investor. These are his safeguards ; he cannot want them. 
 
 In like manner, it is dangerous to venture our eternity 
 on a fair-weather profession ; an assay in some form is 
 essential to determine whether there is life or only a name 
 that we live. The trial of faith by affliction is compared 
 to the testing and purifying of gold by fire. The sufferer, 
 while in the furnace, is encouraged to look up and see a 
 Father in heaven bending over him in all-wise love, and 
 ready to remove the pain as soon as the purpose is effected. 
 The "need be" and the "season" are determined and limited 
 by an omniscient love. 
 
 Nor is all over when the trial has come, and burned for 
 a season, and accomplished its purpose here, and passed 
 away. The greatest results will be seen within the veil. 
 When Christ comes the second time to reign, the eftect of 
 these trials will appear to his praise. In exact accordance 
 
288 EEJOICING IX TRIBULATION. 
 
 with this representation is the vision of the glorified in the 
 Revelation of John (vii.). Those who stand round the 
 throne in white clothing are described by two leading 
 features, a subordinate and a supreme — they have come 
 out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and 
 made them white in the blood of the Lamb. AlthouGfh the 
 one ground on which they enter the kingdom is the atone- 
 ment made on the cross, yet the tribulation they endured 
 — the trial of their faith for a season through sufferinsf — 
 tells instrumentally with so much effect upon the Lord's 
 glory in their redemption, that it is reckoned worthy of 
 mention among the means of their salvation and their 
 Saviour's praise. 
 
YII. 
 SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION. 
 
 "Whom having not seen, ye love ; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet 
 believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory : receiving the end 
 of your faith, even the salvation of your souls. Of which salvation the prophets 
 have enquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that sliould 
 come unto you : searching what, or what manner of time the Spirit of Christ 
 which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of 
 Christ, and the glory that should follow." — 1 Peter i. 8-11. 
 
 HE joy of believing is repeated, expanded, and 
 emphasized. It is a theme which Peter seems 
 loath to let go. It grasps his heart and carries 
 him away. He is passionate about it. He has 
 no thought of denying his relation to Jesus now. His 
 wound was thoroughly healed when the Great Physician 
 thrice demanded of him, " Lovest thou me ? " and at the 
 point where he once was weak, he is now very strong. In 
 this expression of exuberant gladness he obeys the Master's 
 word, " When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." 
 But the object of this strong faith and fervent love is a 
 living Person. No chain of connected doctrines could beget 
 such enthusiasm in a human heart. Doctrines, though true 
 and divine, would remain a dead letter if they did not lead 
 a soul to the Saviour. It is the grand characteristic of 
 apostolic preaching that it constantly presents a personal 
 Christ to sinful men. 
 
 Those who simply accept the offered Saviour do not 
 
 (753) ' J 9 
 
290 SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION. 
 
 miss the mark. They receive^ — that is, they carry off, as 
 the winner in a race bears off the prize — the end and object 
 of their faith, even the salvation of their souls. 
 
 We have now reached a subject which in Peter's estima- 
 tion is of supreme importance. It becomes for him a new 
 starting-point. He expatiates on it in thoughts that breathe 
 and words that burn throughout the next three verses. 
 Surveying the whole course of time, he sees all the lines of 
 Providence and grace converging on this one point, — your 
 salvation. The prophets who were commissioned to pro- 
 mise redemption did not fully comprehend the meaning of 
 their own testimony. We are in a better position for 
 understanding it. In this respect the least in the new 
 kingdom is greater than the greatest prophet of the older 
 dispensation. In the light of the now risen sun we may 
 better perceive both the glory of the luminary himself, and 
 the beauty of the landscape he shines upon, than those 
 morning-stars who promised but did not see the day. 
 
 Three distinct things embodied in the testimony of the 
 prophets, yet not completely understood by themselves, are 
 here in succession enumerated : — 
 
 1. The grace that should come unto you. 
 
 2. The sufferings of Christ. 
 
 3. The glory that should follow. 
 
 We may learn much by a close examination of these 
 three in their union and relations. A chain of three links 
 gives two joinings. We shall, in the first place, examine 
 the connection between the first and second, and afterwards 
 the connection between the second and third. 
 
 "The grace that should come unto you," and "the suffer- 
 ings of Christ," constitute the first pair. Here, however, 
 we shall gain much by a preliminary critical examination. 
 
SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION. • 291 
 
 In reofard to the first member, nothino; more is needed 
 than to omit the words printed in italics, not in the original 
 but inserted by the translators, — the words, " that should 
 come." They are not incorrect, but they are not necessary. 
 Let the clause run simply as it is in the Greek, " the grace 
 unto you." The second member runs in the very same 
 form ; and the connection between the two is somewhat 
 obscured by the change made in the translation. Let the 
 original form be restored and retained ; the clause will 
 then read, " the sufferings unto Christ." Thus, by a more 
 simple and rigid adherence to the original in sense and in 
 form, the relation between these two members — which, I 
 doubt not, the Spirit intended to exhibit — is made much 
 more manifest, — 
 
 The grace unto vou. 
 
 The sufferings unto Christ. 
 When these clauses are restored to the simplicity of the 
 Greek text, they exhibit in a very clear light the doctrine 
 of substitution. The grand characteristic of the divine plan, 
 as distinguished from all false religions, and all corruptions 
 of the true, is substitution of the just for the unjust. The 
 Redeemer takes the place of believing sinners, and they take 
 his. He assumes the sin-burden, and with it meets the 
 Judge ; they, freed from their sin, put on his righteousness, 
 and are therein accepted. This is the gospel. This is the 
 thing into which prophets, from Abel to the Baptist, dili- 
 gently inquired — into which angels strive to look. The 
 eternal Son is made sin for his people, and they become 
 the righteousness of God in him. 
 
 The first inexplicable mystery to prophets and angels is 
 " the grace unto you ; " and the second is " the sufferings 
 unto Christ." 
 
292 SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION. 
 
 Favour from God to the guilty : sufferings poured out on 
 the Holy One — these are the two great wonders on earth, 
 these the two great wonders in heaven. A case which 
 illustrates this aspect of the gospel occurs in Old Testa- 
 ment history. Joseph brings forward his two sons, that he 
 may obtain for them his father's blessing. As the Hebrews 
 counted much on the rights of the first-born, he carefully 
 led Manasseh, the elder, in his own left hand, that the 
 right hand of the aged patriarch might rest on his head ; 
 and Ephraim, the younger, in his right, to receive the 
 blessing through the left hand. But the aged prophet, 
 though blind, " crossed his hands wittingly," and laid his 
 right hand on the head of the younger, his left on the 
 head of the elder. Joseph, thinking his father had 
 blundered through blindness, took hold of his hands and 
 endeavoured to reverse the order according to his own idea 
 of primogeniture ; but his father, in the spirit of prophecy, 
 persisted in his own method, saying, " I know it, my son ; 
 I know it, my son," and gave the greater blessing to the 
 younger child, the lesser to the elder. So, when witnessing 
 angels beheld the goings of their God in the redemption of 
 fallen men, they failed to comprehend it. When they saw 
 the guilty rebels called forward to one side of the throne, 
 and the well-beloved of the Father to the other side, and 
 the Judge of all preparing to pour out his love and favour 
 on the rebels, and sufferings, the due of sin, upon his own 
 Son, we might imagine that they would be inclined rever- 
 ently, like Joseph, to say, " Not so, my Father ; for these 
 are the guilty, and he is the Holy One ; " and that the 
 Eternal Father would reply, " I know it, my children ; I 
 know it." Ah, he guided his hands wittingly when he 
 apportioned his own favour and love to the fallen whq 
 
SALVATION BY SUBSTITUTION. 293 
 
 believed, and the sufferings due to sin to his own beloved. 
 This was the fundamental feature of the eternal covenant. 
 The Son had said, " Save from going down to the pit, for I 
 have found a ransom;" and he added, I am the ransom found. 
 
 We need not be surprised that the method of redemption 
 here revealed does not commend itself to the wise of this 
 world, who view it only in the light of this world. It is 
 deep ; it is difficult. Prophets of old, who felt that the 
 revelation of it was passing through their own lips, were 
 amazed and staggered. They returned to the testimony 
 they had delivered, and searched it again. They strove 
 to comprehend what to their understanding seemed in- 
 comprehensible. Angels unfallen, too, who seem to have 
 obtained a glimpse of the facts, were unable to determine 
 the reason. This is eminently a spiritual thing. The 
 carnal mind cannot possibly know it. Yet God reveals it 
 unto babes. And it is interesting at this point to re- 
 member that the Lord Jesus, during his ministry on earth, 
 gave audible thanks to the Father in a strain of unusual 
 emotion and fervency for this very thing — " That thou hast 
 hid these things from the wise and prudent, and revealed 
 them unto babes." 
 
 This is the truth that is able to give peace to a troubled 
 conscience, as the word of Jesus settled the raging sea. 
 He has taken my place to bear and answer for sin ; and 
 he invites me to take his place, that his righteousness may 
 be mine, and I be accepted therein. He is not displeased, 
 but glad, when sinners take him at his word. 
 
VIII. 
 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 'The sufferings unto Christ, and the glories after these." — 1 Peter i. 11. 
 
 ARK now the junction of the second link with 
 the third, — the relation between "the sufferings 
 unto Christ " and " the glories after these." 
 The connection here is as deep and as signifi- 
 cant as in the other case. There are many glories in heaven 
 and earth not specially connected with the sufferings of 
 Christ. " There is a glory of the sun, and a glory of the 
 moon, and a glory of the stars." The various gradations 
 and tribes of living creatures, with their members and 
 faculties, wonderfully made, are evidences of the Creator's 
 wisdom and power. But none of these have any place 
 here. This is a glory of a different kind displayed on 
 another sphere, — a glory that excelleth. 
 
 The distinguishing characteristic of this glory is that it 
 springs from the sufferings of Christ, as flowers and fruit 
 spring from the root of a living tree. Peter deals here 
 exclusively with those glories that " follow " the sufferings 
 of Christ. No cross, no crown. 
 
 Although there had been no cross, there would have 
 been a glory to God from a fallen world. Righteous judg- 
 ment consuming all the guilty would have been a glory of 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN, 295 
 
 its kind, but not the specific glory that springs from the 
 atoning death of Christ. The honour to God that results 
 from destroying the works of the devil, and redeeming the 
 fallen family — magnifying the law, and yet setting free the 
 transgressors — cannot come before the cross, cannot come 
 without the cross. 
 
 It is fitted at once to inspire us with awe and to fill us 
 with gladness, to observe how great a place the suffering of 
 an innocent substitute holds in the Scriptures from their 
 commencement to their close. In the Old Testament 
 mainly by symbol, in the New mainly by direct revelation, 
 this one theme pervades the whole Bible. Take this away, 
 and you leave the book like a web when the warp-threads 
 have all been drawn out, — not a web at all, but a heap of 
 tangled threads. Those who cling to Christianity but re- 
 ject the cross, labour in vain. They can extract no glory 
 from its precepts and its examples if they take away the 
 " redemption by his blood ; " for all the precepts and ex- 
 amples are built on that one foundation. 
 
 Among the apostles, Peter was peculiarly qualified to 
 teach this doctrine. He received it in an extraordinary way. 
 Besides the ordinary method of instruction by his own 
 word, the Lord burnt this truth into his heart by the most 
 terrible rebuke that he ever addressed to friend or to foe. 
 When Peter, under the influence of true human tenderness, 
 indeed, but also of carnal human pride, ventured to depre- 
 cate the dying of the substitute, saying, " Far be this from 
 thee, Lord," the Master, not content to show him his mis- 
 take as on other occasions of error, flashed in his disciple's 
 face that flaming fire of reproof, '•' Get thee behind me, 
 Satan." It was thus that he was moved with indignation 
 when any one, either from open enmity or mistaken love, 
 
296 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 proposed to take away the cross, and so make impossible 
 the crown. Seeing the end from the beginning, the Lord 
 kept in the covenanted course — strove lawfully, that he 
 might win. " For the joy that was set before him, he 
 endured the cross ;" knowing that if the cross were not 
 endured, the glory could not follow. 
 
 On another occasion he gave his own suffering the same 
 fundamental place, although circumstances rendered the 
 expression more gentle. When two of his disciples pro- 
 posed to introduce him to some Greeks, he declined ; and 
 explained the reason why he would not consent to the in- 
 terview. The cultured Greeks, hearing of his fame, would 
 consent to be taught by the prophet of Nazareth, and carry 
 light from him to their own classic shores. But, like their 
 representatives in modern times, they would accept the 
 teaching of this prophet, and count it enough. On these 
 terms he refused to speak. His answer — sent at second- 
 hand — was, " Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground 
 and die, it abideth alone ; but if it fall into the ground 
 and die, it bringeth forth much fruit." This is precisely 
 the lesson that Peter teaches in our text. The fruit must 
 spring from the dying of the seed ; the glories must follow 
 the suffering's of Christ. That song of white-robed 
 worshippers around the throne is a glory to God in the 
 highest ; but the glory sprang from the cross, for these 
 are they that have washed their robes and made them 
 white in the blood of the Lamb. 
 
 The offence of the cross has not yet ceased. The extra- 
 ordinary fulness with which the atonement is taught in 
 Scripture, in connection with the persistent rejection of it 
 by the wisdom of this world, constitutes the evidence of 
 inspiration. The architect who laid the foundations of that 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 297 
 
 harbour-wall so deep and so broad — deeper and broader 
 than any passer-by would have deemed needful — must have 
 known the strength of the currents below and tempests 
 above to which, at certain seasons, his structure would be 
 exposed. The sufferings of the innocent substitute in the 
 room of the guilty occupy a place for depth and breadth 
 in the Scriptures corresponding to the strength of the wild 
 current that rushes asjainst them in modern times. 
 
IX. 
 
 JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 " Unto whom it was revealed, that not unto themselves, but unto us they did 
 minister the things, which are now reported unto you by them that have preached 
 the gospel unto you with the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven ; which things 
 the angels desire to look into." — 1 Peter i. 12. 
 
 jAVING examined the two junctures which these 
 three links present, and the two pairs which 
 are constituted by these three members, let 
 us now take a parting glance of the whole 
 in one view. 
 
 The grace unto you. 
 
 The sufferings unto Christ. 
 
 The glories after these. 
 
 Behold another example of that revealed mystery, — " On 
 either side one, and Jesus in the midst." When Christ was 
 crucified on Calvary, his cross was flanked right and left by 
 a sinner saved and a sinner lost. When his throne of judg- 
 ment is set, the same phenomenon will reappear, with this 
 difference, that instead of a single sample from either host, 
 the hosts will all be there. Here in this apostle's letter is 
 an exhibition most interestingly analogous. Who is this 
 that stands in the midst here ? It is Christ crucified ; — 
 " the sufferings unto Christ." On either side of that 
 central object is one, and who are they ? On one side 
 
JESUS IN THE MIDST. 299 
 
 favour to the sinful, on the other side glory to God ! From 
 the cross stream, right and left, these two distinct but 
 kindred glories — this way pardon to the guilty, that way 
 divine righteousness satisfied and adorned. On no other 
 root do these twin blossoms grow, on no other foundation 
 do these twin pillars stand. Hark, a melody, as the Spirit 
 breathes through the three distended strings of this harp, 
 — we have heard the song before. Then too it was Jesus 
 in the midst. The twin stanzas, radiating both like lioht 
 beams from the head of the Babe born in Bethlehem, are 
 " Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good-will 
 toward men." 
 
 A pictorial, an almost dramatic interest adheres to this 
 brief but pregnant portion of Peter's letter. We have already 
 pointed out, that making Christ crucified the centre, we 
 find the cross supported on either side by favour poured 
 on sinners and glory rising to God the Judge. These are 
 the more immediate surroundings. But extend the radius, 
 and you will find at the greater distance a parallel pair : 
 and the form still is, " On either side one, and Jesus in 
 the midst." Before verse eleventh, where the cross is 
 elevated, you find in verse tenth the prophets promising 
 Christ, and after it in verse twelfth the apostles proclaim- 
 ing him. 
 
 Here is the vision. In the centre stands a throne, and 
 " in the midst of the throne a Lamb, as it had been slain." 
 On the one side a line of prophets stretches from the steps 
 of the throne upwards to the creation of man ; for the Lord 
 never left himself without a witness on the earth. Latest 
 and greatest of the race, the Baptist stands nearest, 
 looking unto Jesus, and exclaiming, " Behold the Lamb of 
 God," Earliest and farthest off", on the eastern brink of 
 
300 JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 time, Abel may be descried, shedding the blood of his 
 sacrifice, and through it seeing Christ's day afar off. Hand 
 in hand they stand this long-drawn line of witnesses, pro- 
 mising a Saviour yet to come. On the other side of the 
 throne stand the chosen witnesses of the Lamb's death and 
 resurrection, reporting the great accomplished fact of the 
 Divine government and of human history, and preaching 
 glad tidings to the world through the power of the Holy 
 Ghost. From the cross in the midst a light streams up- 
 ward to the very gate of Eden, giving life and meaning to 
 all the sacrifices which, without it, would have been dull 
 and dead ; and downward, till the milder light of the first 
 coming meet the lightning flash of the second. All that 
 went before promised, He is coming ; all that follow report. 
 He has come. And so in him all the promises of God are 
 yea and Amen. 
 
 Incidentally here, an interesting feature of the gospel 
 emerges — " preaching " and " reporting " are identical. To 
 preach the gospel is substantially to report a fact. To tell 
 the now old, old story, and tell it so as to make it ever 
 new — this is the highest style of a gospel ministry. It is 
 finished. The Son of God became the Son of man, that he 
 might take our place, and that we might stand in his. He 
 gave himself, the just for the unjust. His invitation is, 
 " Whosoever will, let him come ; " and, " There is now no 
 condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus." 
 
 Yet another feature is added to the landscape — thrown 
 in near the outskirts, and communicating a tender setting- 
 sun-like glow to the whole canvas — " Which things the 
 angels desire to look into." These holy spiritual beings, 
 flames of fire though they be in ardent and intelligent 
 service to their Creator, could not fully comprehend the 
 
JESUS IN THE MIDST. 301 
 
 redemption of men. They lacked experience. In taking 
 up a difficult idea, no amount of intellectual acuteness can 
 make up for the want of having gone through the case 
 yourself. They had seen, I suppose, that their fellow- 
 creature man had fallen by sin, and yet that the fallen were 
 spared, forgiven, and restored to favour. In the fulness of 
 time they had seen the well-beloved of the Father, whom 
 they were wont to worship, forsaken of the Father, and by 
 wicked hands crucified and slain. This was beyond their 
 comprehension. They stood amazed before the mystery. 
 Saved men have another view-point, and can understand 
 all. Seen from their stand-point, this cloud dissolves into 
 light, and becomes a glory to God in the highest. 
 
 In the estuary of a great navigable river, between parallel 
 lines of green hills, a great number of buoys are seen 
 scattered over the surface of the water. You stand on the 
 neighbouring hill-top and see — see, but cannot understand. 
 Some of the buoys are large, some small ; some are white, 
 some are red ; some are near the shore, and some in mid- 
 channel. They seem to you as if they had fallen from the 
 clouds without order, meaning, or use. But come down 
 from that height ; get into a ship that is coming from 
 abroad and making its way home ; thread your way through 
 these signals right and left. You will see that they mark 
 the way for the voyager ; not the straight, but the deep 
 safe way from the outer ocean to the harbour-home. In 
 some such way might the angels, from their high place, be 
 unable to understand the way of life for the lost, and might 
 desire to descend, and get into our position, and share our 
 experience, so as to taste and see the goodness and wisdom 
 of God in the scheme of redemption. 
 
 In the earlier years of the current century, certain nehulw 
 
302 JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 — shreds of white, mist-like clouds — were familiar to 
 astronomers, hanging in the blue, far beyond the region 
 of our atmosphere — farther distant than the fixed stars. 
 What might these be ? Has a dull, creeping mould or 
 mildew tainted the purity of highest heaven ? At length 
 a new and more powerful instrument was turned in that 
 direction, and, lo, the clouds resolved themselves into in- 
 numerable separate stars — shining worlds so thickly strewn, 
 that in the aggregate they seemed a mildew spot on the 
 surface of the azure. If the angels, who are amazed at the 
 sight of sinners spared and the Holy One forsaken, could 
 get a glimpse of the same objects through our instruments 
 and with our eyes, the things that seemed anomalous spots 
 on the universal purity of the >Supreme would break out 
 into separate glories — glories that excelled all that they 
 had hitherto known. 
 
 Certain it is, that however bright the place of the saints' 
 eternal rest may be, " the Lamb is the light thereof." The 
 method and the means whereby the redemption of lost men 
 has been accomplished will be hereafter the chief study of 
 perfect creatures, and the brightest glory of the Creator 
 God. 
 
X. 
 
 OBEDIENT CHILDREN. 
 
 " \Yherefore gird up the loins of your mind, be sober, and hope to the end 
 for the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ ; 
 as obedient children, not fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts in 
 your ignorance." — 1 Peter i. 13, 14. 
 
 ETER, like his beloved brother Paul, was thor- 
 oughly familiar with the relation between doc- 
 trine and life. In the writings of both apostles 
 these two themes continually emerge in com- 
 pany ; nor is the mingling irregular or accidental. Every- 
 where they stand related as roots and fruits. Out of truth 
 revealed springs duty performed. Living faith shows 
 itself by the fruits which it bears ; and if it be barren, it 
 is accounted dead. 
 
 The link of connection in this passage is brought fully 
 into view : " Wherefore gird up the loins," etc. At this 
 point the teacher changes his theme, and launches into a 
 series of precepts for practice. In the preceding portion 
 we have a list of doctrines revealed, and in the subsequent 
 portion a list of duties enjoined. But it is not enough to 
 observe that these two lie near each other ; they are 
 welded into one like the links of a chain. 
 
 The long, connected series of doctrines contained in 
 verses 1—12 seem like the row of jars constituting an elec- 
 
304 OBEDIENT CHILDREN. 
 
 trie battery ; and the combined power of the whole is at 
 verse 13th discharged into the field of duty, in order there 
 to generate a force which will send a life spinning forward, 
 " fruitful in every good work." It is thus that doctrines 
 are always in Scripture utilized as the motive-power of 
 duty, according to the fundamental principle laid down by 
 Paul in Romans iii. 31:" Do we then make void the law 
 through faith ? God forbid : yea, we establish the law." 
 
 Activity, as opposed to indolence ; sobriety, as opposed 
 to vanity or vice ; and a cheerful hope, instead of a slug- 
 gish despondency, — these are the proper characteristics of 
 one who bears the name of Christ and hopes in his mercy. 
 
 The obedience demanded and expected in the gospel is 
 not the mere external act. Dead works do not serve the 
 living God. There is a body, indeed, but there is a soul 
 in it. The precept is not generally " obedient," but specif- 
 ically " as obedient children." A slave's obedience is not 
 accepted ; there must be a child's love. 
 
 We touch here, indeed, a fundamental characteristic of 
 the gospel. We do not first work our way into sonship. 
 We obtain sonship as a free gift; and then we work to 
 please the Giver, because we love him who first loved us. 
 A true child serves his father not from fear of punishment 
 or hope of reward, but spontaneously from love. It is the 
 child's delight to anticipate and fulfil his parent's wishes : 
 he would be wretched if he were prevented. This, as far 
 as things of time may be compared with those of eternity, 
 is the kind of obedience that our Father in heaven desires 
 and accepts. Thus the expression, " as obedient children," 
 is not merely a figure of speech, but a specific definition of 
 the thing required. Our Father is served by sons, not by 
 slaves, 
 
OBEDIENT CHILDREN. 305 
 
 A clause follows of great significance for ns — " Not 
 fashioning yourselves according to the former lusts." The 
 expression occurs only once elsewhere in the New Testa- 
 ment — Romans xii. 2, " Conformed to this world." It is a 
 word with a wide scope ; it is almost a picture. It pre- 
 sents a man bent on some particular pursuit, with body 
 and mind all alert, his eye looking and his hand stretching 
 in that direction. He is, moreover, girt and accoutred 
 expressly for this object ; as a diver or a hunter, each pre- 
 pared for his work. Ah, Christian, you are acting unlike 
 your name and place when you devote your mind and 
 your energies to worldly lusts ! But in this case a very 
 remarkable epithet is applied to these unworthy pleasures ; 
 they are called " the former lusts." A disciple of Christ is 
 past them ; they lie behind him now. He has done with 
 them. 
 
 An epoch is here marked in a human life, and some 
 parts of a man's experience are said to have passed before 
 it. The grand epoch which marks the dates of the civi- 
 lized world is the birth of Christ. We constantly employ 
 the letters a.d. (the year of our Lord) to mark the age of 
 events. It so happens that in a very precise sense this is 
 the epoch which Peter employs in the text. These lusts 
 were the pursuit of the people's life " before " some specific 
 event. And what event was that ? The birth of Christ 
 in themselves. Before Christ was formed in them, in their 
 regeneration, these lusts occupied them ; but after that 
 event, they were left behind. The apostle's exhortation is, 
 that these vain or vile pleasures should be left, as the tasks 
 of Egypt were left behind the Hebrews when the Red Sea 
 was placed between them and the house of bondage. 
 
 It is further said that it was " in their ignorance " that 
 
 (753) 20 
 
306 OBEDIENT CHILDREN. 
 
 these lusts had any power over them. A human soul 
 would not succumb to these ignoble masters, unless it were 
 void of understanding. Evil spirits, according to Paul, are 
 " rulers of the darkness of this world : " if the world were 
 not in darkness, they would not be permitted to rule. 
 When a irian is mastered by the appetite for wealth, it is 
 in ignorance. He says, " Soul, take thine ease ; thou hast 
 much goods laid up for many years." But the Lord re- 
 plies, " Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of 
 thee." 
 
 I have heard a reflection often expressed by thoughtful 
 country people when they saw a great draught horse 
 meekly submitting to be bridled and led away to labour 
 by a child : " Tf the brute creatures knew their own 
 strength, they would not submit to the yoke and the lash." 
 These mighty quadrupeds could trample down the stripling 
 that puts bits in their mouths. Yet they submit to what- 
 ever their master imposes, ignorant of their own strength. 
 Oh, if man, God's greatest creature, knew his strength, he 
 would not submit to be the slave of vile passions ! Strong 
 men in multitudes are in our country led not only to the 
 yoke, but even to the shambles, by the appetite of intem- 
 perance. This possessing spirit says to the right arm, Do 
 this, and he doeth it ; to the foot, Go thither, and he goeth. 
 Oh that these captives, driven openly in gangs, not through 
 the marshes of interior Africa, but along the streets of 
 British cities, were at last set free ! 
 
 Hear ye Him : " Come unto me, all ye that labour and 
 are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." Their Redeemer 
 is strong. " If the Son make you free, ye shall be free 
 indeed." 
 
XI. 
 
 BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 
 
 " But as he which hath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of 
 conversation ; because it is written, Be ye holy ; for I am holy. And if ye call 
 on the Father, who without respect of persons judgeth according to every man's 
 work, pass the time of your sojourning here in fear : forasmiich as ye know that 
 ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from yom- 
 vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers ; but with the preci- 
 ous blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." — 1 Peter 
 i. 15-1!). 
 
 T is an interesting study to search in the words 
 of the Lord Jesus for the germs of all the 
 doctrines which the apostles subsequently re- 
 peated and expanded. Peter intimates that it 
 was in " ignorance " that the former lusts retained their 
 power. He learned this from the Master at Jacob's well. 
 The Samaritan woman, previously to her interview with 
 Jesus, had led a wild, impure life ; but she knew no better 
 till that eventful day. The words of the Lord are very 
 full and precise on this point : " If thou knewest the gift 
 of God, and who it is that saith unto thee, Give me to 
 drink ; thou wouklst have asked of him, and he would 
 have given thee living water." 
 
 An invitation to holiness is enforced by an appeal to 
 the holiness of God. Here again the Master has given the 
 cue to his servant in one of the beatitudes, — " Blessed are 
 the pure in heart : for they shall see God." Mark the 
 
308 BOUGHT WITH A PRICE, 
 
 sweep of the precept : the compass is planted in the centre, 
 and the circle drawn round the circumference of a life. 
 The demand is, " Be holy in all manner of conversation." 
 The meaning is, in all your intercourse with men, in every 
 turning of your history. At home, or abroad ; with your 
 own family, or in presence of strangers ; at work, or enjoy- 
 ing relaxation ; at church, or in the market ; — wherever you 
 may be, or however employed, let lips and life be holiness 
 to the Lord. A life is like a stream issuing from a moun- 
 tain-lake. The water cannot be of different colours at 
 different places. It cannot be pure at one spot and turbid 
 a few yards further on. If the fountain be transparent, the 
 outflowing stream will be clear over all its breadth. The 
 holiness that is put on, as suitable at certain times and in 
 certain places, is not holiness ; it is hypocrisy. When the 
 streams of a life, as they dispread themselves over the 
 individual history, are found, like the waters of Jericho, 
 to be all bitter, it is not possible, by any medicament, to 
 sweeten portions of them here and there, where travellers 
 may be expected to taste them. There is only one way of 
 cure : a certain salt must be cast into the spring, and then 
 all the water that flows over its brim will be wholesome — 
 all wholesome alike. " Create in me a clean heart, God ; 
 and renew a right spirit within me." 
 
 The warning is addressed to the children of God's family ; 
 and the exhortation to sobriety is enforced by the con- 
 sideration that they salute as Father him who judges with- 
 out respect of persons. Neither mistrust of the Father nor 
 jealousy of any brother should have place in this house. 
 Favouritism is a fatal flaw in parental discipline. Seen, 
 or even suspected, it ruins all. But there is no such flaw 
 in the Divine administration. There is great variety of 
 
BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 309 
 
 treatment, indeed ; but all is regulated by wisdom and 
 love. Absolute confidence in the Father's fairness should 
 banish all fretting from the children's hearts. 
 
 This is not your home ; it is only a sojourn. The heirs, 
 detained for a time in a strange country, should be watch- 
 ful lest they contract relations and habits inconsistent with 
 their station and prospects. 
 
 To make their actual life solid and true, he bids them 
 remember that they have been redeemed. Here the melody 
 touches the key-note of all Scripture, — redemption is the 
 power that purifies and elevates a life. In entire accord- 
 ance with this representation, the aspect of redemption pre- 
 sented is deliverance from a frivolous course. True it is 
 that when any one is, in the gospel sense, " redeemed," he 
 is no longer under condemnation ; the sentence of guilt is 
 removed, and he is at peace with God. But an immediate 
 fruit and uniform accompaniment of that blood-bought 
 pardon is an emancipation from the bondage of vain and 
 vicious habits of life. " If the Son make you free, ye shall 
 be free indeed." 
 
 Those of the Christians who were of Jewish origin were 
 delivered from the intolerable load of rabbinical traditions 
 which had ensnared their consciences and fossilized their 
 lives ; and those who were converted Gentiles had escaped 
 the still more debasing idolatry of the heathen, whether 
 Phenician or Greek. 
 
 There was no emancipation without a ransom ; and the 
 price was not paid in silver and gold. In presence of the 
 ransom actually provided, even these are deemed " corrup- 
 tible things." Their souls were redeemed from death, and 
 their life on earth from vanity, by " the precious blood of 
 Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot." 
 
310 BOUGHT WITH A PEICE. 
 
 The expressions point to the Passover lamb and the exodus 
 from Egypt. Although Israel were a nation that God had 
 chosen and called, they languished in slavery, their days 
 were wasted in making bricks for their masters. Many 
 terrible judgments were sent upon Egypt ; but these strokes 
 did not break the captive's chain — they seemed only to 
 weld its links more firmly on his limbs. After the nine 
 plagues had come and gone, emancipation seemed as far 
 distant as ever. Then was the lamb's blood shed and 
 sprinkled on the lintels : a nation of slaves, helpless under 
 the tyrant's hand, but obedient to the word of the Re- 
 deemer, crept beneath the sprinkled blood at night, and 
 went out free with a high hand in the morning. 
 
 Beautiful and articulate symbol of the true redemption. 
 Terrors of the Lord in succession may tear the flesh and 
 dry up the bones ; a law work may keep the conscience 
 for years like the sea in a storm ; and yet there may be no 
 peace and no liberty. Without shedding of blood there is 
 no exodus, either to Israel or to us. The law may become 
 a schoolmaster to lead us to Christ ; but Christ only can 
 save. I suppose Saul of Tarsus was as much racked and 
 shaken by his self-righteous struggle as Egypt by the nine 
 plagues. The law of God on one side, with the long array 
 of merits on the other to meet it, — the circumcision, and 
 the birth, and the tithes, and the phylacteries, and the long- 
 prayers, and the persecuting zeal. There they fought, 
 these mighty adversaries, and poor Saul, body and soul, 
 was the battle-field for contending powers. " O wretched 
 man that I am !" At last came a peace as sudden and as 
 great as the calm that came over the Sea of Galilee when 
 Jesus said, "Peace, be still." But when he cast away all 
 his grand array of merits — cast them away with intense 
 
BOUGHT WITH A PRICE. 311 
 
 disgust — we do not find that he gathered up another list 
 o£ better attainments in their stead : " I count all but loss, 
 that I may luin Christ, and he found in Iviiii.'' In room 
 of all he obtained one only ; but that one was enough. He 
 learned first in his own experience what he afterwards 
 taught to the alarmed jailer, — " Believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
 
XII. 
 LOVE ON THE SPRING. 
 
 " Who verily was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was 
 manifest in these last times for you, who by him do believe in G-od, that I'aised 
 him up from the dead, and gave him glory ; that your faith and hope might be 
 in God. Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the 
 Spirit unto unfeigned love of the brethren, see that ye love one another with a 
 pure heart fervently : being born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incor- 
 ruptible, by the word of God, which liveth and abideth for ever." — 1 Peter i. 
 20-23. 
 
 LTHOUGH man was last in the order of creation, 
 he was also first, before all. It was not first 
 a fallible man, and then when he fell an in- 
 fallible Redeemer provided. First was the Re- 
 deemer, the Eternal Son. In his image, off" this model, man 
 was made. In order that he may be made high, he is 
 made free. But if he be made free, he will fall. What 
 then ? To prevent the possibility of falling, will he be 
 made low — on the level of the beasts, without a will ? 
 Will he be created, beautiful and glorious indeed, like the 
 stars, but, like them, without the power of choosing, and 
 obliged to be obedient to physical laws whether he will or 
 not ? No ; he shall be made high, so that when he falls, 
 and is redeemed, he will be a glory to God far greater 
 than any that the heavens or the earth declare. 
 
 As in regard to the resurrection (1 Cor. xv. 23), so in 
 regard to the original foreordination. It is " Christ the 
 first fruits ; afterwards they that are Christ's." It is not 
 
LOVE ON THE SPRING. 313 
 
 that God created the planets, and then, finding them dark 
 and cold, subsequently provided a sun to afford them light 
 and heat. Rather, he made a sun for his own glory, and 
 scattered satellites around him, that they might circulate 
 and shine in his light. 
 
 In the eternal covenant it is first Christ, and then man, 
 with his constitution and his history, to wait upon Christ, 
 as the planets wait upon the sun, receiving his light and 
 reflecting his glory. Foreordained before the world was, 
 the Redeemer was " made manifest in these last times for 
 you." The times we live in are the last. For those who 
 despise the ministry of the Spirit now showing the things 
 of Christ, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sin, no 
 other refuge for sinners. 
 
 We have here a very short but very comprehensive 
 creed. " For you, who by him do believe in God." It is 
 parallel with the one given by the Lord himself {John 
 xiv. 1): "Ye believe in God; believe also in me." The 
 whole matter lies there : come unto God the Father, but 
 come in Christ, the Mediator between God and man. " No 
 man cometh unto the Father but by me ; " and, on the 
 analogy of Scripture, we may safely add. No man will be 
 cast out or kept out who comes in this way to the Father. 
 
 We again approach a practical exhortation, and it is a 
 most interesting study to observe how it is surrounded and 
 enforced. This apostle would no more think of laying 
 down a duty without a divine doctrine to enforce it, than 
 an engineer would think of erecting a mill-wheel without 
 a stream of water to drive it round. 
 
 The precept in this case is, " Love one another with a 
 pure heart fervently." It is a duty that is very difficult, 
 very necessary, and, when performed, very precious. Be- 
 
314 LOVE ON THE SPRING. 
 
 fore we speak of the precept itself, let us carefully observe 
 how it is flanked on either side for support. Although 
 the moral precepts of Scripture are higher and purer and 
 fuller than any other, they differ from other systems, not 
 so much in their nature as in the motives by which they 
 are enforced. When they propose to throw a suspension 
 bridge across a river, far more labour and cost are laid out 
 in providing the sustaining pillars on either side than in 
 constructing the actual roadway between them. So here 
 it is easy to say, " Love one another ; " but such is the 
 strain which this command puts on human life, that it 
 cannot be supported unless there be faith in doctrines that 
 are divine. More depends on the pillars that support the 
 chain than on the chain itself. 
 
 On the one side the j^recept here is supported by, 
 " Seeing ye have purified your souls in obeying the truth 
 through the Spirit ; " and on the other by, " Being born 
 again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
 word of God." Unless these two piers had stood on either 
 bank of the river, founded on the living rock below, the 
 slight rainbow-like line could never have been suspended 
 in the sky. Brother-love may be held up if it is attached 
 on the one side to the consciousness of having purified our 
 souls by the truth applied by the Spirit ; and on the other 
 side to the consciousness of having been born again of the 
 incorruptible seed. Nothing less and nothing else is able 
 to bear the strain. 
 
 The structure of the argument might even be presented 
 to the eye on a printed page, thus :— 
 
 Seeing ye have puri- n ^ ^j / Being born again, not 
 
 fied your 'souls in obey. ) Love one another | «£ corruptible seed, but of 
 
 ing the truth through the ( , '^^^^'^ « ^«^^ \ incorruptible, by the word 
 
 Spii-it, ) heart fervently: I ^f God. 
 
LOVE ON THE SPRING. 315 
 
 These two pillars repeat each other, Avith differences in 
 minor features, as was meet. Both express the new birth, 
 and the means by which it is accomplished. In the first, 
 however, man's own activity is more prominently presented ; 
 and in the second, God's sovereign power. The same dif- 
 ference may be observed between the parable of the 
 Prodigal, which presents the human side of redemption, 
 where man is active, and the parable of the Lost Sheep, 
 which presents the Divine side, where the Kedeemer 
 does all. 
 
 The instrumentality of conversion is in both cases sub- 
 stantially the same — the word and Spirit of God. 
 
 In the precept itself there is one feature which demands 
 and will repay a careful examination. The term " fer- 
 vently," although it gives the meaning of the original, is 
 not a literal translation. It means extended, or on the 
 stretch. It conveys the idea of a constant tension such as 
 is supplied in machinery by a steel spring. In one depart- 
 ment of a sewing machine all depends on the thread being 
 kept constantly tight, so that the moment any slackness 
 occurs, the loose portion is picked up instantly and without 
 fail. If that operation were left dependent on the watch- 
 fulness and quickness of a human operator, it would en- 
 tirely fail. The worker would grow weary, w^ould forget, 
 would hasten to tighten the thread after the time w^as 
 past, and all would go to wreck and ruin. But by en- 
 trusting the watch and the work to a bent elastic steel 
 wire, an absolute infallibility is secured. The watcher 
 never forgets, the w^orker never wearies. The work is 
 done perfectly, and always done at the right moment. 
 The spring is alw^ays on the stretch, and never misses. 
 Though it is obliged to watch the slackening, and pull the 
 
316 LOVE ON THE SPRING, 
 
 thread instantly tight, a hundred times a minute, all day 
 long for twenty years, it never once forgets or fails. 
 
 The precept requires a love of this sort — watching and 
 working in a Christian's heart. If you need to remember 
 your duty every time that a sudden injury occurs, you 
 will not be in time with the soft answer that turns away 
 wrath. Before love has gathered itself up, and determined 
 on its course, the opportunity will be past. The disciple 
 of Christ will appear as irascible, passionate, and revenge- 
 ful as other men. There must be a spring — a law of love 
 set once for all as a faculty of the new heart, that will 
 operate instantaneously and uniformly. 
 
 The disciples thought it was a burdensome and irksome 
 task to forgive an injurer seventy times seven injuries. 
 Such indeed it would be, if you needed every time to 
 reason the matter out and spur yourself on to duty. If 
 the spring is not on, loops will fall, and the M^eb wall be 
 spoilt. But the spring-love, once inserted as a faculty of 
 the regenerated heart, will catch and keep every oppor- 
 tunity like a law of nature. 
 
XIII, 
 
 MAN AND HIS GLORY. 
 
 " For all flesh is as gi-ass, and all the gloi-y of man as the flower of grass. 
 The grass witliereth, and the flower thereof falleth away : but the word of the 
 Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the gospel is preached 
 unto you."— 1 Peter i. 24, 25. \ 
 
 HESE verses institute a comparison and bring 
 
 out a contrast between the natural life and the 
 
 spiritual. Every son of man is 6or% into one 
 
 life, and every son of God is bom again into 
 
 another. There is a mystery in every man, but a greater 
 
 mystery in every Christian. Nature is deep, but grace 
 
 is deeper. 
 
 This is not a contrast between the carnal and the spiri- 
 tual mind. Of these it cannot be said that the one is 
 short-lived and the other enduring. Spirit does not die, 
 whether good or evil. The two lives brought into contrast 
 here are the natural life of man in the body, which soon 
 fades away, and the new life of the regenerated, which will 
 for ever flourish. These two lives are not in all their 
 aspects opposite, for the same person may at the same time 
 possess both. When a man is born of the Spirit, he is not 
 then and thereby stripped of the life which belongs to the 
 flesh. Every child of God, from the day of his conversion 
 till the day of his death, possesses and enjoys both. He 
 
318 MAN AND HIS GLORY. 
 
 holds them, however, by different tenures : the first or 
 natural life will soon depart ; but the new or spiritual life 
 will be his for ever. The " word of God," as the seed of 
 the new life in believers, " endureth for ever." That word 
 is " Christ in you, the hope of glory." 
 
 The analogy employed is exact and full and beautiful : 
 " All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the 
 flower of grass." The figure fits so well that we may ven- 
 ture to make a close inspection, and institute a minute 
 analysis. The comparison of human life generally to the 
 herbage of spring contains two distinct but corresponding 
 parts, expressed in the usual manner of Hebrew poetry. 
 First, we have the simple, broad, and comprehensive inti- 
 mation, " All flesh is as grass ; " and then a more special 
 analogy rising out of it, as the flower springs from the 
 stalk, " The glory of man is as the flower of grass." Man 
 is like the grass, and his glory like its flower. Life is 
 short, and the period of its perfect development is shorter 
 still. 
 
 The analogy in its first and more general form requires 
 scarcely any exposition ; no comparison could be more true, 
 or more obvious. Mankind are like the herbage of sum- 
 mer, which will wither at the turn of the year, although 
 no accident befall it, and is liable to be crushed before its 
 time by a wild beast's foot, or cut through by the mower's 
 scythe. A human life passes through the same stages as 
 the herbage of a season : it has a growing spring, a ripen- 
 ing summer, and a fading autumn. The history of a man 
 consists of a gradual growing to maturity, and a gradual 
 declining to the grave. Such is his best estate, when no 
 accident cuts him ofl" in mid-time of his days. This is the 
 mirror which truly reflects the image of " all flesh." So 
 
MAN AND HIS GLORY. 319 
 
 pass the threescore and ten years which sum np the pil- 
 grimage. It is like a dream when one awaketh : it seems 
 very small when it is nearly done. 
 
 But if this is true of the flesh — the sensitive nature which 
 man has in common with the brutes — what shall be said 
 of all his distinguishing features as a moral and intelligent 
 being ? AlthouQ-h the mere flesh is evanescent, what of 
 the glory wherewith his Maker has crowned his head ? 
 The text has two things to say of this glory, — the first, 
 that it greatly excels in worth and beauty the animal 
 structure on which it grows ; the second, that it is still 
 more short-lived. If all flesh be as grass, all its glory is 
 only as the flovjer of grass. Two characteristic features 
 distinguish the flower from the herbao^e, — OTeater brilli- 
 ance, and a shorter day. The herbage lives long and grows 
 far ere the blossom appears ; and the blossom, although 
 more beautiful than the supporting stalk, fades and dies 
 before it. The flower is indeed the glory of the grass ; 
 but it comes up later, and withers earlier. What shall we 
 say, then, of all that is peculiar to man — of all that dis- 
 tinguishes him from the beasts of the field — of that human 
 face divine, and that articulate speech, and that calculat- 
 ing mind, which mark him ofl" as chief of God's creatures 
 here and ruler of his world ? Can the glor}^ of man be 
 compared to the herbage as well as his sentient nature ? 
 No ; for though it is more brilliant while it lasts, it is 
 sooner over. The distinguishing excellence of human 
 nature is not like the grass ; it is only like the flower of 
 grass. 
 
 Beauty of form is one of the distinguishing glories of 
 humanity. In our species beauty of person is the rule -and 
 tendency of nature, although particular features in indi- 
 
320 MAN AND HIS GLORY. 
 
 viduals may by various accidents be more or less obscured. 
 It has pleased God our Father so to arrange the features 
 o£ our frame, and so to constitute our minds, that we count 
 them comely. We admire the flower of the herbage, and 
 devoutly see in it the Creator's wisdom. Shall we not 
 look with deeper interest on a lighted human countenance, 
 and see in that glory of man a glory to the Lord ? Loathe 
 as much as you will the moral depravity which converts 
 all a Father's gifts into instruments of evil, but reverently 
 acknowledge the mark of his fingers in the model of 
 man. 
 
 This glory does not last long. It is a flower- — fragrant, 
 attractive ; but it withers soon. Man's life is short, but 
 the glory which grows on it is shorter. The flower is later 
 blown and earlier faded than the frail green stem that 
 bears it. 
 
 But the beauty of the new creature in Christ does not 
 fade like a flower. It is an interesting speculation — 
 though it can be nothing more— to imagine the beauty of 
 man unfallen. The peculiar sweetness sometimes imparted 
 to the countenance of an ordinary person by the sudden 
 influx of a " great peace " in periods of spiritual revival, 
 suggests the probability that we lost by sin an external 
 loveliness so great that we lack now the power of conceiv- 
 ing fully what it was. But, great though the loss be, 
 Christians sorrow not over it as those who have no hope ; 
 for their gain is greater. Where sin abounded to mar, 
 grace will much more abound to renew. Whatever is lost 
 by sin is more than restored by redemption. The risen 
 Christ is glorious, and risen Christians will be like him. 
 Humanity redeemed will be humanity perfect. As the 
 idea of man in the mind of God from eternity, will be the 
 
MAN AND HIS GLORY. 321 
 
 man who shall stand before the white throne, accepted in 
 the Beloved. 
 
 I would fain realize the beauty of the resurrection body, 
 as well as the spiritual purity of the saints in light. How 
 beautiful man will be when there is no longer any seed of 
 corruption in his body, or any enmity to God in his soul ! 
 I think a true Christian sometimes halts painfully in his 
 pilgrimage for want of this ingredient in his hope. The 
 redemption of the soul is indeed the most precious ; thereon 
 all other blessings depend ; but among the good things 
 that go in its train, the perfection of the redeemed body is 
 a consoling hope — a consolation which Christians greatly 
 need in this vale of tears. " How bright these glorious 
 spirits shine ! " Yea ; but when Christ's work is completed, 
 they will be embodied spirits. How bright these glori- 
 ous bodies will shine also, when mortality shall be swal- 
 lowed up of life ! 
 
 (753) 21 
 
XIV. 
 "CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY." 
 
 But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which 
 by the gospel is preached unto you." — 1 Peter i. 25. 
 
 N contrast with the fleeting life of man, " the 
 word of the Lord endureth for ever." Every 
 creature after its kind. The life that springs 
 from the word will, like its origin, be immortal. 
 But we cannot reach the full meanino' of the message 
 here, if we think only of the written word, or even of the 
 mind or meaning which the Holy Spirit expresses thereby. 
 These are only the clothing : it is Christ himself that is 
 wrapped therein, and presented to us. It is from John 
 that we learn most fully the relation of the Scriptures to 
 Christ. " The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among 
 us." The corn of wheat which must fall into the ground 
 and die is the speaker himself. He was at once the 
 sower and the seed ; he was at once the offerer and the 
 sacrifice. 
 
 Nowhere else does the prophecy of the text find its full 
 meaning. The Word that endureth for ever is the Word 
 that was with God, and was God. This comes out with 
 great clearness and force in the example of his own preach- 
 ing in the synagogue of Nazareth recorded in the Gospels 
 (Luke iv. 16-21). When he had read the text from the 
 
CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY. 323 
 
 Scriptures, he closed the book and gave it back to the 
 attendant. As soon as the book had delivered its message, 
 it was laid aside, and ho presented himself to the congre- 
 gation as the fulfilment of the prophecy. His sermon con- 
 sisted in permitting the prophet to pronounce the promise, 
 and then exhibiting himself as its fulfilment. No other 
 preac'her, either false or true, ever acted thus. To do so 
 would in any mere man be a measure of pride and arro- 
 gance that even the boldest has never attained. Only He 
 whom the Father sent into the world could stand in that 
 breach. The weight would crush any creature. This alone 
 is proof of his divinity. If any should dare to assume that 
 position, the height would make him giddy, and his life 
 would reel into all manner of extravagance. 
 
 Again, referring to the ostentatious assiduity with which 
 the Jewish doctors searched the letter of the Scriptures, he 
 tells them that in so doing they allow the kernel to slip 
 through their hands, while they vainly strive to live upon 
 the shell : they — the Scriptures — ■" are they that testify of 
 me ; and ye will not come unto me that ye may have life." 
 From the beginning to the end the Scriptures are the 
 vehicle which contain and convey and deliver Christ. 
 Christ in the Scriptures revealed is the Word of God, — - 
 the mind of God toward lost men, expressed and em- 
 bodied. 
 
 The same central truth is taught in many places and in 
 many forms by the Lord : thus, " He that eateth me shall 
 live by me ;" "I am the vine, ye are the branches." 
 
 " And this is the Word which is gospelled unto you." It 
 is not so many doctrines, and so many precepts, logically 
 strung together and intellectually understood. It is the 
 ever-enduring Word that is given by God, and accepted in 
 
324 CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY. 
 
 faitli by man. When the Lord articulately on appeal de- 
 cerned between the sisters Martha and Mary, the distinction 
 he drew was between the many not needful and the one 
 needful. His judgment is, " Of one there is need ;" and 
 Mary had fixed her choice on the one when she sat at his 
 feet. In the case of Paul, too, it is made marvellously 
 clear that what God gave, and he accepted, was the Word 
 in person. Taught by the Spirit at length, he flung away 
 all his long-cherished righteousnesses, naming them one 
 by one, and casting them away with loathing as filthy 
 rags. But when he comes to tell of the new portion 
 for his soul that he obtained instead of his cast -off 
 merits, he does not give a list of many good things that 
 took the place of the evil ; he counted all loss for Christ 
 (Phil. iii. 7). 
 
 It is this that constitutes the " gospel " — the good news. 
 No number of good things would serve our turn. " There 
 is need of one." But that one is enough. It is finished : 
 He hath done it all. All things are yours, if ye are Christ's. 
 
 But the gospel is preached " unto you." Unless we per- 
 sonally, one by one, appropriate for ourselves " the gift of 
 God," there is no transaction. It is not Christ in heaven, 
 Christ in the Bible, Christ in the confession, but Christ 
 in you, that is the living hope of glory. The expression 
 here is parallel with that which is employed in the report 
 of Philip's address to the Ethiopian treasurer — " He 
 preached unto him Jesus." On both sides the parallel 
 holds good ; both subject and object are identical. What 
 did Philip preach ? Jesus ; that is, as represented by Peter, 
 the ever -enduring Word. How did Philip preach that 
 Word ? " Unto him." So here, " unto you." 
 
 This is a great and pressing point. It is, indeed, the 
 
CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY. 325 
 
 turning-point. In the sphere of life it is the article of a 
 standing or a falling man, as in the sphere of doctrine 
 justification is the article of a standing or a falling Church. 
 In some countries and at some periods there has been a 
 disastrous divorce of these two whom God hath joined. 
 Sometimes there has been much preaching of Jesus — of the 
 Word — without the application of the truth to persons. It 
 seems to have been the gospel poured into the air, and not 
 " unto you." The expression conveys the conception of a 
 human soul beino- the vessel into which the eternal Word 
 is poured. Now, though the Word be preached truly and 
 abundantly over all the land, it will save only those into 
 whom it is poured. Though much water be poured out, it 
 will not benefit the vessel that stands shut, and empty, and 
 dry. It is the old, plain truth : " Believe in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and thou shalt be saved." The two essentials are 
 the Christ and thou ; that which saves is Christ unto thee. 
 It is parallel with the Lord's own word to Peter, " Simon, 
 son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" 
 
 The spiritual quickening which is spreading over the 
 land, and arresting the regard both of the Church and the 
 world, touches mainly this point. It is not a greater or a 
 better gospel, but the old gospel more specifically pressed 
 home upon persons. It is the gospel unto you. In as 
 far as there is an advance, I think it lies very much in 
 this, — that Christ is brought into contact with the individ- 
 ual soul, and these two are left to wrestle, like Jacob and 
 the angel. The Christ " apprehends " the lost man as the 
 shepherd grasped the lost sheep when at last he found it, — 
 apprehends him, and will not let him go : the lost man, 
 conscious that the Christ is " apprehending " him, conceives 
 from that fact a new hope, and, in turn, " apprehends " his 
 
326 CHRIST IN YOU THE HOPE OF GLORY, 
 
 Apprehencler, with the life and death cry, " I will not let 
 thee go, except thou bless me." The King suffers this 
 violence, and delights to suffer it ; and the violent gain 
 Him by this force. Hence the frequent glad announce- 
 ment, as the wrestler emerges from the conflict, " I have 
 found Christ." 
 
XY. 
 THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. 
 
 " Wherefore laying aside all malice, and all guile, and hypocrisies, and envies, 
 and all evil speakings, as newborn babes, desu-e the sincere milk of the word, 
 that ye may grow thereby." — 1 Peter ii. 1, 2. 
 
 HIS is not a converting word, but a word for the 
 
 converted. Here are precepts for practice. The 
 
 deep things of God, both in the covenant of 
 
 grace and in the conversion of men, have been 
 
 fully set forth. But these are not left merely as the 
 
 materials of a creed ; they are employed as the power that 
 
 shall purify the life. 
 
 The particle " wherefore " is the visible link that con- 
 nects doctrine and practice. Ye have been forgiven and 
 renewed ; therefore put off the evil and put on the good, 
 " Ye are bought with a price ; therefore glorify God in your 
 body, and in your spirit, which are his." " Let every man 
 that hath this hope in him purify himself even as he is 
 pure." 
 
 In accordance with the facts of human experience, and 
 with the whole analogy of faith, the precept here is two- 
 sided. It points at once to the evil that must be discarded, 
 and the good that must be admitted in its stead. That 
 which has first possession must be expelled, in order that 
 the faculties of the new man may have room to expand 
 
328 THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. 
 
 and operate. Following the order of nature, the apostle 
 first names the tenants in possession, and serves them with 
 a writ of ejectment. 
 
 These are arranged in three compartments, with the 
 universal " all " attached to each. 
 
 1. All malice. 
 
 2. All guile, and hypocrisies, and envies. 
 
 3. All evil speakings. 
 
 The first term is general. It indicates the soil in which 
 the roots of bitterness grow — badness. The group of three 
 under the second head represent evil thoughts teeming in- 
 the heart, like invisible seeds that lie in the ground ready 
 to spring up on the first favourable opportunity. And the 
 third is the issue of the inner thoughts by the readiest 
 channel upon the outward life. 
 
 Alas, evil speaking floods the world as some weeds cover 
 the fields in early summer ! My heart was made sad in 
 some journeys last year, as I saw many large tracts of 
 grain almost hidden by a yellow sea of flowering weeds. 
 For the time you think it is not possible that any of the 
 corn can come to perfection. Even there, however, a har- 
 vest is reaped ; but the harvest would have been heavier, 
 if the fields had been clean. Evil speaking, like one 
 dominant weed, covers the surface of society, and chokes 
 in great measure the growth of the good seed. 
 
 Christians, ye are God's husbandry — ploughed field : put 
 away these bitter things in their seed-thoughts and in their 
 matured actions, that ye may be fruitful unto him. If the 
 multitude of words spoken by professing Christians in dis- 
 paragement of their neighbours were reduced first by the 
 omission of all that is not strictly true and fair ; and next 
 by the omission of all that is not spoken with a good object 
 
THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. 329 
 
 in view ; and next by the omission of all that, though 
 spoken with a good intention, is unwisely spoken, and 
 mischievous in its results ; — the remainder would, like 
 Gideon's army, be very small in number, but very select in 
 kind. The residuum would consist only of the testimony 
 of true men against wickedness, which truth and faithful- 
 ness, as in God's sight, compelled them to utter. 
 
 The positive precept that follows is conceived and ex- 
 pressed in the form of a most interesting and obvious 
 analogy. " As newborn babes, desire the sincere milk of 
 the word." The terms translated milk of the word cer- 
 tainly and simply mean, milk not in a literal but spiritual 
 sense. It is the same epithet that is employed (Rom. xii. 1) 
 to signify that the service or divine worship expected from 
 Christians is not material offerings of sheep and goats, but 
 a reasonable^ — -that is, a spiritual in contradistinction from 
 a material — service. It is an act of the human soul, wor- 
 shipping God a Spirit, through faith in the one Mediator. 
 So here, in making use of the word milk, the apostle does 
 not leave it to be inferred, he expressly intimates that it 
 is spiritual milk he means. And by further introducing 
 " babes " into the analogy, he more clearly explains his 
 meaning to be the food provided and suited for the young 
 spiritual life, corresponding to the food provided in nature 
 for a new-born child. 
 
 Spiritual hunger and thirst are as real as the correspond- 
 ing appetites of the body, and as commanding. Saul of 
 Tarsus, when that new hunger began its cravings in his soul, 
 abandoned material food and drink for three whole days. 
 The spiritual hunger was stronger than the natural, and 
 overbore it. Such also was the experience of the Master 
 himself when " he waited at the well of Jacob." Thousj-h 
 
830 THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE, 
 
 hungry, he declined to eat the bread his disciples offered, 
 because his appetite for another bread overbore and for the 
 time silenced the appetites of nature. He was so satisfied 
 with the act of imparting salvation to a lost sinner, that he 
 forgot to eat his daily bread. 
 
 So then the prescription which this beloved physician 
 administers to invalids is spiritual or soul milk. We are 
 not at a loss to understand his meaning ; for Christ has 
 presented himself alike to the newly converted and the 
 experienced as the food whereby they must live and grow, 
 " Except ye eat the flesh and drink the blood of the Son of 
 man, ye have no life in you." As new-born babes desire 
 the milk, and drink it, so the born again come to the Word, 
 and get out of his fulness the supply of all their need. 
 
 Observe now the relation in which the negative and the 
 positive stand to each other. Although the precept about 
 putting off first meets our eye on the page, the act is not 
 represented as taking precedence in point of time. It is 
 neither first put off the evil, and then admit the good ; nor 
 first take in the good, and then get quit of the evil. The 
 lano-uao-e of the text determines that the two acts are 
 strictly simultaneous. The form of the sentence is — " Lay- 
 ing aside these, desire this." This is scientifically correct 
 as well as scripturally true. The coming of Christ unto 
 his own — to the throne of a human heart — " is like the 
 morning." And how does the mornino- come ? Is it first 
 that the light comes, and then the darkness departs? or 
 first the darkness departs, and then the light advances ? 
 It is neither. As the light advances, the darkness recedes. 
 The processes are strictly simultaneous ; but in nature the 
 advance of light is the cause, and the departure of darkness 
 the effect. Such, also, is the rule in the spiritual sphere. 
 
THE BANE AND THE ANTIDOTE. 331 
 
 It is indeed true that evil must depart to let in the good ; 
 but it is the advance of the good that drives the evil before 
 it. Christ is the stronger who overcomes the strong, and 
 casts him out, and reigns in his stead. 
 
 To take in the milk and retain also the envies and evil 
 speakings, will give neither comfort nor growth. The 
 effort to mingle these opposites mars the happiness of many 
 a life, and distorts all its testimony for the truth of the 
 gospel. To pour in the milk on the head of these manifold 
 corruptions still retained and cherished, produces neither 
 health nor strength. The milk so mingled sours, and so 
 disturbs. No man can serve two masters. As David's 
 house waxes stronger, the house of the deposed and apos- 
 tate monarch must wax more feeble. 
 
XVI. 
 LIVING STONES. 
 
 " If so be ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. To whom coming, as unto 
 a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye 
 also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer 
 up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ." — 1 Peter ii. 3-5. 
 
 ERE Peter walks closely in the Master's footsteps. 
 He intimates that all his exj)ectation of growth 
 in the new life of his friends depends on their 
 experience of forgiving love in their own hearts. 
 He proceeds on the supposition that they have " tasted that 
 the Lord is gracious ;" otherwise he has no expectation of 
 fruit. So taught the Lord himself, when he said, with 
 reference to the relation between the vine and its branches, 
 " Without me ye can do nothing." The actual performance 
 of duty depends on the receiving of pardon, as an effect 
 depends on its cause. In the gospel it is not, Do in God's 
 service, then and therefore you will receive from him ; it 
 is, Receive from him, then and therefore you will be enabled 
 to serve him. It is the branch in the vine that is fruitful. 
 In the affluent imagery of this fisherman apostle, we are 
 introduced somewhat suddenly here to a new analogy. 
 Dismissing the conception of infants with their sure strong- 
 instincts for their mother's milk as the means of life and 
 growth, he steps with all the ease of a master into the 
 
LIVING STONES. 333 
 
 widely different yet perfectly congruous conception of a 
 house growing from its foundation to its summit, by the 
 preparation and piling up of many stones. The figures 
 here crowd upon one another, and yet all contribute to the 
 exactitude and completeness of the idea. To the notion of 
 many stones constituting one edifice, is added the idea of 
 life in each separate stone, and the consequent increase of 
 the edifice being a spontaneous growth instead of an opera- 
 tion performed on inanimate matter. And then the con- 
 ception of a priesthood is added to that of the temple in 
 which they serve, that another aspect of the kingdom may 
 be included in the picture. 
 
 " To whom coming." This is in harmony with the whole 
 gospel. It is always and everywhere, " Come unto me." 
 The corresponding complaint of the Lord against the Jews 
 is, " Ye will not come unto me that ye may have life." 
 But here the " coming " is applied to a stone, that enters as 
 a constituent of an edifice. The figure requires that we 
 should conceive of a stone carried to the spot by human 
 hands. So much the worse for the figure if it make any 
 such demand. We are learning here at the feet of a teacher 
 who is bent, not on maintaining the rules of rhetoric, but 
 on conveying to men's minds the saving truth of the gospel. 
 The form must yield to the substance. When nature fails 
 to convey the whole lesson, the lacking part will be given 
 contrary to nature ; and so the stones are " living stones." 
 They represent living souls, — a people made willing in a 
 day of Divine power ; therefore the rhetorical unity of the 
 analogy must be broken, in order to maintain the unity of 
 the faith. 
 
 Both the rock which constitutes the foundation, and the 
 stones which are laid on it, are living. The Christ to whom 
 
334 LIVING STONES. 
 
 they come, and they who come to him, are living stones ; 
 and thus the house grows, like the vine and its branches. 
 As the vine grows into the branch and feeds it, and the 
 branch grows into the vine and draws from it sustenance, 
 so the living foundation attracts the stones, and the stones, 
 by that mysterious attraction made living, come to the 
 foundation, and grow into an holy temple. 
 
 It is worthy of notice here that the growth of a tree and 
 the construction of an edifice are very closely and very 
 frequently united in the Scriptures, in order to exhibit the 
 nature and result of the new life in a soul. We give two 
 specimens, one from the Old Testament and the other from 
 the New : " That our sons may be as plants grown up in 
 their youth ; that our daughters may be as corner stones, 
 polished after the similitude of a palace" (Ps. cxliv. 12). 
 "Ye are God's husbandry; ye are God's building" (1 Cor. 
 iii. 9). 
 
 The foundation chosen by God was rejected by men. 
 He came unto his own, and his own received him not. 
 This rejection by the Jews was indeed the preconcerted 
 mark by which the faithful should recognize the Messiah, 
 " He was rejected and despised of men." On this founda- 
 tion resting, each living stone is a temple, and all the living 
 stones together constitute the universal Church. 
 
 As Christ himself is at once the oflferer and the sacrifice, 
 so a Christian is at once the temple where God condescends 
 to dwell, and the consecrated priest who presents offerings 
 there. Ye offer up spiritual sacrifices. In the Epistle to 
 the Romans, we find that the bodies of believers — this life, 
 with all its faculties and powers — are the living sacrifices 
 that God will accept at the offerer's hands, as distinguished 
 from the dead offerings of a former dispensation. 
 
LIVING STONES. 335 
 
 Two qualities in New Testament worship go to make it 
 acceptable. One is, the offerings must be spiritual, not 
 material ; the other is, they must be presented through the 
 one Mediator between God and man. Only spiritual offer- 
 ings can be acceptable. Bodily service has no merit. No 
 amount of material gifts contributed can avail the opulent 
 worshipper, and no degree of self-inflicted torture can avail 
 the devotee who is courageous but poor. Vestments and 
 candles and incense are out of place under the gospel. God 
 does not regard them ; they have no value in his sight, 
 except a value on the wrong side, as marking men who 
 have departed from the simplicity of Christ. Beware, ye 
 who labour in the fires to produce these mechanical and 
 dead sacrifices. The answer prepared for your appeal is, — - 
 " Who hath required this at your hands ?" God calls for 
 spiritual sacrifices. Christ taught with marvellous clearness 
 that under the New Dispensation the acceptance of worship 
 does not depend on place and form, but that men must 
 everywhere worship in spirit and in truth. It is the human 
 soul, in contact with the Father of our spirits, worshipping, 
 loving, serving,^ — this only is acceptable. 
 
 But even this, in order to be acceptable, must be all pre- 
 sented always through the one Mediator between God and 
 man. The office of the Holy Spirit in the word is to take 
 of the things of Christ and show them unto us. Here is a 
 thing of Christ which the Spirit clearly shows. He is the 
 Daysman, laying his hand upon both, to obtain acceptance 
 for our worship or work. Even the most spiritual sacrifices 
 are acceptable only through Jesus Christ. 
 
 The announcement from above is, " Lo ! I am with you 
 alway." Let our heart's answer echo up to him that 
 speaketh — "Even so, come, Lord Jesus." It is not his 
 
336 LIVING STONES. 
 
 name as a dead letter in our creed, or his name as a sound 
 at the termination of our prayer, but himself in simple 
 faith accepted, dwelling in our hearts, and ever presented 
 unto God as our righteousness, not only when we bow the 
 knee in prayer, but also in all the turnings of life. " Which 
 hope we have as an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast, 
 within the veil." Let the line be ever tight that unites 
 the ship tossed on the sea of time to the anchor within the 
 veil, until the soul, saved from shipwreck, get an abundant 
 entrance into the Lord's presence, and so the need of an 
 anchor be felt no more. 
 
XVII. 
 
 "ON EITHER SIDE ONE; AND JESUS IN 
 THE MIDST." 
 
 " Wherefore also it is contained in the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief 
 corner stone, elect, precious : and he that believeth on him shall not be con- 
 founded. Unto you therefore which believe he is precious ; but unto them 
 which be disobedient, the stone which the builders disallowed, the same is made 
 the head of the corner, and a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to 
 them which stumble at the word, being disobedient : whereunto also they were 
 appointed."—! Peter ii. G-8. 
 
 HE Scriptures did not determine the provisions 
 and character of the covenant of grace : rather, 
 the provisions and character of the covenant, 
 arranofed in the Divine counsel before time 
 began, gave shape to the promises and ordinances of Scrip- 
 ture. Because matters were so ordered in the plan of 
 salvation, therefore also that same ordering was given in 
 the Scriptures. In particular, because, in the purpose of 
 God, the eternal Son undertook to redeem his people, the 
 promises of his coming were given in the prophets, to keep 
 the eye of faith from the beginning ever looking unto 
 Jesus. 
 
 The eternal God has laid this foundation : we need not 
 fear to trust it. He hath done all things well. It was 
 laid in Zion : it pleased God to select one family, and con- 
 stitute them the custodiers of his oracles, for distribution 
 through the world in the fulness of time. 
 
 (753) 22 
 
338 ON EITHER SIDE ONE ; AND JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 The chief corner stone is chosen and precious. The word 
 means dear, as in tlie case of the centurion's servant, who 
 was dear unto his master. The well-beloved of the Father 
 was chosen for this service, and sent into the world. Much 
 of the power which the gospel exercises on stony hearts to 
 break and melt them lies here. God spared not his own 
 Son : the gift was, in human language, unspeakable. It is 
 the preciousness of his gift that imparts power to his invi- 
 tation. As soon as an anxious inquirer realizes that God, 
 in order to save a soul from death, gave up his Well-beloved, 
 the melting begins, and the hard stony heart flows down 
 like water. It is not that God was hard and unforo-ivins^ 
 until Christ, by his suffering in our stead, propitiated his 
 favour. This conception grasps even the glorious gospel 
 by the wrong end, and turns it upside down, — turns the 
 truth into a lie. The opposite is the truth. Such was the 
 love of the Father to the lost, that he spared not his dear 
 Son, but gave him up to die, the just for the unjust. The 
 mercy of God to sinners is the cause, not the effect, of the 
 incarnation and sacrifice of the Son. 
 
 " He that believeth on him shall not be confounded." It 
 seems to point to the flutter and confusion that must over- 
 take the guilty at the appearing of the Judge. Those 
 guests who wore the wedding garment were not put about 
 when the footfall of the king was heard approaching. They 
 were adorned with the robe that the king himself had 
 chosen, prescribed, and bestowed. They knew that he 
 would be well pleased with his own. This is the shadow 
 of that confidence which calms and keeps the hearts of 
 believers when they have put on Christ. They know that 
 God is well pleased with his own beloved. There is no 
 confusion of face for those who are found in him. " There 
 
ON EITHER SIDE ONE ; AND JESUS IN THE MIDST 339 
 
 is therefore now no condemnation to them that are in 
 Christ Jesus." 
 
 It was well for Paul that he cast away with loathing 
 the long array of merits in which he formerly trusted. 
 For if he had been placed before the great white throne 
 with those filthy rags for covering — his birth and baptism, 
 his orthodoxy and his zeal^ — he would certainly have been 
 confounded in the presence of the Judge. He learned in 
 time to loathe these filthy rags, and he passionately put 
 them off, counting them loss for Christ, his new portion, — 
 his only and sufficient righteousness. 
 
 Nor is it merely a confidence in the great day ; it is also 
 a firm footing and a glad song at every stage of the 
 pilgrimage on earth. Alas, the life -course of a sinner 
 unforgiven is like the flutter and fright of a painful dream, 
 where the feet sink in mire at every step, — -where the 
 opening is so narrow that you cannot pass through, and 
 you experience a sense of suffocation as you vainly repeat 
 the effort. 
 
 I observe with glad gratitude that no other condition is 
 attached to this confidence than the one — believe on him. 
 The Spirit has not said. If you belong to this or that 
 ecclesiastical corporation, or have received ordinances at the 
 hands of self-styled successors of the apostles, you shall not 
 be confounded. I admire the liberty wherewith the Son 
 has made his people free. He that believeth on him — this 
 condition, and none other ! In presence of this divine 
 decision, seen like the sun in its own light, how can a 
 puny, ignorant, sinful man, strutting about in an authority 
 derived only from equally puny, ignorant, and sinful men 
 who lived before him, dare to set up other conditions of 
 peace with God ! 
 
340 ON EITHER SIDE ONE ; AND JESUS IN THE MIDST. 
 
 " Unto you therefore which beheve he is precious." He 
 is now summing up the results of the preceding argument. 
 The term here is not the same as that which is rendered 
 " precious " in verse 4th, There it is the adjective ; here 
 it is the corresponding noun, and means " the price." It is 
 the word employed to designate the thirty pieces of silver 
 (Matt, xxvii. 6); "it is the price of blood." It is true that 
 Christ is " precious " to them that believe ; but more than 
 that lies in the word. He is their price — the price paid 
 for them, and by which they were redeemed. They were, 
 according to Luther's rendering, "bought dear;" and he 
 who became their ransom is, in the other and cognate sense 
 of the term, " dear " to their hearts. 
 
 It is eminently worthy of notice that over against 
 " believe " in verse 6th stands, not its exact correlative 
 " unbelieving," but " disobedient." They who receive Christ 
 believe : you would expect to read conversely, they who 
 reject him are unbelieving ; but instead, you read that they 
 are disobedient. People raise a great debate upon the 
 question whether a man is responsible for his belief, and 
 whether he can be condemned for not believing. Quietly 
 this debate is all quashed here by the representation that 
 unbelief is disobedience. Unbelief is indeed the root, but 
 the outgrowth is disobedience. As you can more easily 
 push over a tree by applying force to its lofty head, than by 
 acting on its stem near the ground, so the matter is more 
 easily settled by reckoning unbelief as disobedience. This 
 is a matter which we must leave with the conscience of the 
 individual. Sincere inquirers after truth, God will hear 
 and guide ; those who cannot believe, because they have in 
 their hearts a foregone conclusion that they will not obey, 
 God will judge. Every man is his brother's keeper, for 
 
ON EITHER SIDE ONE ; AND JESUS IN THE MIDST. 341 
 
 loving, patient effort to lead him into truth ; but no man is 
 his neighbour's judge. To his own master he standeth or 
 falleth. 
 
 In regard to the expression, " Whereunto they were 
 appointed," all that I can suggest towards its interpretation 
 is, that it corresponds with and balances the clause in verse 
 6th, " I lay in Sion a chief corner stone." The same word 
 is employed in both clauses. " Appoint " here is not the 
 word which signifies choose, or determine. It is simply 
 place, or lay down. The two clauses are the complements 
 of each other. He who lays down the corner stone, also 
 lays down these men in their lives before it. He places 
 them in each other's way. Whatever may be taught else- 
 where in Scripture on cognate topics, as far as I can see, all 
 this passage teaches is, that the corner stone, and these 
 rejecters, were by God placed reciprocally in each other's 
 path. The stone is set before them, and they are set before 
 it. There is no possibility of evading a decision. This 
 stone must be to them one of two — must be either the 
 foundation on which a believer's hope shall securely rest, 
 or the stone that in judgment will fall upon them and 
 crush them as enemies. " Choose ye this day whom ye 
 will serve : as for me and my house, we will serve the 
 Lord." 
 
XYIII. 
 "THE LORD'S PEOPLE, THE LORD'S TREASURE." 
 
 " But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, 
 a peculiar people." — 1 Peter ii. 9. 
 
 HE last of these four expresses the aim or object 
 pursued and attained ; and the three preceding- 
 reveal the steps or means by which that end 
 is reached. We shall accordingly examine the 
 last first. The central object here is the special designa- 
 tion given to the Lord's redeemed as his " peculiar people." 
 On this point in the middle we must plant our compass, if 
 we would trace to any good effect the circumference of the 
 verse, explaining alike what goes before and what follows. 
 At this stage the view-point of the observer is changed. 
 Hitherto we have been considering redemption as some 
 good thing which we obtain from God ; now we must think 
 of it as some G,'Ood thinsf that God obtains for himself. In 
 this case the Good Shepherd has lost some of his own 
 sheep. He is not willing to want them. He leaves the un- 
 strayed safe on the pasture, and goes after the wanderers 
 until he find them ; and when he has found them, he bears 
 them back rejoicing. 
 
 Some years since the son of a wealthy English family 
 was seized by a band of robbers while he was making a 
 
THE LORDS PEOPLE, THE LORDS TREASURE. 343 
 
 tour in the moimtains of Greece. Through some mis- 
 management the ransom demanded was not promptly paid, 
 and the men, in revenge, killed their captive. There was 
 a great deal of trouble with the Government of Greece ; 
 but nothing could restore their beloved child to his be- 
 reaved family. They had agreed to pay the stipulated 
 sum, and they remained inconsolable because that ransom, 
 instead of reaching the robbers, returned to their own 
 hands. Their money came back, but they lost their son. 
 
 More recently, a young man was similarly captured and 
 held to ransom by bandits in Italy. The parents, in this 
 case, succeeded in paying the price, and redeeming their 
 son. From this completed transaction two distinct joys 
 sprang — one, the joy of the child in gaining his liberty ; 
 the other, the joy of the parents in obtaining their 
 child. 
 
 Hitherto we have been thinking of redemption through 
 grace as the first of these joys; now we think of it as the 
 second. In the preceding verses we have stood on the 
 view-point of the ransomed captive ; now we stand on the 
 view-point of God who redeems. " This my son was dead, 
 and is alive again ; was lost, and is found." 
 
 Literally and fully the expression is, " A people for his 
 peculiar property." The idea is transferred from the Old 
 Testament : " Now therefore, if ye will obey my voice 
 indeed, and keep my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar 
 treasure unto me above all people " (Ex. xix. 5). 
 
 The word " peculiar," by which the thought is expressed 
 in English, we derive directly through the Latin, and the 
 use of the term in the secular life of the Romans will 
 throw light on its meaning here in the spiritual sphere. 
 The system of slavery prevailed in the Roman Empire. It 
 
344 THE lord's PEOPLE, THE LORD'S TREASURE. 
 
 interpenetrated all society. An elaborate code of laws had 
 sprung up to regulate its complicated and unnatural rela- 
 tions. The slave, when he fell into slavery, lost all. He 
 became the property of his master. But if he served faith- 
 fully, law and custom permitted him to acquire private 
 property through his own skill or industry. A man might, 
 for example, hire himself from his owner, paying him so 
 much a day. He might then employ himself in art or 
 even merchandise, and if successful, might soon accumulate 
 a considerable sum. Some slaves, in this manner, pur- 
 chased their own liberty, and raised themselves to a high 
 position. Now the savings of a slave, after satisfying the 
 demands of the master, were called his ijemilium. The 
 law protected him in his right to this property. It may 
 be supposed to have been very dear to the poor man. It 
 constituted his sole anchor of hope. He cherished it ac- 
 cordingly. From this a conception and expression have 
 been borrowed to show the kind of ownership that God is 
 pleased to claim in the persons who have been won back to 
 'himself after they were lost. 
 
 He had made man in his own image and for himself. 
 For him he had formed and furnished the world. Man, 
 made last, made best, was the chief of the Creator's works. 
 That chosen, cherished portion was lost and enslaved. The 
 Father was not content to leave his child a captive in the 
 enemy's hands. He provided a ransom. The ransom was 
 paid. The slaves set free returned in number and purity 
 like dew-drops from the womb of the morning. The 
 darkened and denuded heavens were studded again with 
 stars. The portion regained became deai'er than ever to 
 the Redeemer. These sons and daughters of the Lord 
 Almighty became a " peculiar people." They were God's 
 
THE LORDS PEOPLE, THE LORDS TREASURE. 345 
 
 own cherished treasure in a closer sense than any other 
 creature of his hand. 
 
 The same language is frequently employed in the New 
 Testament, to indicate that while all other beings and 
 things belong to God, human sinners redeemed by the blood 
 of Christ are in a higher sense his own — the treasure in 
 which he delights. When Paul is commending the church 
 at Ephesus to the special care of its own elders, he reminds 
 them that God had purchased that church as his own 
 peculiar treasure, by the price of the R.edeemer's blood. 
 The circumstance that they are so peculiarly precious to the 
 Lord that bought them, is given as the strongest reason 
 why the under-shepherds should faithfully feed the flock. 
 
 While therefore it is right to stand on the earth below 
 and look up to redemption as a boon which the ransomed 
 obtain, it is right also, in proper place and time, to reverse 
 the view, — to come up higher, and look as the Redeemer 
 looks upon the portion he has won. Those whom he has. 
 bought with his blood are his treasure, his portion, his 
 reward. He rejoices over them with a joy that is unspeakr 
 able and full of glory. He keeps them as the apple of his 
 eye. It is a great thing that my Redeemer is mine ; but it 
 is still a greater, if I can attain to it, that I am his. 
 
XIX. 
 
 THE WAY AND THE FRUITS OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 " But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation ; that ye 
 should show forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into 
 his marvellous light." — 1 Peter ii. !). 
 
 E proceed now to trace in this scripture the steps 
 by which this great end is attained. The 
 goings of the Lord are glorious — the goings by 
 which he achieves for himself his own peculiar 
 possession. The steps as written here are three : " A 
 chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation." 
 Father, Son, and Spirit appear working here. In that same 
 eternal counsel where the constitution of man was deter- 
 mined, the redemption was provided too. There is more 
 in the purpose of redemption than pity for the perishing. 
 It is much to learn that God is merciful, and that the gift 
 of Christ is the outcome and the evidence of his compassion. 
 That is deep ; but a deeper lies beneath it. It was good 
 for the lost sheep that through the pity of the tender 
 shepherd it was brought back to the fold ; bat it was 
 better for the owner that he got back his own. There are 
 two revolutions of the earth, a less and a larger. It re- 
 volves round itself, and it revolves also round the sun. To 
 revolve round its own axis is great, but to circulate round 
 the central sun is inexpressibly greater. In some such 
 
THE WAY AND THE FRUITS OF REDEMPTION. 347 
 
 manner and proportions seem related the two gains — the 
 train of the ransomed when he is saved from death, and the 
 gain of the Redeemer when he wins his treasure. 
 
 1. "A chosen generation," or race. This is the begin- 
 ning. The spring of all is in the Father's purpose. 
 
 2. "A royal priesthood." The Mediator's hand is re- 
 vealed here. This is the Daysman's place. He makes 
 them kings and priests unto God. They are accepted in 
 the Beloved, and in his birthright they reign. 
 
 8. " An holy nation." This is the work of the Sancti- 
 fier. The baptism of the Spirit cleanses. This is " the 
 washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy 
 Ghost." 
 
 Chosen by the Father, this is the favoured race ; ran- 
 somed by the Son, their guilt is taken away, and they are 
 delivered from bondage ; sanctified by the Spirit, they are 
 meet for heaven. These three steps in the same order are 
 exhibited in the Lord's intercessory prayer (John xvii. G), — 
 
 " Thine they were " = a chosen generation. 
 
 " Thou gavest them me " = a royal priesthood. 
 
 " They have kept thy word " = an holy nation. 
 I suppose Peter listened while the Master spoke that prayer 
 aloud. It was there he found the germs of the grand 
 theology which he teaches here. These Galileans were not 
 original in their conceptions and dogmas. They teach 
 us in their Epistles what they learned at the feet of 
 Jesus. 
 
 To what uses will he put his peculiar and cherished 
 property, now that he has obtained it at a great price. 
 His intention in that regard is written here at length, 
 " That ye should show forth the praises of him who hath 
 called you out of darkness into his marvellous light." This 
 
348 THE WAY AND THE FRUITS OF REDEMPTION. 
 
 is the uniform testimony of Scripture. " Arise, shine ; for 
 thy light is come." " Father, I am glorified in them." 
 " Epistles of Jesus Christ, known and read of all 
 men." 
 
 That ye should show — should " angel forth " — his praise. 
 Do it with your lips, where and when an opportunity may 
 occur, as when the Lord directed the restored maniac to 
 tell them of his own house what great things God had 
 done for him. But in any case the delivered captives 
 should in their lives be witnesses to the Lord that bought 
 them. Israel, after the exodus, turned the great facts of 
 their deliverance into psalms. So here, the experiences 
 through which the saved are led are suggested as the 
 material of their praise. He hath effectually called us out 
 of darkness into his own marvellous light. Say this, and 
 sing it too. They have been called out of darkness ere 
 their mirth began : while they were in the darkness they 
 did not sing about it. Before they heard his call they 
 spake nothing in his praise : as long as they were deaf- 
 they were also dumb. They make a song about the dark- 
 ness after they are in the light. Israel made psalms on 
 Pharaoh and his warriors after they saw them sink as lead 
 in the mighty waters. 
 
 Suppose a person has been born and has passed his life 
 hitherto in the recesses of a mine. He may have heard 
 companions telling of a glorious light in the heavens, and 
 a lovely landscape spread out beneath it. Some diin con- 
 ceptions the captive may have entertained of day, based on 
 multiplying many times in conception the oil lamps that 
 guided his steps in the narrow galleries. But when at last 
 he is brought up " out of darkness into light," he learns 
 the meaning of both. He sings now intelligently, for the 
 
•THE WAY AND THE FRUITS OF REDEMPTION. 349 
 
 first time, both of the darkness from which he has escaped, 
 and of the light into which he has come. 
 
 The redeemed of the Lord, when they are brought out 
 of darkness, behold the Light of Life in the face of Jesus. 
 It is that light off the face of Jesus streaming down into 
 their dungeon that drives the darkness away. 
 
XX. 
 
 THE WARFARE. 
 
 " Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly 
 lusts, which war against the soul." — 1 Peter ii. 11. 
 
 ERE we suddenly step down again into the arena 
 of practical duty, — the conflict which must be 
 waged through life against multiform vice. 
 But, Peter, you gave us an exhortation on that 
 head a few lines further up. After the practical warning, 
 " Laying aside all malice," etc., you led us into the deep 
 doctrines of the covenant, and made us almost forget that 
 there is still a world and wickedness. Again you revert 
 at a spring to the old subject, " Abstain from fleshly lusts." 
 Has the ardent apostle forgotten, and glided ofl" the track ? 
 No ; he knows where he is : he is about the Master's busi- 
 ness. " The Lord said unto Peter, I have prayed for thee 
 
 When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren." 
 
 He is in the act of obeying that injunction now. He 
 knows by bitter experience, that after making a good con- 
 fession, a man's heart, if left to itself, will fall again into 
 deep sin. " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living 
 God." Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-jona ; that is a grand 
 and full confession. But Simon's warfare is not yet ac- 
 complished. He thought it was ; but he was mistaken. 
 
THE WARFARE. 351 
 
 " Though all men forsake thee, yet wiU not I." Hear him! 
 He is hallooino: before he is out of the wood. The next 
 time you meet him, he is cursing and swearing: "I know 
 not the man." This time the apostle does not fall into the 
 mistake of counting the battle won as soon as the soldier 
 has got his armour on. He returns to the charge, on the 
 assumption that the enemy is not dead yet. Another 
 blow : " Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and 
 pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the 
 . 
 
 His doctrinal discussions are always followed up by 
 warnings and precepts for practice. Like other good 
 soldiers, he takes advantage of everything that promises to 
 further his object. Human affections are pressed into the 
 service : " Dearly beloved." The power of love is like 
 the power of gravity. It surrounds the greatest, and yet 
 grasps the least. It keeps a mountain steady on its base, 
 and balances a dew-drop on a blade of grass. How often 
 do human beings labour in the fires to accomplish their 
 objects, and fail for want of this greatest ally ! This is as 
 if manufacturers should abandon steam, and revert to the 
 strength of human arms. Love will do effective service at 
 every turn, and on any material. Call love to your aid, 
 and it would be hard to say what barrier you will not 
 surmount. 
 
 " As strangers and pilgrims." Another weight thrown 
 in to increase the vantage on the side of right. In mili- 
 tary monarchies it has always been the policy to employ 
 the soldiers far from home. When the Austrian Empire 
 was a conglomerate of many nationalities, German regi- 
 ments were sent to campaign in Italy, and Italians served 
 in Germany. When the men had not a home to care for, 
 
352 THE WARFARE. 
 
 they were more completely at the disposal of their leaders. 
 This is Peter's idea here. Christians are not at home in 
 the world. There is less to distract them. They should 
 be better soldiers of Jesus Christ. The more loose their 
 hearts are to the earth, the more firm will be the anchor of 
 their souls on high. Conversely, the more they are at- 
 tached to their home in heaven, the less will they be 
 entangled with the wealth and the pleasures of the world. 
 The same contrast is exhibited by Paul when he brings the 
 two classes together, in order to exhibit their opposite 
 courses and ends. This class mind earthly things ; that 
 class, on the contrary, have their citizenship in heaven 
 (Phil. iii. 18-20). 
 
 These desires that belong to the flesh are adversaries of 
 the soul. There is a difference between a war and a battle. 
 It is not a random stroke ; it is warfare on a plan. A 
 battle may be won, and yet the victor be overcome ere the 
 war be over. The first French emperor gained several 
 great battles in the Russian campaign ; but his army was 
 not only vanquished, it was almost annihilated in the end. 
 It is thus that certain appetites and passions, although 
 once and again overcome by a resolute will, return to the 
 charge, and watch their opportunity. It is not a battle, 
 and done with it ; the vanquished foe often enslaves his 
 conqueror. A young man in modern society must do 
 battle for his life with strong; drink. He can taste it 
 freely and sto]3 in time. He despises the weak who seek 
 safety in flight and abstinence. He knows what is good 
 for him, and will not allow himself to be overcome. He 
 obtains a good many victories, and counts himself invul- 
 nerable. But the wily foe persists. By little and little a 
 diseased thirst is generated. The enemy now has an ac- 
 
THE WARFARE. 353 
 
 complice within the castle gates ; and in the end the strong 
 man, like Samson with his eyes out, grinds darkling in his 
 enslaver's prison. 
 
 For the Lord's redeemed it is not a hardship but rather 
 a privilege to be strangers and pilgrims. The last step of 
 the pilgrimage is the entrance into home. If here we have 
 no continuing city, all the more intently will we seek one 
 to come. If this is not our rest because it is polluted, into 
 the rest that remaineth for the people of God nothing shall 
 enter that defileth. " Fear not, little flock ; for it is your 
 Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom." 
 
 (753) 23 
 
XXI. 
 
 THE WITNESS OF A PURE LIFE. 
 
 "Having your conversation honest among the Gentiles: that, whereas they 
 speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your good works, which they shall 
 behold, glorify God in the day of visitation. Submit yourselves to every ordin- 
 ance of man for the Lord's sake." — 1 Peter ii. 12, 1-3. 
 
 AVING your conversation honest." Both terms 
 need .some explanation. Both words come 
 from the Latin, and have in process of time 
 greatly changed their meaning. In modern 
 English, conversation means the talking of two or more per- 
 sons with each other ; but the sense in the text is, the whole 
 habit and life-course of a person, — his character, and temper, 
 and conduct in presence of his fellows. You are exposed 
 now on this side and now on that, — now to one observer and 
 now to another. See that the whole circumference of your 
 life be wise and pure and true. At all times, and in all 
 circumstances, walk circumspectly, for you never know 
 who may be looking on. The modern ineaning of honest 
 is, that 3^ou do not cheat in a bargain ; but as used here, 
 and in ancient times generally, it signifies beautiful, — first 
 a material and then a moral winsomeness. These two 
 terms in conjunction convey the precept, Let all the cir- 
 cumference of your life shine in the beauty of holiness. 
 Alas ! bid tins dull earth shine like a star of heaven ! 
 
THE WITNESS OF A PURE LIFE. 355 
 
 There is nothing impossible there. In very deed this 
 opaque globe does shine as a star, not a whit behind its 
 neighbours in brightness, when it receives and reflects the 
 sunbeams. To have commanded the house of Israel to 
 shine as a light to surrounding nations would have been 
 an impossible requirement, if the precept had not been 
 mated with a promise. But as the record runs, it is a 
 reasonable service that is demanded : " Arise, shine ; for 
 thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon 
 thee" (Isa. Ix. 1). 
 
 This precept given by Peter is on l)oth its sides the echo 
 of Isaiah's words. A light is needed because darkness 
 reisfns around. Peter desiderates a beautiful life amonsr 
 the Gentiles ; and Isaiah expects that, when Israel basks 
 in the favour of God, the Gentiles shall come to their light. 
 It was in the same spirit that the Lord promised to the 
 eleven before the Pentecost, " Ye shall receive power, after 
 that the Holy Ghost is come upon you : and ye shall be 
 witnesses unto me." 
 
 The nations sat in darkness, and the disciples of Christ 
 were commissioned to go out as lights in the world. One 
 day, the people of Lystra brought a garlanded ox, and 
 would have sacrificed to Paul as a god ; another day they 
 stoned him, and left him for dead. Such was heathenism 
 at its best. 
 
 It is a characteristic of true faith that it has positive 
 hope. It does not despair even when things are at the 
 worst, for it trusts in God. It is not enough that the 
 primitive disciples should repel surrounding, assailing evil, 
 and hold their own. They expect to make aggression and 
 to gain a victory ; to turn scoffs into hymns of praise, and 
 enemies of Christ into zealous disciples : " That, whereas 
 
356 THE WITNESS OF A PURE LIFE. 
 
 they speak against you as evil-doers, they may by your 
 good works, which they shall behold, glorify God in the 
 day of visitation." 
 
 It is not by the loudest debate and profession that these 
 conquests can be made. It is not by what Christians say, 
 but by what Christians are, that they can win the neigh- 
 bourhood. The call is not so much to give evidence, as 
 to be witnesses. What the adversaries see will be more 
 effectual to convert them than what they hear. It is by 
 their " walk " that Paul distinguished certain persons at 
 Philippi as enemies of the cross of Christ ; and it is by their 
 walk that true disciples may most effectually challenge 
 recognition as its real friends. 
 
 Still further the precepts run down into detail. Sub- 
 mission to magistrates is prescribed as a Christian duty. 
 Considering the time and the circumstances, this is a re- 
 markable feature of the New Testament Scriptures. They 
 are in favour of authority, but not of tyranny. The 
 gospel fosters liberty, but does not suggest insurrection. 
 Witness the emigration of the persecuted Puritans from 
 England to America. These men would not resist consti- 
 tuted authority ; but neither would they allow themselves 
 to be crushed by a despot, as long as a remedy, which they 
 could with a good conscience adopt, lay within their reach. 
 The results will tell with decisive effect on the future con- 
 dition of the human race. 
 
 Ordinances of man should be obeyed, but they stand not 
 on the same level with ordinances of God. Divine laws 
 that directly appeal to the individual conscience must be 
 obeyed absolutely and at all hazards ; ordinances enacted 
 by the civil legislature are binding also when they do not 
 come in conflict with a higher law, If any man resist a 
 
THE WITNESS OF A PURE LIFE. 357 
 
 civil enactment, regularly made and enforced, it is at his 
 own peril. He must in that case make very sure that the 
 law of God forbids obedience. 
 
 The principle that we must obey God rather than man, 
 is precious not only as a religious truth, but as the firmest 
 safeguard of national liberty. But there is an application 
 of that principle in vogue in some quarters of Europe 
 which is a caricature of truth and decency. When the 
 Pope issues an order to the subjects of a king, or the 
 citizens of a commonwealth, which is directly at variance 
 with the laws of the State, and Papists claim the liberty of 
 obeying their spiritual head in defiance of their country's 
 law, under authority of the rule. Obey God rather than 
 man, they offer an insult to the common sense of the com- 
 munity, and to the real authority of the divine Word. It 
 seems degrading to the dignity of human nature to be 
 obliged even to maintain an argument on this question. 
 The citizen who profanely identifies the random and pas- 
 sionate assertion of a foreign priest with the word of the 
 living God addressed to the souls that he has made, does 
 not deserve an answer. When he violates the " ordinance 
 of man "—the legal statutes of the constituted authorities 
 — on such grounds, he must even be left in prison to 
 meditate on the consequences of his crime. 
 
 How honest old Peter would have stared, if any one had 
 proposed a qualifying clause at this point of his Epistle, to 
 the effect that any one should be at liberty to resist the 
 ordinance, provided a priest in Rome, claiming to be Peter's 
 successor, gave him permission ! 
 
XXIL 
 THE SCRIPTUEES SANCTION CIVIL AUTHORITY. 
 
 "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake: whether 
 it be to the king, as supreme ; or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by 
 him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well. 
 For so is the will of God, that with well-doing ye may put to silence the ignor- 
 ance of foolish men : as free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of malicious- 
 ness, but as the servants of God." — 1 Peter ii. 13-16. 
 
 HE passage 11—16 is a group of practical pre- 
 cepts. In a preceding portion Peter had taught 
 the doctrines, — " What man should believe con- 
 cerning God." Here he applies himself to 
 conduct, — "What duty God requires of men." Observe in 
 what manner the Scriptures teach and enforce morals. 
 The rules are specific and minute ; but these, if left alone, 
 would lack power — they would remain dead letters. In 
 order to give life and force to his precepts, the apostle 
 binds them at every joint not only to religion, but to God. 
 Four times in this little bundle of precepts the personal 
 living God comes in as the present power to enforce obe- 
 dience : — 
 
 Verse 1 2. " That they may glorify God.'' 
 Verse 13. "For the Lord's sake." 
 Verse 15. " For so is the will of God." 
 Verse IG. "As the servants of God." 
 A great sheet is let down, full of miscellaneous duties, knit 
 
THE SCRIPTUEES SANCTION CIVIL AUTHORITY. 359 
 
 at the four corners, not to heaven merely, but to the living 
 God. This Bible stands alone ; no book at all approaches 
 it. It brino-s God as close to the whole of human life as 
 the air is to the surface of the earth and the bodies of men; 
 and this not in terror but in paternal love. Christ is the 
 mediator, and he is the sfift of God to the lost. It is not 
 that a sacrifice was offered in order to deliver the guilty 
 from punishment, and leave him in a place of safety. The 
 Deliverer abides with his redeemed for hope and holiness : 
 " Lo, I am with you alway" — always to sustain, direct, and 
 comfort. 
 
 God desires to be not only the author of a salvation sent 
 from heaven, and the receiver of the ransomed into rest, 
 but also to be in the life of his people here, compassing 
 them about with his favour, as the air, and supplying them 
 with the breath of life. Like the veins interspersed through 
 a leaf to strengthen its weak points, the peace of God runs 
 through a Christian's life, to keep his heart and mind. 
 
 The motive supplied refines and elevates the duty, how- 
 ever lowly may be the sphere of its exercise. Do it for 
 the Lord's sake ; and then the life is sublime, though it be 
 worn out in menial occupation, or crushed by unjust laws. 
 
 The various classes of magistrates are noticed, to show 
 that obedience is due, not only to the supreme, but also to 
 the delegated authorities. Civil government is recognized 
 as a divine institution, and obedience is simply enjoined as 
 a duty, although in point of fact laws have often been 
 unjust and rulers have acted unlawfully. These, and 
 similar precepts elsewhere in the New Testament, constitute 
 a standing evidence that the writers spake as they were 
 moved by the Holy Ghost. Peter and Paul were hunted 
 by the magistrates of the empire, like wild beasts, until at 
 
360 THE SCRIPTURES SANCTION CIVIL AUTHORITY. 
 
 length they were hunted down ; and yet no bitter word 
 escapes from their lips. Other ships reel and stagger, like 
 drunken men, on a stormy sea; but this vessel alone moves 
 straight and steady. That very fact proves that she is not 
 leaning on the waters like the rest, but is sustained in the 
 air above them. 
 
 " This is the will of God concerning you." Blessed news ! 
 I delight to learn that God in heaven has a will about me, 
 and the manner of my life. Cheer up, fellow-pilgrims, he 
 careth for us — he whom the hosts of heaven adore. It 
 elevates my life to know that its smallest joys or sorrows 
 concern the King Eternal. This is a kindlier doctrine than 
 any theory of atomic development. 
 
 And as there are many ignorant and foolish men going 
 about, making a very great noise because of their folly 
 and ignorance, it seems that one part of God's will concern- 
 ing Christians in the body is that they should silence these 
 noisy fellows. How ? Shall we smite with the sword ? 
 That was the method which this same Peter once proposed 
 — and not only proposed, but practised. He valiantly cut 
 off the ear of a servant of the high priest, in order to 
 silence him. Ah, Peter, you will not silence your adver- 
 saries in that fashion. Two can play at that game ; and 
 in a very short time they will silence you. But now, 
 when the Holy Ghost has come upon him, the impetuous 
 Peter has received power to be a true witness unto Christ, 
 He would still have these adversaries silenced, but he 
 knows a better method of doing it now : silence them " by 
 well-doing," Such is the principal weapon used in this 
 holy war. 
 
 "As free, and not using your liberty for a cloke of 
 maliciousness," While he certifies their right to freedom, 
 
THE SCRIPTURES SANCTION CIVIL AUTHORITY 361 
 
 he gives faithful warning against the tares that often 
 spring among the precious wheat. Many abominations 
 are wrought in this world in the name of liberty. The 
 apostle has a particular species of hypocrite in his eye. 
 Foreseeing that this kind will infest the Church, he blows 
 a blast to drive the chaff away. This man has assumed 
 the name of Christian, and joined himself to the visible 
 Church. He is accountable only to God ; he is not bound 
 by the laws of human magistrates. In virtue of being a 
 king and priest unto God, he is not obliged to be submis- 
 sive to the laws of men. This kind of pretender has often 
 strutted about on the stage of history, and brought shame 
 upon the Christian name. He gets no countenance here ; 
 he is articulately condemned by the spirit of prophecy in 
 Peter's word. In the Scriptures great pains are taken to 
 show that faith is not against authority and order ; and 
 yet it is made perfectly clear that whenever human ordin- 
 ances traverse the law of God for the conscience of the 
 individual man, they must give way. Can the line be 
 always correctly drawn between these two jurisdictions ? 
 The line is not in itself uncertain or obscure. It is like the 
 horizon line between the air above and sea and earth be- 
 low : it is a well-defined boundary ; but men do not always 
 clearly see or faithfully keep it. In our own country, in 
 past times, dreadful conflicts have raged on this border 
 land. Power lay on one side, and martyr courage emerged 
 on the other. The strife has made our history sublime. 
 None of the sufferings are altogether lost. All past ex- 
 perience will contribute to clear the clouds from the horizon, 
 and introduce the brightness of the latter day. 
 
xxiii. 
 
 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 "Honour all men." — 1 Peter ii. 17. 
 
 HE first three precepts of this verse constitute an 
 ascending series, and the series is complete. It 
 begins on earth, and ends in heaven. The 
 Spirit in this word specifies the kind of affection 
 that is due respectively to three different objects, lying in 
 three distinct spheres. The first and lowest of these 
 objects is humanity, as it is, — all mankind ; the next alcove 
 it is the redeemed from among men who are still in the 
 body; and the highest is God. One kind of regard is 
 due to human beings as such, however low their state 
 or bad their character; another kind of regard is due 
 to those who are born again, and have become sons and 
 daughters of the Lord Almighty; and yet another kind 
 of regard is due to the Creator of all, the Recreator of 
 his own. 
 
 Instead of " honour," I shall employ the terra " value," 
 as equivalent to " esteem," which the translators have given 
 in the margin, and which expresses more precisely the sense 
 of the original. I retain the term " men," as in the text, 
 although the noun is not expressed in the Greek, because 
 in the circumstances the masculine adjective is equivalent. 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 863 
 
 Let us now place the emphasis successively on each of 
 these three words, and the lessons will emerge in their 
 natural order. 
 
 1. Value. 
 
 2. Value men. 
 
 3. Value all men. 
 
 1. Value. — The root on which the expression grows is 
 " a price." This original meaning adheres to it with more 
 or less of strictness through all its forms and all its appli- 
 cations. It is the word which in Matthew xxvii. 9 has been 
 translated " value," — " They took the thirty pieces of silver, 
 the price of him that was valued, whom they of the 
 children of Israel did value; " and " honour," in Matthew xv. 
 4, — " Honour thy father and thy mother." Honour, as it 
 is usually understood, is only the external expression of 
 the value which in your heart you may have set upon an 
 object. You weigh the worth of a man, and honour him 
 accordingly. The estimate fixed by the judgment deter- 
 mines the honour expressed by the lips. 
 
 Although the three precepts of this verse are separately 
 presented to the mind, they are bound into one for the 
 power to produce obedience. Where the two higher fail, 
 the lower cannot succeed. If the fear of God and the love 
 of the brotherhood be wanting or weak, the estimate of 
 humanity will go far astray. And it is error in the 
 estimate of man that practically distracts the world. 
 Some get too much honour, and others too little. These 
 extremes throw the machinery of society out of gear. 
 Hence the adulation of the great ; hence the oppression of 
 the poor. The man who is godly and brotherly is also 
 humane. He who sets a proper value on the higher 
 
364 THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 things sets a proper value also on the lower. Look on 
 men — the human race at laro^e — in the lio-ht of the fear 
 which you owe to God, and the love which you cherish 
 towards the brethren : thus you will neither meanly flatter 
 nor coldly neglect ; you will count the meanest a man, and 
 the mightiest no more. 
 
 2. Value men. — Here God our Maker has left us an 
 example that we should follow his steps. Both creation 
 and redemption teem with evidences that God sets a high 
 value on his creature man. All the relations and uses of 
 minerals, plants, and animals have been arranged for man's 
 benefit ; for no other creature is capable of observing or 
 turning them to account. All the rich furniture of the 
 world bears obvious marks of having been constructed for 
 the convenience of its chief inhabitant. The house was 
 arranged, and all its furnishings completed, and living 
 creatures destined for servants provided, before men, the 
 children of the family, were brought home. All that the 
 Father did in constructing this earth and these heavens he 
 did for our sakes. 
 
 But the grandest evidence of the value which God sets 
 on man appears in the mission, ministry, and sacrifice of 
 Christ. So high in heaven was the estimate of even 
 ruined man, that when no other price could buy the 
 captive back, the Son of God gave himself, the just for the 
 unjust. 
 
 A jewel has dropped from the wearer's neck into a deep 
 and filthy pool. The owner, looking on it from aloft, 
 loathes the fetid object, and loves it too, — so loves it, in 
 spite of its loathsomeness, that rather than lose it, he 
 plunges into the polluted deep, wades among its filth, and 
 feels for his treasure. If he find it, he goes home rejoic- 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 365 
 
 ing ; and when the jewel has been burnished again, he 
 rejoices more than ever to see it on his own breast, reeeiv- 
 incf brio-ht sflances from the sun, and throwing- them back 
 as bright. 
 
 In some such way, making allowance for the differ- 
 ence between the finite and the infinite, did Christ set 
 a high value on men, though they were fallen and 
 polluted. In some such way does he now rejoice over 
 those whom he has rescued from perdition and carried 
 into rest. 
 
 Value highly immortal beings made in their Creator's 
 likeness, and capable yet of living to his praise. We act 
 according; to our estimates. Estimate humanitv aricjht in 
 the habit of your hearts, and your conduct will fashion 
 itself naturally accordant, as a river finds its way to the 
 sea. Value the whole man, and not merely a part. In 
 particular, and for obvious practical purposes, value his 
 soul as well as his body, and his body as well as his soul. 
 So did Christ ; and therefore so should we. The body's 
 sufferings did not occupy his attention to the neglect of 
 the soul's sins ; the soul's sins did not occupy his attention 
 to the neglect of the body's sufferings. 
 
 As the legs of the lame are not equal, a one-sided 
 philanthropy is abortive, whichever side it may be. You 
 cannot do good to the poor by merely supplying his 
 material wants. Unless you lift his spirit from despair 
 into hope, and lead his spirit from darkness to light, your 
 gifts go all into a bag with holes. You must be always 
 giving, and yet he is never full. On the other side, the 
 ordinary path to the soul lies through the body's senses ; 
 and all your efforts for spiritual good may prove abortive, 
 if you do not clear material obstructions out of your way, 
 
THE DIGNITY OF MAN. 
 
 Do good to the whole man as you have opportunity. 
 Neglect not to entertain those strangers that step about in 
 human form upon the earth, for in so doing you entertain 
 angels unawares, — fallen, indeed, but capable yet of a 
 glorious immortality. 
 
XXIV. 
 
 NO KESPECT OF PERSONS. 
 
 "Honour all men." — 1 Peter ii. 17. 
 
 ALUE all men. 
 
 There is no respect of persons with God, and 
 there should be none with men. When you 
 fail to value aright any man or class of men, 
 you are fighting against God, and will certainly be hurt. 
 He that falls upon this stone shall be broken. Action and 
 reaction are equal and opposite. Suppose you and your 
 neighbour are walking abreast on a pavement of pure ice ; 
 and suppose you put forth your strength to push your 
 neighbour off the way on one side. You may, perhaps, 
 succeed ; but the same effort at the same time has pushed 
 yourself as far from the path on the other side. 
 
 The operation of this principle may be seen in all ranks 
 and in all places. Wherever and whenever a man fails to 
 give a neighbour his due, he thereby to the same extent 
 injures himself. The machine of Providence brings ven- 
 geance on the transgressor, as its awful wheels move 
 round. 
 
 Take an example from the treatment of negro slaves in 
 our own colonies and in the States of America till lately ; 
 m other places of the world still. White men cannot push 
 
368 NO RESPECT OF PERSONS. 
 
 black men aside from the right position without pushing 
 themselves as far from the right character. The loss which 
 they suffer is greater than the loss which they inflict. As 
 it is more blessed to give than to receive, so it is more 
 cursed to deprive another of his rights than to be deprived 
 of your own. I would rather have my condition deterio- 
 rated by another's violence, than ni}'- character deteriorated 
 by my own sin, 
 
 Man's foundation is not like the everlasting hills. It is 
 not in his power to push another and yet not move him- 
 self. The oppressor and the oppressed are by the same 
 operation equally, although in opposite directions, dej)raved. 
 As far as the slave is pressed down beneath the level into 
 brutish indifference, so far is the master thrust up above 
 the level into supercilious pride. As deeply as the vice of 
 meanness is scored into the black by the lash, so deeply is 
 the vice of arrogance scored into the white by lashing. 
 Those are injured by suffering oppression, and these by 
 inflicting it. Nothing is gained by a false estimate of the 
 value of any man. The circles of Providence, like the 
 celestial bodies, correct aberrations, and right themselves 
 as they go round. The same sleepless eye, and the same 
 avenging arm, are over masters and servants in the econo- 
 mical relations of our own land. 
 
 Value the young. How precious these germs are ! 
 These spring-buds are lovely to look upon, but their worth 
 is greater than their beauty. An immortal life is opening 
 there ; heed it well. Proprietors rear strong fences round 
 young trees, while they leave aged forests to take their 
 chance. Permit not the immortal to be twisted at the 
 very starting of its growth, for the want of such protection 
 as it is in your power to afford, By failing practically to 
 
NO RESPECT OF PERSONS. 369 
 
 value little ones at their real worth, we both sutfer and 
 inflict an incalculable injury. They will be the men and 
 women of the generation when we become children again. 
 If they grow crooked for want of our care to-day, we shall 
 lack support when we are too feeble to bear our own 
 weight. 
 
 Don't spoil these tender, precious things. Tell them no 
 lie. Speak no vile or profane word in their hearing. Let 
 no drop fall on that polished surface, which may eat like 
 rust into the heart, and become the death of a soul. 
 
 Value the poor and ignorant. In that state Christ 
 valued you, believer. He did not pass you because you 
 were worthless. He came to make you rich in grace, and 
 to rejoice over you then. 
 
 Value the rich. We speak here not of the Christian 
 brotherhood, but of humankind. Many of those whom the 
 world call rich are selling themselves for vile stuff. They 
 give themselves for money and show. The rich man's soul 
 is more precious than all his riches. If he cannot estimate 
 the things at their proper worth, you can, and should. 
 He is as precious as the poor, and will be as worthy, if he 
 is redeemed, when he walks with his Redeemer in white. 
 
 Value the vicious. Although they wallow in a deep 
 
 mire to-day, they have fallen from a high estate, and may 
 
 yet regain it. If one who had been a king's son should, 
 
 in the frequent revolutions of these days, be cast a naked 
 
 and penniless wanderer on our shores, we would not think 
 
 of him as of a common beggar. If he should come in 
 
 want to your door, you would look with a kind of awe on 
 
 him who is the heir of a sovereign house, and may yet sit 
 
 upon a throne. Under his piteous condition you would 
 
 recognize what he has been, and may yet be. 
 (753) 24 
 
370 NO RESPECT OF PERSONS. 
 
 When an abandoned woman passes you on the street, do 
 not despise her. Perhaps beneath that bold look shame 
 begins to swell, and would burst into repentance if it could 
 get an outlet. She is human ; Christ is human ; and 
 therefore she may yet be partaker of the divine nature. 
 A jewel most precious lies under these loathsome incrusta- 
 tions. That is a precious soul. If she were snatched from 
 the burning, she might be on earth yet a sister beloved, 
 and in heaven a daughter of the Lord Almighty. Despise 
 her not as you pass. Let your heart glue itself to hers ; 
 and if you must pass, unable to draw her from the pit, let 
 it be such a passing as will leave your own heart torn and 
 bleeding for the outcast whom you cannot save. Let not 
 the frequency of such a contact rub your heart hard and 
 smooth, so that other victims passing to perdition shall slip 
 easily over, getting no grip, and leaving no pain within 
 you. Never learn to pass the lost without a sigh, for she 
 is human, immortal. If she is lost, the loss is eternal ; 
 if she were won, the gain would be unspeakable, to your 
 Lord and you. 
 
 It is time that the brotherhood in Christ were aroused 
 to estimate aright the value of a drunkard, and the peculiar 
 danger of his state. They who spurn him away in disgust, 
 and they who make merry with his weakness, are alike 
 out of their reckoning. We should not lightly laugh at 
 him on the one hand ; we should not hopelessly give him 
 up on the other. The saddest feature of the drunkard's 
 sad case is the tendency that may be observed, even among 
 earnest Christians, to give him up as beyond the reach of 
 human help. I see that some, even of those who are gird- 
 ing themselves for saving work upon the world, without 
 saying that the inveterate inebriate is absolutely irreclaim- 
 
NO RESPECT OF PERSONS. 371 
 
 able, are deliberately passing by the class, in order that 
 they may quarry in other veins where experience holds 
 out greater hope of success. The peculiar hopelessness of 
 the advanced stage in this form of sin gives peculiar force 
 to the maxim, " Prevention is better than cure." 
 
 That poor staggering drunkard is worth more than 
 worlds, if he were won. If you could win him, he would 
 be a crown of joy to you in the great day. " Of some 
 have compassion, making a difference : and others save 
 with fear, pulling them out of the fire" (Jude 22, 23). 
 They who hope in Christ should not count any case 
 hopeless. 
 
 Yalue yourself. Do not hold yourself cheap, ye who 
 may have Christ for your brother, and heaven for your 
 home. This body the Lord has cleansed, that he may 
 make it his own dwelling-place ; and why should these 
 loathsome lusts be permitted to possess and defile it ? 
 These lips are needed to support a part in the new song 
 of the redeemed out of all nations ; and why should they 
 be lent out as instruments of sin ? I shall not lightly 
 accord my company to every comer, for the King is court- 
 ing it : " Lo, I am with you alway, even to the end of the 
 world." 
 
 In estimating the value of yourself, for all the practical 
 purposes of life, adopt the standard of the King Eternal ; 
 and the value which he attached to tlie subject may be 
 seen in the price which he paid — " Who loved me, and 
 ofave himself for me." 
 
XXY. 
 THE BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 " Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king." 
 1 Peter ii. 17. 
 
 N this letter Peter teaches the scattered Christians 
 that in the lowest sphere they should highly 
 value human beings as such, and in the highest 
 sphere reverently worship the Supreme. Be- 
 tween these two he recognizes a brotherhood to whom a 
 different species of regard is due : " Love the brotherhood." 
 Distinct, on the one hand, from the respect due to immortal 
 man as the Creator's greatest work, and, on the other hand, 
 from the worship due to Deity, brotherly love, pure and 
 fervent, should be cherished towards all who have been 
 redeemed by the Saviour's blood and renewed into the 
 Saviour's likeness. The " brotherhood " here manifestly 
 means, not those who have been born into the same family 
 on earth, but those who have been born again into the 
 family of God. 
 
 The obvious order here is, the object first, and then the 
 emotion ; the brotherhood whom Christians love, and the 
 love with which they regard the brotherhood. 
 
 The brotherhood is a winsome M^ord. It falls kindly 
 on one's wearied ear in the intervals of the world's strife. 
 Like the term in the preceding clause, it is universal. It 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD, 373 
 
 includes a whole class without exception, although the 
 class is less numerous than the other. As the whole is 
 greater than a part, the brotherhood is a group indefinitely 
 smaller than the " all men " of the first clause. 
 
 When we say " honour all men," it is as if we should 
 say " all waters," comprehending those that are in the sea, 
 on the earth, and in the air ; comprehending the salt and 
 the fresh, the pure and the impure, — absolutely and univer- 
 sally all waters. When we speak of the smaller class, "the 
 brotherhood," it is as if we should say the waters that float 
 in the air, — the clouds. These are waters too. These 
 waters once lay in the sea, lashing themselves into fury 
 there, or seething, putrifying under the sun in hollows of 
 the earth's surface. But they have been sublimed thence ; 
 they are now in their regenerated state, and their impurity 
 has been left behind. These waters float now in the 
 atmosphere, far above the defilements of the earth and the 
 tumults of the sea. Although they remain essentially of 
 the same nature with that which stagnates on the earth or 
 rages in the ocean, they are sustained aloft by the soft, 
 strong grasp of a secret universal law. No hand is seen 
 to hold them, yet they are held on high. Their Maker 
 has given them the command, " Come out from among 
 them, and be ye separate, and I will receive you." 
 
 As the clouds which soar in the air are to the universal 
 mass of waters, so are the brotherhood of God's renewed 
 children to the whole human family. Of mankind these 
 brothers are in origin and nature ; but they have been 
 drawn out and up from the rest by an unseen omnipotent 
 law. Their nature remains the same, and yet it is a new 
 nature. They are men of flesh and blood, yet they have 
 been elevated in station and purified in character. They 
 
374 THE BEOTHERHOOD. 
 
 are nearer God in place, and liker him in holiness. They 
 have been " washed and justified and sanctified in the name 
 of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God." The 
 command, " Come out from amons^ them," having been 
 obeyed, the promise has also been fulfilled to them, — " Ye 
 shall be my sons and daughters, saith the Lord Al- 
 mighty." 
 
 Let none think that the expressions employed to desig- 
 nate this change are extravagant. The language is not too 
 strong, but too feeble. When a guilty man has been for- 
 given and reconciled to God through the death of Christ, 
 the change of condition is greater than can be expressed in 
 human language. No formula can adequately express the 
 distance between the carnal mind, which is enmity against 
 God, and the spirit of adoption, that cries, Abba, Father. 
 In the nature of the case, those who have experienced only 
 one of these conditions cannot compute the distance be- 
 tween them. Only they who have passed from the one to 
 the other can appreciate the magnitude of the transition. 
 To pass spiritually from death unto life is a great passage. 
 From the sullen enmity of the guilty to the glad confidence 
 of the forgiven, is as far as from east to west, or from earth 
 to heaven. 
 
 This whole class in the spiritual sphere is, by a figure 
 borrowed from human life, designated the brotherhood. 
 It is one of the relations by which human creatures are 
 bound into one. The conjugal, parental, and fraternal 
 bonds constitute the strands of the three-fold cord by 
 which our Creator, in the constitution of our nature, has 
 knit his intelligent offspring in groups for their mutual 
 support and comfort. The brotherhood are those who 
 have been born together into the same family. They 
 
THE BROTHERHOOD. 375 
 
 have one Father, a pervading likeness, and a common 
 home. 
 
 This human relation is a great and good thing. It is 
 one of the wonderful works of God. It is a contrivance 
 in the system of the universe for binding a number of 
 feeble rods into one, so that each of the fragile offshoots 
 may, in the period of its weakness, enjoy all the strength 
 of a tree. The natural affections of brothers and sisters in 
 a family are stronger than the general affinities of man to 
 man in the world. All history testifies that attempts to 
 substitute artificial communism for the natural divinely- 
 appointed constitution of the family, only torture the 
 individual and dislocate the machinery of society. 
 
 But this precious earthly thing is not introduced here 
 merely for its own sake ; it is borrowed as a term to 
 express a spiritual and heavenly relation. The brotherhood 
 in Peter's pointed precept means that great company on 
 earth, of every nation and kindred and tongue, who are in 
 the regeneration sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty. 
 It is by comparison with the first of the three precepts 
 that the import of the second may be most certainly 
 ascertained. Honour — that is, count precious, value highly 
 ■ — " all men : " these terms include all of humankind born. 
 But two births are possible for man. Many learners, like 
 Nicodemus, find this lesson hard, — " How can a man be 
 born when he is old ? " But tliose who simply sit at 
 Jesus' feet, and ask for the Spirit, will surmount the 
 difficulty. Those who are born again believe in the new 
 birth. All men are born, and the brotherhood are born 
 again. They have become new creatures in Christ Jesus. 
 Their life now is hid with Christ in God. The two con- 
 nected precepts point to these two births and these two 
 
376 THE BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 lives. We should highly value the generation — all human- 
 kind ; but we should fondly love the regeneration — those 
 who are forgiven and reconciled and renewed. Clasp 
 fellow-disciples to your bosom ; walk hand in hand with 
 them across the pilgrimage of life, expecting to enter with 
 them at length into the joy of the Lord. 
 
XXVI. 
 LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 "Love the brotherhood." — 1 Peter ii. 17. 
 
 ONSIDER now the precise species of affection 
 which is due by Christians to those who are 
 fellow-members with themselves in the family 
 of God : it is Love. There is a sense in which 
 we ought to love the whole human race ; but the love 
 which is due to man as such is different from that which 
 we owe to the disciples of Christ. Love, indeed, is a 
 generic emotion, comprehending several distinct species ; 
 and, as often happens in natural history, one of the species 
 bears the same name with the genus. The generic love to 
 mankind branches into pity for those that are without, 
 and love, specifically so called, to those who are within. 
 
 1. Love to the brotherhood is an instinctive emotion. 
 It is not an accident, but a nature. It springs in renewed 
 hearts, as love of her oflfspring springs in a mother's breast. 
 It is the result not of an artificial policy, but of a natural 
 law. The new creature owns and exercises instincts as 
 well as the old. The members of Christ cannot but love 
 their fellow-members. In as far as they have drunk into 
 the Master's spirit, they will follow the Master's steps. 
 
378 LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD. 
 
 2. The Lord Jesus was not satisfied witli the measure 
 of tliis affection which existed among his followers during 
 his personal ministry. He desired that it should be in- 
 creased. For its increase he pleaded alternately with God 
 and with man. " That they all may be one/' was his 
 prayer ; " Love one another," was his command. 
 
 8. Those who are destitute of this affection themselves 
 are acute enough to observe the want or weakness of it in 
 Christians. The bitterness, malice, and envy which defile 
 and disturb the Church, afford to scoffers a foundation all 
 too solid for their railing. Among Christians the state of 
 matters is bad, and among those who are not Christians it 
 is counted and called worse than it is. We ffive some, and 
 they take more, occasion to blaspheme. 
 
 4. Brotherly love among Christians, when it really 
 exists, honours the Lord and propagates the gospel. Like 
 the blood of the martyrs, it is the seed of the Church. 
 It has convinced many who resisted harder arguments. 
 
 5. It is the most pleasant of all emotions to the person 
 who exercises it. Other passions may in certain circum- 
 stances be right and useful, but none generate so much joy 
 as they flow. You may be " angry and sin not ; " but you 
 cannot be angry and suffer not. As a great gun recoils 
 violently, and is heated and defiled within by ev^ery dis- 
 charge, a human spirit is shaken and perhaps soiled by 
 discharges of anger, even when it does well to be angry 
 against evil deeds. But love is delightful in the exercise, 
 both to the lover and the loved. It leaves behind no 
 sourness and no sediment, " Love is of God," and its 
 character corresponds to its origin. It constitutes the 
 atmosphere of heaven, where there are no pain and no defile- 
 ment. At home, in the Father's house, when the whole 
 
LOVE THE BROTHERHOOD. 379 
 
 brotherhood finally assemble, there will be no anger and 
 no fear, — -only love. 
 
 Love of the brotherhood is the command of God, and, 
 consequently, the duty of men ; but another thing goes 
 before it to prepare its way — lies beneath it to bear its 
 weight. Before you can love the brotherhood, you must 
 be a brother. It is the new creature that experiences this 
 hallowed affection. These pulses do not throb through 
 severed limbs ; these beautiful blossoms do not open on 
 withered branches. Those who are one with Christ in 
 faith, are in spiritual communion with " the whole family 
 in heaven and on earth." When you and I are, and know 
 that we are, members of Christ, we shall love one another 
 as he loved us. Like draws to like. Although the gates 
 of a lost paradise were opened again on earth, and you 
 admitted within the long-forbidden precincts, if there were 
 only, on the one hand, angel-spirits flitting to and fro as 
 flames of fire on their Maker's errands, never encumbered 
 by a body of flesh ; and, on the other hand, the dumb 
 creatures, all tame and all submissive and affectionate 
 according to their powers, — if there were these, and only 
 these, for company, the place would be no paradise for you. 
 You would long to go forth again. You would rather con- 
 tend with thorns and thistles outside, but in company of 
 your kind. ]\[an is not made for solitude. He must have 
 a brother on whom he can lavish a brother's love. Hence 
 in Paul's esteem heaven was desirable, because the Elder 
 Brother's presence is enjoyed there. 
 
LIFE I'N CHEIST. 
 
I. 
 
 LIFE IN CHRIST. 
 
 " To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain." 
 Phil. i. 21. 
 
 SUPPOSE the chief reason why Christianity 
 
 does not yet pervade the world, is that Christ 
 
 does not pervade the life of Christians. We 
 
 speak of " the Christian world." The picture 
 
 is truer than most people deem. It is a world with a 
 
 Christian tinge upon it, but still a world. It is not a new 
 
 heaven and a new earth, wherein righteousness dwells. 
 
 Among the many shortcomings of disciples, perhaps the 
 chief is this : that to a large extent their life and spirit 
 seem to intimate that they count Christ an unfortunate 
 necessity, instead of exulting and boasting in him as their 
 joy and their life. Christians seem to sigh because they 
 cannot do without him, rather than welcome with glad 
 songs the Sun of Righteousness as he rises upon a dark 
 world with healing in his beams. 
 
 Oh for a step forward, a leap higher ! Forgetting the 
 things behind, let us bend forward mightily, and endeavour 
 to apprehend the Christ, who has apprehended us. Arise, 
 blind beggar on the highway -side ! arise, lo, he calleth thee 
 into light and joy ! 
 
384 LIFE IN CHRIST. 
 
 To live beneath our privilege is to dishonour the Lord. 
 The same act of advancement, which would be gladness to 
 the Christian, would be glory to Christ. 
 
 I do not come here to preach a gloomy gospel : I pro- 
 claim glad tidings of great joy. I do not wield a spiritual 
 terror to wrench human beings away from their only joys, 
 and compel them to accept Christ lest they should drop 
 into hell. I come to bid you retain and enjoy all the gifts 
 of providence, and to enjoy them a thousand-fold more by 
 enjoying them in the light of your Redeemer's countenance, 
 as you enjoy a thousand-fold more the landscape when the 
 sun is up. 
 
 The life and the death of which Paul speaks here are 
 the ordinary life and death of human creatures. The 
 terms are employed in no figurative or emblematic sense. 
 To live is simply to live as you or I lived yesterday and 
 live to-day. And to die means to depart from life, in the 
 act of putting off this mortal. We do not need to search 
 here for any hidden or mysterious meaning. The language 
 is used in a simple and natural sense. 
 
 To live, for this man, now that he has been redeemed 
 and forgiven and renewed, — to live is something great and 
 sublime. Life for this man is not like the life of the 
 beasts that perish^ — let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we 
 die. 
 
 For him to live is not to eat and drink and be clothed. 
 It is not the mere struggle for existence, or the chase after 
 luxuries when the necessities of nature have been satisfied. 
 Some men make this their life. They change the end for 
 the means. Food and drink and raiment are necessary, 
 are sweet, are God's good gifts to his children. It is the 
 duty even of these children to labour for them, to use them, 
 
LIFE IN CHRIST, 385 
 
 to enjoy them. Without them there cannot be Kfe, and 
 consequently none of life's highest ends. These are the 
 means of preserving life ; but these are not the objects for 
 which we live. A disciple of Christ and heir of glory 
 lives on these as long as he is here ; but no child of God 
 lives for these. They who seek their life there shall 
 lose it. 
 
 Life for him is not gain. The aim and end of living is 
 not to acquire a great property. Property is useful in ful- 
 filling some of the more important ends of life ; but when- 
 ever it comes to be itself an end, its nature is changed. 
 It is no longer a blessing. It is then like a bag of ffold 
 hung round the neck of a shipwrecked miser, to drag him 
 down, down to death. He who knows what human life 
 is, who knows its deepest need and highest destiny, has 
 said, " A man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the 
 things which he possesseth." 
 
 Life for this man does not consist in pleasure. He will 
 not occupy his day in chasing tufts of thistle-down as 
 they float on the breeze. He is a grown man, and has 
 put away childish things ; he is a new man, and has put 
 away the old man with his deeds. 
 
 Life for this man is not honour — the highest place 
 among his fellows. He has gotten the favour of God as a 
 dear child, and he sets less value on the honours that the 
 world bestows. Life for Paul does not consist in the chase 
 after these things or in the enjoyment of them ; so far all is 
 clear. 
 
 But further : his life does not consist in refusing and 
 avoiding these things. Suppose you should strip all these 
 off, and deny yourself all comforts, you would be no nearer 
 a true life in the Lord and for the Lord. Life consists 
 
 (753) 25 
 
386 LIFE IN CHRIST. 
 
 neither in having them nor in wanting them. The truly 
 living may have them to-day and want them to-morrow. 
 
 This is a new life of which Paul speaks. He did not 
 always possess it. Formerly he lived without Christ in 
 the world, and now he lives with him. Before the Lord 
 met him, he lived a sort of life. While he was in it he 
 thought it good. It was a vigorous, active life. It burned 
 like fire ; but the sparks sprang from earth — they were 
 not sunbeams out of heaven. As soon as he escaped from 
 that life, he counted it vile. He thought with a shudder 
 of his previous life. From the moment that the life of 
 Christ was revealed to him, he was a new man. 
 
 But even this is not what he says in our text. It is 
 not a life with Christ, or even a life in Christ ; but his 
 very life is Christ. This extraordinary expression conveys 
 an extraordinary thought. It behoves us to search and 
 see what it means. Life is now to him another thing : his 
 former life he remembers as a horrid dream. And the 
 bound over is extreme. It is not that his life is like 
 Christ, for it is Christ. He is a new creature. His 
 former self is lost. It is not I that live, but Christ that 
 liveth in me. 
 
 A vine is growing ; it grows in good ground ; it grows 
 strong. It draws the sap of the ground, and bears much 
 fruit ; but the fruit is bad. It is bitter to the taste, and 
 poisonous. Another vine grows near it — a good vine — all 
 good. They take a branch of the good vine, and bend it 
 gently towards the wild vine ; and they lay a strong hand 
 on the wild vine, and bend it towards the good vine. 
 They touch. They are fastened — the branch of the good 
 vine to the stem of the evil. As yet this produces no 
 change on the wild vine ; but it is some needful pre- 
 
LIFE IN CHRIST. 387 
 
 paratoi^y work. They now make an opening in the stem 
 of the wild vine, and another in the branch of the good 
 vine. They place them into each other at the wound, and 
 bind them up. The wounds heal, and the two have grown 
 into each other. The next step in the process is to cut off 
 the head of the wild vine, and leave instead the now en- 
 grafted branch of the good. Then the branch of the good 
 is severed from its parent stem. The root of the evil tree 
 remains ; but its head now is the new and the good tree. 
 
 "I live," murmurs the root and stem of the old evil tree 
 far below. / live — you live ; you have no leaf, no flower, 
 no fruit : all the life is in the new tree. " I live," still 
 humbly murmurs the old root out of the ground ; " never- 
 theless not I, but the new good tree liveth in me ; and the 
 life that I now live in the ground, I live through the new 
 and good tree, which loved me, and gave itself for me." 
 
 This cutting, and bleeding, and binding, and grafting 
 process took place while the patient was prostrate and 
 blind outside the gate of Damascus. 
 
 Thus is Paul's life a new thing ; for to him to live is 
 Christ. 
 
 Suppose he had said. To me to pray is Christ ; it would 
 have been true — a precious truth. Not only that he needs 
 Christ when he draws near to God, but that to pray is all 
 Christ. He comes not himself. He says. Look not on 
 me, but on the Beloved ; for worthy is the Lamb. He 
 comes not in the filthy rags of his own righteousness. It 
 is the righteousness of the Redeemer that is presented to 
 the eye of God. The suppliant commands, because he 
 stands on the right of the Son. 
 
 But it is not when he prays — when he comes to the 
 communion, leaviufj the world outside — that he and the 
 
388 LIFE IN CHEIST. 
 
 Saviour are one ; but it is his common life — when he lies 
 down and rises up, when he buys and sells, when he labours 
 and when he rests, when he is in the bosom of his family 
 and in public. 
 
 The Father loveth the Son. From everlasting the Son 
 is in the bosom of the Father. This is the original and 
 perfect idea of sonship. All that we know yet on earth 
 is but a shadow, projected and dimly outlined upon the 
 ground from the one perfect and substantial Sonship in 
 heaven. In the eternal covenant man was designed as 
 God's son : the Eternal Son was the ideal — the perfect 
 man. When Adam was made, he was made on the model, 
 in the image of God. But he was sent into life free — he 
 was not upheld by Divine power ; and he fell. But when 
 man, as he lived on earth, became corrupt, the perfect man- 
 hood was not losi). God did not risk all on one stake. 
 The original remained, the type off which Adam in inno- 
 cence was cast. Of him the Father will yet make a great 
 nation. 
 
 Sometimes, after an engraven steel-plate has given forth 
 some pictures it is destroyed, in order to enhance the value 
 of the copies thrown off. If the copies were all destroyed, 
 then the ideal would be lost. But when one type was 
 thrown off and planted in Paradise, the original remained 
 when the copy was spoiled. Man still remained — the 
 Eternal Son remained. 
 
 Next time it was not another mould taken, and a holy 
 man sent into the world to make another trial. This time 
 it was the Eternal Pattern himself — the God-man — that 
 came into the world, and took hold of us, and made him- 
 self one with his people. 
 
 " Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me ? " These words 
 
LIFE IN CHRIST. 389 
 
 were spoken to Saul as an enemy of Christ. But I think 
 the words were very precious to Paul when he came into 
 Christ. These words were burned into his memory, and 
 taught him that Christ and his people are one. Thus those 
 words of God that are against the wicked become the very 
 bread that the children live on when they are children. I 
 think Paul would roll those awful words as a sweet morsel 
 under his tongue. Me ! — not only on my side, but they 
 are me. 
 
 Paul was thus acting, when Festus cried out, " Paul, 
 thou art beside thyself." Right, Festus. You may trust 
 the governor for the mere observation of the fact. He 
 knew what a Saul in himself would be — a Hebrew of the 
 Hebrews ■ — a Pharisee — " touching the law blameless." 
 But he made a mistake when he attempted to give the 
 reason. Paul is not here — he is put off: another stands in 
 his stead — " To live is Christ " — " to die is gain." I do 
 not think these two are different in kind ; it is only in 
 degree. You might say : Here is a man who is very rich ; 
 he owns vast estates in his own right ; this wealth he 
 enjoys in his father's lifetime, and his father's death will 
 be gain — that is, he will retain all he had, and get it 
 multiplied manifold. All his wealth he retains, and gets 
 more. So here : it is not that in life Paul had Christ, and 
 that at death he would lose that and obtain something else 
 instead. " To me to live is Christ." And what will death 
 be to you when it comes ? It will be Christ, and more. 
 
 The substance of the inheritance beyond we know, from 
 verse 23, is the same Christ — "To depart, and to be Avith 
 Christ." But there will be something more — " To die is 
 gain." What are the gains ? Peace instead of war. 
 Here Christ and conflict : there Christ and peace. Here 
 
390 LIFE IN CHRIST. 
 
 Christ and ignorance, seeing in part through a glass darkly: 
 there Christ and light — we shall know, even as we are 
 known. Here Christ and sins, vexing his Spirit, and 
 polluting his dwelling-place : there Christ and purity — 
 nothing shall enter that detileth. 
 
 Some people count their gains very carefully when they 
 have got them. Some count the gains before they are 
 won ; they calculate the expected profit, and enjoy it by 
 anticipation. Christian winners do likewise. Paul counts 
 his gains before he gets them ; he enjoys the expected 
 wealth. It does no harm to gloat thus over the true 
 riches. Your real money - makers never despise small 
 winnings. This is their art — they despise nothing because 
 of its smallness. It is thus that careful souls grow rich in 
 grace. 
 
 Here we have Christ and pain. A dying girl said to 
 her mother, " There will be no sore heads in heaven." To 
 her to live was Christ and to die was gain. And she 
 counted her gains beforehand on her bed of lanofuishinof, 
 and cheered her aching heart with the glitter of expected 
 fortune. There will be no evil-speaking there : that is a 
 gain awaiting us. There will be no envy swelling in our 
 own breasts : what a gain ! There we shall have Christ 
 and the company of Christians in all the beauty of holi- 
 ness : how ravishing ! — those bodies glorified like Christ's 
 glorious body ; souls perfect in purity shining through 
 those beautiful countenances. " Thou art all fair, my 
 love ; " 
 
 " Thy beauty to the King 
 Shall then delightful be." 
 
 " To die." In the original it is " to have died" a past 
 tense ; whereas " to live " is a present. Not death is 
 
LIFE IN CHllLST. 391 
 
 pleasant ; it is a dark passage, and the child shudders as 
 he o-oes down. Not the narrow gate, but the life it leads 
 to, is a gain. He will be richer too ; he will rejoice over 
 every one that returns. And oh ! his joy will be great 
 over the multitude that no man can number. 
 
 God was not taken aback and defeated when man his 
 child was drawn into rebellion and death. He had a 
 grander scheme in reserve prepared beforehand. The very 
 fall of man touched a spring that set the greater plan in 
 motion — a motion which will not cease till his many sons 
 have been brought into glory. When the first Adam fell, 
 the second Adam stood. The second Adam came — the Lord 
 from heaven ; the Man who should restore humanity, and 
 make a glory that excelleth to encircle the brow of ran- 
 somed men. Men redeemed by Christ are higher up and 
 closer in than angels unfallen. Will he have room for us 
 all, and a beam of light from his countenance for each ? 
 Look up into the heavens. "Who hath created these 
 things, that bringeth out their host by number? He 
 calleth them all by names, by the greatness of his might, 
 for that he is strong in power : not one faileth." " Lo, I 
 am with you alway." That is life : after life that, and 
 more. Christ the man — eternal, everywhere present God ; 
 yet transfused through every ransomed man. Every one 
 in Christ ; Christ in every one. 
 
II. 
 
 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS— THE SPIRIT 
 AND THE BODY. 
 
 "Now the Lord is that Spirit : and where the Spirit of the Lord is, 
 there is liberty." — 2 Cor. iii. 17. 
 
 HE ministry of Moses was glorious in comparison 
 with the utter darkness of the heathen world, 
 and with the feebler light of earlier revelation ; 
 but much more glorious is the ministry whereby 
 the Spirit now takes of the things of Christ and shows 
 them unto us. While he was receiving the messao-e from 
 God, and uttering it to the people, a supernatural light 
 illumined the countenance of the lawgiver; but as soon 
 as he had delivered the prophecy, he veiled his face, so that 
 the people did not see its brightness long or continuously. 
 Only glimpses of the light were shown ; and then the 
 revelation stopped short — the rest hidden by a veil. 
 
 But this was not the only obstacle : a veil, opposite, and 
 yet corresponding, was spread over the hearers' minds and 
 hearts. When it was no longer a speaker's voice to be 
 heard, but the Scriptures of the Old Testament to be read, 
 the veil remained on the readers' hearts. The hardening of 
 their heart constituted the blinding veil that prevented 
 them from fully comprehending the Scriptures, and their 
 testimony to Christ. Their descendants remained in the 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 393 
 
 same state at the date of this epistle ; and until this day 
 the same veil, at the reading of the Old Testament, remains, 
 not apocalypsed, not revealed, when it (Old Testament 
 ritual) is done away in Christ. The veil that then hid the 
 speaker's countenance, has now been put on the readers' 
 hearts. They cannot, when they read the Old Testament, 
 perceive how the outward ordinances pass away, and leave 
 Christ the substance and inner spirit of them all. This 
 veil prevents them from seeing the glory that shines in the 
 Old Testament— its prophetic word, and prophetic sacri- 
 fices. They cannot discover that the letter is done away, 
 by the full unfolding of the spirit ; that the promises, how- 
 ever rich and precious, fall away of their own accord, when 
 the Promised One has come. 
 
 Even unto this day, says Paul, the veil is upon their 
 heart, when Moses is read ; when that heart of theirs shall 
 turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away. It is when 
 they behold in living faith the Lamb of God, that they 
 understand the meaning of the appointed sacrifices. " We 
 have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the 
 prophets, did w^rite, Jesus of Nazareth" (John i. 45). 
 
 The shell, hard and encompassing, holds firm in spite of 
 influences from without, until the kernel within comes to 
 its time, and, affected by prepared conditions, swells and 
 bursts out into manifestation and life. 
 
 The Lord is the spirit that lies in the Old Testament, 
 under the folds of its sacrifices, giving them life. When 
 the eye of the soul is opened to behold the beauty of the 
 Lord, the observer comes to understand aright, both the 
 spirit that animates the body, and the body that clothes 
 the spirit — to understand both the Christ whom the sacri- 
 fices promised, and the sacrifices that promised Christ. 
 
394 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 When it is intimated that Christ is the spirit of all 
 ordinances, the intimation is not meant to disparage these 
 ordinances, which constituted for him a body until the ful- 
 ness of time. The period of his ministry on earth was 
 brief. He manifested himself the Saviour before he be- 
 became incarnate, and after he had ascended to heaven. 
 On both sides of the cross were sinners suffering, and love 
 from the face of Christ crucified beamed in gracious offer 
 either way, reaching earth's utmost ends — penetrating to 
 Adam backward, and down to his latest child. In order 
 that Christ, before and after his sojourn on earth, might 
 make himself known to men, it behoved him to adopt a 
 body palpable to human sense. Accordingly, before he 
 was born in Bethlehem, and after he ascended from Olivet, 
 he presented himself to faith clothed in certain forms and 
 symbols, that touched human senses, and so made way into 
 human souls. 
 
 He knows what we are, and what we need. He not 
 only filled the fountain of grace on high ; he also prepared 
 suitable channels through which it might flow to the needy. 
 Divine truth revealed must have respect to its objects as 
 well as to its Author. It must, in its nature, be like God ; 
 but it must also be, in its form, like man. People object 
 to certain details in the Bible, averring that they seem far 
 below the Divine : they are ; and that because it was 
 necessary to bring them down to the human. Our know- 
 ledge comes to us in the first instance through the bodily 
 senses ; and how shall God, a Spirit, be made known to us ? 
 The method adopted in the covenant, and manifested in the 
 Scriptures, is — in order to bring us up to his nature he 
 bowed down to ours. In order that we might know and 
 receive the Lord, the spirit, God has from the beginning 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 395 
 
 prepared for that spirit a body, which brings saving truth 
 within the reach of embodied men. 
 
 While God in his ordinances condescends to our low estate, 
 a tendency is always manifest in the divine dispensations 
 to advance from the lower to the higher. The more carnal 
 ordinances came first ; afterwards, the more spiritual. The 
 New Testament is an advance upon the Old ; and a yet 
 greater advancement awaits the Church. Things are pre- 
 pared for them that love God — things which eye hath not 
 seen yet, nor ear heard. In the meantime, however, it is 
 only what the eye can see or the ear hear that can be made 
 known to us. Revelation must assume some bodily shape 
 ere it can be intelligible to men in the body. 
 
 Such, accordingly, were all the ordinances of the Ancient 
 Church, and such all the revelations that were made under 
 the earlier dispensations. Christ, their spirit and life, was 
 in them ; but those things in which the life was lying were 
 bodily things. 
 
 The bondage in Egypt, and the redemption thence by the 
 blood of the lamb ; the open way through the Red Sea to 
 Israel, and the burying of their oppressors beneath its 
 flood ; the journey through the wilderness, and the rest 
 that lay beyond; the manna from heaven, and the water 
 from the rock ; the deadly wound by the bite of a serpent, 
 and the healing by a look, — all these had Christ in them, 
 and all were employed to make Christ known. The per- 
 manent institutes, as well as the passing events, were bodies 
 prepared for containing and conveying that one blessed 
 spirit. The unblemished lamb, and its blood on the door- 
 posts ; the one fair mitre on the high priest's brow, and the 
 twelve precious stones on his breast, — that signifying 
 Christ's holiness before God, and this Christ's imperishable 
 
396 CHRIST AND THE SA'CRAMENTS. 
 
 love to his people , all the sacrifices and types that were 
 written in the laws of Moses, and reverently observed 
 throughout the generations of Israel, were bodies prepared 
 for bringing Christ near to men. All these were handles 
 let down from heaven, whereby the perishing might grasp 
 their Saviour. Christ put these garments on in those 
 ancient days, that his people, when bowed down by disease, 
 might be enabled to touch their hem, and so live. Christ 
 was within those bodies, their quickening spirit. Believers 
 like Abraham saw him thereby long before he came in the 
 flesh. It was his delight thus to reach them, and give them 
 life ; it was their delight thus to reach him, and get life. 
 The song, " My beloved is mine, and I am his," is an old, old 
 song, and a very sweet one to those who have an ear to hear 
 what the Spirit, out of the ordinances, saith unto the 
 Churches. But though these bodies were precious, as 
 vehicles for containing and presenting Christ, they were 
 worthless wanting him. A body with the life is good. 
 When the spirit animates the body, the body clothes the 
 spirit, and enables it to reach its object. But a body when 
 the spirit has fled is useless, and worse. Itself is dead, and 
 it kills others. Such are ordinances, even those of divine 
 appointment, when Christ, their spirit, is not in them, or 
 is not owned. 
 
 It is no disparagement to God's wisdom in the construc- 
 tion of the human body, that it becomes corrupt and cor- 
 rupting when the soul has fled. The human body is a 
 wonderful work ; but it is most wonderful as the home of 
 a human soul. When the soul has departed, it is of no 
 further use ; we are fain to bury it out of sight, God's work 
 though it be. Such are the ordinances of religion when 
 Christ is not in them. Their deadness and loathsomeness^ 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 397 
 
 when their life is lost, is no reflection on the wisdom that 
 ordained them. They were never meant to be, in themselves 
 and for their own sakes, either beautiful or good ; they are 
 obedient and loyal, and so they part with all their glory 
 when the King goes away. 
 
 There is a strong tendency in us to cling to the mere 
 body of a religious ordinance and let its spirit go. This 
 error appeared early in the Churches of Galatia. They 
 turned from Christ, who is the spirit of the ordinances, to 
 the old ordinances destitute of Christ. Returning to the 
 elements of the world, they distrusted Christ, and leant on 
 circumcision. How vehemently Paul cried out to them : 
 
 " O foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you ? Having 
 
 begun in the Spirit, are ye now made perfect in the flesh?" 
 They were leaving the animating Spirit, and going back to 
 the dry bones of the dead. 
 
 As sensible ordinances were appointed for communicating 
 Christ to faith before the incarnation, so also after the Lord 
 had ascended into heaven, he has appointed ordinances in 
 which he their spirit will dwell, and where his people will 
 find him. The Scriptures of the New Testament, like those 
 of the Old, are bodily things, suited to bodily senses. They 
 are words and letters. If they have not a spirit in them 
 they are dead ; and the dead cannot give life. Christ is 
 the soul that animates them ; and if we do not find him in 
 the Bible, we find nothing there. As a human body with 
 the life in it is the most beautiful object in nature, and a 
 human body when the life has gone the most forbidding, so 
 I suppose the Bible is to one class the most attractive of 
 all books, and to another the most forbidding , because to 
 the one it is a dead letter, and to the other it is a body all 
 
398 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 glowing with Christ its life. The Jewish scribes of our 
 Lord's day spent much time in handling the Scriptures, but 
 the letter in their hands was a body dead, and their schools 
 had the thick noisome air of a dissecting-room. " Ye 
 search the Scriptures," said the Lord to those learned Jews, 
 " for in them ye think ye have eternal life ; and they are 
 they which testify of me. And ye will not come to me, 
 that ye might have life." They stolidly manipulated the 
 carcass, and rejected him who came to be its spirit and life. 
 They embraced the dead because the look of the living re- 
 proved them. 
 
 But the sacrament of the SiipjDer is in a peculiar manner 
 and in an eminent degree the body whereof Christ is the 
 inner living spirit. As men often missed the spirit of the 
 old dispensation, so they miss the spirit of the Lord's Sup- 
 per now. If we do not by faith realize Christ at his table, 
 it will be no more to us than a Jewish passover would be. 
 
 In the remarkable discourse which is reported in the 
 sixth chapter of John's Gospel, Jesus taught clearly and 
 fully that himself is the bread on which a soul must live. 
 That discourse does not contain the institution of the Lord's 
 Supper. It is an exposition by the Lord himself, while he 
 stood among the disciples, of the central saving doctrine 
 which the Supper afterwards expressed and commemorated. 
 It is not his body but himself that he represents as the 
 bread of life. At the beginning he said, " I am that bread 
 of life ; " and at the close he repeated, " He that eateth me 
 shall live by me." 
 
 In the light of that discourse observe the relation between 
 our text and the ordinance of the Supper. " This is my 
 body... this is my blood ;... take ; eat... drink ye all of it;... 
 this do in remembrance of me." In all this you have the 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 399 
 
 body; but to eat bread and drink wine will not save, will not 
 profit a soul. Where is the spirit of the body ? The Lord 
 is that spirit. The Supper is indeed a body, — a sort of 
 channel appointed for conveying Christ to the believing, — 
 but it cannot by itself contribute an atom of influence to 
 the procuring of pardon, or the purifying of the heart. 
 The Lord is the spirit ; and if they who come to the body 
 do not seek and find by faith that spirit, the body will 
 profit them nothing, divine institute though it be. 
 
 This question is entirely independent of that which 
 concerns the right administration of the sacrament. Sup- 
 pose it to be administered by apostles, and in exact con- 
 formity with the Lord's will, still it can impart nothing to 
 the unworthy receiver. His evil heart of unbelief has re- 
 fused Christ, and there is none other who can be the spirit 
 of the ordinance. The bread and wine are but beggarly 
 elements. As the lead of a water-pipe, although most per- 
 fectly fitted for conveying water from the fountain to the 
 lips of the needy, cannot in any measure contribute to allay 
 his thirst, so the Supper, although divinely ordained and 
 purely administered, can do nothing for a sinner who closes 
 the door of his heart against the Saviour Christ. 
 
 We do not deny to the Supper a place when we refuse 
 to give it the place of the Saviour. The body, which is 
 nothinsr when dead, is a grreat thins: when livina:. It is 
 not only that the soul inhabiting the body is great : the 
 body is great when a soul inhabits it. In like manner, it 
 is not enough to say that, though a Christless sacrament is 
 nothing, Christ himself is great. That is true ; but more 
 than that is true. While the ordinance is dead and worth- 
 less, if Christ its spirit be not apprehended, the ordinance 
 is most precious when the believing partaker seeks through 
 
400 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 it communion Math the Lord. When he makes himself 
 known to a longing heart, that heart loves him ; and 
 loves, too, in its own place, the channel through which he 
 comes. 
 
 Recall to mind the design of Christ's departure from the 
 disciples, and the process of weaning through which they 
 were put. They loved the Master, with a fond, adoring 
 love. When they were tossed on a stormy sea and ready 
 to perish, the only want they felt was the absence of their 
 Lord : " It was now dark, and Jesus was not come to them." 
 But while their love was grateful to his heart, he knew that 
 sense with them was OTOwino; too rank, and was chokinof 
 the more feeble, more precious faith. Carried away in a 
 flood of personal love that lay in the senses, Peter passion- 
 ately opposed the dying of the Lord : '' Far be this from 
 thee." There Satan got an advantage over Peter. But 
 Peter's love to the person of the Lord, as seen by the 
 bodily eyes, was the cover under which the old serpent 
 lurked while he dealt this blow. 
 
 Knowing what was in man, the Lord prepared to go out 
 of his people's sight as soon as his atoning work was done. 
 The faith of these Galileans would have been smothered 
 outright under the ample folds of their love to the man 
 Christ Jesus, their personal friend. When he departed, they 
 remained glued to the ground and gazing up to heaven. 
 The ministry of angels was needed and employed to tear 
 them from the spot, and turn their minds another way. 
 But the ministry of angels, though fitted to take them 
 away from their needless looking into the sky over Olivet, 
 was not fitted positively to lead them to the perception and 
 enjoyment of Christ, the spirit of word and ordinances. 
 The ministry of angels ceased, and a more glorious ministry 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 401 
 
 succeeded it. The Holy Ghost came upon them ; and his 
 mission was to glorify Christ. They were wrenched away 
 from sensible, human companionship with Jesus, as infants 
 are torn from their mother's breast. They were led by the 
 Spirit to Christ ; and although Christ was now bodily re- 
 moved, he was still manifested to them under bodily forms. 
 In the sacrament of the Supper they found Christ with less 
 of tumult and distraction than they would have experienced 
 if he had again appeared in the flesh. 
 
 As the result of the Lord's ascension and the Spirit's 
 ministry, we learn that in mutual love and sacramental 
 communion they did eat their meat with gladness and single- 
 ness of heart. "This is my body... this do in remembrance 
 of me " — " Lo, I am with you." The Lord became the 
 spirit in the body of their sacrament. They lived on the 
 same Saviour ; but now their life in him was more purely a 
 life of faith. This body which he has left is as fit to nourish 
 us as his personal, visible presence on earth would be. We 
 may now praise him for having weaned his Church in those 
 days : he has given us food convenient for us ; he hath done 
 all things well. Let the Lord be the spirit of our sacra- 
 ment, and we shall feed on him by faith, with less distrac- 
 tion than if he should return to show us either the marks 
 of former suffering on his hands, or the signs of present 
 glory on his countenance. By his reappearing in bodily 
 form, we should be flooded by tumults of human passion ; — 
 either crying out, "Depart from me ; for I am a sinful man, 
 Lord," or "falling at his feet as dead." In these tumults 
 flickering faith would be overlaid and quenched. 
 
 He gives us the sensible sign, that in it we may receive 
 himself by faith as our Saviour, with less distraction than 
 if his eyes as a flame of Are were opened and bent upon 
 
 (753) 26 
 
402 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 our company. We should gladly accept any body wherein 
 he pleases to present himself ; and if there be less in these 
 symbols themselves to carry us away than there would have 
 been in the transfigured presence of the Lord descending on 
 our mount, all the more complete should be the inner wor- 
 ship of the soul, while we cleave to the Lord the spirit in 
 these bodily memorials of his death. 
 
 Tell me the sweetest scene of mingled moral and material 
 beauty that may be seen on earth. It is an infant satisfy- 
 ing itself abundantly from a living mother's breast. Tell 
 me nov/ the saddest sight that eye hath seen or ear hath 
 heard of. It is that which they say has sometimes been 
 seen in the wake of war or of pestilence — an infant uncon- 
 sciously sucking a mother dead. If that process continue 
 long, the child will draw death from that which was formed 
 to be a well of life. 
 
 The letter of the ordinance is dead if Christ be not 
 known and tasted. The letter, when the spirit has 
 departed, is not only dead, but deadly : " The letter killeth." 
 But the same letter, when the Lord is its spirit, is life, and 
 gives life. 
 
 The tendency to go back to the dead letter in the sacra- 
 ment of the Supper is, of course, seen in its grossest form 
 in modern Rome. But even that deepest error of the 
 Eomish superstition has a more terrible meaning to us at 
 this day than formerly, because of a movement — broad, 
 deep, and rapid — in the Church of England to follow in 
 the wake of Rome. Opposite and equal to the revival 
 movements upward to the Lord that have been experienced 
 in our day, other movements have emerged, — movements of 
 men's spirits gravitating downwards like lead, from Christ 
 the spirit of the Supper to the form from which Christ has 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 403 
 
 departed. This gravitation downwards affects us all, except 
 in as far as the Holy Spirit is given to quicken and elevate. 
 Whereas all the sacrifices of the Old Testament, beino- 
 symbols, ceased when the one Sacrifice was ofifered, they 
 multiply their sacrifice of the Mass, as they call it, to ten 
 thousand times ten thousand — thus returning to the 
 shadows again. Their wafer and their wine-cup, they say, 
 have become the body and blood of Christ — the very body 
 that was nailed to the cross, and the blood that flowed from 
 his wounds. It is the most adventurous imposture that 
 ever human heart invented. But even althouerh it were 
 true, what gain would accrue from it ? Although the wafer 
 and wine which the devotee swallows were the body and 
 blood of Christ — which they are not — what better would 
 ho be of swallowing them ? It is the spirit that giveth 
 life ; bodily service profiteth little. The Lord, the spirit, is 
 not there ; he has gone away offended, leaving the dead 
 letter for the dead worshipper. 
 
 The second clause of the verse intimates that "Where the 
 Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
 
 I know not a shorter or surer method of illustrating the 
 liberty that prevails wherever the Lord, the spirit, is re- 
 cognized by faith, than to point out the bondage which 
 crushes the people wherever the spirit of the sacrament is 
 lost, and its body resorted to as a charm. The converse of 
 the clause is strictly true and eminently appropriate to 
 the times, — " Where the Spirit of the Lord is not, there is 
 slavery." Human spirits are too high in nature and too 
 capacious for worshipping any other than God. When men, 
 as individuals or as communities, let Christ slip from the 
 grasp of their faith, and fasten on some corporeal thing, 
 whether a superstitious ceremonial or a human priesthood, 
 
404 CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 
 
 farewell to liberty. It becomes, on the one side, an iron 
 tyranny ; and, on the other, the cringing of a slave. The 
 Pharisee would lose peace of conscience if he should eat with 
 unwashen hands. A modern bondsman, a sincere wor- 
 shipper in his way, will count that he has committed a sin 
 against God, which must be atoned for by a painful or 
 degrading penance, if by some accident he has tasted a kind 
 of food on one day of the week which he might eat law- 
 fully on any other. A man of education and refinement in 
 this country will eat meat with peace of conscience at a 
 certain season of the year if an aged priest at Rome shall 
 give permission, but would count that he had incurred the 
 displeasure of God if he should eat meat at that season 
 without such permission. There is no imaginable depth of 
 degradation which the master of a soul may not impose — 
 which a soul enslaved will not endure. Woe to human 
 spirits when they let go Christ and submit to a carnal 
 ordinance or a fellow-man ! 
 
 Take all the advantage that can be obtained — and it is 
 great — from the union and organization of Christians, as a 
 brotherhood of God's children ; take instruction and accept 
 fellowship wherever you can obtain them pure and useful, 
 — but subject your soul to none but Christ. When in reading 
 the Scriptures, in prayer secret or social, in the worship of 
 the great assembly, or in the act of showing forth the Lord's 
 death, you seek and get communion in spirit with the 
 living Saviour ever present, you enjoy a sublime freedom. 
 You walk at liberty before God as a dear child, consciously 
 reconciled through the blood of the covenant ; you will 
 walk at liberty through life, calling no man master, and 
 not trembling before shifting shadows or rustling leaves ; 
 you will walk at liberty through the swelling Jordan, 
 
CHRIST AND THE SACRAMENTS. 405 
 
 when you approach the border line, and get an abundant 
 entrance into the rest that remaineth. 
 
 If the Son make you free, you shall be free indeed ; — 
 free from the fear of man ; free from the snares of the 
 devil ; free from the condemnation for sin ; free from the 
 terrors of conscience ; free from the sting of death ; free 
 from the clog of a mortal body ; free from the confusion of 
 a consuming world : freed hv the Lord ; free xuith the 
 Lord. 
 
Ill 
 
 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 " Holding faith, and a good conscience ; which some having put away, con- 
 cerning faith have made shipwreck." — 1 Tim. i. 19. 
 
 HRISTIANS in this country are at present [1874]. 
 more than usually happy and hopeful. Both 
 the constituents of apostolic cheerfulness are 
 present, " a wide door," and " many adversaries." 
 So wide is the door, and so great the spiritual enlargement, 
 that the " adversaries," instead of depressing, tend rather 
 to stimulate and elevate the hearts of believers. The shout 
 of a King is in the camp, and he is leading many captive. 
 
 As in ancient times, so now, " This is the victory that 
 overcometh the world, even your faith." " Justified by 
 faith," is the key-note of the hymn that is now rising 
 heavenward like the voice of many waters from a revived 
 and united Church. Christ the substitute — the just dying 
 for the unjust — is the distinguishing feature of the preach- 
 ing which at present is accompanied with power. This is 
 as it should be ; it is under this standard only that the 
 Christian host will conquer. This gospel of free grace 
 must be always and everywhere proclaimed. The evil 
 spirit that possesses human hearts goeth not out by any 
 other adjuration. 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 407 
 
 But while this should be done, there is another thing' 
 which ought not to be left undone. A watchful, energetic 
 effort personally to turn from all evil, and to practise all 
 good, must be made by every one who trusts in Christ for 
 pardon and peace. Work from peace and pardon as ener- 
 getically as if you were working for peace and pardon. 
 There is not safety for an hour in any other attitude. If 
 the upper side of true religion, pointing heavenward, be, 
 " Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved;" 
 the under side, pointing earthward, is, " To visit the widows 
 and the fatherless in their affliction, and to keep himself 
 unspotted from the world." If the upper side of the seal 
 which binds a believer to the sure foundation bear the 
 inscription, " The Lord knoweth them that are his ; " the 
 legend on the under side must be kept clear and legible by 
 constant rubbing, " Let every one that nameth the name 
 of Christ depart from iniquity" (2 Tim. ii. 19). Actual 
 holiness is as necessary to the life of faith as the left side 
 of a man's body is to the life of the right. 
 
 In these circumstances I think I shall contribute a word 
 for the times, if, for the special use of young converts, 
 rejoicing in a free and full salvation, I set forth the two 
 sides of the Christian life in their union and relations. 
 
 These I shall present as given by that great master of 
 logical connections, the Apostle Paul, 
 
 " Holding faith, and a good conscience ; which sotne 
 having put away, concerning faith have made shiptvrech " 
 (1 Tim. i. 19). 
 
 The two subjects here are faith, and « good conscience. 
 We must inquire first. What they severally arc, and next, 
 How they are reciprocally connected. Their nature first, 
 and then their relations. 
 
408 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 I. What they are. 
 
 1. Faith. — The term is in the Scriptures applied both to 
 the revealed truth which a disciple believes, and to his act 
 in believing it. Faith is objective, or subjective. It is at 
 one time the truth which you grasp, and at another time 
 your grasp of the truth. 
 
 Both of these senses occur in the text, distinguished (in 
 the original, though not in the English) by the presence or 
 absence of the article. " Faith," in the first clause, is the 
 soul's act of believing ; " the faith," in the second clause, is 
 the gospel which the soul believes. 
 
 Both in the Scriptures and in their own nature these 
 two are closely interwoven together. It is impossible 
 everywhere to preserve and mark the distinction between 
 the light that I look on, and my looking on that light. 
 True, my looking on it does not create the light, but it 
 makes the light mine. Unless I look on it, the light is 
 nothing to me. If I am blind, it is the same to me as if 
 there had not been light. 
 
 In some such way are faith and the faith connected and 
 combined. It is quite true that the gospel remains, al- 
 though I should reject it : my unbelief cannot make God's 
 promise of none effect. Yet my unbelief makes the gospel 
 nothing to me — the same to me as if it had not been. The 
 faith stands in heaven, although fa^th be wanting on earth ; 
 but if faitli is wanting, tlie faith does not save the lost : as 
 the sun continues his course through the sky although I were 
 blind ; but my blindness blots out the sun for me. 
 
 2. A good conscience. — It is not necessary to explain 
 what conscience is: my readers know what it is better than 
 I can tell. What is meant by conscience is a thing to be 
 experienced rather than to be taught ; but what is meant 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 409 
 
 by a " good conscience " is not so obvious. Here tlie prin- 
 cipal question is, Whether does the epithet " good " refer to 
 the conscience that gives the testimony, or to the testimony 
 that the conscience gives. The term " good " here belongs 
 not to the testifier, but to the testimony. 
 
 In one sense that mio-ht be called a o-ood conscience, that 
 tells the truth even though the truth torment you. When 
 the conscience, like an ambassador from God in a man's 
 breast, refuses to be silent in the presence of sin, and dis- 
 turbs the pleasure of the guilty by uttering warnings of 
 doom, that conscience is good, in the sense of being watch- 
 ful and useful ; but it is not the good conscience of this 
 text, and of ordinary language. Both here, and in common 
 conversation, a good conscience is a conscience that does 
 not accuse and disturb. It is the same as peace of con- 
 science. It is no doubt true that in an evil world, and 
 throuQ'h the deceitfulness of an evil heart, the conscience 
 may sometimes be so drugged or seared that it may leave 
 the so\d undisturbed, although the soul is steeped in sin. 
 It sometimes says " Peace, peace," when there is no peace. 
 " There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked ;" but the 
 conscience sometimes contradicts God, and says that there 
 is peace to the wicked. This is, however, an abnormal 
 state of things , as when an ambassador at a foreign court 
 turns traitor to the king who commissioned him, and 
 refuses to deliver his lord's commands to the court where 
 he has been accredited. Although this state of rebellion 
 is in point of fact common among men, it is in its own 
 nature a contradiction and an anomaly. Although it 
 abounds in this fallen world, it is an exception and a rarity 
 in the universal dominion of the supreme God. It may 
 for our present purpose be set aside. The conscience in 
 
410 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 man is intended to be God's witness, and to speak to the 
 man all the truth. Taking conscience, not as twisted and 
 seared by sin, but as constituted by God in the conception 
 and creation of humanity, then a good conscience is peace 
 of conscience. You have and hold a good conscience when 
 that present representative of God in your bosom does not 
 charge you with sin. When it accuses it is an evil, when it 
 approves it is a good, conscience. The one is an inward 
 sense of cruilt, the other an inward sense of rio-hteousness. 
 
 By the light of Scripture we know tliat, as matters go 
 among the fallen, a good conscience, if real and lawfully 
 attained, implies these two things: — (1) The application of 
 the blood of sprinkling for the pardon of sin ; and (2), 
 Actual abstinence from known sin in the life through the 
 ministry of the Holy Spirit. A good conscience — if it is 
 not a cheat — implies a righteousness 07i you and a righteous- 
 ness in you. There is the washing away of guilt in the 
 fountain open ; and there is the actual turning from all 
 filthiness of the flesh and spirit. There is a righteousness 
 which you get, and there is a righteousness which you per- 
 form. The one is the justification, and the other the 
 sanctification, of a believer. The one is an act of God's 
 free grace ; the other is the work of God the Spirit. The 
 one, as being an act, is completed when it is begun ; the 
 other, as being a work, drags its slow length aloni; — alas, 
 through corruptions within and temptations without — along 
 the whole line of a disciple's life, until he escape from the 
 body and depart to be with Christ. Pardon and renewing 
 combine to constitute, under the gospel, a good conscience. 
 What God hath joined, let not man put asunder. The first 
 dissociated from the second is antinomianism ; the second 
 dissociated from the first is legalism. The hope of pardon 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 411 
 
 throuji-h o-race, without actual newness of life, trann)les 
 under foot God's holy law. The effort to lead a holy life, 
 without looking for pardon through the blood of Christ, 
 parades the filthy rags of a sinner's righteousness, as if 
 they were fit to constitute the wedding garment of the 
 King's guests when the King cometh in. The conscience 
 is then really good when your trust is in the blood and 
 righteousness of your Redeemer, and your life is practically 
 dedicated to the Lord that bought you. The conscience is 
 good when it truly testifies that God is at peace with you, 
 and you are at peace with God. For all practical purposes, 
 the good conscience here may be taken as synonymous with 
 well-doing. 
 
 II. Tlteir relations. — The text consists of two parts. 
 The first is a command, the second is an example. The 
 example, as is usual both in human teaching and divine, is 
 adduced for the purpose of enforcing the precept. An 
 illustrative case, taken from actual life to explain or apply 
 a prescribed duty, may be in its form positive or negative ; 
 that is, it may either directly show how good it is to obey, 
 or how evil it is to transgress. The case which is employed 
 in this text is negative. It exhibits, in concrete form, not 
 the good that results from obedience, but the evil that 
 results from transgression. Doubtless, Paul could have 
 called up from his own experience many examples to show 
 how good it is to hold both faith and a good conscience ; 
 but it suited his purpose better, in this instance, to adduce 
 an example which shows the dread consequence of attempt- 
 ing to separate them. In point of fact, an example of 
 these two rent asunder is more efiective in proving the 
 necessity of their union than a hundred examples in which 
 
412 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 the union remains intact. Thus, if proof were necessary, 
 to divide a living child in two with Solomon's sword would 
 constitute more vivid evidence that in a human being the 
 left side is necessary to the life of the right, and the right 
 to the life of the left, than the sight of a hundred unharmed 
 children. When one side is wrenched off, the other side 
 also dies : this is shorter and surer proof that the two are 
 mutually necessary to each other's existence than a hundred 
 examples of positive, perfect life. 
 
 Besides, it is easier to find a foundation for a negative 
 than for a positive example. In buoying a channel, they 
 cannot well set up a mark where the ship ought to go ; 
 they set up a beacon on the sunken rock which the ship 
 ought to avoid. 
 
 On this principle, the apostle selects a negative rather 
 than a positive example to enforce his point. A case in 
 which death resulted from severance suits his purpose 
 better than a case in which life is preserved through con- 
 tinued union. In this case, one of the related pair is 
 severed, and the other, as a necessary consequence, perishes. 
 Holding faith and a good conscience, which some — and he 
 immediately names two men who had actually passed 
 through the course which he describes — which some having 
 put away, concerning faith have made shij^wreck ; that is, 
 when they put away the good conscience, the faith also 
 was lost. 
 
 Here a question of the deepest interest crosses our path 
 and claims our regard. Granted that faith and a good 
 conscience are linked so intimately together that the one 
 cannot live without its consort, what is the specific char- 
 acter of the relation ? Whether of these two is first in 
 nature as cause, and whether follows as effect ? Looking 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 413 
 
 to the form of expression in the text, which is exact and 
 definite, we find that in the case adduced it was not the 
 dissolution of faith that destroyed the good conscience, but 
 the failing of the good conscience that destroyed faith. 
 These men put away the good conscience ; then and there- 
 fore, they lost the faith. What then ? As the continued 
 possession of the faith depended on maintaining the good 
 conscience, is it through prior possession of a good con- 
 science that one may attain faith ? 
 
 No. The converse is the truth, fully and clearly taught 
 in the Scriptures. You do not reach faith through a good 
 conscience, but a good conscience through faith. A good 
 conscience grows on faith, like fruit on a tree, not faith on 
 a good conscience. 
 
 A good conscience in both its aspects, as already ex- 
 plained, is the fruit of faith. Without faith it is impos- 
 sible to please God, either by the righteousness of Christ 
 in justifying, or the new obedience in sanctifying. God 
 is pleased with both righteousnesses, each in its own place, 
 and after its own kind. The righteousness which a be- 
 lieving man receives satisfies his justice, and the obedience 
 which a converted man renders adorns his doctrine. God 
 is well pleased, for his righteousness' sake, when he sees 
 his Son accepted in your heart and his law honoured in 
 your life. But both of these are attained through faith. 
 It is faith that justifies the man before God's judgment, 
 and establishes the law in the life-course of the man. 
 
 Now this specific relation is not reciprocal. The good 
 conscience does not produce faith, as faith produces a good 
 conscience. What then ? If faith goes first as the cause, 
 and a good conscience follows as the fruit, the good con- 
 science obviously cannot sulwist without faith ; but may 
 
414 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 faith subsist without a good conscience ? No. As to pro- 
 duction at first, the relation is not reciprocal ; but as to 
 maintenance it is. We cannot say, as a good conscience 
 springs from faith, faith also springs from a good conscience; 
 but we can say, as the want of faith makes a good con- 
 science impossible, so, also, the loss of a good conscience is 
 fatal to faith. 
 
 Some species of trees retain life in the roots although 
 the head and stem are cut away. A young tree may 
 spring from the old stump, and grow to maturity. But 
 other species, such as the pine, will not thus spring a 
 second time. When the mature tree is cut off, although 
 the root, with a portion of the stem, is left, the tree does 
 not revive. The root dies when the head is severed.* 
 There is an interesting analogy between a pine-tree and 
 the pair which are joined in the text. It is not the tree's 
 towering head that produces the root ; the root produces 
 the towering head. We can, therefore, safely say, If the 
 root is killed, the head cannot live ; but we may also say, 
 If the head is severed, the root will die. Precisely such is 
 the relation between faith and a good conscience. Faith 
 is the producing, sustaining root, and a good conscience the 
 stem that it sustains. Consequently, cut off faith, and a 
 good conscience falls to the ground. Yes, this is the truth ; 
 but it is not the whole truth. We can also say. Destroy 
 the good conscience, and faith cannot stand. 
 
 * The emigrant, in clearing his Lit in the American forest, does not at first 
 dig each tree out by the root. This process would occupy too much time. He 
 cuts the tree four or five feet above the ground, and the root rots away in a 
 few years. Hence, a common feature of the landscape in newly-reclaimed 
 territories — fields studded all over with the stumps of trees, and the corn grow- 
 ing around them. Hence the coinage of a new word in the English language as 
 used in America. A candidate for office is said "to stump the state" — that is, 
 he goes through it addressing meetings and soliciting votes. One of these 
 stumps constitutes a convenient platform for the political orator. 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 415 
 
 Thus in one way only may the good conscience be 
 obtained ; but in either of two ways both may be lost. 
 Let faith fail, and the good conscience goes with it ; let 
 the good conscience be polluted, and the faith itself gives 
 way. 
 
 In the first place, then, speculative error undermines 
 practical righteousness. As belief of the truth purifies the 
 heart and rectifies the conduct, so a false belief leads the 
 life astray. Let it suffice to have enunciated the relation 
 on this side ; we shall turn for practical lessons chiefly to 
 another aspect of the case. The example given in the 
 text, and oftenest found in experience, is not false faith 
 leading to an incorrect conduct, but impure conduct under- 
 mining faith. I suppose, in the experience of human life, 
 if the speculative error producing practical wickedness 
 slays its thousands, the practical wickedness perverting the 
 creed slays its ten thousands. 
 
 The backsliding begins more frequently on the side of 
 conduct than on the side of opinion : the good conscience 
 is lost in most cases, not by adopting a heretical creed, but 
 by indulging in the pleasures of sin. 
 
 " A good conscience, which some having put aiuay." 
 When a man who has known the gospel and professed to 
 be a disciple of Christ yields to temptation, and indulges 
 in a course of sin — knowing the right, but doin<x the 
 wrong^ — he forthwith loses the good conscience. His peace 
 is disturbed ; the witness in his bosom accuses him, and 
 he is tormented by the fear of divine wrath. To this 
 Mocked man there is now no peace, and that by the word 
 and decree of God. His heart is a house divided against 
 itself, and it is wretched. Now, will this man who has 
 fallen into sin, and so lost liis good conscience, continue 
 
416 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 still sound in the faith ? When his conduct is polluted, 
 will his opinion continue true ? 
 
 No, verily. As in the case of the text, when the good 
 conscience is thus forced out, the sound creed will soon 
 follow. Having put away a good conscience, concerning 
 the faith they have made shipwreck. It is true indeed 
 that pure conduct depends on sound doctrine ; but it is 
 also true that sound doctrine depends on pure conduct. 
 And, in point of fact, it is much more common to find the 
 faith perverted by loose practice, than practice perverted 
 by a loose creed. The wicked one knows that a (soul may 
 be undone by a successful assault either on his faith or his 
 practice. But in seeking whom he may devour, he finds 
 the side of a holy life more easily reached and pierced 
 than the side of orthodox views. Our enemy finds it 
 easier to persuade us to do what is evil than to believe 
 what is false. The conscience is more exposed in the 
 battle of life than the intellect. And it is on the weak 
 point that a skilful adversary will concentrate his attack. 
 
 For our instruction and reproof, the Spirit, by the 
 apostle, adduces a case in which, while all the beliefs 
 remained sound, the heart and life glided into impurity. 
 In such a case there is strife in a man's own bosom. The 
 doctrines of grace entertained in the mind wage war 
 against the vices indulged in the life, and the vices indulged 
 in the life wage war against the doctrines still retained in 
 the mind. This battle cannot last very long. One or 
 other combatant must give way. Either sound doctrine, 
 maintaining its ground, will drive out the vile indulgence, 
 or the vile indulgence, growing, like an appetite, by what 
 it feeds on, will put to flight the faith. 
 
 In the case of our text the bad conscience prevailed and 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 417 
 
 cast out the good belief. There is another case recorded 
 in the same epistle— ch. vi. 9, 10. Here are some who 
 erred from the faith. How came that ? They first gave 
 themselves over to covetousness ; then and therefore they 
 erred from the faith. In truth, a man cannot make both 
 money and Christ his portion. A double-minded man is 
 unstable in all his ways ; and in some turn of the way the 
 unstable traveller will stumble and fall. 
 
 While the calamity is substantially in all cases the same, 
 the faith may be shipwrecked in any of three distinct 
 forms, — a dead faith, an erroneous faith, and no faith. In 
 the first a form of sound words remains, but they are a 
 dead letter ; in the second, false views of Christ and his 
 work are entertained ; and in the third, the backslider sits 
 down in the chair of the scorner, and says, No God, with 
 his lips as well as in his heart. 
 
 Among ourselves, perhaps a dead faith is the most 
 common form of soul shipwreck. Through the indulgence 
 of various vanities and lusts, although the name of Christ 
 and the salvation which it brings remain as words, they 
 are words of no meaning, no power. It is difficult to tear 
 the stump right out of the ground at once. The same end 
 is gained by leaving it standing dead ; it will gradually 
 rot away. 
 
 Faith and covetousness, faith and any impurity, cannot 
 dwell together in the same breast. These cannot be in the 
 same room with living faith. As well might you expect 
 fire and water to agree. The cares of this life and the 
 deceitfulness of riches choke the word. What then ? In 
 order that faith in us should not be choked and die, we 
 must crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts. Does 
 this savour of legal teaching? See how Paul, the preacher 
 
 (753) 27 
 
418 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 of the Cross, acted in his own experience — Acts xxiv. 15,16: 
 "And have hope toward God... And herein do I exercise 
 myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward 
 God and toward men," You have faith in Christ ; well, 
 this is the way to keep it — to keep it living. Let not one 
 of us suppose that his faith will remain fresh and full 
 without watching and striving, when we see that even Paul 
 found it necessary to exercise himself every day to keep 
 his conscience clean. 
 
 Young men are, in the present day, peculiarly exposed 
 to the danger of speculative error or unbelief. They hear 
 many arguments against either certain doctrines of the 
 gospel, or the gospel itself ; they must listen to many 
 sneers against men who profess the faith. I do not deny 
 that there is danger on that side. There is danger: a pro- 
 cess of sapping and mining goes on, which may in time 
 overthrow the faith of some. I confess there is danger 
 of false opinions insinuating themselves into men's minds. 
 All I contend for is, that the danger is greater on the other 
 side. Faith is easier and oftener reached and undermined 
 by stains that eat through the conscience. 
 
 I knew a young man once who became what was called 
 a Socialist. He attained a great degree of boldness in the 
 profession of ungodliness. No God, or no God that cares 
 for me, was his short, cold creed. But I knew him and 
 his communications before he had made shipwreck concern- 
 ing faith. The second table of the law had, by indulgence 
 of sinful pleasure, been rusted out of his heart before the 
 first table was discarded from his creed. He had cruelly 
 dishonoured his father and his mother, before he learned 
 to blaspheme God. It cannot be comfortable to a young 
 man in his strength to come day by day to open his heart 
 
FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 419 
 
 to God, if day by day he is deliberately disowning and dis- 
 honouring his parents in the weakness of their age. The 
 dishonourer of his parents finds it necessary to his own 
 comfort to cast off God. This man put away his good 
 conscience, and therefore his faith was wrecked.* 
 
 I knew another, who had in youth made higher attain- 
 ments, and who, on that account, made a more terrible fall. 
 He had experienced religious impressions, and taken a side 
 with the disciples of Christ. I lost sight of him for some 
 years. When I met him again, I was surjorised to find 
 that he had neither modesty before men nor reverence 
 before God. He was free and easy. He announced 
 plainly that he did not now believe in the terrors spiritual 
 that had frightened him in his youth. I made another 
 discovery at the same time regarding him. He had deceived, 
 ruined, and deserted one whom he falsely pretended to love. 
 Through vile and cruel affections he had put his good con- 
 science away ; and, to pacify an evil conscience, he had 
 denied the faith. The belief of the truth and the practice 
 of wickedness could not dwell together in the same breast. 
 The torment caused by their conflict could not be endured. 
 He must be rid of one of the two. Unwilling to part with 
 his sin at the command of his faith, he parted with his 
 faith at the command of his sin. 
 
 But though the shipwreck of faith is often, it is not 
 always, the issue of the struggle. When the conscience of 
 one who tried to be Christ's disciple is defiled by admitted, 
 indulged sin, the struggle inevitably, immediately begins. 
 The Spirit striveth against the flesh, and the flesh against 
 
 * The man ultimately recovered his faith. The stress of life was too heavy 
 for an empty heart to bear ; and he was fain to return, like the prodigal, to his 
 Father, 
 
420 FAITH AND A GOOD CONSCIENCE. 
 
 the Spirit. The sin often casts out the faith ; but the 
 faith also often casts out the sin. The outcome is often, 
 through grace, the discomfiture of the adversary. "Thanks 
 be to God, who giveth us the victory." " The steps of a 
 good man are ordered by the Lord. Though he fall, he 
 shall not be utterly cast down ; for the Lord upholdeth 
 him with his hand." 
 
 David put away his good conscience. His conscience 
 was deeply stained by great, grievous, deliberate sin. The 
 sword of the Spirit, glancing from a prophet's lips, pierced 
 throuo'h the searine^, in the short and awful word, " Thou 
 art the man." Then bei^fan the conflict to rao^e in his 
 breast. This battle cannot last long. One or other com- 
 batant, in such a fast and furious struggle, must soon 
 succumb. Angels desire to look into it. Here is a fight 
 for the life of a soul ! Now, or never ! Either his faith 
 will triumph over his sin, or his sin will triumph over his 
 faith. These two cannot divide the kingdom and reisrn in 
 concert. Repentance or Atheism will gain the day, and 
 possess the man. It must either be the cry of Repentance, 
 " I have sinned against the Lord ; " or the cry of Atheism, 
 " There is no Lord to sin against." 
 
 The struggle closed in the confession of the penitent ; 
 and the Lord also put away his sin. 
 
IV. 
 
 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 " ^Vnd he said, A certain man had two sons : and the younger of them said 
 to his father, Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me. And he 
 divided unto them his Hving. And not many days after, the younger son 
 gathered all together, and took his journey into a far country, and there wasted 
 his substance with riotous living. And when he had spent all, there arose a 
 mighty famine in that land ; and he began to be in want. And he went and 
 joined himself to a citizen of that country ; and he sent him into his fields tc 
 feed swine," etc. — Luke xv. 11-24. 
 
 I. HIS DEPAETURE. 
 
 HE young man goes away. Why ? What drives 
 or drags him from that sweet home — the home 
 that might be sweet to him, if he would open 
 his heart and drink in its pure enjoyments ? 
 Within the man are the " seven devils " that hold the reins 
 and direct his course, and urge him to his ruin. " The plea- 
 sures of sin for a season" have been long secretly nursed in 
 his heart : now they have obtained the mastery, and can no 
 longer be restrained. The impure passion which he has cher- 
 ished and not crucified now lords it over him ; and under 
 the tyranny of his own lusts the way of this transgressor 
 is hard. Like the centurion among his soldiers, the will of 
 this possessing foul spirit is supreme over all the powers of 
 the victim's mind, and all the members of his body. To 
 the right hand appetite says, Do this ; and the right hand 
 
422 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 doeth it. So with all the re.st of the faculties : they do 
 the bidding of their master, even to the maiming and mviti- 
 lating of themselves. 
 
 These imperious lusts drove the young man from his 
 home, because they could not completely get their own way 
 in his father's presence. " Out of my father's sight," he 
 thought, " and then no longer any bridle on my passions ; 
 no longer any limit to my pleasures." The wretched dupe 
 was photographed long ago, for warning to all generations : 
 " With her much fair speech she caused him to yield, with 
 the flattering of her lips she forced him. He goeth after 
 her straightway, as an ox goeth to the slaughter, or as a 
 fool to the correction of the stocks ; till a dart strike through 
 his liver ; as a bird hasteth to the snare, and knoweth not 
 that it is for his life" (Prov. vii. 21-23). 
 
 The fugitive could not halt or look behind him till he 
 had crossed the borders of his native country, and found 
 shelter among foreigners, as a tree is hidden by the wood. 
 Nobody knows me here ! I have here no character to 
 keep ; I shall give rein to passion, and have pleasures with- 
 out stint. 
 
 Very soon, however, his substance is wasted. The English 
 word "substance" is ambiguous. It may mean the pith 
 and marrow of a man's body, or the contents of his purse. 
 It may be taken both ways at once ; for these two kinds 
 of substance generally melt away together, in the bitter 
 experience of the prodigal. His fortune is lost ; his health 
 has failed ; and his pleasures, such as they were, have 
 fled. The pleasures, when they flee, leave behind them 
 stings and terrors in the conscience. The youth begins 
 to be in want ; — in want of food, and clothing, and home ; 
 in want of friends, in want of peace — in want of all 
 
THE PRODIGAL. 423 
 
 things. A waif drifting towards the eternal shore — a lost 
 soul. 
 
 Such is the track of a prodigal. The footprints are 
 thick on that path. A multitude tread it. The way 
 down to death is thronged. As the saved tread their path 
 in daily life, they are jostled at every step by a crowd 
 hastening the opposite way. Oh, it is a solemn thing even 
 for the saved to tread our streets, for they are rubbing 
 every hour on fellow-immortals hastening on their own feet 
 to their own destruction ! 
 
 But yet there is hope. If these pages meet the eyes of 
 any prodigal, turning his back on God and all the good — - 
 chasing the pleasure that is fleeing from his grasp, in order 
 to lead him over a precipice to the death that does not die, 
 — we have two pieces of good news for him. Pause, prod- 
 igal, and listen ! 
 
 1. God is angry with you. How do you know that ? 
 I read it in his Word : " And the Lord was angry with 
 Solomon, because his heart departed from the Lord God of 
 Israel" (1 Kings xi. 9). But you promised to give us good 
 news, and you announce the most dreadful message that can 
 reach human ears, — the anger of the Almighty God ! The 
 message I bring is good tidings : nay, it is, in your cir- 
 cumstances, the best news that could possibly be sent to 
 you from God or man. If God w^ere not angry, but pleased 
 with you, in your sin, it would mean that there is neither 
 holiness nor happiness in heaven or on earth^ — in time or 
 eternity ; which would be folly and blasphemy either to 
 think or to say. If God were not angry with you, pro- 
 digal, for going away, he would not be glad when you 
 return. I shall give you here a note of my experience. 
 I have learned to love and delio-ht in the ano-er of mv 
 
424 THE PRODIGAL, 
 
 Father in heaven. His anger against my departing, when 
 I depart, means that he loves to feel me near. If he were 
 pleased when I go away, I could not expect him to welcome 
 me back. 
 
 Think of it : as the central sun would miss this world, 
 if this world should burst its bonds and wander away into 
 the darkness of space ; so God, the Father of the spirits of 
 all flesh, misses a single wandering soul, and is angry. 
 Anger here is but the other side of love. It proves that 
 " he careth for you." 
 
 If I were a runaway child of an earthly father, and if 
 the conviction could be conveyed to my weary, despair- 
 ing heart, in the land of the stranger, that my father 
 was angry with me for going away, hope would beam 
 again into my dark soul ; for the fact would lead me 
 to expect a welcome, and no upbraiding, if I should 
 return. 
 
 2. Christ himself, by the word of his own lips, in the 
 parable, marked and made a path for the prodigal's return. 
 As they said to the blind man at Jericho, " Be of good com- 
 fort ; rise, he calleth thee," — so, with the Bible open in our 
 hands, we can address every prodigal child : " Rise, he 
 calleth thee." Why did he paint the picture ? Why did 
 he leave on record for all generations this most tender and 
 melting story ? It was to make and leave open a way 
 from the place where the prodigal lies, on the very brink 
 of the pit, back and up to the Father's home and the 
 Father's bosom. He traced every step of that way with 
 his own hand. The way leadeth unto life, and the gate 
 stands open now. 
 
 Poor worn-out wreck, at war with yourself and with all 
 the world ; torn with remorse, and freezinof under the dark 
 
THE PRODIGAL. 425 
 
 shadow of despair ; lonely, desolate, lost ; — there is One 
 that cares for you. Read the parable of the Prodigal Son 
 once more. Though father and mother forsake you, He 
 who sj^oke that word will not give you up. If he had 
 been willing to let you go, and content to leave you lost, 
 he would not have left on record that wonderful word. 
 The lines of the parable are like beams of light from 
 heaven, streaming towards the dark region round the sides 
 of the pit — the outgoings of the heart of Jesus in un- 
 changed compassion towards those self-destroyers who have 
 put themselves beyond the reach of human help. He who 
 wept over Jerusalem is still the same. 
 
 That departure, in its results, is now grieving you : there 
 is another One whom it grieves. Christ weeps for want 
 of you : he will not frown on you when you return. 
 
 " Just as I am, without one plea 
 But that tliy blood was shed for me, 
 And that thou bidd'st me come to thee, 
 O Lamb of God, I come ! " 
 
 Make that plea your own, and you will feel the arms of 
 the Father's love clasped around you. " This man receiveth 
 sinners." 
 
 II. THE RETURN. 
 
 " Out of the depths have I cried unto thee." I suppose 
 it will be found, when the books are opened, that most 
 of the cries that have reached to heaven rose from the 
 depths. When all was lost, when he was on the point of 
 perishing, the prodigal came first to himself, and then to 
 his father. 
 
 The word that marks the turning-point is very sug- 
 gestive : " He came to himself." Had he then been beside 
 himself, had he not been in his right mind, when he left 
 
426 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 his home and wasted himself among strangers ? The word 
 makes it clear that the man was not himself in his prodi- 
 gal course. His act was madness, as well as sin. It was 
 the act of the evil spirit in him, and yet it was his own 
 act. Jesus rebukes Peter when he says, " Get thee behind 
 me, Satan." The madness of a prodigal's act does not 
 make it any the less his own. It is a great point when 
 the deceived soul discovers his deceiver and denounces him. 
 The tide of battle is already turned when the ruined soul 
 finds out that himself is his destroyer, and turns against 
 the enemy within his own heart. 
 
 As soon as he comes to himself, he resolves to return to 
 his father. But the picture, as drawn by the Master in 
 the parable, speaks for itself. It does not need explana- 
 tion. The point in hand for us is its application. When 
 the prodigal comes to himself, is convinced that he is lost 
 by his own sin, he returns to God, and is accepted. 
 
 To show how this blessed word operates, I shall describe 
 a case that came under my own observation long ago — a 
 case from which I learned a good deal of the Lord's way 
 when I was young, and which has been a mine of wealth 
 to me ever since. 
 
 When I was sixteen years of age, a youth very dear to 
 me, two years older than myself, was seized with paralysis 
 of the limbs. He was handsome and amiable and well- 
 conducted — no prodigal, but the delight of the family 
 circle, and a favourite throughout a wider sphere. The 
 ailment advanced by very slow degrees ; but it advanced, 
 and he died before he was twenty-two years of age. In 
 the earliest stages he was pleasant, but reserved. After- 
 wards, for a while, he became sad. At the next stage he 
 opened like a flower in spring, and blossomed into the most 
 
THE PRODIGAL. 427 
 
 attractive beauty, both of person and spirit. He mani- 
 fested peace and joy in believing. His society was sought 
 even by aged and experienced Christians, 
 
 After his soul's burden was removed, his face lighted up 
 and his lips opened ; he told me fully the history of his 
 spiritual course, which he had kept secret at the time. It 
 was this : When he found himself a cripple, although other- 
 wise enjoying a considerable measure of health, he saw that 
 the world had for him lost its charm. The happiness he 
 had promised himself was blasted. His former portion 
 was gone, and he had none other. After the first sadness 
 passed, he thought of turning towards Christ for comfort ; 
 but he was met and precipitously stopped at the very 
 entrance on this path by the reflection : " Christ knows 
 that as long as I had other pleasures I did not care for 
 him ; he knows that if I come to him now, it is because I 
 have nothing else — that I am making a do-no-better of 
 him. He will spurn me away. If I had chosen him 
 while the world was bright before me, he might, perhaps, 
 have received me ; but as I never turned to him till I had 
 lost the portion I preferred, I can expect nothing but up- 
 braiding." 
 
 This thought kept him long back. It was like a barrier 
 reared across the path — the path that leadeth unto life — 
 and he could not surmount it. By degrees, however, as he 
 studied the Scriptures in his enforced leisure, he began to 
 perceive that, although he deserved to be so treated, Christ 
 would not treat him so. He discovered that " this man 
 receiveth sinners" when they come, without asking what it 
 was that brought them. Further, he learned that whether 
 one come when the world is smiling, or when it is shrouded 
 in darkness — whether he come in health or in disease — it 
 
428 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 is in every case the love of Christ that draws him ; and 
 that no sinner saved will have any credit in the end. All 
 and all alike will attribute their salvation to the free 
 mercy of God. At first his thought was, " If I had the 
 recommendation of having come when my fortune was at 
 the full, I could have entertained a hope." But at last he 
 learned that whosoever will may come, and that he who 
 Cometh will in no wise be cast out. 
 
 On these grounds he came at Christ's command, was 
 accepted, and redeemed. For the remainder of the journey 
 he went on his way rejoicing. 
 
 It is possible that some who read these pages may have 
 fallen into that "slough of despond" in which that young- 
 man for a short time lay, and the story of his experience 
 may help them out. But by far the best help in such a 
 case is the parable of the prodigal. The Physician who 
 wrote this prescription knows both the ailment and the 
 cure. He is mighty to save. 
 
 You have sinned away your soul, prodigal, and perhaps 
 sinned away also the health of your body. You begin to 
 be in want, and in your want your poor desolate heart 
 tries to turn to Christ. But the consciousness that your 
 own wickedness has wasted all that you had rises up before 
 you, and seems to drive you away from the Redeemer's 
 presence. He seems to say, " When your vice has so 
 wasted you that you can no longer get any enjoyment in 
 it, will you come VN^ith your 'blemished' body as an offer- 
 ing to me ?" — he seems to say these forbidding words ; but 
 though you hear these words, Christ has not spoken them. 
 "An enemy hath done this;" the same who sows tares 
 among the wheat. When the tempter cannot get you to 
 go any deeper into vice, he tries to persuade you that Christ 
 
THE PRODIGAL. 429 
 
 will reject you for having gone so deep. But be of good 
 cheer ; answer this fear with a " Get thee behind me, 
 Satan." These things savour of man, but not of God, my 
 Redeemer. His terms are, " Him that cometh." He has 
 left that brief blessed word behind him, and nothing has 
 been added to it since. 
 
 And look to the prodigal in the mirror that He holds 
 up, until the prodigal's latter end be 3'ours. What did 
 that youth deserve from his father ? The fellow was out 
 and out worthless. He could not enjoy prosperity while 
 his father was near ; he would not remain with his riches 
 even in the same territory. In the land of the stranger, 
 when he began to be in want, he thought not of home. 
 This young gentleman, reared in ease and honour, will 
 serve a stranger rather than come home. He consents to 
 be a " field hand," toiling and associating with the meaner 
 class of slaves. Nor is it merely to till the stranger's 
 ground that the Hebrew freeman is reduced, but he must 
 accept the most detested of all employments — must feed 
 the foreigner's swine. The wretch submits to all this, and 
 plods on through his dreary task with no tender relentings 
 towards home. When hunger comes, if he can succeed in 
 sharing the swine's food, he will live on that rather than 
 cast himself on his father. It was only when even swine's 
 food was not to be had, and death by starvation was star- 
 ing him in the face, that he said, " I will arise and go to 
 my father." And how did the father receive him ? Look 
 again to that divinely drawn picture : " His father ran, 
 and fell on his neck, and kissed him." 
 
 Young man, far from Christ, and fearing that he would 
 forbid your approach because of your provocations, look 
 once more into this picture. Remember, it is not the his- 
 
430 THE PRODIGAL. 
 
 tory of an actual case. It is a story made by Christ, and 
 so made in every feature as best to serve his purpose. And 
 his purpose is to show that he receives sinners, even the 
 chief ; that no possible or conceivable degree of provoca- 
 tion has any effect in closing his heart against him that 
 cometh. 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 'And Pilate wrote a title, and put it on the cross. And the writing was, 
 Jesus of Nazaketh the King of the Jews."— John xix. 19. 
 
 cross, no crown:" how deep and broad is the 
 principle expressed in these words ! It belongs 
 to the Master as well as to the servants ; to the 
 covenant of God as well as to the experience 
 of men. Christ's title of royalty is written on his cross ; 
 this blessed fruit grows only on that cursed tree. Our 
 Redeemer is made perfect through suffering. In the 
 Apocalyptic prophecy a Lamb as it had been slain is seen 
 in the midst of the throne. It is the cross that bears the 
 crown. 
 
 Worthy of notice here is the machinery by which the 
 Redeemer's royal title was engraved and his royal dignity 
 proclaimed. The human instrument acted blindly, and 
 knew not what he did ; all the more fitted therefore was 
 he for doing the necessary work. You may observe that 
 in nature those operations that are performed by blind 
 unintelligent instinct are most surely and most perfectly 
 performed. The creatures that act without intelligence 
 keep their time and execute their tasks far more perfectly 
 after their kind than man. The reason is, that they are 
 only instruments in their Maker's hands. The Omniscient 
 
432 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 forms the design, and employs suitable instruments. The 
 execution is correspondingly perfect. But when a creature 
 intervenes, with a determining will of its own, irregularities 
 occur of every kind and degree. 
 
 Even in human affairs, those operations that are per- 
 formed by machinery proceed with greater uniformity and 
 exactitude than those that depend on the worker's will. 
 The worker may be distracted, or idle, or ignorant, or mal- 
 icious, and corresponding flaws appear in the product ; but 
 beams and wheels, having no purpose of their own, simply 
 work their owner's will. Thus Nebuchadnezzar, king of 
 Babylon, became a rod in Jehovah's hand for chastening 
 backsliding Israel. He did not intend and desire to inflict 
 paternal chastisement upon his neighbours for their good. 
 If the plan had been his, it would not have been executed 
 so well. Nebuchadnezzar gave rein to his own cruel am- 
 bition. The Father of wayward Israel lifted the ambition 
 of the heathen king, and employed it as a rod to chasten 
 his child. 
 
 In like manner, Pilate was employed to proclaim 
 Messiah's kingdom. He did it better, or rather it was 
 better done by him, than it could have been done by any 
 disciple of Jesus. If Pilate had planned this coronation, 
 he would have greatly erred ; nor would Peter, or James, 
 or John have done it better. For this work friends and 
 foes were equally unfit. Some of his followers attempted 
 by force to place him prematurely upon an earthly throne. 
 And Peter ventured to rebuke his Master for intimatinsf 
 that the cross must come before the crown. 
 
 When the Lord would have his own sovereignty at 
 length proclaimed, he did not employ a herald whose will 
 entered into the transaction. Had he desired to use the 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 433 
 
 will of a man in the matter, he must have chosen one of 
 his own disciples, for his enemies refused to own his sove- 
 reignty. But none of his discij)les at that period under- 
 stood the nature of his reign or knew the date of its 
 beginning. They would not have proclaimed the kingdom 
 at the right time, nor would they have proclaimed the 
 right kingdom. Even after the Lord had offered himself 
 a sacrifice, and risen again, their eyes were still blinded on 
 this point ; we find, accordingly, that the promise runs in 
 this form : " Ye shall receive power after that the Holy 
 Ghost is come upon you, and ye shall be witnesses unto 
 me." 
 
 They erred on both sides : they attempted to establish 
 the kingdom before the time had come, and Mdien the time 
 had come they did not acknowledge it. They would fain 
 have set the crown on the Lord's head while he was living 
 and working miracles. In presence of a fickle Jewish mob 
 on the one hand, and of armed Roman legions on the other, 
 they thought they would be safe as subjects of one who 
 could raise the dead by his word, or summon fire from 
 heaven to consume his enemies. They would have crowned 
 Christ at the wrong time ; and when the right time came, 
 they had lost confidence in his power. 
 
 In a tone of the most forlorn despondency, the two with 
 whom the Lord conversed on the way to Emmaus said, 
 " We trusted that it had been he which should have re- 
 deemed Israel," They trusted once, when they saw his 
 power ; but they abandoned hope when they knew he 
 was crucified. They were not the men to write " King " 
 upon the cross of Jesus. They would have crowned him 
 when his raiment glistened on Tabor ; but when his bleed- 
 ing head drooped on his breast on Calvary, their fond 
 
 (753) 28 
 
434 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 anticipation of a kingdom vanished like a dream. " O 
 fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets 
 have spoken ! Ought not Christ to have suffered these 
 things, and to enter into his glory ? " 
 
 With the precision and punctuality of an unconscious 
 machine, blindly executing its author's will, Pilate composed 
 the regal title of the Redeemer, and fastened it aloft upon 
 the cross. Thus the dumb Roman preached Christ cruci- 
 fied before the burning lips of Paul were baptized by the 
 Spirit for taking up and continuing the theme. With 
 equal ignorance in the instrument, and therefore with 
 equal exactness in the performance, the priesthood of 
 Emmanuel was proclaimed by Caiaphas, " It is expedient 
 that one man should die for the people." Pilate, the 
 supreme civil ruler for the time, meant in revenge to 
 pillory the Jewish leaders aloft before the world as the 
 subjects of the crucified Nazarene ; but this wrath of man 
 was by God's unseen hand intercepted in its flow, and 
 compelled to publish the Redeemer's praise. 
 
 " My kingdom," said Jesus, in his ministry — " my king- 
 dom is not of this world." In origin, nature, object, and end 
 it is wholly diverse from other kingdoms. As in other feat- 
 ures it is peculiar, so especially in this, that the King's 
 glory lies in the shame which he endured. The King's 
 power sprang from his weakness ; the King's authority 
 rested on the King's death. The crown of the kingdom 
 hangs on the cross of its King. This kingdom that springs 
 from the cross is a new thing. Hitherto it had not been 
 known among the works of God. 
 
 Not that then the divine sovereignty over the world 
 began first to be exercised. There was a kingdom of God 
 before the cross ; but the kincjdom that rose from the cross 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROAVN. 435 
 
 was a new manifestation of the divine attributes, more 
 glorious than any that had been previously made. From 
 the beginning the divine sovereignty was exercised both 
 in the material and spiritual departments without the 
 suffering of a divine person. 
 
 In nature the Lord reigneth ; his throne is from ever- 
 lasting to everlasting. The heavens declare his glory, and 
 obedient earth echoes back the witness to the sky. How 
 exquisitely perfect is the divine government over matter ! 
 How beautiful the laws of that kingdom, and how uniform 
 the obedience which its subjects yield ! These stars never 
 wander from their paths ; that sun never forgets to rise. 
 Every tree produces its own kind of seed, and every seed 
 reproduces its own kind of tree. How manifold, O Lord, 
 are thy works ; in wisdom hast thou made them all ! 
 
 This kingdom is governed by wisdom and power, infinite 
 and eternal. No cross is needed to sustain this throne. 
 The Son of God does not need to become a man and die 
 that the stars may be kept in their courses, and the sea 
 within its bed. 
 
 Nor would a sacrifice be necessary to restore the king- 
 dom to its beauty, if it were reduced to chaos by a universal 
 flood. Again, as at the beginning, might God say, " Let 
 there be light," and light would be. Again, internal heat 
 might be employed to upheave new mountain ranges, and 
 leave another hollow for another sea. Other races of 
 living creatures might be called into being, more or less 
 closely resembling those that had been destroyed, and the 
 earth might be commanded to produce fruit for their food. 
 In all this there would be nothing new under the sun ; it 
 would be only a repetition with minor variations of what 
 had previously been done. There would, indeed, be a new 
 
436 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 heaven and a new earth ; but no new exercise of divine 
 wisdom and power would be put forth in calling them into 
 being. In regard to the character and kind of sovereignty 
 exercised, it might be proclaimed over the new creation, 
 " All things continue as they were." The heavenly hosts 
 might in such a case continue the praises they had learned 
 at their birth, but no new song would have burst from 
 their lips. 
 
 In the moral department, too, there was a kingdom 
 before Christ was crucified, a rule that did not demand 
 for its exercise the crucifying of Christ. Sovereign rule 
 on this side did not require that the Ruler should suffer 
 even unto death. The kingdom in this department parts, 
 like a stream interrupted by an island, into two diverging 
 channels. The Lord reigneth over the good and the evil. 
 
 He reigns over all holy, unfallen intelligences. The 
 sovereignty on this side consists of one unbroken course 
 of holy love from the King, and a corresponding course of 
 holy obedience from the subjects. It is difficult for us to 
 form a distinct conception of this species of rule ; for we 
 have no experience of it. The will of the King is the law 
 of his subjects ; and yet their service is free. There is no 
 disobedience ; and yet there is no constraint. What a 
 mystery is here ! A lordship absolute over the highest 
 kind of created beings ; and these beings with all their 
 faculties absolutely free. The kind of sovereignty which 
 the holy God exercises over holy creatures, is perhaps as 
 widely distinguished from his moral government of fallen 
 humanity as it is from his control over material nature. 
 A perfect moral supremacy over intelligent beings, who 
 yield a perfectly willing and delighted obedience, must 
 constitute a happiness in kind and degree far above our 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 437 
 
 capacity of conception. Eye hatli not seen, nor ear heard, 
 neither have entered into the heart of man, the things 
 which God hath prepared for them that love him, when 
 in them perfect love has cast out fear. 
 
 A government exercised over beings perfectly intelligent 
 and completely free, and that government as absolute as 
 tlie control of matter by the natural laws, constitutes, as I 
 apprehend, a main element in the happiness of heaven. 
 When we shall be as free as wo now are in sinnino- and 
 yet with that free will shall render to God an obedience 
 as perfect as the elements of nature, we shall have in our 
 hearts the joy of the Redeemer, and that jo}^ will be full. 
 If the stars in their courses possessed our intelligence, how 
 happy should they be in the sweet willingness of their 
 perfect obedience ; if we, with our intelligence, were like 
 the stars in the perfection of our obedience, how happy 
 should we be in knowing and doing God's will, without a 
 distracting thought or a rebellious desire ! 
 
 But there is another and opposite department of God's 
 moral government. The same holy Sovereign rules also 
 over unholy intelligent creatures, distinct from man and 
 created before him. Here, too, the relations between the 
 Governor and the governed are short and simple. On one 
 side it is all holiness ; and on the other all sin. As in the 
 case of holy creatures in their relation to God, the agree- 
 ment is perfect ; so here is the disagreement. On that 
 side there is no jar ; on this, no harmony. On the part 
 of the King, it is justice executed ; on the part of the 
 subject, it is judgment endured. The lines of relation 
 here between the throne and the prison are terribly short 
 and straight. Righteousness pure and bright, and straight 
 like sunlight, streams from the judgment-seat-, and no 
 
438 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 mediator stands in the way to receive its piercing, or 
 deflect its course. 
 
 Such were the departments of Jehovah's kingdom, and 
 such the kinds of government which he exercised, before 
 man made in his image disobeyed his law. The authority 
 in these several departments was in species various, but in 
 all of them alike it was single, short, direct. No mediator 
 intervened. Towards matter, it was omnipotence ; towards 
 moral intelligence, righteousness, diverging practically into 
 two channels; towards the good, complacent love, — towards 
 the evil, holy anger. In none of these kingdoms did it 
 behove the King to die. 
 
 But when human creatures fell, a new thing happened 
 in the imiverse. The exercises of divine sovereignty 
 hitherto put forth did not apply to the case, and contained 
 not a cure for the ailment. The laws of nature do not 
 reach it, for they are spiritual, intelligent beings who havo 
 rebelled. The law of gravity would grasp a falling star 
 and raise it — would seize a wandering world and restore 
 it to the circle of the planets in the sky, as a good shepherd 
 bears back a strayed sheep to the fold ; but the law of 
 gravity has no power over a prodigal soul. It has no 
 sense to perceive the departure, and no faculty to arrest 
 the fugitive. Even all-comprehending omnipotence does 
 not keep a soul from sinning, — does not win back a soul 
 that has sinned. Spirits escape from the grasp of power, 
 even though that power be divine, as water escapes through 
 the net which encloses and brings to land the fishes great 
 and small that lie within its sweep. This is not a defect 
 in the attributes or government of God. He hath done 
 all things well. It is no more a disparagement to the 
 wisdom and power of God that the laws of nature do not 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 439 
 
 control spirits, than it is a disparagement to the skill of 
 man that a net does not hold water. The net was not 
 made for holdine: water : neither were the natural laws 
 intended to rule spirits. It was God's plan to leave meshes 
 wide enough in the circumference of his providential govern- 
 ment for spirits to escape into rebellion, if they should so 
 will. To arrest and win back these fugitives he has insti- 
 tuted a new kingdom, and in it now exercises a new and 
 unique species of sovereignty. When power and wnsdom 
 and holiness, in their simple and direct exercise, are no 
 longer adequate to meet the creature's need and accomplish 
 the Creator's purpose, the Infinite and Omniscient will call 
 in another principle of government, foreseen and predeter- 
 mined by himself from eternity, but never exercised till 
 now. 
 
 The problem is deeper now ; more glorious, therefore, 
 will be the display of wisdom and love by which its 
 secrets shall be searched, and its difficulties overcome. 
 Hitherto, in exercising sovereignty over moral and in- 
 telligent beings, God had only visited the good with simple 
 approval, and the bad with simple condemnation. In the 
 one direction no displeasure radiated from his face, and in 
 the other no favour. Upward, it was all and only paternal 
 love ; downward, it was all and only judicial condemnation. 
 But now, in accordance with the divine counsel from 
 eternity, his love and his justice will be more gloriously 
 manifested by being joined in one. The love of the Holy 
 One will now be seen to flow full on spirits that have 
 rebelled. To make this possible, the Son of God becomes 
 a man and dies. This new exercise of sovereignty can be 
 put forth only through a suffering Sovereign. The title 
 of this Kinof can be written nowhere but on his cross. 
 
440 NO CKOSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 Christ crucified, and none other, is the power of God that 
 can control the course, and renew the character, and make 
 blessed the destiny, of fallen men. 
 
 With the awful exactitude and irresistible force of 
 machinery, whose iron arms are destitute of thought and 
 feeling, and therefore only execute the designer s will, the 
 kingly dignity of Jesus is held in reserve until Jesus him- 
 self is nailed to the cross ; then it is emblazoned over his 
 head, and proclaimed in three languages to the world. 
 
 Fix your regard now on the great central and funda- 
 mental fact, that Christ's reign rests on Christ's suffering. 
 In the shedding of his blood lies the essence of his power 
 to save. This kingdom is a new kingdom. Its power is 
 as great, and its control in its own sphere as complete, as 
 the divine sovereignty over matter and over good and bad 
 spirits ; but it is a sovereignty different in essentials from 
 all that the Supreme has hitherto put forth. The newness, 
 the peculiarity lies in this, that the power which the 
 Kino: wields rests on the death which the King endured. 
 From the cross a kingly power goes forth, to heaven above, 
 and hell beneath, and earth around. It is the blood of the 
 Lamb that satisfies God, silences the adversary, and wins a 
 human soul. 
 
 It was this sovereignty which Jesus desired to obtain 
 and delights to wield. For this hope that was set before 
 him he endured the cross, despising the shame. He re- 
 fused to permit himself to be proclaimed King prematurely, 
 because a crown before the cross would not have possessed 
 power to save sinners. When the people were bent on 
 elevating him to the throne of David, he conveyed himself 
 away. When the Greeks sought to be introduced to him 
 before he suffered, he intimated that unless he should die 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 441 
 
 ho could not put forth in their behalf the power ',vliich 
 they needed — " Unless a corn of wheat fall into the earth 
 and die, it abideth alone." Without the suffering he could 
 not obtain the power to win back and rule a multitude of 
 alienated, condemned creatures ; but if he should suffer 
 death according to the covenant with the Father, he would 
 thereby acquire power to ransom and renew a people unto 
 himself manifold as the grains of wheat in the fields of 
 harvest. If the corn of wheat die, it bringeth forth much 
 fruit. When he made a similar intiination to his disciples, 
 and Peter officiously interposed with, " Far be this from 
 thee. Lord," he resented Peter's advice as the suggestion of 
 Satan to subvert his throne. 
 
 Thus uniformly and peremptorily did Jesus repudiate a 
 kingdom, until by his suffering he had acquired the right 
 to reign and the power of reigning ; but as soon as the 
 cross was planted on Calvary, and his body was nailed to 
 the cross, he permitted the regalia to be displayed above 
 his bleeding brow. For, mark, if he had not permitted it, 
 the thing would not have been done. Expressly on that 
 very day this Jesus had said to Pilate, " Thou couldest have 
 no power at all against me, except it were given thee from 
 above." He who so long refused the title of royalty will 
 not let it lie idle when he has accepted it at last. He had 
 not power to act in his new kingdom until he suffered ; 
 but now that by suffering he has obtained the power, he 
 will certainly wield it. He is a crowned King now ; 
 whatsoever he does as Mediator, he does in a kingly way. 
 Kiss ye the Son, lest he be angry. Blessed are all they 
 that put their trust in him. 
 
 Christ crucified satisfies divine justice, and forgives his 
 people's sin. In a royal way he cancels the sentence of 
 
442 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 death, although it was righteously pronounced and recorded. 
 The handwriting that constituted a soul's death-warrant, 
 duly signed and sealed by the King of righteousness, he 
 wrenches from the executioner's hand and cancels ; but 
 observe, it is by nailing it to his cross that he can blot 
 out that dread handwriting. 
 
 On the cross the work was finished, — the Father's work 
 which the Son loved to perform. There is now no con- 
 demnation to them that are in Christ Jesus, The death 
 of Jesus perfects for ever all his own. The truth and the 
 power of God are pledged here. An omnipotent sove- 
 reignty shields the disciples of Jesus. " Father, I will that 
 they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I 
 am." After the manner of a king, the Saviour of sinners 
 speaks. He knows his own power, and we may safely 
 trust it. A half-hesitating faith dishonours the Lord, and 
 mars the happiness of his servant. What pains he took 
 that his work should be complete, and that its completeness 
 might be manifest ! There is sovereign power in this shed 
 blood ! " The blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanseth us 
 from all sin " — " Who shall lay any thing to the charge of 
 God's elect ? It is Christ that died" — " I saw in the midst 
 of the throne a Lamb as it had been slain." Righteous 
 Abel, — that blood of the Sacrifice washed his sin away, 
 and made him just with God. The sprinkled blood on 
 the door-posts kept the Hebrew households safe from the 
 angel of death on the eve of the exodus in Egypt. Let 
 that blood be on my conscience, and I shall be safe from 
 the second death. Christ crucified has all power in heaven 
 and in earth. ^ Count him a King. Treat him as a King. 
 Confide in the royal power of his sacrifice, — he shields all 
 his own from condemnation. " The suflferinofs of Christ 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 443 
 
 and the glory that should follow : " as the flowers and 
 fruit spring from the living root that spreads darkly 
 under ground, so the blossom of hope here and the fruit 
 of eternal life hereafter, for all Christ's members, spring 
 from the suffering of Christ in his people's stead. 
 
 The dying of the Lord Jesus has a sovereign power to 
 win us to obedience, as well as to shield us from wrath. 
 
 It is the power that lies in the cross to which we must 
 look for arresting, controlling, moulding human hearts. 
 Our spirits are not made for yielding to any other kind of 
 power. The forces in nature that have raised the moun- 
 tains, have no efficacy to rend a stony heart. The force 
 that shook the jail at Philippi could not have shaken the 
 jailer. God was not in that sense in the earthquake. It 
 was a still, small voice, accompanying or following the 
 shock of nature, that reached and melted the man. " No 
 man can come unto me, except the Father tvhich hath sent 
 me draw him." It is the new kingdom — the kingdom 
 whose throne is occuj)ied by a Lamb as it had been slain, 
 that reaches and leads them captive. 
 
 Bear in mind that if you are ever grasped and held for 
 saving, that you may not go down to the pit, it is the 
 power of the dying of Christ that will do it. There is 
 power in the blood that he shed to hold you — and hold 
 you up, when the power which keeps the stars in their 
 courses would fail to arrest your fall. Brother, a power 
 is sent out from heaven, and softly thrown around you, 
 greater than the power that sends angels forth on their 
 errands, and casts the wicked into their own place. 
 Abandon yourselves to its drawing, and you will be 
 borne safely home. " I, if I be lifted up, will draw all 
 men unto me." But why so few drawn to Jesus — drawn 
 
444 NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 
 
 by the power of his dying, whithersoever he will ? Yonder 
 shij) lying on the water has all her sails spread, and a great 
 steady breeze filling them ; yet she moves not. Why ? 
 She is in secret unseen depths touching the earth. She 
 is aground. It must be a similar cause — it must be some 
 secret cleaving to the dust that keeps us from being- 
 won by Christ, so as to run the way of his command- 
 ments. 
 
 Saved men, from righteous Abel to the last saved man, 
 are like one long procession marching across the world. 
 The head of the column appeared at the gate of Eden ; 
 while the rear rank will pass only before the flame in 
 which the earth shall be burned up. It is one company, 
 and there is no break in the line. The shout of a King is 
 in the camp all througli ; but the King personally marches 
 neither with the first nor with the last. Jesus is in the 
 midst. But his kingly power — the sovereign sway of his 
 dying, covers the foremost and covers the last, shields the 
 earliest and shields the latest ; and gives to all, at the 
 journey's end, an abundant entrance into the joy of their 
 Lord. 
 
 Tm^o lessons at the close hang on two ifs : — 
 1. If Christ had not died. If his patience had given 
 way when he had wept over Jerusalem, and Jerusalem 
 still laughed him to scorn ; if he had dashed the cup from 
 his lips in anger, refusing to drink it for a thankless world; 
 if he had taken the scoffers at their word, on Calvary, and 
 come down from the cross to save himself, — what then ? 
 Ah ! the kingdom's power would have been all employed 
 to cast into outer darkness a wicked world. No sacrifice 
 for sin ! but a fearful looking for of judgment. He was 
 
NO CROSS, NO CROWN. 445 
 
 faithful unto death. " I am the Lord, I change not ; there- 
 fore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." 
 
 2. Now that the price is paid and redemption completed; 
 now that Christ crucified is King-, and has all powder in 
 heaven and in earth ; now that the shelter of Omnipotence 
 is spread open towards time, — if any one of us pass over 
 time and across the border into eternity without taking 
 shelter under this sprinkled blood — what then ? No more 
 sacrifice for sin ; but a fearful looking for of judgment. 
 
VI. 
 
 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present 
 your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reason- 
 able service." — Rom. xii. 1. 
 
 UR object in this paper is to feel for the connec- 
 tion between Christian doctrine and Christian 
 life. The link which unites doctrine and duty 
 in the Christian system is neither an imaginary 
 line nor an iron rod : it is like the Word of God, " both 
 quick [living] and powerful." It is like the great artery 
 that joins the heart to the members in a living body— both 
 the channel of life and the bond of union. If that link 
 is severed in the animal, the life departs ; there remains 
 neither heart nor members. So in the Christian system, if 
 doctrine and duty are not united, both are dead ; there 
 remains neither the sound creed nor the holy life. 
 
 Here, then, we shall find a logical argument and a j^^ac- 
 tical lesson. Inquirers should know the truth on this point, 
 and believers should practise it. 
 
 A common street cry of the day is, Give us plenty of 
 charity, but none of your dogmas : in other M^ords, Give 
 us plenty of sweet fruit, but don't bother us with your 
 hidden mysteries about roots and engrafting. For our part, 
 we join heartily in the cry for more fruit ; but we are not 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 447 
 
 content to tie oranges with tape on dead branches lighted 
 with small tapers, and dance round them on a winter even- 
 ing. This may serve to amuse children ; but we are grown 
 men, and life is earnest. We too desire plenty of good 
 fruit, and therefore we busy ourselves in making the tree 
 good, and then cherish its roots with all our means and all 
 our might. 
 
 In the transition from the eleventh to the twelfth chap- 
 ter of the Epistle to the Romans, the knot is tied that binds 
 together doctrine and duty in a human life. Speaking 
 generally, with the eleventh chapter the apostle concludes 
 his exposition of doctrines, and with the twelfth he begins 
 his inculcation of duties. At the beginning of his great 
 treatise he plunged into the deep things of God, and at ch. 
 xi, 33 he emerges from his exploration with a passionate 
 cry of adoring wonder at what he has seen and heard — 
 " O the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowl- 
 edge of God !" After relieving his overcharged spirit with 
 that grand anthem which constitutes the close of the doc- 
 trinal section, he addresses himself (xii. 1) to the business 
 of directing and stimulating an obedient and holy life in 
 believers ; and this theme he prosecutes to the close. At 
 the point of contact between the doctrinal and practical 
 divisions of his treatise he defines and exhibits the relations 
 established in the laws of the Eternal between the gifts 
 which flow from God to men, and the service rendered by 
 men to God. Hitherto he has been opening the treasures 
 of the kingdom, and permitting the divine goodness to flow 
 freely into the lap of the needy ; but here is the turning- 
 point : henceforth he will urge that tribute should stream 
 upward, like a column of incense, from man to God. 
 
 Who hath first given to God, and it shall be given to 
 
448 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 him again ? None. No man first gives to God, and then 
 gets back an equivalent. But though no man gives first to 
 God, all renewed men give to him second ; that is, the dis- 
 ciples of Christ, having gotten all from God first and free, 
 then and thereby are constrained to render back to him 
 themselves and all that they possess. This apostle knows 
 human nature too well to expect that men will render 
 fit service to God first and spontaneously. He puts the 
 matter on another footing. He expects that the mercy of 
 God, first freely poured out, will press until it jDress out 
 and press up whatever the little vessel of a redeemed man 
 contains, in thankofierings to the giving God. 
 
 Here is a leaden pipe concealed under the plaster, stretch- 
 ing perpendicularly from the bottom to the top of the house. 
 What is the use of it ? It is placed there as a channel 
 through which water for the supply of the family may flow 
 up to a cistern on the roof. " Water flow up ? Don't 
 mock us. That would be contrary to its nature. Water 
 flows down, not up. How should it change its nature when 
 it gets into your pipe ?" Place your ear near the wall, and 
 listen, W^hat do you hear ? "I hear water rushing." In 
 what direction ? " Upward." Precisely ; water left to 
 itself outside of the pipe, flows down ; but water left to 
 itself inside, flows up. " Why?" Because there it is pressed 
 by the water that flows from the fountain on the moun- 
 tain's side. It is the weight of water flowing down that 
 forces this water to flow up. 
 
 It is thus that living sacrifices, holy and acceptable, 
 ascend from a human life to God, when that life is in 
 Christ. When a human soul is within the well-ordered 
 covenant, it is constrained, by the pressure of divine mercy 
 flowing through Christ, to rise in responsive love. 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 449 
 
 " I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of 
 God, that ye yield yourselves," etc. The word " there- 
 fore " is the link of connection between doctrine and life. 
 Here it unites the product to the power. The whole 
 epistle consists of two parts, united together by this word. 
 The first portion is occupied with truth revealed, and the 
 second with obedience rendered ; and the truth is in point 
 of fact the force which generates the obedience. 
 
 Much mischief is done in the world by a wanton or 
 ignorant divorce of this divinely united pair. There are 
 two errors, equal and opposite. Those who teach high 
 doctrine, and wink at slippery practice in themselves and 
 others, fall into a pit on the right hand ; those who preach 
 up all the charities, and ignore or denounce the truth and 
 the faith that grasps it, fall into a pit on the left. Let 
 not one man say, I have roots, and another, I have fruits. 
 If you have roots, let us see what fruit they bear ; if you 
 would have fruits, cherish the roots whereon they grow. 
 
 Beginning his course of practical lessons with the twelfth 
 chapter, this rigidly logical author binds the motive firmly 
 to the act, and the act to the motive. He tells us what 
 we ought to do, and what will induce us to do it. For 
 power to propel his heavy train, he depends on " the 
 mercies of God," as these have been set forth in the pre- 
 ceding portion of the treatise ; and the train which by this 
 power he expects to propel is, " Present your bodies a living 
 sacrifice," etc. 
 
 The mercies of God constitute the motive force. 
 A consecrated life is the expected result. 
 Consider carefully now the power employed in constant 
 view of the effect which it is expected to produce. " I 
 
 (753) 29 
 
450 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God." Up to this 
 point the epistle is occupied with the enunciation, elucida- 
 tion, and defence of doctrine. The writer started with the 
 set purpose of directing and stimulating human life in the 
 way of holiness and love ; yet he expends the greater part 
 of his time and strength in the exposition of abstract 
 dogma. Paul has made no mistake here. Although his 
 aim was to get human hearts and lives filled with love to 
 God and man, he devotes his attention first to truth re- 
 vealed. 
 
 This is a scientific operator. He knows what he is 
 about. He is especially skilful in adapting means to ends. 
 To provide the water-power may be a much more length- 
 ened and laborious process than to set the mill agoing ; but 
 without the reservoir and its impounded supply, the mill 
 would never go round at all. Paul goes forward with a 
 firm step and a straight course towards his aim in a sancti- 
 fied and useful human life ; but he takes every step on the 
 assumption that a devoted and charitable life cannot be 
 attained, unless the person and work of Christ be made 
 clear to the understanding and accepted with the heart. 
 Hence the time he has occupied and the pains he has 
 bestowed in exhibiting and commending at the outset a 
 complete theology. 
 
 A class of men is springing and pressing to the front in 
 our day, who laud charity at the expense of truth. The 
 truth, exterior to the human mind, which God has presented 
 in his Word, they ignore as unnecessary rather than de- 
 nounce as false. Doctrine, as truth fixed and independent, 
 they seem to think a hindrance rather than a help towards 
 their expected millennium of charity. In their view, a 
 man may indeed become a model of goodness although he 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 451 
 
 believe sincerely all the doctrines of the gospel ; but he may- 
 reach that blessed state as quickly and as well although 
 he believe none of them. Their creed is that a man may 
 attain the one grand object of life — practical goodness — 
 equally well with or without belief in the Christian system. 
 That there may be no mistake in the transmission of their 
 opinion, they take care to illustrate it by notable examples. 
 John Bunyan, who received all the doctrines of the gospel, 
 and Spinoza, who rejected them all, attain equally to the 
 odour of sanctity in this modern church of charity. This 
 representation is publicly made by men who profess the 
 faith, and hold the preferments, and draw the emoluments 
 of the Established Church in England. 
 
 In order to elevate love, they depress faith. For our 
 convenience, they have compressed the essence of their sys- 
 tem into a phrase that is compact and portable — " A grain 
 of charity is worth a ton of dogma." The maxim is well 
 constructed, and its meaning is by no means obscure. If 
 it were true, I should have no fault to find with it. But, 
 as I have seen a mechanic, after the rule applied to his 
 work gave unequivocal decision in its favour, turning the 
 rule round and trying it the other way, lest some mistake 
 should occur ; so, in the important matter before us, it may 
 be of use to express the same maxim in another form, lest 
 any fallacy should be left lurking unobserved in its folds — 
 thus : " A small stream flowing on the ground is worth 
 acres of clouds careering in the sky." In this form the 
 maxim is arrant nonsense ; but the two forms express an 
 identical meaning, like the opposite terms of an algebraic 
 equation. Wanting clouds above us, there could be no 
 streams, great or small, flowing at our feet -, so, wanting 
 dogma — that is, doctrine revealed by God and received by 
 
452 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 man — there could be no charity. They scorn dogma, and 
 laud charity — that is, they vilify the clouds, and sing 
 pseans to running streams. 
 
 There is an aspect of childishness in the methods at 
 present in fashion for undermining evangelical faith. 
 When I was a little child I thought the clouds were ac- 
 cumulations of smoke from the chimneys. I also thought 
 that, while the barren atmosphere above our heads was 
 filled with stacks of dry thick smoke, the earth beneath 
 our feet was rich and beneficent, seeing that from its bowels 
 spring up all the waters that feed the rivers and fill the 
 sea. Foolish child ! The clouds are the storehouses in 
 which the water is laid up, ready to be poured on the 
 earth. From these treasures the wells obtain all their 
 supply. We have streams on the ground because we have 
 clouds in the sky. As the clouds create the rivers, the love 
 of Christ exhibited in the gospel causes streams of charity 
 to circulate in human life. The Bible teaches this, and 
 history proves it. " God so loved the world, that he gave 
 his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him 
 should not perish, but have everlasting life." This is a 
 dogma ; and before that dogma came, how much charity was 
 in the world ? 
 
 Our latest reformers, I suppose, came easily by their dis- 
 coveries. I am not aware that they have passed through 
 any preparatory agonies, like those which Luther endured 
 at Erfurth. Your philosophic regenerator of the world 
 dispenses with a long search and a hard battle. When he 
 brings forward for my acceptance his savoury dish, like 
 poor old blind Isaac, when his slippery son presented the 
 forged venison, I am disposed to ask, " How hast thou found 
 it so quickly, my son ? " Ah, it is easy for those w^ho have 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 453 
 
 never been deeply exercised about sin to denounce dogma 
 and cry up charity in its stead ; but whence shall I obtain 
 charity if I abjure truth ? " Beloved, if God so loved us, 
 we ought also to love one another." The Apostle John got 
 his charity from the bosom of the Master whereon he lay. 
 Where do the modern apostles obtain theirs ? How can 
 you move the world if you have nothing but the world to 
 lean your lever on ? 
 
 The Scriptures present the case of a man who was as 
 free of dogma as the most advanced Secularist could desire, 
 and who was notwithstanding wofully lacking in charity. 
 *' What is truth ?" said Pilate ; and he did not wait for an 
 answer, for he had made up his mind that no answer could 
 be given. Pilate was not burdened with a ton, with even 
 an ounce, of dogma ; yet he crucified Christ — crucified 
 Christ, believing and confessins^ him innocent — that he 
 might save his own skin, endangered by the accusations of 
 the Jewish priests at the court of Eome. 
 
 Those who, in this age, lead the crusade against dogma, 
 are forward to profess the utmost reverence for the life and 
 teaching of Jesus Christ. But he did not despise dogma. 
 " Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God." Nothing 
 more completely and abstractly dogmatical can be found in 
 all the creeds of the Church than that short and fervid 
 exclamation of Peter in answer to the Master's articulate 
 demand for a confession of his faith upon the point. And 
 how did the Master receive it ? He not only acquiesced in 
 the doctrine and the expression of it by his servant, but, 
 departing in some measure from his usual habit of calm, 
 unimpassioned speech, he broke into an elevated and exult- 
 ant commendation : " Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona ; for 
 flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my 
 
454 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 Father which is in heaven." Let men keep congenial com- 
 pany, and let things be called by their right names. 
 Either doctrine — truth revealed by God and accepted by 
 man — either doctrine is decisive and fundamental for the 
 salvation of sinners and the regeneration of the world, or 
 Jesus Christ was a weakling. You must make your choice. 
 The divinity of Christ, as confessed by Peter, is a dogma : 
 for that dogma Jesus witnessed ; for that dogma Jesus died. 
 For it was because he made himself the Son of God that 
 the Jewish priesthood hunted him down. Did he give his 
 life for a dogma that is divine and necessary to the salva- 
 tion of sinners, or did he fling his life away by a mistake ? 
 Men must make their choice. Those who are not for Christ 
 are against him. 
 
 If you do not receive Jesus Christ as God your Redeemer, 
 you cannot have him as the beautiful example of a perfect 
 humanity. He claimed to be divine, and died in support of 
 the claim. Therefore, if he be not the true God, he must 
 be a false man. Thus the Holy Spirit in the Scriptures has 
 presciently rendered it impossible for modern Secularists to 
 reject the great dogma of the gospel, and yet retain the life 
 of Jesus as the highest pattern of human character. Both 
 or none : Christ cannot be so divided. 
 
 The word " therefore," destitute of any moral character 
 in itself, and deriving all its importance from the things 
 which it unites, is like the steel point set on a strong foun- 
 dation which constitutes the fulcrum of the balance. To 
 one extremity of the beam is fixed, by a long plummet-line, 
 a consecrated benevolent human life ; but that life itself lies 
 unseen in the dark at the bottom of a deep well, a possi- 
 bility only as yet, and not an actual entity. No human 
 arm has power to bring it up and set it in motion — -power 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 455 
 
 to bring it into being. Here is a skilful engineer, who has 
 undertaken the task. What is he doing ? We expected 
 that he would stand at the well's mouth, and draw with all 
 his might by the depending line, in the hope of drawing 
 up that precious Charity from the deep. But no ; he is 
 busy at the opposite extremity of the beam. He is making 
 fast to it some immense weight. Who is he, and what is 
 the burden that he is zealously tying to the beam ; and 
 what does he expect to get by his pains ? The operator, 
 diminutive in bodily presence, but mighty in spirit, is the 
 Apostle of the Gentiles ; the weight that he is making fast 
 to the beam is nothing less than the mercies of God as they 
 are exhibited in Christ, — all the love of God ; nay, God 
 himself, who is love. He has fastened it now, and he 
 stands back — does not put a hand to the work in its 
 second stage. What follows ? They come ! they come ! 
 the deeds of Charity — they ascend like clouds to the sky, 
 at once an incense rising up to heaven, and a mighty stream 
 of beneficence rolling along its channel on the surface of 
 the earth, and converting the desert into a garden. 
 
 Ask those great lovers who have done and suffered most 
 for men — who have taken up their abode in dungeons in 
 order to soothe the spirits and relieve the wants of the 
 wretched inmates — who have braved pestilential climates 
 to Christianize and civilize the long-degraded negro ; ask 
 the whole band of flesh-and-blood angels who, by sacrificing 
 themselves, have sought to heal the sores of humanity, what 
 motive urged them on and held them up. They will answer 
 with a voice like the sound of many waters, TJie love of 
 Christ constraineth us. Those who have done most of the 
 charity that has told on the ills of life do not think, and 
 do not say, that this fruit grows as wxll on all doctrines. 
 
456 THE KELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 or no doctrines, as on the truth of the gospel. They tell 
 us that the force which sent them into the field and kept 
 them there was the mercy of God in Christ, pardoning their 
 sin and sealing them as children. They are bought with a 
 price, and therefore they glorify God in their lives. 
 
 In the scheme of doctrine set forth in the first half of the 
 epistle, we behold the reservoir where the power is stored ; 
 and in the opening verses of the second section the engineer 
 opens the sluice, so that the whole force of the treasured 
 waters may flow out on human life, and impel it onward 
 in active benevolence. Let the memory of God's goodness, 
 in the unspeakable gift, bear down upon our hearts, as the 
 volume of a river bears down upon a mill-wheel, until its 
 accumulating weight overcome the inertia of an earthly 
 mind, and the interlacing entanglements of a pleasure-seek- 
 ing society, so sending the life spinning round in an endless 
 circle of work to abate the sins and sorrows of the world. 
 
 The mercies of God being the power that sends out the 
 product, the product so sent consists of two distinct yet 
 vitally connected parts, as soul and body in the natural 
 life. These are, devotion in spirit to God our Saviour, 
 and substantial kindness to man our brother. 
 
 The constituents of a true devotion are, a living sacrifice 
 and a reasonable service. Whatever is rendered in sacrifice 
 to God is rendered whole. The phraseology is in a high 
 degree typical, but by reference to the Old Testament in- 
 stitutions it is easily understood. The distinguishing 
 features of the New Testament sacrifice are, that it is the 
 offerer's own body, not the body of a substitute ; and that 
 it is presented not dead but living. It is not a carcass laid 
 on the altar to be burned ; it is a life devoted to God. 
 Love is the fire that consumes the sacrifice ; and in this 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 457 
 
 case, too, the fire came down from heaven. The body is 
 specially demanded as an offering : the body is for the 
 Lord ; it bears the mark of his hand. We are fearfully 
 and wonderfully made. 
 
 Stand in awe and sin not : give not that which is holy 
 unto the dogs. Your body is another Bible : read it with 
 reverence. Its precepts, like those of the Decalogue, are 
 written by the finger of God. Show me, not a penny, but 
 a man ; for this is the only coin which the great King will 
 accept as tribute. Whose image and superscription hath 
 he ? God's. Kender therefore unto God the thing that is 
 God's. 
 
 As the sacrifice is living, the service is reasonable — 
 rational. It is not the arbitrary though loving command 
 addressed by a father to his infant son — burn the fat upon 
 the altar — that he may be trained to habits of unquestion- 
 ing obedience ; it is rather the work prescribed by the 
 father to an adult son — a work which the son understands, 
 and a purpose in which he intelligently acquiesces. The 
 burning of incense, practised in the Romish community for 
 ages, and now resumed by those who should have known 
 better, is not a reasonable service. It is a going back from 
 the attainments of the gospel to the beggarly elements of a 
 past dispensation. 
 
 The second constituent of Christian duty is reciprocal 
 justice and kindness between man and man, like the har- 
 mony and helpfulness which the Creator has established 
 between the several members of a living body. Mark how 
 the hand comes to the defence of the eye in its weakness; 
 and how the eye with its sight, and from its elevated posi- 
 tion, keeps watch for the welfare of the lowly, blind, but 
 laborious and useful foot. The mutual helpfulness of these 
 
458 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 members is absolutely perfect. Such should be the charity 
 between brother and brother of God's family on earth ; such 
 it shall be when all the sons and daughters are assembled 
 in the many mansions of the heavenly home. In the 
 remaining portion of the epistle Paul labours with all his 
 might to stimulate practical charity — in one place reducing 
 the whole law to one precept, to one word — love. After 
 devoting so much attention to the roots, he will not neglect 
 to gather the fruit. After so much care in obtaining the 
 power, he looks sharply to the product, lest it should turn 
 out that he had laboured in vain. 
 
 We must look well to our helm as we traverse this ocean 
 of life, where we can feel no bottom and see no shore — we 
 must handle well our helm, lest we miss our harbour-home. 
 Such seems to be the counsel given for the guidance of life 
 to those who count that all religion and all duty lie in sub- 
 jective care and diligence, while they ignore, as unattainable 
 or useless, all objective revealed truth. But careful man- 
 agement of the helm, though necessary, is not enough on 
 our voyage. By it alone we cannot bring our ship safe to 
 land. We must look to the lights in heaven. The seaman 
 does not look to the stars instead of handling his helm. 
 This would be as great folly as to handle his helm vigo- 
 rously and never look to the stars. Not this one nor that 
 one, to the neglect of the other. Both, and each in its own 
 place : the stars, to show us the path in which we ought to 
 go ; and the helm, to keep us in the path which the stars 
 have shown to be right. Not turn to the contemplation of 
 dogma, instead of labouring in the works of charity ; but 
 looking to the truth as the light which shows us the way 
 of life, and walking in that way with all diligence. 
 
 It is interesting to notice how the spiritual instincts of 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. i5& 
 
 the Lord's immediate followers led them in the right way, 
 at a time when their intellectual comprehension of the 
 gospel was very defective. On one occasion the Master 
 taught the twelve a lesson on this subject — charity — w^hich 
 seemed to them very hard. The point in hand was the 
 forgiving of injuries, and how far it could or should be 
 carried. " Master," they inquired, " how often shall a man 
 sin against me, and I forgive him ? Seven times ?" That, 
 they thought, was as great a stretch of loving forbearance 
 with a neighbour as could reasonably be required of any 
 man. But what is the word of the Lord in this case ? "I 
 say not unto thee, till seven times, but until seventy times 
 seven." That is, he refused to set any limit to the charity 
 of his disciples. Charity in his Church must be like the 
 atmosphere wrapped round the world — no mountain-top 
 can pierce through it to touch another element beyond. 
 Charity shall surround life so high and so deep that all 
 life shall float in it always, as the globe of earth in the 
 circumfluent air. 
 
 The poor men were taken aback by this great demand. 
 It cut their breath. They had been educated in a narrow 
 school, and could not at first take in the conception of a 
 love that should know no other limit than the life and 
 capacity of the lover. But on recovering from their first 
 surprise, and becoming aware of their own short-coming, 
 a true instinct directed them to the source of supply. 
 Then the disciples said unto the Lord, " Increase our faith." 
 Faith ! O ye simple Galileans, it is not in faith that 
 ye come short ; it is in charity ! How foolish, at such a 
 moment, to give chase to the ignis fatuus of dogma, when 
 it is life that you need — more of love in your life ! If our 
 secular philosophers had been there, such would have been 
 
460 THE KELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 their patronizing reproof of those simple, unlettered fisher- 
 men. But the fishermen, taught of the Spirit, possessed 
 a sounder philosophy as well as a truer religion than their 
 modern reprovers. I could imagine that Peter, in such 
 circumstances, would have stood up as spokesman for the 
 whole college, and made short work with the logic of the 
 Secularists. Although blind, like old Jacob, to objects out- 
 side, like him Peter was endowed with an inner light. 
 When Joseph brought his two sons to the patriarch for his 
 blessinof, he led them forward so that the elder should 
 stand opposite the right hand of his grandfather, and the 
 younger opposite the left. But Jacob crossed his hands in 
 bestowing the blessing, so as to lay the right hand on the 
 head of the younger child. When Joseph interfered to 
 correct what he supposed to be a mistake, his father per- 
 sisted in his own plan, saying, " I know it, my son ; I know 
 it." He guided his hands wittingly. So would the simple 
 but courageous fisherman answer the philosophic Joseph of 
 our day — " I know it, my son ; I know it." He guided 
 his lips wittingly, when, in lack of charity, he prayed for 
 faith ; for faith is the only efiicient of charity. He would 
 fain yield himself a living sacrifice for behoof of his fellows; 
 but if he is ever impelled forward in this arduous course, 
 he will be impelled, as Paul teaches, by the mercies of 
 God. The instincts of the new creature in Peter taught 
 him that if he should ever do more in forgiving love for 
 his neighbours, he must get more through faith from his 
 Lord. 
 
 A miller, while he watches the operations of his mill, 
 observes that the machinery is moving slower and slower, 
 and that at last it stands altogether still. On searching 
 for the cause, he discovers that some small hard pebbles 
 
THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 461 
 
 have insinuated themselves between the millstones, first 
 impeding the celerity of their motion, and then stopping it 
 altogether. What will the miller do ? Put in his hand, 
 and try to remove the obstruction ? No ; he is not such 
 a fool. He goes quietly to a corner of the mill, and touches 
 a simple wooden lever that protrudes at that spot through 
 the wall. What is the miller doing there ? He is letting 
 on more water : impelled by more weight of water, the 
 millstones easily overcome the obstacle, and go forward on 
 their course. The demand of unlimited forgiving was the 
 obstacle that stuck on the heart of those poor Galileans, 
 and brought its beating to a stand ; and they wisely ap- 
 plied for a greater gush of the impelling power — more 
 faith. When the circulation of the spiritual life was 
 impeded by that hard ingredient, they gasped for a widen- 
 ing of the channel throuo-h which the mercies of God flow 
 from the covenant to the needy. More faith meant getting 
 more of forgiving grace from God to their own souls ; and 
 they knew that when the vessel was full, it would flow 
 over. The best of the argument, as well as of the senti- 
 ment, remains with the fishermen. 
 
 It is now time, however, that we should turn to the 
 other side, and gather there a very needful lesson for Chris- 
 tians ere we close. We have been showing that it is faith 
 accepting the mercies of God that produces a devout and 
 charitable life ; but what shall we say of those who have 
 faith, or seem to have it, and yet lack charity ? 
 
 Here a very interesting question arises. Want of faith, 
 it is granted, among evangelical Christians, is followed by 
 want of goodness, as a blighting of the root destroys the 
 stem and branches of a tree. But does the converse also 
 
462 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE. 
 
 hold good ? Will a languid life weaken faith, and an 
 entire cessation of Christian activity make shipwreck of 
 the faith ? As a metaphysical speculation, we do not touch 
 this question ; but on its practical side a useful warning 
 may be given. Of all trees it may be said, destroy the 
 root, and the stem will wither ; but you cannot predicate 
 of all trees that the destruction of the stem in turn destroys 
 the root. Many trees when cut down to the ground 
 retain life and grow great again. But some species — 
 pines, for example — die outright when the main stem is 
 severed. Here lies a sharp reproof for all who bear Christ's 
 name. True it is that your faith in Christ is the root v,diich 
 sustains the tree of your active life, and insures its fruitful- 
 ness ; but true it is also that, like the pines, if from any 
 cause the life cease to act, the faith, or what seemed faith, 
 will rot away under ground. It was in this manner that 
 Hymenseus and Alexander fell away. They first lost the 
 good conscience ; then and therefore they made shipwreck 
 of the faith. They gave way in the sphere of duty, and 
 then dogma melted away from their hearts. (1 Tim. i. 19.) 
 The stem of the tree was cut off or withered, and the root 
 rotted in the ground. 
 
 Thus, as the roots nourish the tree, and the growth of 
 the tree in turn keeps the roots living, so is it with the 
 trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord that he may 
 be glorified. While faith, by drawing from the fulness of 
 Christ, makes a fruitful life ; reciprocally, the exercise of 
 all the charities mightily increases even the faith from 
 which they sprang. 
 
 While, on one side, the necessity of the day is to maintain 
 the faith as the fountain and root of practical goodness in 
 the life ; on the other side, especially for all within the 
 
THEEELATION BETWEEN DOCTEINE AND LIFE. 463 
 
 Church, the necessity of the day is to lead and exhibit a 
 life corresponding to the faith it grows upon. Here it is 
 safe to join full cry with the Secularists — more charity — 
 charity in its largest sense, a self-sacrificing, brother-saving 
 love, that counts nothing alien which belongs to man, and 
 spares nothing to make the world purer and happier. A 
 pure, holy, loving, active, effective life,- — this is the first, 
 and the second, and the third requisite for the regeneration 
 of the world. It is quite true that those who bear Christ's 
 name fail to walk in his steps ; and to this defect it is 
 owing that so little of the desert has yet been converted 
 into a garden. It is life, it is love, it is living sacrifices 
 that are wanted ; this is the cure for the sores of humanity. 
 But how shall we get that life of mighty doing and suffer- 
 ing charity, which we confess is lacking, and which, if we 
 had it, would flow like a stream over the world and heal 
 its barrenness ? How and where shall we obtain this heaven- 
 born charity ? 
 
 Enter into thy closet, and shut the door, and seek it 
 there. Seek, and ye shall find. Copy literally the simple 
 request of the amazed disciples. Say unto the Lord, 
 Increase our faith. 
 
 That means that your very soul should open to Christ, 
 and accept him as all your salvation. It is not to have a 
 faith printed in your creed-book about one Jesus ; it is to 
 clasp him to your heart as your Redeemer, your Friend, 
 your Portion. It is to taste and see that he is good, and 
 to bear about with you the dying of the Lord Jesus. This 
 will be a force sufficient to impel all your life forward, so 
 as to please God and benefit your brother. " I beseech 
 you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye 
 present your bodies a living sacrifice." 
 
464 THE RELATION BETWEEN DOCTRINE AND LIFE, 
 
 Ultimately, we must look to the sovereign Lord Gocl for 
 a baptism of the Spirit, greater than that of the Pentecost, 
 to produce a revival that will usher in the glory of the 
 latter day ; but mediately and instrumentally that revival 
 will come through the mercies of God, manifested to the 
 world in the incarnation and sacrifice of the eternal Son, 
 accepted, realized, and felt, in new and greatly increased 
 intensity by the members of the Christian Church. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 a^J 
 
1 
 
 Date Due 
 
 ■•U." ^'^ 
 
 
 
 
 mtms^s^ 
 
 m 
 
 
 
 .iaiipiilifW 
 
 rr 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 f) 
 
 PRINTED 
 
 IN U. S. A. 
 
 
BS2418.A763 
 
 Lesser parables of our Lord : and 
 
 imirill nil l!i?m '°''"' Se-^'nary-Speer Library 
 
 1 1012 00061 7003 
 
 ,-SSSJSSSJSiSSiSSSiSSSSSSSSSS^^ 
 
 ^^^^si§i«^#s#.^tm^m«^^^5^iiss^^