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Joy in the 
 Divine Government 
 
 And Other Sermons 
 
 Luther Alexander Gotwald, D.D., 
 
 Late Professor of Practical Theology, Wittenberg 
 Theological Seminary \ Springfield, Ohio 
 
 INTRODUCTION BY 
 
 Rev. Prof. H. E. Jacobs, D.D., LL.D. 
 
 Professor of Systematic Theology, Lutheran Seminary, 
 Philadelphia, Pa. 
 
 Fleming H. Revel! .^Company' /. 
 
 Chicago, New York & Toronto 
 M C M I 
 
THE LIBRARY OF 
 
 CONGRESS, 
 Two CoHEe Reowved 
 
 APR. 5 1901 
 
 Copyright entry 
 
 CLASS <X>xXc. N«, 
 
 & ZlST 
 
 COPY B. 
 
 3X?ott 
 
 COPYRIGHT, igOI, 
 BY FLEMING H. 
 RKVELL COMPANY 
 
PERSONAL. 
 
 The author of these sermons had planned 
 for their publication some considerable time 
 before his lamented death, Sept. 15, 1900. 
 
 The cordial welcome with which his pre- 
 vious volume, "Sermons for Festival Days," 
 was received, had encouraged him to feel and 
 hope that a second volume would accomplish 
 good in many places where his voice could 
 never be heard. 
 
 His life-long and scholarly friend, Prof. 
 Henry Eyster Jacobs, contributed the accom- 
 panying words of introduction, in accordance 
 with the author's request. 
 
 The title is the author's own selection, and 
 well illustrates the spirit of joyous submission 
 which characterized him during his later years 
 of suffering and affliction. His sudden death 
 prevented the realization of his cherished hope 
 of seeing these sermons given to the world. 
 But his wish aiid purpose are herewith car- 
 ried out in their present publication; so that 
 iii 
 
Personal. 
 
 he being dead may yet speak to thousands 
 through these printed pages, as he already 
 addresses thousands through the immortal in- 
 fluences of his consecrated life, whether as 
 pastor or preacher, professor or friend. 
 
 May the Divine blessing accompany this 
 volume in its mission of inspiration, convic- 
 tion and consolation to the souls of its readers ! 
 May it add new stars to that faithful ministry 
 which has already been so gloriously crowned ! 
 
 f. g. G. 
 
 IV 
 
INTRODUCTION. 
 
 Numerous as are the volumes devoted to the 
 form of religious literature to which this vol- 
 ume belongs, there is always place for more. 
 The Holy Scriptures can never be exhausted, 
 and every land and age has its own peculiar 
 mode of re-stating its old truths. Even the 
 most familiar texts become fresh in the mouth 
 of a preacher, who actually writes and speaks 
 out of the abundance of his heart. His great 
 difficulty is not to find something to say, but to 
 find the time and opportunities to expound all 
 the fruitful themes that are ever crowding 
 upon him with their plea that they be treated 
 in a sermon. 
 
 Dr. Gotwald's discourses show that his 
 heart was in his calling as a preacher, and that 
 their careful preparation was no drudgery, 
 but a work of delight. Plain, practical, direct, 
 forcible, written in a singularly simple and 
 chaste style, and without any ambition to dis- 
 play either learning or rhetoric, they are per- 
 
Introduction. 
 
 vaded by a spirituality that is refreshing and 
 inspiring. 
 
 Clear and positive in his convictions, Dr. 
 Gotwald evades no question because it is con- 
 troverted; and, yet, the polemical spirit no- 
 where appears. He tries to get at the heart 
 of his text, and then to carry it straight to the 
 hearts of his hearers. 
 
 There is not a discourse in this book that 
 the "common man" cannot understand; and 
 yet they are far from being superficial. Though 
 his voice may be heard no more in the pulpit, 
 through these sermons his influence will be 
 felt far and wide in advancing the cause of 
 the Redeemer, to whose service his life was 
 consecrated, and whom he so devotedly served. 
 
 Henry E. Jacobs. 
 
 Philadelphia, Pa., September 27th, 1898. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 Introduction v 
 
 I. Joy in the Divine Government . i 
 
 Psalm 97: i. 
 
 II. The Testimony of Consciousness . . 22 
 John 9: 25. 
 
 III. God's Angels Meeting Us in the Way 44 
 
 Genesis 32: 1. 
 
 IV. Concerning Our Temptations . . 65 
 
 Matthew 6: 13. 
 V. The Profitableness of Godliness . 87 
 
 1st Timothy 4: 8. 
 VI. The Divine Law of Self-Surrender . 107 
 John 12: 24. 
 
 VII. Religious Duty Better than Religious 
 
 Enjoyment 124 
 
 Matthew 17: 4. 
 
 VIII. Concerning Paul's Thorn . . . 148 
 
 2d Corinthians 12: 7-9. 
 
 IX. Paul's Unwavering Confidence in 
 
 Christ 168 
 
 2d Timothy 1: 12. 
 
 X. An Uplifted Saviour the Great At- 
 traction 188 
 
 John 12: 32. 
 XI. The Strength of Young Men . . 206 
 
 1st John 2: 14. 
 
 XII. The Resurrection Body . . . 230 
 
 1st Corinthians 15: 35. 
 
 XIII. The Character of the Lord's Supper 250 
 
 (Synodical Communion Sermon.) 
 1st Corinthians 10: 16. 
 
 XIV. Dr. Martin Luther as a Christian . 271 
 
 Hebrews n: 4. 
 
 XV. The Reformation the Work of God . 291 
 
 Ezekiel 1: 18. 
 
JOY IN THE DIVINE 
 GOVERNMENT. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice." — Ps. 
 xcvii. i. 
 
 That there is a Divine Government, or a 
 Providential Rulership, over the universe, is 
 a fact made probable already by reason, and 
 repeatedly and fully declared by revelation. 
 It is a dictate already of reason that, if God 
 alone could create the universe, He also 
 alone is able to uphold, to direct and to gov- 
 ern what He thus created. In other words, 
 the admission of the doctrine of divine crea- 
 tion of all things, logically necessitates the 
 admission, also, of the doctrine of the divine 
 government of all things ; declaring with 
 Paul: ,k Of Him, and to Him, and through 
 Him are all things, and by Him all things 
 consist." 
 
 There are some, however, who, even while 
 admitting that God may have created the 
 universe, yet claim that He does not now 
 i 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 govern it personally. They maintain that 
 He has left it to govern or develop itself. 
 This is the theory of our modern skeptical 
 evolutionists, or materialistic scientists. As 
 Melanchthon once wrote: "They think of 
 God as a shipbuilder, who, when he has com- 
 pleted his vessel, launches it and then leaves 
 it." Or, to put it into our modern phrase- 
 ology, they say that "God has placed the 
 government of the universe under estab- 
 lished natural laws." 
 
 Let us not, however, in this matter, be im- 
 posed upon by a mere plausible phraseology. 
 For what, after all, is this something which 
 is thus so learnedly called "a natural law," 
 and by which our present materialistic skep- 
 ticism thus separates God from His works, 
 and ignores and denies Him as the Providen- 
 tial Governor of the universe which He has 
 created. Law is not, in itself, a force. Law 
 is simply an expression of the will of the law- 
 giver; is simply the mode or manner in 
 which intelligent mind and power, acting 
 back of the law, expresses itself and executes 
 its will. And so this thing called "natural 
 2 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 law," is not in itself an independent and self 
 existent or self-executing power, apart from 
 God, but it is simply God's established order 
 of expressing His will, and of putting forth 
 His force both in the creation and govern- 
 ment of the universe. There is, e. g., what 
 we call "the law of gravitation." But that 
 law is not in itself a cause. It simply is the 
 expression of a general fact. It is not that 
 law of gravitation which makes an apple fall 
 always downward instead of upward. It is 
 something back of that law, and mightier 
 than it, which causes it. The law itself, in- 
 stead of being an independent cause, is only 
 an effect of a cause, and that cause is God 
 who has established the law. God is the 
 force acting, and what we call the law is 
 simply an expression of the mode or man- 
 ner in which, in this especial respect, God 
 thus acts. 
 
 And so with regard to all the so-called 
 "natural laws" of the universe. They have 
 not originated or established themselves. 
 They do not sustain or execute themselves. 
 It is not they that are the rulers of the uni- 
 3 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 verse. On the contrary, they are merely the 
 established principles on or by which God 
 rules it ; the methods only in which God ordi- 
 narily and generally exerts His power; the 
 instruments or agencies simply by which 
 God rules. As our text declares, "The Lord 
 reigneth." Not fate, not chance, not law, 
 but God, the Eternal First Cause and Up- 
 holder of all things, is on the Throne, and 
 it is His sceptre that sways dominion over 
 the whole realm both of mind and matter. 
 
 But whatever may be the teachings of 
 reason upon the subject, this truth of a 
 divine providence or government over all 
 things is, we are sure, clearly and repeatedly 
 declared to us, in Scripture. So frequently, 
 indeed, does the Bible declare it, that, if 
 we were to take from it all that it thus con- 
 tains upon this subject of God's providence 
 or government, the divine volume would in- 
 deed be very greatly abridged, and would be 
 an almost entirely different book. Almost 
 countless are the passages in the Sacred 
 Scriptures which assert and exhibit it ; and 
 everywhere in this inspired volume is God 
 4 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 declared to be ruling and governing all 
 things according to His will. He is declared 
 to be the Preserver both of man and beast; 
 to "uphold all things by the word of His 
 power;" to "open His hand and satisfy the 
 desire of every living thing;" to "give to the 
 beast his food and to the young ravens which 
 cry." We are told that in Him "we live and 
 move and have our being*;" that by Him 
 "our steps are ordered;" that from Him 
 comes to us "every good and perfect gift;" 
 that "He is the Governor among the na- 
 tions;" that "He is the Lord, our God, and 
 His judgments are in all the earth." We 
 read that "the Most High ruleth in the king- 
 dom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever 
 He will;" that "the Lord killeth and maketh 
 alive ; He bringeth down to the grave and 
 bringeth up; He maketh poor and maketh 
 rich;" that "promotion cometh neither from 
 the west nor from the south, but God is the 
 Judge ; He putteth down one, and setteth up 
 another ;" that "He notes 'the sparrow's fall/ 
 and that He has numbered the very hairs of 
 every head." 
 
 5 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 That "the Lord reigns" is not, then, a 
 mere probability of reason, but it is an ab- 
 solute certainty, declared most frequently by 
 God Himself in His own infallible word. 
 
 He, therefore, who doubts or denies this 
 doctrine or fact of such divine providence or 
 government must also, if he would be con- 
 sistent, doubt and deny the Scriptures them- 
 selves, which teach it; for no truth is more 
 clearly and positively assumed and declared 
 everywhere throughout this Word of God 
 rhan is this truth : 'The Lord reigneth." 
 
 Admitting then the fact of this divine gov- 
 ernment or providence over the universe, we 
 may next properly inquire : 
 
 WHAT IS THE CHARACTER OF IT? 
 
 From what we know of the character of 
 God, as He has revealed Himself to us, both 
 in conscience and in His Word, we can read- 
 ily infer and know what the character of His 
 government is. The personal character of a 
 king determines the character of his king- 
 dom, and of a law-giver the character of the 
 laws which he enacts. And so God's char- 
 acter decides what is and must be the char- 
 6 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 acter of the providence or government which 
 He exercises. 
 
 I. God, first, is a God of infinite wis- 
 dom : His government therefore is carried 
 
 ON, WE MUST ASSUME, BY INFINITE WISDOM. 
 
 In proof of the infinite wisdom of God, the 
 Scriptures tell us that past, present, and fu- 
 ture are all constantly open before Him ; that 
 He sees the end of all things as well as the 
 beginning; that He foreknows every occur- 
 rence, contingency, possibility in all time and 
 eternity. As in an ever present picture, 
 everything that ever has occurred, or does 
 now occur, or will occur, lies manifest to 
 His sight. The minutest object, as well as 
 the greatest, the least important event as well 
 as the most important, the obscurest person 
 as well as the most famous; all are alike 
 known to Him. 
 
 Thus infinite in wisdom He always knows 
 also what is the best; the best for His own 
 glory, the best for the happiness and good of 
 all His creatures, the best ends at which to 
 aim, the best means to employ, the best time 
 in which to act, the best choice to make. 
 7 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Guided by His unerring wisdom, He knows 
 when to give and when to withhold, when 
 to check and when to impel, when to enrich 
 and when to impoverish, when to create and 
 when to destroy. He knows all things. His 
 wisdom is all-embracing and infinite. He is 
 the Omniscient God. He cannot, therefore, 
 possibly, in anything, ever fall into error or 
 be guilty of the slightest mistake. 
 
 And this, therefore, is also, I now add, 
 the character of His government. It cannot 
 be otherwise. God, being what He is, in- 
 finite in wisdom, His government is also 
 based upon infinite wisdom, and is conducted 
 upon the most accurate and minute divine 
 intelligence, a government in which all 
 things are done wisely and well, and in the 
 best possible way both for His glory and 
 the highest good of His creatures. 
 
 II. This divine government is also a 
 government of infinite power! for god is 
 the Almighty or Omnipotent God. 
 
 He not only knows all things, but He has 
 the ability also to do all things. "All things 
 are possible with God," says our Saviour. 
 8 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Whatever He wills to do, that He possesses 
 the might to do. All agencies are under His 
 control, and subject to His bidding; and all 
 can be wheeled by Him, at His pleasure, into 
 His service, and made to subserve His pur- 
 poses. At any point in the universe, upon 
 any being, or upon any order of beings, at 
 any link in the great chain of cause and ef- 
 fect, either through the agency of created be- 
 ings, such as man, angels, devils, by nations 
 or by individuals, by Church or by State, by 
 mind or matter, or else directly, by His own 
 agency alone, without the employment of 
 any secondary causes. He can bring His 
 divine power to bear, and can accomplish 
 whatsoever He will. 
 
 His government, therefore, is a mighty 
 government ; mighty to enforce its authority, 
 to exact its demands, to accomplish its ends, 
 to overthrow all opposition to it, to punish 
 and destroy its foes, and to deliver and help 
 and save its friends. All power is His in 
 heaven, earth, and hell, and all things are 
 under the sway of His sceptre and subject to 
 His will. But 
 
 9 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 III. This divine government must also, 
 we may notice thirdly, be a government 
 of patience and love i for god is "the god 
 of Patience" and "God of Love/' 
 
 Under this divine government beings exist 
 and occurrences are allowed which are di- 
 rectly opposed to God, and we sometimes 
 are led to ask: Why, if the Lord reigneth, 
 are they allowed? Satan, e. g., exists. If 
 "the Lord reigns/' why is he allowed to 
 exist? Sin exists. Why? Injustice, wrong, 
 oppression, cruelty, fraud, profanity, murder, 
 crimes of every kind, exist. Why? If "the 
 Lord reigns/' if there be a moral govern- 
 ment over man, if God has all wisdom so that 
 He knows of the existence of all this sin, and 
 if He has all power so that He could, in a 
 moment, destroy sinners and banish sin from 
 the universe, why, as a holy God, as He is, 
 does He not, also, at once do so? Why is 
 sin thus allowed under the government of a 
 divine and holy being such as God is? 
 
 And there are sorrow and suffering also 
 everywhere in the world. If the Lord reign- 
 eth, why do they exist? Why does He not 
 10 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 banish them? Why, especially, are not the 
 righteous, His own people, exempted from 
 them? Has He no knowledge of their sor- 
 rows and sufferings? Yes, of every one of 
 them. Has He not the power to exempt 
 and relieve them from them? Yes, with all 
 ease He could do it. And does He not care 
 for them? does He not love them? does He 
 not wish them happiness? O, yes, infinitely 
 does He thus love and care for them. But 
 why then, I repeat, do they exist? Why is 
 sin here? Why sorrow? Why suffering? 
 
 Such questions are easily asked; and they 
 are very deep questions, and are very hard 
 to answer. For remember it is God's gov- 
 ernment of which we are speaking. And 
 what are we that we should expect to fathom 
 and comprehend fully His deep counsels, His 
 infinite vision and plans? 
 
 But this much, from our knowledge of His 
 character, we may and do know, whether we 
 know why they exist or not : viz., that neither 
 sin nor suffering would exist under the moral 
 government of such a Being as God if it were 
 not best, for His glory and for the highest 
 ii 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ultimate happiness of His creatures that they 
 should exist. Divine Love, we may feel sure, 
 is the moral background of all this dark 
 picture of sin and suffering in the universe ; 
 the key that explains these mysteries of the 
 moral government of a holy and benevolent 
 Jehovah. 
 
 Not, therefore, because God has no power 
 to banish them, not because He is indifferent 
 to their existence do Satan, sin and suffering 
 exist. But they exist because our human 
 race is now, here in this life, in a probation- 
 ary state, in a state of moral test or trial, 
 in a condition of moral discipline and culture 
 and purification for a better and an eternal 
 life hereafter. And these are the agencies 
 which God employs to carry on this proba- 
 tionary state, and tinder it to evolve and exe- 
 cute His own wise and eternal counsels. 
 
 But this, I repeat, we may, from our knowl- 
 edge of His character, be sure of : that God 
 in love rules the universe, and that whatever 
 physical or moral evil exists in this world of 
 ours exists for wise and benevolent purposes, 
 and will all be overruled and used for the ul- 
 12 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 timate happiness of the largest number. And 
 this is why even His own children are not 
 exempt from suffering. It is just because of 
 His love for them that He does not exempt 
 them. The sorrows, the trials, the sufferings, 
 the tears, and the heartaches which thus, un- 
 der His government, come upon His chil- 
 dren have rich divine blessings in them, work 
 together for their spiritual and eternal good, 
 purify their characters, fit them for heaven, 
 and are the means which He employs to 
 bring them, at last, to that blessed life be- 
 yond the present where sorrow and suffering 
 shall be forever unknow r n. Even in the dark- 
 est and most painful dealings of God with 
 His people, it is still in love He deals with 
 them. As Paul writes : "Whom the Lord 
 loveth He chasteneth, and correcteth every 
 son whom He receiveth." He causes "all 
 things to work together for good to them that 
 love Him and are the called according to His 
 purpose." In everything there is love. 
 
 "Even the hour that darkest seemeth, 
 Does His changeless goodness prove; 
 13 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 From the gloom His brightness streameth, 
 God is Wisdom, God is Love." 
 
 IV. This divine government, I note yet 
 in the fourth place, is a universal and an 
 all - embracing government, extending to 
 every possible object and being : for god is 
 an Omnipresent God. 
 
 It extends to all worlds ; to every star and 
 planet and sun. It embraces all beings; an- 
 gels, archangels, redeemed spirits, devils, lost 
 souls in hell, every human being on earth, 
 every beast and bird and insect and worm 
 on land, every fish of the sea. It includes 
 under its sway every event; the rise and fall 
 of empires, the history of nations, the rav- 
 ages of war, the sweep of the pestilence, the 
 growth or failure of harvests, the discoveries, 
 arts, inventions, commerce of the world, the 
 flight of a comet, the fall of the raindrop or 
 flake of snow; all are comprehended in and 
 are the result of this universal government 
 or providence of God. 
 
 And not to each human being only, but to 
 every particular experience, occurrence, and 
 event in the history of that being does this 
 14 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 divine government also extend. Nothing, re- 
 lating to any one of us, no matter how triv- 
 ial, is unembraced in God's providence over 
 us. All things enter into His divine plans 
 concerning us ; are links in the chain of 
 causes with which He is working out our 
 destiny; means by which He is seeking to 
 draw and hold us to Himself, to chasten and 
 purify our characters, to guide us through 
 life, and bring us finally to the bliss of the 
 heavenly life. Our birth, our surroundings, 
 our experiences, our circumstances, our 
 friends or enemies, our wealth or poverty, 
 our prosperity or adversity, our sickness or 
 health, our joy or sorrow, our life or death, 
 God's hand is in them all. "The Lord reign- 
 eth" may be said concerning them all. All 
 are parts of His providential plan, and are 
 embraced under His government over us. 
 "He knows our downsitting and our upris- 
 ing; He understands our thoughts afar off; 
 He compasses our path and our lying down ; 
 He is acquainted with all our ways." 
 
 Men talk very foolishly when they say that 
 they believe in a general providence, but not 
 15 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 in a particular or special providence. There 
 can be no general providence without a par- 
 ticular one making up the general; just as 
 there can be no whole without all the parts, 
 no chain without all the links composing the 
 chain, no ocean without all the drops that 
 make up the ocean. The seemingly small 
 and insignificant things in a man's life are 
 often the hinges upon which his very destiny, 
 for both time and eternity, turns. Mere 
 trifles seemingly have often been the occa- 
 sions or causes of some of the greatest revo- 
 lutions both in Church and State. Could 
 there be a providence in the one without a 
 providence also in the other? A providence 
 in the result and yet none in the causes and 
 means producing the result? A providence 
 in the end and yet none in the beginning? 
 Folly ! A general providence can, in the 
 nature of the case, only exist through an all- 
 embracing particular providence. And we 
 are shut up to believe either in such particu- 
 lar providence or believe in no providence at 
 all. Denying God's government in all things, 
 we must deny it in anything; and we must 
 16 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 regard ourselves, and the universe, as with- 
 out any thought or care in the divine mind 
 at all. 
 
 But let us now yet especially notice, in 
 conclusion, the Psalmist's exhortation, here 
 in our text, based upon this fact that "the 
 Lord thus reigneth." 
 
 He bids us rejoice in it. 'The Lord," he 
 exclaims, "reigneth." Hence, because of this, 
 "let the earth rejoice, let the multitude of 
 isles be glad thereof." Let there, he means, 
 be universal joy in this fact of the divine 
 government. If God reigns, then there is 
 room and reason to rejoice. Let men re- 
 joice that the universe is not under the 
 reign of chance, or fate, or mere cold law, 
 but that the Lord reigneth, that God is on 
 the throne; a God of infinite wisdom, power, 
 love, a God everywhere present, and doing 
 all things for His glory and His creatures' 
 good. Let every flower that blooms re- 
 joice, for it is He that arrays it in its 
 glory. Let all the beasts of the field 
 rejoice, for it is He that giveth them 
 their food. Let the birds of the air rejoice, 
 17 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 for He careth for them. Let sun, moon and 
 stars rejoice, for it is He that holds them in 
 safety in their orbits and guides them in their 
 courses. Let the earth rejoice, for it is He 
 that hath made it and who upholdeth it. Let 
 the nations rejoice, for He is controlling and 
 governing them. Let the Church rejoice, for 
 He has her in His heart, and holds over her 
 His ever-protecting arm. And even let sin- 
 ners rejoice, for it is because God is what He 
 is, the God of Patience and of Love, and be- 
 cause His government is what it is, that they 
 still are spared as they are, and are dealt with 
 as patiently as they are. And yet let them 
 not presume. Let them not harden them- 
 selves under this divine leniency. God's gov- 
 ernment, as we have seen, is one, also, of 
 power. There is retribution and wrath in 
 it, at last, as well as love. Let them rejoice 
 then that God has spared them as He has, 
 that He is Love, that He has provided them 
 a Saviour, that He offers them pardon, that 
 He still waits to save them, and joyfully let 
 them accept the salvation He offers. For 
 let them know that this love of God if per- 
 18 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 sistently rejected will change into eternal 
 divine anger, and all this divine power, now 
 put forth to save them, will be employed to 
 punish and eternally destroy them. Espe- 
 cially let the righteous, however, rejoice that 
 God is on the throne. Their Father holds 
 the reins of universal rule. They are safe, 
 therefore, under His government. No 
 weapon formed against them can prosper; 
 no enemy can destroy them; no power can 
 pluck them out of His hands or separate 
 them from Him. The good work He has 
 begun within them He will perfect. They 
 are dear to Him as the apple of His eye. 
 He allows sorrow, it is true, to come upon 
 them, but it is always allowed only in love ; 
 is alw r ays sent only to purify and bless them. 
 He sanctifies also their joy to them. In every 
 experience of their life He leads, guides, 
 strengthens, helps, comforts them. He is 
 their God, their loving Father. Let the 
 righteous therefore rejoice. For if God be 
 for them, who can be against them? 
 
 And thus also let the Church rejoice that 
 God reigns. There are times when evil seems 
 19 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to be getting the upper hand in the world, 
 when the devil appears to be getting the ad- 
 vantage of God, when the cause of holiness 
 and truth seems to be losing ground, when 
 the Kingdom of Christ appears to be suffer- 
 ing loss and going down before the attacks 
 upon it of the kingdom of Satan. But let not 
 the Church lose faith. God is on the throne. 
 He holds the reins in His hands, and He 
 w T ill not let them go. He will cause all the 
 wrath of man to praise Him. Above all this 
 din and turmoil and strife and opposition and 
 sin, sits God as the Omnipotent One, carry- 
 ing out quietly His eternal plan with regard 
 to our earth and man, and executing each 
 moment His purposes especially concerning 
 His Church and the Kingdom of His divine 
 Son, Jesus Christ. 
 
 Be glad, therefore, at all time, O Church 
 of Christ, in the consciousness of the love for 
 thee and providence over thee of thy cove- 
 nant-keeping God. In His hands thou art 
 always safe. With Him as thy protector, 
 thou hast nothing to fear even in the darkest 
 hour. 'The Lord reigneth ; let the earth re- 
 
 20 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 joice; let the multitude of isles be glad 
 thereof/' "And I heard as it were the voice 
 of a great multitude, and as the voice of 
 many waters, and as the voice of mighty 
 thunderings, saying: "Alleluia; for the 
 Lord Omnipotent reigneth." 
 
 z\ 
 
THE TESTIMONY OF 
 CONSCIOUSNESS. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "He answered' and said: Whether He be a sinner 
 or no I know not. One thing I know: That, whereas 
 I was blind, now I see." — John ix. 25. 
 
 Our text is the declaration, on the part of 
 the man who had been blind but to whom 
 the Saviour gave sight, of his consciousness, 
 or personal assurance, that such a miracle 
 had been wrought upon him and that he 
 now actually did see. Two things, beyond a 
 doubt, he knew, viz. : that once he was blind, 
 and that now he could see. There were some 
 things connected both with his past blindness 
 and with his present sight which he did not, 
 and could not, understand; but, with regard 
 to the fact of each, he was positively and ab- 
 solutely certain; he knew that once he could 
 not see, and he knew that now he could see. 
 Hence, in answer to all the cavils of the 
 enemies of Jesus, and in answer to all his 
 own doubts concerning him, and in answer 
 22 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to all the questionings which arose in his 
 mind concerning the nature of the miracle, 
 or how Jesus wrought it, he fell back simply 
 on the facts, on what he knew, in his per- 
 sonal consciousness, to be facts, and said: 
 "One thing I know, that, whereas I was 
 blind, now I see." 
 
 This assurance of this healed blind man 
 of the reality of his cure, or this certainty 
 in his own personal consciousness of the 
 change which had been wrought by Christ 
 upon him, I wish to use, today, as an illus- 
 tration of what may be called: "The Testi- 
 mony of Consciousness to our Personal Ac- 
 ceptance with God and our Heirship, 
 through Jesus Christ, to Eternal Life." 
 
 There is such a thing as Personal Chris- 
 tian Assurance within ourselves that we are 
 no longer in a State of Nature and Moral 
 Death, but that we have been spiritually re- 
 newed, and are now in a State of Grace, and 
 are Heirs, therefore, of Everlasting Life. 
 With this healed blind man, speaking of our 
 changed spiritual state, we can say: "One 
 thing I know : that, whereas I was blind, now 
 23 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 I see." It is the testimony of our individual 
 consciousness to our own renewed spiritual 
 state. 
 
 Let us carefully together, today, consider 
 this subject, and, for our instruction and 
 spiritual benefit, learn from it all that we 
 possibly can. 
 
 My proposition is that all real Believers 
 in the Truth of God's Word, and all who 
 truly, in an Evangelical sense, do believe in 
 Christ Jesus, the Saviour who is offered to 
 them in that Word, may also have within 
 themselves, in their own personal conscious- 
 ness, the assurance that they have thus be- 
 lieved, that what the Word of God declares 
 is true, and that the Saviour who is there of- 
 fered is, indeed, all that He is there declared 
 to be, and that, because of their trust in Him, 
 they are in a pardoned and saved state with 
 God. 
 
 In considering this Proposition, let us en- 
 deavor 
 
 I. To PROVE IT. 
 II. To GUARD IT AGAINST ERROR; AND 
 III. TO SHOW ITS GREAT VALUE. 
 
 24 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 I. The fact that there is such a thing as 
 Personal Assurance of Acceptance with God, 
 can scarcely, I think, be doubted by any one 
 who really receives the Scriptures. The con- 
 sciousness of men is constantly, in Scripture, 
 appealed to for Evidence of the Truth of 
 God's Word, and especially of the certainty 
 of their own justified relations to God. 
 
 Abel "obtained witness," we read, "that he 
 was righteous, God testifying of his gifts." 
 Enoch walked with God, and, before his 
 translation, he had this testimony that he 
 pleased God. Noah also had divine testi- 
 mony of his acceptance : "Thee have I seen 
 righteous before me in this generation," said 
 God to him. Abraham was called "the 
 Friend of God." Job knew that his Re- 
 deemer lived, and that he should see him. 
 Moses spoke face to face with God. David 
 gives repeated evidence, in his Psalms, of 
 his consciousness that God was his portion. 
 Isaiah sings: k '0 Lord, I will praise Thee; 
 though Thou wast angry with me, Thine 
 anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest 
 me." 
 
 25 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 And, in the New Testament, Saints are 
 described as being "filled with the Holy 
 Ghost, and as rejoicing with joy unspeakable 
 and full of glory." Jesus says : "My peace 
 I give unto you." "When He the Comforter 
 is come He will lead you into all Truth; for 
 He shall receive of mine and shall show it 
 unto you." Jesus also said to Peter : "Lov- 
 est thou me?" a most direct address to 
 Peter's own inner spirit for the Evidence or 
 for Proof of His love. And so, right here 
 in the narrative of the cure of the blind man, 
 we find the Saviour making an immediate 
 appeal to the man's own consciousness, to 
 his own knowledge of the state of his own 
 heart in relation to Christ, asking him, as 
 He did : "Dost thou believe on the Son of 
 God?" And this was frequently done in the 
 Ministry of Our Saviour. Jesus frequently 
 thus threw men within and back on them- 
 selves, and put their own consciousness on 
 the stand to witness with regard to Him- 
 self and their relations to Him. 
 
 And how repeated and positive the decla- 
 rations also of Scripture upon this point ! 
 26 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 How often, e. g., the Sacred Writers, speak- 
 ing evidently out of their own experience, 
 their own inner consciousness, use the ex- 
 pression: "I know," "we know," "we are 
 persuaded," "we are sure." 
 
 Take, e. g., such passages as these: "We 
 know that we have passed from death unto 
 life;" "I know whom I have believed, and 
 am persuaded that He is able to keep that 
 which I have committed unto Him against 
 that day ;" "Hereby know we that we dwell 
 in Him, and He in us, and His love is per- 
 fected in us ;" "The Spirit itself beareth wit- 
 ness with our spirit that we are the children 
 of God, and if children then heirs; heirs of 
 God and joint heirs with Christ." 
 
 And so in many other passages. There is 
 everywhere a recognition of this Voice with- 
 in; this Witness of the Spirit of God to the 
 Truth and Reality of Religion, in the Souls 
 of men ; in a word, of the Testimony of Ex- 
 perience, of men's own consciousness that 
 Christianity is true, and that they are, 4 or 
 are not, the Children of God. 
 
 And, besides, there are hundreds and 
 27 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 thousands of Christians, whose testimony is 
 in all respects worthy of fullest credence, 
 who possess this Assurance ; who, by the 
 Witness of the Spirit within their hearts, 
 know that they are the Children of God; 
 whose own Consciousness bears witness that 
 Christianity is true, and that they themselves 
 have been born of God and are heirs of 
 heaven ; who with the blind man of the text 
 can say : "One thing I know, that, whereas 
 I was blind, now I see." 
 
 The fact, therefore, I repeat, that there is 
 such a thing as Christian Assurance, based 
 upon personal religious experience; a Wit- 
 ness of the Holy Ghost to the inner spirit or 
 soul of the renewed man; a testimony in the 
 believer's individual consciousness of the 
 truth as it is in Christ; all this, I say, can- 
 not be denied. It is true. God's Word de- 
 clares it. Christian Testimony, which can- 
 not reasonably be doubted, confirms it. 
 
 It is necessary, however, now 
 
 LI. Carefully to guard this Doctrine of the 
 inner Witness of the Spirit, or of the Testi- 
 mony of our own Consciousness, against the 
 28 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 gross Errors and Abuses to which it is 
 liable. 
 
 I need scarcely say that there is, in this 
 whole matter of the inner Witness of the 
 Spirit, the very greatest danger of decep- 
 tion. Many, indeed, are, in respect to it, very 
 greatly deceived. Much is received and be- 
 lieved to be the suggestion and the testimony 
 of God's Holy Spirit, in men's hearts, which 
 is nothing more than their own mere ex- 
 cited fancy, or carnal imaginings, and which, 
 indeed, is often the wicked and foul sugges- 
 tions even of Satan himself. Some of the 
 most shocking immoralities, some of the 
 most revolting crimes, some of the most 
 cruel deeds that have ever darkened the 
 pages of History, have been committed in 
 the name of Religion, and were committed 
 ostensibly or professedly under the sugges- 
 tion or impulse of the Holy Spirit. Every- 
 one, at all acquainted with History, well 
 know T s this. The dreadful horrors of the In- 
 quisition; the shocking lewdness and im- 
 morality of the Fanatics, during the Period 
 of the Reformation ; the cruel burning of men 
 29 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 and women, and even little children, as 
 witches ; all these things have been done, and 
 often sincerely, in the name of Religion and 
 of Christianity, and, as men supposed, in 
 obedience to the inner moving of the Holy 
 Ghost. Jesus Himself says : "They shall 
 put you out of the Synagogues ; yea, the 
 time cometh that whosoever killeth will 
 think that he doeth God's service. " And 
 Paul, concerning the Jews, says : "I bear 
 them record that they have a zeal for God, 
 but not according to knowledge/' 
 
 There is then, I repeat, danger of decep- 
 tion in this whole matter; and a man's feel- 
 ings, his spirit within him, his consciousness, 
 may tell him he is a Christian, a Child of 
 God, and that he is doing God's service; 
 and he may even have, at times, the high- 
 est kinds of so-called religious raptures and 
 ecstasies, and swoons, and visions: there 
 may, I say, be an inner witness, an internal 
 testimony or consciousness of all this, and 
 yet in it all there may not be the first particle 
 of the work or grace of the Holy Spirit. 
 The man's heart may, all the time, still be un- 
 30 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 renewed, and he may still be in his sins, and 
 on the way to Eternal Death. 
 
 The question, then, may well be asked: 
 — What constitutes a genuine inner Wit- 
 ness? How does the Holy Spirit bear to 
 the Soul this inner Testimony, this self-au- 
 thenticating Evidence, this Consciousness, 
 amounting to Assurance, of which the Scrip- 
 tures so often speak, that we are the Children 
 of God : "new creatures in Christ Jesus/' 
 really born anew into the Kingdom of 
 Grace? How? What are the "tests" by 
 which I may safely know that I am not de- 
 ceived, and that it is no false voice, but the 
 real and true voice of God's Holy Spirit in 
 my soul, which is thus speaking "peace" to 
 me? In answer, I reply: — 
 
 a. That this "Testimony" or "Assurance," 
 when truly that of the Holy Spirit, is always 
 imparted or borne to the soul in connection 
 with the Word of God; i. e., it comes from 
 faith in the Word of God. 
 
 There is no such thing as the direct or im- 
 mediate witnessing of the Holy Spirit, apart 
 from, and without the medium and use of, 
 3i 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 "the Word;" but always the Spirit bears 
 witness through or by the Word. In all His 
 operations upon the soul He thus acts 
 through the instrumentality or agency of the 
 Word or Truth. By the Word (and Sacra- 
 ment, or Word in connection with the Wa- 
 ter) He regenerates. '"Born of water and 
 the Spirit." "Being born again, not of cor- 
 ruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the 
 Word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
 ever." By the Word, also, the Holy Ghost 
 sanctifies. "Sanctify them," prayed the Sav- 
 iour, "by the Truth: Thy Word is Truth." 
 And thus also by this written Word of God, 
 the Word which the Holy Spirit Himself in- 
 spired, does the Holy Spirit bear witness or 
 assurance of the reality or truth of the Word, 
 and convey to the soul the spiritual blessings 
 of peace, assurance, comfort, hope, joy, 
 promised in the Word. Peace comes always 
 by faith : faith in the Word, faith in the Christ 
 revealed in the Word. "Being justified by 
 faith, we have peace with God, through our 
 Lord Jesus Christ." 
 
 Thus by faith in the Word, the soul says 
 32 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 with the blind man: "I know that whereas 
 I was blind now I see. I was blind in sin; 
 in darkness with regard to God, and Christ, 
 and my sins, and danger; I was in the thick 
 gloom of spiritual night and death; but now 
 I see ; now I am in the light, in joy, in grace, 
 in new life, in Christ !" How, I ask such a 
 soul, how do you know that you are all this? 
 How, or in what way does the Spirit of God 
 bear to you the witness of all this ? And the 
 answer is : Through the Word. I believe 
 this Word of God. I trust myself to this 
 Christ whom this Word here reveals, and as 
 He is here revealed: I comply with the Con- 
 ditions of Pardon, and Acceptance, and Sal- 
 vation, which are so plainly here laid down. 
 The Spirit helps me to do so ; and, as I do 
 so, I have peace, I have hope, I have joy in 
 my soul ; I know that I am a Child of God, 
 an Heir of heaven; for this is what God's 
 Word promises to all who comply with 
 these "conditions," to all who do thus trust 
 themselves to Christ ; and this, therefore, the 
 Spirit now tells me is all mine, because I 
 thus trust. 
 
 33 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Thus the Spirit honors and uses His own 
 inspired Word as a means of bestowing As- 
 surance. Thus He bears witness, not by vis- 
 ion, or by some kind of subjective elevation, 
 or mere natural rapture of soul into a clair- 
 voyant state, but simply through the Truth, 
 and by faith in the Truth. The Holy Spirit 
 helps the soul to believe God's Word, to take 
 God right at His word, and then because it 
 has thus taken Him, it assures Him that he 
 is a Child of God. In other words, this "In- 
 ner Witness" is the whispering of the Spirit 
 of God's sure word of acceptance to the soul 
 that is resting fully and only on that Written 
 Word of God. 
 
 And I may here add that this inner wit- 
 ness is thus not only imparted or begotten 
 in the soul through the medium of the ob- 
 jective word, but must be, and always also 
 is, in entire harmony with that objective 
 word. In the nature of things, the Holy 
 Ghost being the Author of both, it must be 
 so. The Spirit cannot contradict Himself. 
 Hence, also, the written inspired word must 
 ever be made the supreme measure and 
 34 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 moral test of all our inner experiences. "To 
 the law and to the testimony/' says Isaiah, 
 "if they speak not according to this word it 
 is because there is no light in them." Abra- 
 ham said unto the rich man in hell, concern- 
 ing his five brethren yet on earth : "They 
 have Moses and the Prophets ; let them hear 
 them." Thus must all our so-called religious 
 experiences ever harmonize with, and corre- 
 spond with, the Written Word: not the 
 Word interpreted by, and contorted, and 
 wrenched out of its plain and true meaning, 
 to be made to correspond with the arbitrary 
 inner experience. Thus measured by God's 
 Word, much that now passes for the highest 
 and best kind of religious experience would 
 fall to the ground. And then there is another 
 test. 
 
 b. This inner Witness, where it is genu- 
 ine, where it is indeed the Spirit's Witness, 
 is always evidenced by a corresponding holy 
 or truly Christian eternal life. 
 
 Where there is a true religious experience 
 within, there will also, as certainly as shadow 
 follows substance, be a godly deportment 
 35 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 without. A godly spirit, the Spirit of Christ 
 Himself: godly words, godly dealings with 
 his fellowmen, godly prayers, godly deeds, 
 godly living. 
 
 It is all well enough for us as Christians 
 to speak to each other of our experience; 
 of what we know and feel in our hearts of 
 the grace of God. But, after all, the best 
 evidence that a man is indeed a Christian, 
 is found, not so much in how he feels, as in 
 how he lives. The life is the proof. "By their 
 fruits ye shall know them." Let me see how 
 you live; acquaint me with your temper, 
 your words, your actions, your daily con- 
 duct as a Christian; let me know how faith- 
 ful or unfaithful in all the duties of Scrip- 
 tural piety you are ; what kind of a husband, 
 or wife, or son or daughter you are. Let me 
 see how square in your dealings you are. 
 Show me all this ; and then I will know, and 
 then the world also will know, and then you 
 yourself also will know whether you are a 
 Christian or not. For where the heart is 
 changed and right, the outer life will also be 
 right. Where there is a true inner Witness 
 36 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 there will always also be the godly life as 
 an outer Witness. Nor is, you may rest 
 assured, the inner true if the outer is want- 
 ing. The Holy Spirit would not thus con- 
 tradict Himself: whispering "peace" to the 
 soul within, and yet allowing it to live in 
 sin without. "A good tree cannot bring forth 
 evil fruit ; neither can a corrupt tree bring- 
 forth good fruit. Wherefore," says Christ, 
 and let us mark well His words, "by their 
 fruits ye shall know them." 
 
 Let no one, then, deceive himself into the 
 belief that his inner Witness is the Witness 
 of the Holy Spirit, unless it possesses these 
 two positive and essential evidences; viz., 
 first, that it is born of the Word of God, 
 viz., "not of corruptible seed," as St. Peter 
 expresses it, "but of incorruptible, by the 
 Word of God, which liveth and abideth for- 
 ever." And then, secondly, that it is attend- 
 ed by a godly, consistent, and faithful Chris- 
 tian Life. For he that possesses these is not 
 deceived. He who has these can, in truth, 
 with this healed blind man say: "One thing 
 I know, that whereas I was blind, now I 
 37 
 
* Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 see." But if he possesses not these, then he 
 is deceived, be his pretentions to religious 
 experience what they may. "He that lacketh 
 these things is blind." 
 
 But let us now yet consider: 
 
 III. The value of this Testimony of Con- 
 sciousness, or of Experience, both to the 
 Truth of Christianity, and to the Reality of 
 our own Personal Piety. 
 
 This Consciousness that we are the Chil- 
 dren of God is of inexpressible value. To 
 have, not the Hope only, but the Assurance, 
 the positive testimony within ourselves, 
 wrought there by the Holy Spirit, that we 
 have indeed passed from death unto life, 
 this is of infinite worth. To be able to say: 
 "I know it is so : the Spirit bears witness, 
 through the Word, with my spirit, that I 
 am a Child of God." Oh that is the richest 
 blessing which the soul, this side of heaven, 
 can enjoy. In every way it is unspeakably 
 valuable. It is valuable because it is 
 
 I. A Confirmation of God's own Written 
 Word. 
 
 It is the testimony of our own experience 
 38 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to the truth of what God, in His Word, 
 promises to all who will, with full confidence, 
 commit themselves to His mercy through 
 Christ. In such experience "we therefore, 
 set to our seal that God is true," and that 
 His Word is true. And thus we, in the 
 strongest possible manner, commend the 
 Word of God to others. 
 
 2. It is valuable also as a Source of in- 
 expressible personal comfort and joy to our- 
 selves. 
 
 Think, for a moment, what all is implied 
 in such an Assurance: pardon, peace with 
 God, grace to help in every need, adoption 
 into the family of God, certainty of heaven, 
 all this. How blessed the condition of the 
 soul that has, from day to day, within itself 
 the consciousness that all this belongs to 
 it. What peace and comfort, and strength, 
 and joy, and hope, and heaven, are all his, 
 and must, in the nature of the case, be his 
 who thus takes in the fact, and lives in the 
 consciousness and realization of the truth 
 that all this is, indeed, through Christ, his 
 relation to God. Such a soul enjoys heaven 
 39 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 already on earth. And, day by day, he can 
 sing : 
 
 "The opening heavens around me shine 
 
 With beams for sacred bliss, 
 When Jesus shows His heart is mine. 
 
 And whispers I am His." 
 
 Is such an Assurance, such a Conscious- 
 ness, not, then, valuable? 
 
 3. But it is valuable, also, as an Incentive 
 to Christian Activity. 
 
 Then man who thus has this sense of his 
 Adoption, and w 7 ho thus, in his own heart, 
 experiences the blessedness of pardoned sin 
 and of hope through Christ, is moved, by his 
 own experience, to tell others, to tell even 
 the whole world of this precious Saviour, of 
 this gracious, loving, God, of this comfort 
 and joy of a Christian life, and bring them 
 all, if possible, also to know, and possess, 
 and enjoy them. The Love of Christ, thus 
 dwelling in their own souls, constrains them 
 to have others also taste and be filled with 
 it. And hence, also, it is those Christians 
 who, in some degree, at least, have this 
 Assurance of their own acceptance, who are, 
 40 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 also, the most active and earnest in efforts to 
 lead others to the Saviour. This is always so. 
 
 4. And then this Consciousness, or this 
 Experience of the Grace of God in our hearts, 
 is valuable, also, as an element of success in 
 our efforts to lead others to the Saviour. 
 There is no testimony so convincing, so 
 piercing, and persuasive, and irresistible as 
 the testimony of Experience. When a man, 
 if he is at all a man of truth, tells you : "I 
 know such a thing is true because I myself 
 have tried it, I experienced it, I myself 
 passed through it, and have, here in myself, 
 the proof of it," you must believe him. It 
 is the testimony not of argument, or theory, 
 or speculation, or hearsay, but of direct per- 
 sonal Experience, and you cannot doubt it. 
 
 And so in the matter of Religion. The 
 testimony of Experience is powerful. It goes 
 right down into men's hearts. It silences 
 all their objections. It dumfounds all their 
 cavils. It hushes them. It does more : it 
 convinces them; it melts, persuades, wins 
 them. 
 
 And, then, there is power in this testimony 
 41 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of consciousness for another reason; viz., a 
 man tells what he has himself actually experi- 
 enced so differently from what he tells that 
 which he has not himself experienced. He 
 tells it positively, earnestly, as a living real- 
 ity before and within his own soul; and the 
 very way in which he thus tells it, carries 
 conviction of the truth of what he declares, 
 and leads men to accept, and believe, and do 
 what he says. Yes, the man who, when he 
 talks to others about Christ, and tries to lead 
 them to Christ, can say : "I myself know this 
 Christ; I have experienced His grace; I know 
 in my own heart what a precious Saviour He 
 is;" that man, in this his ability thus to speak 
 from personal experience, will speak with a 
 power which otherwise he could not possibly 
 possess ; and he also, because of this power, 
 will be the means of leading many to Jesus. 
 
 But once more : 
 
 5. This Consciousness of our Acceptance 
 with God is invaluable in view of Death and 
 of the Future Life which is before us all. 
 
 It disarms Death of its terrors, and takes 
 42 
 
, Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 away all fear of meeting God in Judgment. 
 It fills the future with light, and hope, and 
 causes the soul to feel that dying is but going 
 home. Assured of its acceptance with God 
 the soul, in a dying hour, can sing. 
 
 Blessed, then, for all these reasons, is the 
 man who has this Witness of the Holy 
 Spirit, within his own heart that he is a Child 
 of God. Blessed is any one, whether man or 
 woman or little child, who, moved by the 
 Holy Ghost, and in humble obedience to the 
 Inspired Word, has, in penitence and faith, 
 gone to the Siloam Pool of the Saviour's 
 blood, and has there washed, and is now able, 
 out of his own undoubting Consciousness, 
 and as the deep Conviction of his own indi- 
 vidual Experience, to say, in the clear con- 
 fidence of this healed and glad blind man: 
 "Many things about this Christ and about 
 Christianity I do not know; but one thing 
 I do know: — I once was blind, but now 
 I see, and it was He, Jesus the Christ, who 
 made me thus to see. All glory to His Name 
 for what He has done for my soul." 
 43 
 
GOD'S ANGELS MEETING 
 US IN THE WAY. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "And Jacob went on his way, and the angels of 
 God met him." — Genesis xxxii, i. 
 
 For twenty-one years Jacob had been an 
 exile in the land of Padan Aram. They had 
 been years of many and strange vicissitudes. 
 They were marked by numerous and pain- 
 ful experiences. But the experiences, through 
 which God thus, in these years, led him, had 
 proved a blessing to him. He had been 
 brought to repentance of the great wrong, 
 both against his father and brother, which he 
 had committed. He had been chastened into 
 a new and holier character. He was no 
 longer Jacob, the Deceiver, "the Supplanter," 
 but he was now Israel, a spiritual Prince, 
 having power both with God and with men. 
 
 By divine command, he was now return- 
 ing to his native land ; going back to the old 
 44 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 home, whence, twenty-one years before, he 
 had fled to escape the rage of Esau whom 
 he had so grossly wronged. God, we read, 
 had said unto him : "Return unto thy coun- 
 try and to thy kindred, and I will deal well 
 with thee." 
 
 Thus journeying, and having with him his 
 household and all his possessions, he came 
 into the neighborhood of the little brook 
 called Jabbok, east of the river Jordan. It 
 was to him a time of deep and anxious 
 thought; a moment of great perplexity and 
 fear. Not far from where he thus was, Esau, 
 his brother, resided, the head now of a great 
 and warlike tribe, and remembering, doubt- 
 less, the old wrong which Jacob had done 
 him. 
 
 Thinking of all this, and fearing not only 
 for his own life, but especially for the lives 
 of his loved ones, Jacob was filled w r ith fore- 
 bodings of impending evil, and trembled lest 
 he and his be together destroyed. 
 
 But God's eye was on him. God was his 
 keeper. God's "Angels" were sent to him, to 
 preserve him in this hour of his peril; to be 
 45 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 his defenders ; to comfort him in his sorrow ; 
 to guide him safely through the danger to 
 which he was thus exposed. "And Jacob 
 went on his way, and the angels of God met 
 him." And when Jacob saw them he said : 
 "This is God's host;" and he called the name 
 of that place "Mahanaim ;" that is two hosts. 
 
 All this, at first thought, impresses us as 
 an unusual and singular occurrence. To read 
 that God's Angels thus met Jacob, as he 
 journeyed there on the way, and became as 
 it were a divine body-guard all around him, 
 to keep him, this seems, at first, strange and 
 remarkable. And yet it is really not an un- 
 usual occurrence. It is something which is 
 happening all the time; happening to each 
 one of us, as much as here to Jacob ; happen- 
 ing not once only, but often and constantly. 
 
 Like Jacob we are all journeying; journey- 
 ing towards eternity. Like Jacob we come also 
 here and there, in this journey of life which 
 we are making, to certain perilous and crit- 
 ical points : to the "crossings" of certain dan- 
 gerous streams, like the stream Jabbok or 
 the river Jordan, "crossings" where we are 
 46 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 in greatest peril of being overcome by spir- 
 itual foes, and crushed by the evils and ills 
 of life. And like Jacob, we are also at such 
 times, met, and helped, and defended, and 
 often saved by the angels of God. 
 
 God's angels are probably thus even bod- 
 ily and literally round about us, as our help- 
 ers and defenders. It becomes us, I know, 
 to speak modestly upon this point, and not 
 to announce as a positive Scripture dogma 
 that which the Scriptures have not thus with 
 absolute dogmatic positiveness announced. 
 And yet, on the other hand, we must not 
 forget that neither do the Scriptures deny 
 as a fact such literal and bodily angelic pres- 
 ence and ministry. They leave it to us at 
 least as an open question. Personally I in- 
 cline to accept it. 
 
 We do not, I know, as Jacob here did, see 
 the angels of God about us or hear them 
 speak, or catch visions of their radiant forms, 
 as they are round about us. But still, of the 
 real, literal nearness and presence of God's 
 angels, at least occasionally, in any great emer- 
 47 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 gency or crisis in our life time as God's chil- 
 dren here on earth, I do not doubt. They 
 were, I know, thus really and visibly here, 
 at the crossing of Jabbok, with Jacob; with 
 Elisha at Dothan ; with Hagar in the wilder- 
 ness ; with Peter in the prison ; with Paul in 
 the storm at sea ; with the dying beggar Laz- 
 arus at the gate of the Rich Man ; with Jesus, 
 the Master, at His advent, in His temptation, 
 in His Agony, at His Resurrection, at His 
 Ascension. 
 
 And why not, then, I would ask, really and 
 literally, although invisibly, also with us, the 
 children of God? Does not God's Word say 
 that "they are ministering spirits, sent forth 
 to minister to those who are the heirs of sal- 
 vation?" Does it not assure us that "angels 
 of the Lord campeth round about the right- 
 eous and delivereth them ?" Does not Christ 
 also declare concerning little children "that 
 in heaven their angels do always behold the 
 face of my Father which is in heaven?" Do 
 we not read that "there is joy in the presence 
 of the angels of God over one sinner that re- 
 penteth?" Was it not an "angel of the 
 48 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Lord" that on Mount Moriah addressed 
 Abraham ; that rebuked Balaam ; that ap- 
 peared to Manoah ; that encouraged Gideon ; 
 that communed with Joshua; that made an- 
 nunciation of the Saviour's birth to Mary; 
 that appeared to Joseph? Is not the Scrip- 
 ture full of recitals of angelic visits to our 
 earth ; of angelic interviews, and angelic min- 
 istries to God's people? What reason to as- 
 sume that all this angelic "ascending and 
 descending/' spoken of so often in Scripture, 
 has wholly ceased? Where bas God inti- 
 mated that angelic visitors no longer come 
 to our earth? Why should they not now, in 
 critical hours of our life, as well as in the 
 life-time of saints of old, come, and, invisi- 
 bly, yet mightily, comfort and strengthen 
 and guide us? Why put heaven all at once 
 so far away? Why thus sunder the com- 
 munion between the church above and the 
 church below ? No ; No ! The poet, I be- 
 lieve, is right when he says : 
 
 "Millions of spiritual beings walk the earth 
 
 unseen 
 Both when we wake and when we sleep." 
 
 49 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Literally and really, then, I believe, that as 
 there, at the Jordan, they met Jacob, and 
 helped him through his peril, and brought 
 him on his way, so do God's Angels from 
 heaven, sent to us by our Heavenly Father, 
 now meet us, and help us in our times of 
 crisis and special need. Why not? 
 
 Figuratively, however, we certainly may 
 apply these words of our text to ourselves. 
 For everything that comes to us in life is 
 really, if we but know it, "an angel, a mes- 
 senger, a providence, of God." Nothing, as 
 we know, comes to us outside of the circle 
 of His "Providence"; nothing that He does 
 not either wisely permit or cause. So that 
 we can truthfully sing: 
 
 "In each event of life how clear 
 
 Thy ruling hand I see; 
 Each blessing to my soul more dear 
 
 Because bestowed by Thee." 
 
 We do not always, I know, thus recognize 
 
 the experiences of life as angels sent to us 
 
 from God. They often do not, at first seem 
 
 to us like angels at all; much less like God's 
 
 50 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 angels. They seem to us something else and 
 less than God. In our spiritual blindness 
 and practical atheism, we call them by other 
 names. We speak of them as mere "occur- 
 rences," "accidents," "chances," "happen- 
 ings," "incidents" only of our life. But still 
 rightly interpreted, every event and every 
 experience in our life is nevertheless a ver- 
 itable "angel of God." God's Providence is 
 with us all and over us all, in all our ways. 
 
 Illustrations of this angelic ministry 
 abound in the life of each one of us. All 
 along in the line of our past history, as we, 
 in our later years, review it, we can see cer- 
 tain places, and certain critical points, where 
 these good angels of God met us, and talked 
 to us, and helped us on in our way. 
 
 Around the Virgin and Child Jesus, in Ra- 
 phael's Madonna, the air, you remember, is 
 represented as being full of attendant guar- 
 dian angels. So also around us, and around 
 every Christian, there are doubtless multi- 
 tudes of these same angelic ministers ; call 
 them by what name you will, "angels," "prov- 
 idences," "laws," "miracles ;" but divine agen- 
 5i 
 
joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 cies they all are, of some kind; by which, 
 and in which, God met us, here or there, in 
 the pathway of life, and gave shape and di- 
 rection to our history different from what it 
 otherwise would have been. 
 
 The mountain at Dothan was full of horses 
 and chariots of fire round about Elisha: an- 
 gels of God, a great host, ready to defend 
 and help him in the peril which threatened 
 him. And did also defend and help him. 
 
 Thus surrounded by angelic hosts, by pro- 
 tecting and guiding and helping agencies of 
 God, are we, at every step of our path-way 
 of life. Like Elisha's servant, our eyes often 
 have been closed, and we have failed to see 
 them, even with the eye of faith. But still 
 they have been ever with us, and have met 
 us in the way. 
 
 Once, for example, you were young. Life 
 spread itself out in beautiful and attractive 
 prospect before you. You had early decided 
 what your course in life would be. You 
 would be this, you would make of yourself 
 this or that, you would fill this or that posi- 
 tion, your plans were all fixed, your way of 
 52 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 life was all marked out, and you were, like 
 Jacob, "going on in the way." 
 
 But, as you were thus going on in the way, 
 something happened which at once changed 
 your whole course, which gave to your life 
 a wholly new turn, which led you out in an 
 an entirely different direction from that in 
 which you before were. It was a little thing 
 perhaps in itself that thus changed the cur- 
 rent of your life, a mere "accident," or 
 "chance," seemingly, something which you 
 at the time thought little or nothing about, 
 but which now, in looking back upon it, you 
 can easily see was the factor or the unseen 
 power which determined your whole after 
 course of life, and which really led you to 
 become what and who and where you to-day 
 are. 
 
 That seemingly little incident which thus 
 befell you, and thus determined your life- 
 course, was, however, no chance work; no 
 accident merely; no mere human agency; 
 but it was one of God's angels. As here the 
 Angels of God met Jacob, so the Angels of 
 God met you there in the way. You had come 
 53 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to one of life's crossings, you needed direc- 
 tion, the choice you would have made, if 
 left to yourself, would not have tended to 
 your highest good, and so the Angels came 
 to you ; came in the form of some mere oc- 
 currence or incident of life, and led you in 
 a different and better way. "There is a Di- 
 vinity shapes our ends ; rough hew them as 
 we will." "Man proposes but God disposes. " 
 "The way of man is not in himself; it is not 
 in man that walketh to direct his steps." 
 
 Take, however, another illustration. At 
 some point or period of your past 
 life, you were in great danger of mak- 
 ing moral shipwreck of yourself. You 
 were a young man. You had fallen into cer- 
 tain company which would soon have led 
 you astray. You were beginning certain hab- 
 its which would soon have proved your 
 ruin. It was a critical moment in your moral 
 history. It was one of your life's decisive 
 crossings; a moral pivot, upon which hung 
 your whole subsequent character, your des- 
 tiny for this life and the next. But God's 
 Angels met you. In the form of "Con- 
 54 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 science" speaking to you; or of "Memory" 
 recalling the words often spoken by a pious 
 father or mother; or in the kind interest 
 taken in you by some Christian friend; or in 
 some other form, God's Angels came to 
 you, meeting you there in the way, warning 
 you and turning you aside from the preci- 
 pice of moral ruin upon whose brink you 
 then stood. 
 
 And, by these angels of God, thus meeting, 
 and warning, and revealing to you your dan- 
 ger, your peril, you were saved. You drew 
 back. You broke away from the tempta- 
 tion. You began another and better life. 
 A gentleman recently told me that, when a 
 young man, tempted by companions, he was 
 once induced to enter a drinking saloon and 
 call for liquor. The strong drink was poured 
 out. It sparkled in the tumbler or cup before 
 him. He took it up. He was in the act of 
 putting it to his lips and drinking it. It was 
 his first glass. But, as he raised it, and was 
 thus about to drink it, his eye looked into it, 
 and there, reflected from the face of that 
 liquor, looking up as it were, from the bot- 
 55 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 torn of the glass, he saw, as plainly as could 
 be, the pleading face, or image, of his sainted 
 mother. At once he again set it down. He 
 left it untasted, his first and also* his last 
 glass. God's Angels had met him. They had 
 shown him his danger, and saved him. 
 
 And so with many. They are going into 
 the ways of sin; they are already far gone 
 on the way; utterly worldly, wicked, living 
 without God in the world, unconcerned for 
 their salvation, hastening onward thought- 
 less and unprepared towards eternity. 
 
 But now the Angels of God meet them in 
 the way. The Angel, for example, of reflec- 
 tion, the Angel of God's Word, the Angel 
 of the Holy Spirit, the Angel of the Gospel 
 Ministry, the Angel of Awakening, and Con- 
 viction, and Prayer, and repentance, and 
 Faith. These all "meet him," as he walks 
 there in the way of death, lead him to think, 
 make him stop, show him his guilt and peril, 
 direct him to Christ, and save him. 
 
 Thus God's Angels are probably meeting 
 and speaking to some wayward and wander- 
 ing souls here, in the sanctuary now. Prob- 
 56 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ably some who are now here, have under 
 temptation gone down into the very depths of 
 sin, and have gotten far away from God; 
 and now, as they sit here in God's House, and 
 the truth is preached, the Angel of God's 
 Holy Spirit, the Angel of an Awakened Con- 
 science, the Angel of Conviction and Re- 
 pentance, these "Angels" of God are here 
 meeting them, and tenderly remonstrating 
 with them, and pleading with them to come 
 back again to God, to accept Christ, to be 
 saved. Is it so? Are there such convicted 
 souls here, this evening, in this House of 
 God? To all such, if there be any, let me 
 urgently say: "Hear what these Angels of 
 God thus say to you. Obey their loving 
 exhortation. Do what they bid you. It is 
 for the salvation of your own soul that they 
 thus plead. Hear, therefore, and live. 
 
 But, God's Angels meet us in other forms. 
 Sometimes they meet us in the form of direct 
 Providences. We are walking on in life, all 
 absorbed in present things : our affections 
 and thoughts wholly given up to the gain 
 57 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 and pleasures of this world, forgetful of the 
 great and eternal hereafter, and in danger, 
 therefore, of losing our souls. 
 
 Then, to save us, God's Angels come to 
 us. They meet us in the way. 
 
 The name of the Angel that thus meets us 
 may be "Sickness." It takes us away from 
 the busy scenes of the world. It shuts us 
 up for awhile in retirement. It makes us 
 hold still and think upon our condition. It 
 talks to us. It tells us anew all about God, 
 and about the Saviour, and about our Sins, 
 and our Souls, and our duty. It saves us. 
 
 Or, the Angel that thus meets us may per- 
 haps bear the name of "Adversity." Riches 
 may take to themselves wings and fly away. 
 Enemies may rise up against us. Friends 
 may forsake us. Business enterprises may 
 disappoint us. All things may go against 
 us. Our way may be all shut up against us. 
 It is one of God's Angels in the way. He is 
 sent to show us the vanity of earth ; the folly 
 of living only for this life; the duty of set- 
 ting our affections on things above. 
 
 Or, once more, the name of the Angel that 
 58 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 thus meets us in the way, may, perhaps, be 
 Bereavement. Death perhaps enters your 
 home. Your loved one is taken away from 
 you. The vacant chair, the silent instru- 
 ment,, the unoccupied chamber, all remind 
 you of your painful loss. Your heart is sad 
 and almost crushed under the blow. But it 
 is an Angel of God that has, in that hour 
 of bereavement, come to your home. It is 
 all the dealing with you of Divine Love. It 
 is the visit to you of a heavenly messenger : 
 a messenger whom God has sent to soften 
 your heart, to lead you to think of death 
 and of the life to come, to lift your affections 
 away from earth to heaven and to the better 
 and glorious things of Eternity. 
 
 But, at such times, we have, also, other 
 angelic visitors. God's Angels of Comfort 
 also meet us in the way. Bereaved and brok- 
 en-hearted, weeping and walking in dark- 
 ness, Messengers of Divine Consolation, An- 
 gels of Heavenly Grace also then wing their 
 way to us, to solace us and to console us in 
 our grief. And blessed are the lessons which 
 they then whisper to us : lessons of the Wis- 
 59 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 dom of God, and of the love of God, in all 
 His sore dealings with us : lessons, also, of 
 submission, of trust, of hope ; breathing a 
 sweet spirit of resignation into our souls, 
 calming our agitated emotions, healing our 
 wounded spirits, clearing our vision, and 
 enabling us to look out through and beyond 
 the darkness around us, and there, in the 
 light of God's love, and in the light of Eter- 
 nity to see that it is all right and good. 
 Blessed be God for these dear comforting 
 Angels that thus when we journey in sor- 
 row, "meet us in the way," and then thus 
 point us upward to "the Better Life." 
 
 ''Though strange and winding seems the 
 way, 
 While yet on earth I dwell, 
 
 In heaven my heart shall gladly say, 
 Thou, God, dost all things well." 
 But, once more : these "Angels of God" 
 
 come to us sometimes also in the form only 
 of a good thought, of a better desire or feel- 
 ing, than before possessed us. A man, for 
 example, living in sin, or in religious indiffer- 
 60 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ence, all at once, is filled with a strange dis- 
 satisfaction with himself, an inexplicable un- 
 rest of soul, an overpowering sense of the 
 emptiness of the life he is living, an inextin- 
 guishable longing after something holier and 
 better than he now has, a deep, inner yearn- 
 ing after God, and after that which is good. 
 He cannot account for his feelings. They 
 come over him, he says, almost against his 
 will. When he is alone, when he is awake at 
 night, often, indeed, right in the midst of his 
 course of sin, they come unbidden over him, 
 and he feels himself, like the Prodigal, 
 strangely drawn to arise and go back to his 
 forsaken Father and God. 
 
 Whence come such better thoughts as 
 these? Why does he feel thus? Simply, I 
 answer, because then the good "Angels of 
 God" are meeting him in the way, and are 
 trying to save him. Simply because then 
 God Himself, by the Angel of the Holy 
 Spirit, is speaking to him. 
 
 Thus is our life, full of these Angelic Vis- 
 itants. To us as to Jacob, God's Host come, 
 as we journey in life's way, to check, divert, 
 61 
 
joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 direct, guard, strengthen, comfort, help, save 
 us. 
 
 Learn to look for and see an angel of God 
 in everything that befalls us in life. "God's 
 Angels," as we have seen, come to us dis- 
 guised. They do not always openly declare 
 and show themselves as angels of God. Let 
 us then, try to discover them. Let us seek 
 in every experience of life to find them out. 
 Let us look for these hidden and veiled mes- 
 sengers of God : in every joy, in every sor- 
 row, in every prosperity, in every adversity, 
 in every turn and new experience of life. Do- 
 ing so, cultivating the habit of doing so, we 
 will also, constantly, along life's pathway, 
 find them. We will discover them, day after 
 day, all around us : going before us, hover- 
 ing over us, the very Host of God, Mahan- 
 aim, encamping round about us and doing 
 us good. And what a charm, what a spiritual 
 sweetness, what a blessed divine communion 
 and fellowship, what a joyous feeling of se- 
 curity and comfort, what a precious bringing 
 down of heaven to earth, this consciousness 
 of God's Angels, yea, of God Himself, being 
 62 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 thus all around us, all this would throw over 
 our life ! Let us try it. And thus let us 
 make our life here full of the angelic fellow- 
 ship and full of companionship with God 
 Himself. Says Dr. Charles Hodge, "As far 
 back as I can remember, I had the habit of 
 thanking God for everything I received, and 
 of asking Him for everything that I wanted. 
 If I lost a book or any one of my playthings, 
 I prayed that I might find it. I prayed walk- 
 ing along the streets, in school and out of 
 school, whether playing or studying. I did 
 not do this in obedience to any prescribed 
 rule — it seemed natural. I thought of God 
 as an everywhere present being, full of kind- 
 ness and love, who would not be offended 
 if children talked to Him." We here learn, 
 also, 
 
 How submissive under all life's afflictions, 
 in view of this truth, we should all be. Nay, 
 how joyful we should even be. For what are 
 the afflictions of life ? They are only the An- 
 gels of God — sent down to chasten us into 
 holiness ; to purify us from earth's dross and 
 fit us for heaven. Thus, then, let us regard 
 63 
 
I 
 
 Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 them, and not only submit to them, but even 
 rejoice in them, knowing that they work out 
 for us "a far more exceeding and eternal 
 weight of glory." And once more, we learn 
 yet this lesson, namely, 
 
 The duty of promptly following all these 
 good leadings of God's Angels. These good 
 thoughts within us; these ministrations of 
 Grace and Providence, brought thus to bear 
 upon us ; these angelic and divine drawings 
 of our souls heavenward, these, my hearers, 
 follow. These obey. They come to you in 
 love. They are God's angels, meeting you in 
 the way, in order to save you. Follow them. 
 Follow Conscience; follow the Word of 
 God; follow the blessed Holy Spirit; follow 
 the leadings of Providence. They are all 
 white-robed "Angels of God." Follow them. 
 
 64 
 
CONCERNING OUR TEMPT- 
 ATIONS. 
 
 TEXT. 
 "And lead us not into temptation" — Matthew vi. ij. 
 
 It is well, right at the commencement of 
 our remarks, to notice that in this petition: 
 "And lead us not into temptation," our Sav- 
 iour does not teach us to pray for exemption 
 from temptation, or that we may never at all 
 be tempted. For this, in the first place, would 
 be to pray for something which, under the 
 circumstances, would be a moral impossibil- 
 ity. Being what man is, viz., ia free moral 
 agent, and living as he does, in a world full 
 of every species of sin, and above all, being 
 accessible by Satan, the great Author of all 
 moral evil, man cannot otherwise than be 
 subject to temptation. It is incidental to his 
 very character and condition. It grows nec- 
 essarily from the very constitution of his be- 
 ing. His very liberty of will, his moral free- 
 dom, his very power of choosing, demands 
 temptation ; demands it in order to give that 
 65 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 liberty opportunity to exercise itself, and in 
 order to test that capacity to choose, and 
 thus reveal innate moral character. Total 
 exemption from temptation is, therefore, in 
 the nature of the case, to man as a free moral 
 agent, an absolute moral impossibility. 
 
 But, even if total exemption from tempta- 
 tion were possible, it is manifestly not de- 
 sirable. For who would wish to be deprived 
 of the noble freedom to choose either good 
 or evil, with which God has created us ? Who 
 would desire that that liberty of will, which 
 elevates him above irrational creation, and 
 which allies him to angels, to God, and im- 
 mortality, should be blotted out, and that he 
 should be reduced to the level of the brute 
 in the order of being, and be controlled only 
 by instinct or by mere arbitrary law? Who, 
 in a word, would not rather be in this respect 
 just what God has made him, viz. capable 
 of being tempted, and capable of sinning, 
 and capable even of eternally perishing, rath- 
 er than to be, like the irrational animal, or 
 like the tree, or rock, or flower, or bird, in- 
 capable of intelligent choice and self-determi- 
 66 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 nation. No one. We all feel that our very 
 revelation of the dignity and elevation of our 
 superiority in the scale of being, that it is a 
 revelation of the dignity and elevation of our 
 moral natures, that it is a picture to us and 
 to the universe, of the image and likeness of 
 God himself in which he created us, and we 
 rejoice in it. 
 
 Christ, then, does not here teach us to 
 ask in prayer that we may never be tempted, 
 we may feel sure, for this would be no bless- 
 ing but an injury to us. Temptation is moral 
 discipline ; is a means to the production of a 
 virtuous and pious character, and is, there- 
 fore, a necessary help to Salvation. And 
 hence Jesus, in His "intercessory prayer" re- 
 corded in John 17, does not pray that His 
 disciples may be "taken out of the world," 
 i. e. away from all possibility of temptation 
 to evil, but He only prays that they may be 
 kept from the power of the evil that is in the 
 world. 
 
 And, right here, it may be well to note 
 that, being as he is and forever also will 
 continue to be, viz., a free moral agent, man 
 67 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 always will possess this capacity of being 
 tempted, and hence the ability also, if left to 
 himself, of sinning. Adam possessed it in 
 Eden, and, tempted by Satan, yielded and 
 fell. Satan, an exalted angel, being free, pos- 
 sessed it even in Heaven, and even there he 
 had within himself, and unseduced to it from 
 without, the power of originating sin; of 
 tempting and destroying himself. Even in 
 Heaven itself then, if left to himself, and not 
 kept by the special Grace or Power of God, 
 man may be tempted, and sin, and perish. 
 But he will not there be left to himself. He 
 will there be kept both from being tempted 
 and sinning. But his safety will not lie in 
 the place, nor in the surroundings of the 
 redeemed Souls, nor in the superior strength 
 of moral character, or virtue, or holiness, 
 which in himself he will then possess, but in 
 the preserving Grace of Christ, of which, 
 throughout all Eternity, he will, be, as he is 
 now, the recipient. By that he will be kept 
 so that, even in Heaven, every redeemed 
 Soul will forever have occasion, with adoring 
 gratitude, to exclaim: "I am saved, saved 
 68 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 from falling, as Satan once, even here in 
 Heaven, fell; but saved only by Grace. I 
 live, yet not I, but Christ liveth in me. And 
 the life which I now live, I live by the Faith 
 of the Son of God, who loved me and gave 
 Himself for me." 
 
 Our blessed Redeemer, in this petition: 
 "And lead us not into temptation," means, 
 we may now remark, to teach us to pray that 
 we may not be overcome with temptation. 
 It is a prayer not against the existence but 
 against the power of temptation. It is an 
 acknowledgment to God of our own moral 
 weakness, of the might and malignity of our 
 spiritual foes, and of the consciousness of 
 danger if left to battle with sin in our own 
 unaided strength. It is saying to Him : "Oh 
 God, abandon us not to temptation; leave 
 us not alone to meet it. Be Thou, the Al- 
 mighty One, our shelter and refuge and help 
 in the midst of it. Lead us safely and tri- 
 umphantly through it." This is the mean- 
 ing of the petition, "And lead us not into 
 temptation." 
 
 The language of our text, at first view, 
 69 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 seems to imply that God is the Author of our 
 temptations; that it is He that leads us into 
 them. But God never allures any one to sin. 
 He acts the part of tempter to no one. He 
 is holy. He everywhere forbids, condemns, 
 punishes and declares His hatred against sin 
 He is not, nor can He be, in any way either 
 the author of approver of sin. And, ever 
 since sin has entered the universe, He has 
 done everything compatible with His own 
 perfections, and with man's freedom, to re- 
 strain, suppress, abolish it. And hence, in 
 the language of Saint James : "let no man, 
 when he is tempted, say, I am tempted of 
 God, for God cannot be tempted with evil, 
 neither tempted He any man." 
 
 God, then, is not the source of our tempta- 
 tions. He lead's no one into them. They 
 spring from our own depraved natures. They 
 come to us from the world of sin around us. 
 They originate especially with Satan, the 
 dark Prince of the Power of the Air; the 
 malignant Spirit that now, and always, 
 "worketh in the children of disobedience." 
 These are the sources of our temptations. 
 70 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 But, while God is not the author of our 
 temptations, He yet permits them. Sin, 
 Satan, and our own lusts, God permits to be 
 sources of temptation. These He suffers to 
 exist as tempters to us, in order by them to 
 reveal and develop each man's true char- 
 acter ; in order to show to him and to others 
 just what is in the human heart; in order 
 to test his virtue; in order to prove him. 
 For who knows himself until tempta- 
 tion and trial of character show 
 him what he is, what wickedness he 
 is capable of, what latent depravity lies 
 buried within his heart. Look, for example, 
 over History, and see how men that were 
 supposed, by themselves and by others, to be 
 models of virtue and integrity of character, 
 when once they were brought into positions 
 and places of trial or temptation, revealed a 
 character just the reverse. Solomon, for in- 
 stance, was a very different man in the early 
 part of his reign from what he was in those 
 voluptuous after-periods of his history dur- 
 ing which he brought such reproach iupon 
 the throne. Nero was a very different man 
 7* 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 while he was the pupil of Seneca, from what 
 he was in those days when he was Emperor 
 of Rome. Hazael, the subject, was a very 
 different man from Hazael, the prince. How 
 different Mary, the youthful Queen of Eng- 
 land, the translator of the Gospels, the sup- 
 posed humble and pious Christian, from 
 Mary, the cruel persecutor of the Church, 
 the hater of Protestantism, tand the one 
 whom history has handed down to the hor- 
 ror of succeeding ages under the dread appel- 
 lation of "Bloody Mary." And see Robes- 
 pierre, at first, and when yet untried, regard- 
 ed by all as even feminine in the tenderness 
 of his nature, so sensitive to the sufferings 
 of his fellowmen that he resigned a lucrative 
 office, rather than condemn a culprit to the 
 gallows, and yet afterward, when once he 
 held the reins of supreme power, and there 
 was naught to restrain, him, how he proved 
 himself to be a very incarnation of cruelty, 
 filling all Paris and France with blood. And 
 so with men everywhere. And so it is with 
 all of us.. We do not know ourselves, not 
 one of us, until we are tempted and our 
 72 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 character tried. The strength of the Forest- 
 oak is unknown until the hurricane sweeps 
 around it, and with its mighty breath of 
 storm, wrestles with it. The power of the 
 bridge that spans the river is unknown until 
 that river, swollen suddenly by heavy rains, 
 rises and sweeps its mad currents down upon 
 it. And just so no man's virtue, no man's 
 moral strength, no man's piety, no man's 
 honesty or purity, is known, or can be 
 known, either to himself or to others, until 
 temptations test him, and prove him, and re- 
 veal him just as he is. Hence the duty of 
 humility. Hence the duty, also, of charity 
 towards those that fall. 
 
 Whilst God then, is not the author of temp- 
 tations, He yet permits them, and by them 
 He suffers man to exercise his free agency, 
 gives him an opportunity to develop a vir- 
 tuous character, and thus subjects him to 
 that moral discipline which tests his alle- 
 giance to God, and his meetness for Heaven. 
 
 And hence, since all men need tempta- 
 tions, all men also have their temptations, 
 and every man also has his own peculiar 
 73 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 temptations. We may imagine, and I sup- 
 pose we all often do imagine, that our condi- 
 tion is one of special trial, and that, if we 
 could only occupy our neighbor's place, and 
 be subject to his temptations and trials, we 
 should live much better moral and christian 
 lives. But this is all delusion. Temptations 
 and trials are the lot of every human being. 
 The rich man has his special temptations. 
 Wrapped round with ease, flushed with 
 wealth, and supplied with abundance, he is 
 tempted to forget his dependence upon God, 
 to waste his life in splendid idleness, to weak- 
 en his soul by indulgence in luxury, and to 
 become vain and inflated with pride. And so 
 has the poor man his special temptations. As 
 many everywhere well know poverty has its 
 trials : its fretful cares, its gloomy distrusts, 
 its painful sense of weakness, its social bit- 
 terness, its tendency to discontent, to envy, 
 to repining against the government of God. 
 And so has the business man his peculiar 
 temptations : his haste to grow rich, his prov- 
 ocations with unprincipled competition, his 
 trials with employees, his exhausting worries, 
 74 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 his perplexing cares, his close and hot con- 
 tacts with selfishness in himself and others. 
 And so has the scholar or student his pecul- 
 iar temptations: his perplexing doubts, his 
 sceptical suggestions, his pride of intellect, 
 his selfish thirst for earthly fame. And even 
 old age has its temptations, and its peculiar 
 sins. The sinners of the Bible are not by 
 any means all young sinners. Many of them 
 were well on in years. Solomon is a noted 
 example. So is Noah; so is Lot; so is Da- 
 vid. Paul and Barnabas were not boys when 
 they quarreled. The prophet who led the 
 young prophet to disobey God, was an old 
 prophet. And so I repeat, has each man his 
 own peculiar spiritual trials. So are all con- 
 ditions, and all places, and all employments 
 in life and all periods of life, beset with tempt- 
 ations. And if anyone, therefore, thinks that 
 by changing his condition in life he will free 
 himself from this exposure to temptation, he 
 makes a great mistake. For, let his condi- 
 tion in life be what it will, let his sphere or 
 place be where it will, there temptations will 
 also follow him, and assail him, and there 
 75 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 will he still have need to cry : "And lead us 
 not into temptation." 
 
 It may also be noticed that not only will 
 every man have his temptations, but every 
 man also will have them in his weakest point. 
 Where the wall of the besieged fortress is 
 weakest, there the guns are made to pour 
 their fiercest volleys of shot; and where the 
 ranks of the marshalled army are most 
 thinned, there the charging columns most 
 concentrate and seek to gain the victory. 
 And so in each man's weakest moral point, 
 (and there is such a weakest point in every 
 man's nature) Satan, and the world, and his 
 own depravity, most violently assail him and 
 seek to overcome him. And hence the great 
 importance of each man thoroughly knowing 
 himself, and, where he is weakest, there also 
 rally his strongest defensive moral forces and 
 there exercise his greatest vigilance. 
 
 And yet men also often fail where they are 
 strongest. Elijah, on Carmel, was an ex- 
 ponent of courage; soon he lies there under 
 the juniper-tree, an exponent of despair. 
 John was the disciple of love; yet, in wrath 
 76 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 he asks Christ to call down fire upon the 
 Samaritan village which had refused to re- 
 ceive them. David was eminent for personal 
 holiness ; and yet he goes down, under temp- 
 tation, into basest sensuality. Moses was 
 noted for his meekness; and yet how angry 
 he became. Solomon was renowned for his 
 wisdom; and yet, in his later life, how fool- 
 ishly he behaved. 
 
 These extremes, visible in human life, teach 
 us not to put too much trust in ourselves, 
 but to trust in God's restraining and sustain- 
 ing Grace only. 
 
 But what, let us now ask^ is the measure of 
 the extent of our responsibility in connection 
 with our temptations? It is determined, I 
 answer, by our own voluntary moral 
 attitude towards them and our own 
 personal disposal of them. It is no 
 sin to be tempted, but it is sin to harbor 
 temptation; to cherish it lovingly in our 
 hearts, to yield to it, to obey it. There is 
 where the sin begins. As another has said : 
 "We cannot hinder the birds from flying over 
 our heads, but we can hinder them from 
 77 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 building their nests in our hair." And so we 
 cannot prevent temptation from assailing 
 ufs, but we can, by God's Grace, prevent it 
 from injuring us. We can battle against it, 
 we can resist it, we can say as Jesus said : 
 "Get thee behind me Satan, for thou savor- 
 est not the things that be of God." We are 
 not responsible for our temptations no more 
 than Jesus was when He was tempted, until 
 we yield to them; until, in our hearts, we 
 cherish them, or love them, or desire them, 
 and thus voluntarily make them our own. 
 This is a great comforting fact. Let us not 
 forget it. Let no tempted soul, therefore, 
 that earnestly battles against evil thoughts 
 and suggestions of his heart, be troubled 
 with the fear that, because he is thus tempted 
 he is no Christian. Temptations in them- 
 selves prove nothing, as regards personal 
 character, one way or the other. It is the 
 disposal which a man makes of his tempta- 
 tions, which shows what he is, which proves 
 whether he is a Christian or not. And hence 
 the very fact that we do resist temptations to 
 sin; that our wills refuse to yield to them; 
 78 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 that, as Christians, we pray and weep and 
 war against them; all this is proof of Grace 
 within us, and is evidence that we are Chris- 
 tians ; disciples of that Savour who was Him- 
 self "tempted in all points even as we are, 
 yet without sin/' And, being thus an evi- 
 dence of a work of Grace, we ought, as the 
 Apostle says : "count it all joy when we fall 
 into divers temptations," knowing that temp- 
 tations prove us, develop us, strengthen us; 
 and remembering that temptation itself is no 
 sin ; that simply to be tempted does not make 
 us guilty ; and that it is only when we adopt 
 the temptation, approve of it, love it, yield to 
 it, only then it becomes ours, and only then 
 we become guilty. 
 
 The means of overcoming temptation, or 
 the means of avoiding being overcome by it, 
 which God has placed within our power, are, 
 I may now yet, in conclusion, remark, vari- 
 ous. 
 
 a. The first and best means of all, if pos- 
 sible, is to avoid meeting temptation. Our 
 duty is, neither to be nor go nor stay any- 
 where where temptation will be likely to as- 
 79 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 sail us. For to go into the way of sin is real- 
 ly to tempt ourselves; and then if we thus 
 throw ourselves into the way of temptation, 
 it is not the Devil or the world that tempts 
 us, but we ourselves become the tempters 
 of ourselves. 
 
 In order, then, to avoid temptation, unless 
 duty calls you, go not in the way of tempta- 
 tion. Control your eyes. Rule your ears. 
 Govern your feet. Bridle your tongue. Curb 
 your passions. Say to them all : "Enter not 
 into the path of the wicked; go not in the 
 way of evil men; avoid it, pass not by it, 
 turn away from it, and pass away." This is 
 the especial safety of the young. Thus avoid 
 the theatre, the billiard room, the gaming 
 table, the liquor saloon, the evil companion, 
 the bad book. Touch not, taste not, handle 
 not; see not, hear not; then only are you 
 safe. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not 
 into temptation." 
 
 b. A second great aid to overcome temp- 
 tation is to cultivate an abiding sense of 
 God's observing presence. 
 
 The murderer, as with stealthy tread he 
 80 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 creeps, at the still hour of midnight, towards 
 his victim, forgets that God sees him. Did 
 he but remember that, he would at once be 
 moved to turn back from his crime. Did 
 he but look up, and, in that lonely star 
 that breaks through the rifted cloud above 
 him, see, as he ought to see, the eye of Omni- 
 science flashing down upon him; and hear, 
 as he ought to hear, God's voice saying to 
 him, "Thou shalt not kill;" at once his be- 
 numbed conscience would awake, his bloody 
 purpose would flee from his heart, and he 
 would shrink from the commission of the 
 dreadful deed. And so with all of us. We 
 commit sin; we trifle with and yield to 
 temptation; we indulge in evil thoughts and 
 words and deeds, all because we forget that 
 everywhere and always God is near us, that 
 God sees and hears and knows us, and that 
 God, according to our life now, will here- 
 after judge and reward us. To be delivered 
 from being overcome by temptation, let us 
 all hourly then, with Hagar, remember, 
 "Thou God seest me;" with Joseph, when 
 tempted, let us think of God, and say : "How 
 81 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 can I do this great evil and sin against 
 God." 
 
 c. A third means of avoiding being over- 
 come by temptation, is watchfulness. Sol- 
 diers, by watching for the foe, escape sur- 
 prise and defeat. Sailors, by watching, 
 escape the dangerous rocks. Firemen, by 
 watching, perceive the first symptoms of the 
 kindled and destroying flame. And so all 
 who wish to escape being overcome by 
 temptation, and especially by temptations to 
 whatever is your besetting sins, must watch. 
 You must be upon your constant guard. You 
 must be vigilant against sin. Knowing your 
 weakness, knowing the strength and skill of 
 your foes, your eye must ever be open, your 
 ear must be ever quick to detect the slight- 
 est sound, and your hand jand tongue and 
 heart must be ever in an attitude of brave 
 and earnest defense. Remember the words 
 of the Master: "What I say unto you, I 
 say unto all, watch." And especially must 
 we watch against little sins, beginnings of 
 evil. 
 
 d. A fourth aid by which to resist tempta- 
 82 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 tion is a fullness of the Word of God. Thus 
 fesus resisted temptation. In (response to 
 each of Satan's assaults He quoted Scripture. 
 His one answer to all the enemy's allure- 
 ments was : "It is written." Like the Mas^ 
 ter let us then, first of all, be full of God's 
 Word; let us have it in our hearts and in 
 our memories, and then, when temptations 
 come, let us use it. Let us both have the 
 Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of 
 God, and know, when in Spiritual danger, 
 how to handle it. There is nothing Satan is 
 so helpless before as God's Word. Keep 
 it well in heart and hand then, oh Christian, 
 and with it "resist the Devil and he will flee 
 from you." 
 
 e. But, once more, another and last 
 means, which I shall mention, by which we 
 may avoid being overcome by temptation, is 
 Prayer. 
 
 In other words, we must do just what 
 Jesus here in our text enjoins; viz., lift up 
 our hearts and voices for spiritual help to 
 God. We must cry out to Him : "And lead 
 us not into temptation," i, e., "Give us Thy 
 83 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 grace to resist temptation, to overcome it, 
 and do not suffer us to be overcome by it. 
 Allow us not to be tempted above that which 
 we are able to bear, but with every tempta- 
 tion, provide Thou also a way of escape." 
 'Watch and pray," says Christ to every 
 disciple of His, "lest ye enter into tempta- 
 tion," i. e., enter into it voluntarily and are 
 then overcome by it and fall into sin. And 
 not only pray, He says, but watch also. Both 
 watch and pray. By watching see your ap- 
 proaching danger and be on the defensive 
 against it. By praying secure to yourself 
 God's Help in the conflict and victory over 
 the temptation. 
 
 Prayer, then, is the weapon of defense 
 which Christ has forged and polished for us, 
 and given to us, and with this glittering 
 blade, grasped and held by the strong hand 
 of Faith, we will always be able to put to 
 flight all our foes, and to come off from 
 every Spiritual conflict, more than conquer- 
 ors. It is because we pray so little, that, be- 
 ing tempted, we fall so often. It is because 
 we so seldom implore God's assistance, and 
 84 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 so seldom feel our weakness, and take to 
 ourselves His omnipotent strength, that, like 
 Peter, being tempted, we often deny the 
 Lord that bought us ; fall into divers tempta- 
 tions, and are often entangled in the snares 
 of the Devil. It is thus we often wound the 
 Saviour, reproach the church, and fill out 
 own hearts with bitter grief; all because we 
 do not pray to God, as Jesus enjoins, "And 
 lead us not into temptation." Let us bear 
 in mind then, Fellow Christians, that in order 
 to overcome temptation, constant Divine 
 Help is needed, and that this Divine Help 
 can only be secured by constant and earnest 
 Prayer. "Put on, therefore," as Paul ex- 
 horts, "the whole armor of God: the shield 
 of faith, the helmet of salvation, the breast- 
 plate of righteousness, the sword of the 
 Spirit which is the word of God ; praying al- 
 ways with all prayer and supplication in 
 the spirit, and watching thereunto with all 
 perseverance and supplication." 
 
 Thus arm yourselves, beloved, against 
 temptation, and with these divine weapons 
 wage bravely and unflinchingly the holy war- 
 85 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 fare in which you are engaged, and then also 
 will yours be a glorious victory over all your 
 spiritual foes, and a triumphant welcome, 
 at last, into the approving presence of your 
 Lord in His celestial and eternal glory. 
 
 86 
 
THE PROFITABLENESS OF 
 GODLINESS. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "Godliness is profitable unto all things, having 
 promise of the life that noiv is, and of that which is 
 to come/' — i Timothy iv. 8. 
 
 Our text speaks of two lives : of the one as 
 "the life that now is," the life which here on 
 earth, previous to death, we are at present liv- 
 ing; and of the other as "the life which is to 
 come," the eternal or unending life which 
 awaits each one of us, after death, and beyond 
 the present life. , 
 
 These two lives stand most closely related to 
 each other. The one is, indeed, but the begin- 
 ning of the other ; and the second, or "the life 
 to come," is only the projection, the unfolding, 
 the fruitage of this life which now is. Accu- 
 rately speaking, they are not, indeed, two lives, 
 but only one life : one life lived on in two dif- 
 ferent worlds, and in two different environ- 
 ments and relationships, unbroken by death, 
 87 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to the immortal, running on in one unbroken 
 current of character and of essential being 
 through all eternity. Hence, the Scriptures 
 unchanged by the transition from the mortal 
 declare, as they do, that "whatsoever a man 
 soweth," — soweth now, here in this life — 
 "that also shall" that same man, as his own har- 
 vest, "reap" in "the life to come." 
 
 By the great mass of mankind, however, 
 this truth of the essential oneness of these two 
 lives, the one we now live and the one we will 
 forever live hereafter, is not practically recog- 
 nized as it should be. Men think of themselves 
 and of their being and interests only within 
 the narrow limits of this life that now is ; and 
 they largely neglect, while here in this life, 
 to live as they ought, for that other life "which 
 is to come": to so mould their character or 
 true inner spiritual being as to be prepared for 
 that other or future life, and to make it for 
 themselves all that God wishes them to make 
 it, namely, an eternal life of joy, an immor- 
 tality of bliss and of glory. 
 
 This mistake of thus forgetting "the life to 
 come," in our absorbed interest in the things 
 88 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of "the life which now is," our text, this morn- 
 ing, seeks to correct. It exhibits, first of all, 
 the close relationship, the unbroken oneness of 
 these two lives ; and then, as its great practical 
 lesson, it tells us how we may make ourselves 
 happy in them both. By being godly, is its 
 declaration, you will be happy, both now and 
 in eternity. "Godliness is profitable unto all 
 things, having promise of the life that now is, 
 and of that which is to come." 
 
 This is, indeed, a valuable truth. It is the 
 secret of a happy life, not only now, but for- 
 ever. It is a secret, therefore, worth knowing 
 by every human being. For how to be happy, 
 both in time and in eternity ; how to make the 
 most of life, both now and forever, in all that 
 is best for ourselves, for our fellowmen, for the 
 welfare of society, and for the glory of God; 
 how to attain, as the result of our living, these 
 highest and most blessed ends of life — this is 
 the one great question that confronts us all. 
 Whether or not to live is not optional with us. 
 Whether or not we will live eternally is not 
 ours to choose. God has himself determined 
 that for us. We do live ; and we will live im- 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 mortally. The only choice left to us is to de- 
 cide how we will live; what we will live for; 
 by what principles and moral motives we will 
 govern ourselves in our living : what course in 
 our life here we will mark out for ourselves, 
 and what destiny, as the outcome of our life 
 here we will achieve for ourselves in the life 
 hereafter : for let us ever remember that our 
 destiny eternally hereafter is being now deter- 
 mined by each one for himself in the character 
 which here he forms and in the life which here 
 he lives. 
 
 The declaration of our text is that Godliness 
 or Holiness of Character and Life is "profit- 
 able" to a man, to any man, both in this present 
 life and in the eternal life to come. 
 
 It declares, 
 
 L That now, already in this life, god- 
 liness IS PROFITABLE. 
 
 This declaration of the profitableness of god- 
 liness or piety in this present life is capable of 
 being tested by experience. v To this test of 
 experience let us submit. Doing so, what do 
 we find? We find the declaration true in its 
 90 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 fullest sense. For, in what respect, or in re- 
 gard to what human interest, or what relation 
 pertaining to man, either as an individual or 
 in any of his organic or social relations, is 
 Piety or Godliness not an advantage? In 
 what single respect that can be named is it 
 not profitable to him to be a Christian ? 
 
 i. Even as regards the lowest part of our 
 being, the merely physical, the Human Body, 
 "Godliness is profitable." It inculcates tem- 
 perance, self-respect, industry, cleanliness, mas- 
 tery of appetite, moderation of passion, self- 
 government in speech and temper, calmness of 
 mind. It has regard, in a word, for all those 
 laws of physical being which are the sure 
 sources and promoters of health. Hence, as a 
 mere "sanitary regulation/' as a rule by which 
 "Boards of Health" might wisely, in large 
 measure, be governed, Godliness, or the moral 
 code of Piety, is profitable. Obedience to 
 God's laws is always better for man physically 
 than disobedience. For its mere physiological 
 benefit it is better for him to observe, for exam- 
 ple, the Divine Law concerning the Sabbath, 
 or one day of rest in seven, than to violate it. 
 9i 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Physiologists are universally agreed that men 
 need, for purely physiological reasons, one 
 day's rest out of seven. There is plenty of evi- 
 dence upon this question, all pointing in the 
 same direction, and the conclusion is inevitable 
 that man cannot violate the law of the Sabbath 
 without physically losing by it. One day of 
 rest out of seven is a necessity to his best phy- 
 sical being; and hence when he robs God of 
 the day, he also robs himself of all the great 
 mental and physical benefit which God, through 
 the day, wished to confer upon him. 
 
 2. Equally profitable is Godliness or Piety 
 to the intellect of man. All things else being 
 equal, Godliness is conducive to the highest 
 possible mental results and to the best possible 
 intellectual efforts. The moral and Christian 
 man will always, even in regard to things tem- 
 poral, in regard, for example, to mechanical 
 work, or to special professional studies, or to 
 some intricate financial problem, think more 
 clearly and more correctly than will an equally 
 endowed man intellectually who is immoral or 
 un-Christian, or than would or could that same 
 man if he were not a moral and Christian man. 
 92 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 The good condition of body which he secures 
 to himself by his piety will already largely help 
 him to these higher and greater possibilities : 
 for great is the help which comes to the mind 
 from a healthy and clean and sound body. But, 
 above all, God, in answer to prayer, also gives 
 mental clearness and power to the good man 
 and aids him to reach the mental results after 
 which he seeks. Galileo, Columbus, Coperni- 
 cus, Newton, Bacon, Kepler, Franklin, Morse, 
 Field, and multitudes more, whose names are 
 illustrious in the world of science and letters, 
 were all men of prayer. Luther's famous 
 aphorism is a true one : "To have prayed well 
 is to have studied well." Or, as the Apostle 
 James long ago put it : "If any man lack wis- 
 dom, let him ask of God, who giveth unto all 
 men liberally and upbraideth not, and it shall 
 be given him." 
 
 Undoubtedly this is true. The mind, as well 
 as the body, suffers through indulgence in sin ; 
 and mind as well as body is kept healthy and 
 is made strong, and is helped into its highest 
 and best possible development by godliness, or 
 by abstinence from indulgence in sin. 
 93 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 3. But godliness is profitable., also, to suc- 
 cess in what may be called a business career. 
 
 In the long run, it always pays best, even in 
 business, to be a good man. The reason is 
 evident. Godliness, or piety, makes men sober, 
 economical, prudent, generous, honest, just, 
 industrious, kind, cheerful, obliging; all of 
 which are essential elements to permanent and 
 honorable business success; and the result of 
 all this is the creation for themselves of a "rep- 
 utation'' which will secure for them the con- 
 fidence and patronage of hosts of their fellow- 
 men. To be a good man and to be known as 
 such, is about as fine a business capital, there- 
 fore, as any one may want. 
 
 Some years ago a young man, not far away 
 from here, clerking in a store, refused to make 
 a fraudulent entry by which his employers 
 would have made several hundred dollars. He 
 was dismissed. Seeking another situation, and 
 being asked to give references, he referred to 
 his former employers. And, strange to say, 
 they gave him the best possible recommenda- 
 tion, verbally adding that he was perhaps "a 
 little too conscientious about trifles." That 
 94 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 young man is to-day a partner in one of the 
 largest firms in Boston. 
 
 Yes ! Piety pays in business. Honesty is 
 not only the best ethics, but it is also really the 
 best policy. "A good name," as a business 
 capital, "is rather to be chosen than great 
 riches." Even men who are themselves unscru- 
 pulous appreciate and want to deal with men 
 who are scrupulous — men who have conscience 
 and whom nothing can swerve from their in- 
 tegrity. , 
 
 Young men had better, once for all, learn this 
 lesson, that genuine integrity of character, 
 purity of morals, right living, loyalty to con- 
 science : in a word, godliness, or the filial fear 
 of God, is a factor of success in business, or in 
 any avocation of life carried on between man 
 and man. 
 
 4. Especially, however, is godliness profit- 
 able in the spiritual results which it secures to 
 him who possesses it. 
 
 How rich the gifts which it bestows upon 
 
 him. It gives him quietness of conscience ; 
 
 sense of security under the fatherly protection 
 
 and love of God ; assurance of the pardon of 
 
 95 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 his sins; peace of soul, through faith in the 
 blood of Christ; support by divine grace in 
 times of sorrow ; comfort from his trust in the 
 Word of God; blessed joy in prayer and in 
 the worship of God ; hope of eternal life after 
 this present life. All these are spiritual gifts 
 enjoyed by him who is truly a child of God; 
 who possesses, in his character and life, this 
 spiritual characteristic designated here In our 
 text by this one significant word — "godliness." 
 Reviewing, then, what we have now said: 
 "Godliness/' already in this life, or in what 
 pertains to us now, in our present existence, is 
 "profitable." It is gain to us, in every way, 
 all through our journey of life on earth, to 
 be "godly." As Solomon, three thousand 
 years ago already, wrote, so may we now say : 
 "Happy is the man that findeth wisdom," (that 
 is, piety, godliness, the fear of the Lord), "and 
 the man that getteth understanding; for the 
 merchandise of it is better than the merchan- 
 dise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine 
 gold. She is more precious than rubies, and 
 all things that thou canst desire are not to be 
 compared unto her. Length of days is in her 
 96 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 right hand, and in her left hand, riches of 
 honor. Her ways are ways of pleasantness 
 and all her paths are peace." 
 
 Hence, even if this present life were our 
 only life, if death ended all, if there were no 
 "life to come/' it would still be wisdom to be 
 godly, it would still be gain to a man to be a 
 Christian. 
 
 But this is not our only life. The life which 
 now is does not terminate the duration of our 
 being. After this, and beyond this, there is 
 yet for us all "the life to come," the eternal 
 life, the life which is the continuance, the fruit- 
 age, the unending harvest of this life, "which 
 now is." 
 
 And godliness, says our text, is profitable 
 also for that life. It declares that : 
 
 II. Godliness, for that life which is to 
 
 COME, IS ESPECIALLY PROFITABLE. 
 
 "Profitable," it says, "not only for the life 
 that now is, but also, or especially, for that 
 which is to come." 
 
 But, in what respects is godliness profitable 
 for "the life to come" ? In every way. 
 97 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 As all Christian experience proves, it is prof- 
 itable when we once come to enter into that 
 life which is to come. The entrance into the 
 future life is by that mysterious experience 
 which we call death. Dying, in other words, 
 only expresses the silent and invisible flight of 
 the human spirit out of this life that now is, 
 into that other life — the life which is to come. 
 We know but little really about this experience 
 called dying. It must, however, be a very sol- 
 emn experience. It is going from the tried to 
 the untried ; from the known to the unknown ; 
 from the seen to the unseen. It is not strange, 
 therefore, that men, almost universally, fear 
 to die. 
 
 But "godliness" is "profitable" in death. 
 Why? Why because "the sting of death is 
 sin." But to a godly man that sting of death 
 has been removed. His sins are all canceled. 
 The record against him is clear. His guilt is 
 all washed away in the blood which was shed 
 for him on Calvary, and in which he has trust- 
 ed, and does then trust, for salvation. Christ 
 is his righteousness. In Christ, or through the 
 imputed holiness of Christ, he then stands just- 
 98 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ified before God, as though he were himself 
 without sin, or entirely holy. And hence, be- 
 ing thus fully at peace with God, through 
 Christ; and being thus, because of Christ's 
 work for him and the Holy Spirit's work 
 within him, prepared to meet God, he dies in 
 peace. He does not fear to enter into "the 
 life to come." Untried and unknown as its 
 experiences to him are, he yet knows that 
 death to him is "gain" ; that it will introduce 
 him into a life of ineffable and eternal bliss, 
 compared with which the highest and purest 
 joys of this present or earthly life are not 
 worthy to be named. 
 
 Thus sustained, the Christian or godly man 
 goes up in death, without a fear, cheered with 
 a sure hope of a blessed immortality, to meet 
 his God. His "godliness" is then "profitable" 
 to him. His faith, as a Christian, then sup- 
 ports him. Going out of the life that now is, 
 he enters joyously into that which is to come. 
 Pausing, for a moment, in that dying hour, 
 upon the boundary line, the narrow isthmus 
 between time and eternity, he first, we may 
 imagine, casts one glance back over the past, 
 L.ofC 99 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 and then, looking forward to his new and bet- 
 ter and eternal future home, he passes tri- 
 umphantly over, exclaiming as he soars away : 
 
 "The world recedes ! It disappears ! 
 Heaven opens on my eyes ! My ears 
 
 With sounds seraphic ring ! 
 Lend, lend your wings ! I mount ! I fly ! 
 Oh Grave, where is thy victory? 
 
 Oh Death, where is thy sting?" 
 
 Thus dies the Christian ! Thus only dies the 
 Christian. No one but he can thus die. God- 
 liness alone enables man thus to die in peace 
 and in triumph. The lamp of the wicked, in 
 a dying hour, goes out in darkness. The hope 
 of the hypocrite then perishes. The world's 
 sources of comfort then all fail. But the foun- 
 dations of God then stand sure. The rock 
 upon which the Christian has built his hopes 
 abides immovable. His light goes not out. He 
 knows "whom he has believed, and is persuaded 
 that he is able to keep that which he has com- 
 mitted to him against that day." 
 
 "Let reason vainly boast her power 
 To teach her children how to die ; 
 ioo 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 The sinner, in a dying hour, 
 
 Needs more than wisdom can supply. 
 A view of Christ, the sinner's friend, 
 Alone can cheer him in the end." 
 
 But "godliness," or piety, avails also beyond 
 death, or in the life eternal which follows 
 death. "Godliness," says our text, "is profit- 
 able unto all things, having promise of the life 
 that now is, and of that which is to come." 
 
 Promise of "the life to come," in what sense ? 
 Not, I answer, as regards the fact of a life to 
 come. For there is a life to come to all men, 
 whether godly or ungodly. Death is annihila- 
 tion neither to the righteous nor to the un- 
 righteous. Immortality is unconditioned by 
 moral character. "Marvel not at this," says 
 Christ, "for the hour is coming in the which 
 all that are in the graves shall hear the voice 
 of the Son of Man, and shall come forth ; they 
 that have done good unto the resurrection of 
 life and they that have done evil unto the 
 resurrection of damnation." Concerning the 
 wicked, in the Day of Judgment, He says: 
 "These shall go away into everlasting punish- 
 ment, but the righteous into life eternal." 
 
 IOI 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 But the meaning is : that to the "godly," or 
 "pious/* there is the divine promise of a happy 
 eternal life to come; that their immortality 
 shall be to them a life of unending felicity ; a 
 blessing, and not a curse ; a fellowship forever 
 with God in bliss, and not, as to the wicked, 
 a banishment forever from His presence in 
 suffering and death. , 
 
 And the godly shall thus be eternally in such 
 blessed fellowship with God, because they are 
 in moral character fitted thus to be with Him. 
 Their "godliness" is their moral qualification 
 for God. Only holy souls can dwell with the 
 holy God. Only such would God allow to 
 dwell with Him, or enjoy having with Him. 
 "Blessed are the pure in heart," the holy in 
 character, "for th^y shall see God." They 
 alone can see Him ; that is, see Him and enjoy 
 seeing Him ; see Him and live blissfully in the 
 moral glory and ineffable holiness of His ma- 
 jestic and august presence. 
 
 Let us not forget this truth. Godliness is 
 
 essentially necessary in order to enjoy God, 
 
 either now or in eternity. To be happy with 
 
 God, there must always first be right moral and 
 
 102 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 spiritual relations toward God. The character 
 of man must first be in moral harmony with 
 God. Happiness and holiness are eternal cor- 
 relatives. Even God could not be happy if He 
 were not holy. He is infinitely happy because 
 He is infinitely holy. So man, to be happy, 
 must be holy. To be with God, and to enjoy 
 God, and to share the happiness of God, he 
 must first of all be like God. "Godliness," 
 Godlikeness, God-fulness, God-oneness, this, in 
 the very nature of the case, is, therefore, the 
 absolutely necessary moral requirement in or- 
 der to attain to a blissful immortality with God 
 "in the life to come." 
 
 But, whilst the godly only can thus see and 
 enjoy God, all who are godly will see and en- 
 joy Him. They do so now already. The good 
 now see and enjoy God ; in His works, in His 
 word, in His providence, in blessed spiritual 
 communion with Him; see and enjoy God 
 where the wicked have no conception whatever 
 of His presence. And they will do so eter- 
 nally: for it is divinely promised to them. 
 Thus the "Godliness" of the good man quali- 
 fies him for an eternal vision of God ; and the 
 103 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 word of God, because he is godly, guarantees 
 it to him. 
 
 But Godliness, I yet add, is the measure also 
 to each one of us, of the "life to come. ,, I 
 mean by that : that the degree of our bliss in 
 the "life to come" will be determined by the 
 degree of our personal "holiness," or "godli- 
 ness" to which in "the life which now is," we 
 attain, and with which at death we enter from 
 this life into that "life which is to come." 
 "Holiness" is the soul's moral capacity for the 
 enjoyment of God, and of all that constitutes 
 the high bliss of "the life to come." The meas- 
 ure, therefore, of our personal holiness will, 
 to each one of us, be also the measure in heaven, 
 through all eternity, of our personal happiness. 
 
 Hence God says to all who hope for an 
 eternal life with Him, "Be ye holy, for I am 
 holy" : that is, "Be holy, for without holiness, 
 because of my holiness, you can neither be 
 admitted into my presence nor enjoy my pres- 
 ence; and be eminently holy, for the degree 
 of your holiness will be the measure of your 
 soul's capacity, when once in My presence, of 
 being happy; of knowing and loving and en- 
 104 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 joying Me, and of coming eternally into closer 
 and holier oneness with Me." 
 
 Since piety is thus beneficial to us in all our 
 relations both to God and man, since it thus 
 promotes our highest welfare now and for- 
 ever, since it thus gives us all we need for both 
 body and soul, for both time and eternity, pi- 
 ety, surely, is also the one thing which, above 
 all others, we should seek after and cultivate. 
 The fear of the Lord being thus the beginning 
 of wisdom, this also should be the one supreme 
 attainment to which we should all aspire, and 
 for which, above all things else, we should 
 supremely live. 
 
 Make this, then, my hearers, the one high 
 ambition of your lives. Cultivate Godliness, 
 as the one best boon of your period. Be godly, 
 come through faith in Christ into right moral 
 relations with God ; be in moral harmony with 
 God, be in character like God, live in obedi- 
 ence to God, seek in all things to please God, 
 give up your whole being to the service of 
 God, consecrate all your life in holy ambition 
 to glorify God, be filled with the Spirit of God, 
 come willingly and fully under the sway of 
 105 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the renewing and sanctifying grace of God; 
 in a word, seek after "Godliness." For he 
 who has "Godliness" has God, and he who 
 has God can want no more, but, in God, has 
 all ; all life, all light, all holiness, all power, all 
 peace, all satisfaction, all joy; a living spring 
 of blessedness in his soul, a fountain of pur- 
 est spiritual life, a heaven, whether he be 
 here on earth or yonder in the skies; and 
 is able ever to say: "I have set the Lord 
 always before me; He is the portion of mine 
 inheritance; because He is at my right hand, 
 I shall not be moved; therefore my heart is 
 glad and my glory rejoiceth; my flesh also 
 shall rest in hope. Thou wilt show me the 
 path of life; in Thy presence is fulness of 
 joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures 
 forevermore." 
 
 to6 
 
THE DIVINE LAW OF SELF- 
 SURRENDER. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "Verily, verily, I say unto you: Except a corn of 
 wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone, 
 but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit." — John 
 xii. 24. 
 
 The Saviour, in these words, expresses a 
 great principle or law of His spiritual king- 
 dom, namely, that by self-surrender and self- 
 sacrifice, and even by self-dying, will come 
 blessing and life, both to ourselves and to 
 others. 
 
 This principle, that by death comes life, is 
 seen already in the natural world. The grain 
 of seed must not only be cast into the ground, 
 but it must also there die, must surrender 
 itself even to death, must actually lay down as 
 a sacrifice its life, before there can be germina- 
 tion, growth, blade, stalk, harvest. But, in 
 or by such self-surrender and death it gains 
 107 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 all these. Out of its decay and death there 
 comes a new and higher life in the growing 
 plant. The single grain that dies multiplies 
 itself into a hundred new and fresher grains. 
 By dying it lives more than it lived while liv- 
 ing. It gains by losing. i 
 
 But this principle, thus true as a law, in the 
 natural world, is equally true in the spiritual 
 world. It governs in regard to all moral and 
 spiritual life as truly as with regard to all 
 merely material or irrational life. 
 
 Our Saviour here declares that even He 
 Himself is so under this law that He can 
 become a true divine source of salvation and 
 life to others only by first dying, or by first 
 surrendering His life. This, indeed, is the 
 very meaning of the text as He here uses it. 
 Its primary reference is directly to Himself. 
 It is a prophecy primarily of His death, but 
 it is also a promise of life to our dead world 
 from His death. By His death was to come 
 our life. From His cross and passion was to 
 spring up a great harvest of benefit to all man- 
 kind. His dying, like a grain of seed-corn, 
 was to be the origin, or the source, of infinite 
 108 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 blessing and mercy to millions of immortal 
 souls. The world was to have life, but could 
 have it only by His death. 
 
 And what was thus true in this respect of 
 Christ, is equally true, also, as a law, or de- 
 termining principle, with regard to every dis- 
 ciple of Christ; and holds true, indeed, with 
 regard to every human being. It is a divine 
 law that men always gain by being willing 
 first to lose. We always acquire more only 
 by first surrendering what we have. We re- 
 ceive the good by first parting with the bad; 
 we receive the better by first parting with the 
 good. We live by first dying. It is God's 
 law. The grain of corn must first yield up 
 its life before it can multiply itself into new 
 life in other and fresher grains. 
 
 This law of self-surrender, thus taught in 
 our text, has a two-fold application to the 
 Christian life, to a consideration of which I 
 wish, today, to invite your attention. It ap- 
 plies : 
 
 I. To entrance into a true Christian life, 
 and, 
 
 II. To continuance in the Christian life. 
 
 109 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 I remark therefore: 
 I. That this law of self-surrender is 
 
 THE DIVINE CONDITION OF ENTRANCE INTO A 
 TRUE CHRISTIAN LIFE. 
 
 It is only by a willing surrender of that 
 which we by nature have, and love, and are, 
 that we can at all become Christians. As our 
 text teaches, there must first be the experience 
 in us of death before there can be life; death 
 to our natural self-will, and selfishness, and 
 sin; death to our supreme love to the world 
 and the things of time and sense ; death to all 
 our sinful affections, and associations, and de- 
 sires, and pleasures, and ambitions, and hab- 
 its. "Old things," in the soul, and in the life, 
 must first by voluntary relinquishment, as the 
 Scriptures express it, "pass away" before all 
 things in us and to us can become "new." 
 There must be renunciation first of "the world, 
 the flesh, and the devil," before there can even 
 be the first step of true entrance upon the new 
 life in Christ and in holiness. Over the portal 
 of admission into the Kingdom the Saviour has 
 written: "If any man will come after me, 
 no 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and 
 follow me." t 
 
 Thus is the very beginning of the Christian 
 life a surrender, a parting with what was be- 
 fore possessed and loved, the actual dying of 
 what formerly was the soul's very life. "He 
 that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that 
 hateth his life shall keep it unto life eternal. " 
 
 The meaning of this is that if any man so 
 loves his merely natural life, and especially 
 his sinful life, that he is not willing to give 
 it up and separate himself from it, he will, in 
 death, lose all for which he here thus lived; 
 while if, on the other hand, he now comes, by 
 God's grace, to see the sinfulness of his natural 
 life, and renounces it, he shall then "keep his 
 life unto life eternal;" that is, he shall then 
 have a new and higher life in holiness and 
 Christ, which he will never part with, but 
 which will be his blissful possession forever. 
 In a word, the Saviour means in what He thus 
 says, that if a man in any respect, so loves the 
 life that now is ; the merely material, the social, 
 the temporal, the sensuous, the earthly, and 
 is so absorbed in these that he cannot and will 
 in 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 not, for the sake of Christ and for the sake 
 of his soul, give them up, as objects of su- 
 preme affection and desire, he will, in conse- 
 quence, find, at length, that he has not only- 
 lost them, but has also lost himself, his soul, his 
 own very being, his eternal life ; whilst, on the 
 contrary, if, for Christ's sake, and for his soul's 
 sake, he is ready to part with the sinful things 
 of this world, ready to cast them from him 
 as the farmer casts away the grain of seed 
 which he sows, and if he is willing to give up 
 himself, and all he has and is, as a glad sur- 
 render to Christ, then also will he, in the high- 
 est sense, keep himself, and then only will he 
 truly keep himself. Then only will he really 
 begin to live. His new and eternal life comes 
 to him by his surrender of his present sinful 
 self to death; he saves by losing; he gives up 
 much, but he gets back more and better; he 
 dies, but he rises, at once, in dying, up to a 
 new and infinitely higher and holier and eternal 
 life. The new birth in Christ is always out of 
 the soul's voluntary death to the old life of 
 sin. To get back home to his father's house, 
 the prodigal, first of all, must rise up and leave 
 112 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the "far country" where before he had dwelled. 
 And this is what conversion is. Conversion is 
 simply turning; turning first from and then 
 turning to ; from sin and self, to Christ and to 
 holiness. To gain God's favor we must re- 
 nounce the world's pleasure. To reach heaven 
 we must part with earth. To gain, we must 
 lose. To live, we must die. "Except a corn 
 of wheat fall into the ground and die, it 
 abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth 
 much fruit." 
 
 And hence Bunyan, in his matchless alle- 
 gory, correctly, represents Christian, his pil- 
 grim, as, first of all, in order to win the 
 heavenly city, turning his back on his own na- 
 tive earthly city; and he represents him as 
 turning away even from his own family, and 
 from his own best friends, because they would 
 not go with him to the better life ; and he rep- 
 resents him as closing his ears to all their ap- 
 peals to him to return, crying, "Life! Life! 
 Eternal life!" To gain that life, he gives up 
 this. To win heaven, he loses earth. And 
 that is what every one who wishes to be saved 
 must do; for only by doing so can any one 
 ever gain that better and eternal life. 
 H3 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 This principle, which our Saviour here in our 
 text declares, applies also, I now remark: 
 
 II. TO THE WHOLE CONTINUANCE OF THE 
 CHRISTIAN LIFE, AS WELL AS TO ITS BEGINNING. 
 
 It holds true in our Christian life in two 
 respects, namely, both as regards our useful- 
 ness and our happiness. 
 
 a. In the matter, first, of doing good, or of 
 Christian usefulness, this law governs abso- 
 lutely. 
 
 In order to bless others, we must always 
 ourselves first be losers. We must unselfishly 
 first give up what we have, and use what we 
 have, before we can successfully do anything 
 for the good of others. Look, for example, 
 at the mother. She is a fountain of daily ben- 
 ediction to her children. But how does she 
 become so ? Only by complete self-surrender ; 
 only by unselfish sacrifice of her own comfort, 
 ease, time, strength, life itself. Only thus, 
 only at such cost, can she give them what she 
 does. Look at the teacher! To awaken the 
 dormant intellect of the pupil, to stir his slum- 
 114 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 bering genius, and to bless him with the high 
 boon of education, how he must tax his 
 thought, his interest, his patience, his scholar- 
 ship, his best skill and power; and how he 
 must pour out in sacrifice his very being into 
 the pupil. Look at the orator ! To instruct, 
 to convince, to persuade his audience, to gain 
 with them the point at which he aims, how it 
 costs him the expenditure of all his best pos- 
 sessions; his nerve, his knowledge, his cul- 
 ture, his power of every kind, and how, to ef- 
 fect his end, he must spend his very being and 
 lay his very life upon the altar. Or, look at 
 the patriot! Our patriotic soldiers, who now 
 sleep in honored graves, sleep thus because 
 they unselfishly laid down their lives in de- 
 fense of their country. They might selfishly 
 have saved their lives. They might have re- 
 fused to enlist and march and suffer and die. 
 But then their country could not have lived. 
 Then the Union could not have been preserved. 
 Then our nation, as one unbroken whole, could 
 not have survived. The life, the blood, the 
 death of unselfish heroes was the high price 
 which must needs first be paid. But they 
 "5 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 nobly paid that price. They grandly made 
 that heroic self-sacrifice. And thus, namely, 
 by themselves dying, they saved their country 
 from dying ; and now, although dead, they yet 
 live in the grateful memory of their country, 
 in the principles that triumphed, and in the 
 cause which they vindicated. 
 
 And so general and absolute is this law 
 that we may safely say that there is not a sin- 
 gle blessing or element in all that today makes 
 up our civilization, our liberty, our comforts, 
 our luxuries, our education, our homes, our 
 religion, which is not the legacy of cost, the 
 purchase of sacrifice and of unselfishness, by 
 those who have gone before us; the boon to 
 us of pain and struggle, and labor, and skill, 
 and heroism, and blood, and death of others 
 gone before us. It is God's irreversible law. 
 
 And thus also, I now remark, is it especially 
 in all distinctively Christian usefulness. The 
 condition of being a spiritual blessing to others, 
 is this same grand principle of unselfish self- 
 surrender. It is the law of Christ, and the law 
 of His Kingdom for all time, that we cannot 
 save others without first sacrificing ourselves. 
 116 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 There must first be death ; death to our selfish- 
 ness, to our love of ease, to all seeking of our 
 own comfort, to all consideration of our own 
 interests, and there must be in us, as there was 
 in Christ, a willingness, if need be, to sacri- 
 fice even our life itself in order to save others, 
 before we can become, in a large measure, the 
 saviours of our fellow men. Their life, their 
 spiritual, their eternal life, can only come, as it 
 were, through our death. Only by our spir- 
 itual travail can they receive spiritual birth. 
 "The blood of the martyrs has always been 
 the seed of the church." Huss, and Ridley, 
 and Latimer, and all "the noble army of mar- 
 tyrs," laid down their lives for Christ and for 
 the truth; but out from their ashes there has 
 flamed a great pillar of Gospel light which has 
 scattered the surrounding moral darkness, and 
 which has showed thousands, and even mil- 
 lions, of other human beings, both how to live 
 for Christ, and, if needs be, how, also, bravely 
 to die for Christ. 
 
 ,And thus it always is. The measure of our 
 willingness to deny ourselves in order to do 
 good, is the measure, also, of the good that 
 117 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 we actually will do. If we do for Christ and 
 for our fellowmen only which costs us noth- 
 ing, we will do but little good, and that little 
 will scarcely be worth the doing. Cost, sacri- 
 fice, self-denial, toil, generosity, self-forgetful- 
 ness, the laying down, every day, in whole or in 
 part, of even life itself — this is ever the divine 
 condition of usefulness, the price we must 
 ever pay in order to be benefactors to our fel- 
 lowmen or helpers to advance the Kingdom of 
 Christ in the world. There must be sacrifice 
 before there can be salvation; death before 
 there can be life. That was a very beautiful 
 illustration of this law recently given by Mr. 
 Moody in one of his sermons. One of his lit- 
 tle Sunday-school scholars, being very sick, 
 sent for him, and asked him, if she died, to 
 preach her funeral sermon. And she gave this 
 reason for her request: "I have been trying 
 so long to bring father to church and he would 
 never come. But now, I have been thinking, 
 if I die, father will not refuse to go to my 
 funeral, and then you can tell him all about 
 Jesus ; and, Mr. Moody, I would be willing to 
 die six times over to get him to hear you tell 
 118 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 about Jesus." She died, as she expected, but 
 Mr. Moody himself was sick at the time of her 
 death and could not attend her funeral. But 
 a few weeks after her death a rough-looking 
 man called on him, and holding out his hand, 
 said: "You don't know me ?" "No, I don't." 
 "Well, I," he said, "am the father of little 
 Mary, the father she died for. I heard how- 
 she said she would die six times over for me 
 if only I could hear the gospel once. It nearly 
 breaks my heart. Oh, I do want to be a Chris- 
 tian, so that I can meet the dear child again 
 in heaven." Soon after he united with the 
 church, and has, ever since, now four or five 
 years, been a faithful and consistent Christian ; 
 led to Christ by the mighty love for him of his 
 child; a love so great, so self-sacrificing, so 
 thoroughly Christ-like, that she was glad, in 
 order to save him, to die for him. Such in- 
 terest and such love for others we all need; 
 and only in the measure in which we have it 
 will we be useful. Only as we thus love souls 
 into the Kingdom of Christ will we win them 
 in at all. 
 
 And here is the secret, also, of post-mortem 
 119 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 usefulness, or of doing good after we are dead, 
 even down to the end of time. Of Abel it is 
 written: "He being dead, yet speaketh. ,, So 
 it may be said of all of us when once we have 
 passed away from earth. But in order that 
 we may thus live on when once we are dead, 
 we must now, while we live, put ourselves, at 
 cost to ourselves, into something that will live 
 after we are gone. Doing so, we can all give 
 ourselves a blessed double immortality — an 
 immortality with Christ in heaven, and an im- 
 mortality for Christ and for the church, for 
 the good of our fellowmen and for the glory 
 of God down to the end of time, here upon 
 earth. Thus the godly mother may live on 
 after she is dead in the godly life and charac- 
 ter of her children ; the pious author in his pure 
 and helpful writings; the faithful teacher in 
 his influence and impress upon his scholars; 
 the Christian pastor in his earnest teachings of 
 God's word to his people; the unselfish phi- 
 lanthropist by the liberal gift of his means. 
 Thus we all may be immortally useful. 
 
 But this divine law of self-surrender holds 
 true, also, 
 
 120 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 b. In our Christian life as a condition of our 
 own personal happiness. 
 
 To live to do good is ever the secret of a 
 truly happy life. Unselfishness is the secret of 
 a happy life. Self-denial is God's highway to 
 joy. We make ourselves most happy when we 
 most forget ourselves, and most live to make 
 others happy. He that selfishly lives only to 
 make himself happy, never is happy; he, on 
 the other hand, who unselfishly forgets him- 
 self and lives to do good and make others 
 happy, in this very act makes himself happy. 
 For happiness is a shy goddess, ever gliding 
 farther and farther away from those who di- 
 rectly, and only for their own selfish enjoy- 
 ment of her, seek her. But happiness has a 
 twin sister, whose name is usefulness, and who 
 is always near to each one of us, and whom 
 we all may daily find, and, finding whom, we 
 also find happiness. Finding usefulness we 
 also find and have happiness. 
 
 Christ, our Divine Lord, even in sight of His 
 
 cross, was filled with joy. He was glad, we 
 
 read, even in the agony of Gethsemane and the 
 
 bitterness of Calvary, because He saw that 
 
 121 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 by His death He could give life to our lost 
 world. "Looking unto Jesus, the author and 
 the finisher of our faith, who for the joy that 
 was set before Him endured the cross, despis- 
 ing the shame." , 
 
 And so, also, may we, by Christ-like self- 
 denial and self-sacrifice, both for the bodies 
 and for the souls of our fellowmen, bring into 
 our own souls a very floodtide of holy joy. 
 "The quality of mercy is not strained. It drop- 
 peth as the gentle rain from heaven upon the 
 place beneath. It is twice blessed. It blesseth 
 him that gives and him that takes." 
 
 But, blessed and joyous as is thus a life of 
 Christian self-denial and sacrifice, for the glory 
 of God and for the good of our fellowmen, 
 now already, our highest reward and richest 
 return for it all will, of course, be in the life 
 to come. The Saviour, out of love for whom 
 we now do thus labor, and deny and sacrifice 
 ourselves, sees and knows and notes it all ; and 
 He then will, also, as He has promised, re- 
 ward it all. He regards all we thus do for 
 His church or for our needy fellowmen, as 
 evidence of our love for Him, and as having 
 
 122 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 been done directly and personally for Himself. 
 Hence, even the giving of a cup of cold water 
 to a thirsty one, in the name of a disciple, shall, 
 He assures us, have, from Him, its eternal re- 
 ward. 
 
 123 
 
RELIGIOUS DUTY BETTER 
 THAN RELIGIOUS EN- 
 JOYMENT. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "Then answered Peter, and said unto Jesus, Lord, 
 it is good for us to be here: if thou wilt, let us make 
 here three tabernacles: one for Thee, one for Moses, 
 and one for Elias" — Matthew xviL 4. 
 
 All things considered, it is no wonder that 
 Peter declared it to be "good" to be there on 
 the Mount of Transfiguration. With the moun- 
 tain all ablaze, as it was with divine glory; 
 with the Saviour's form radiant above the 
 brightness of the sun; with the presence and 
 conversation of Moses and Elijah, who had 
 just descended from the celestial world; with 
 a bright cloud of light overshadowing and en- 
 veloping them with its unearthly lustre; with 
 the voice of God speaking out of the cloud and 
 saying to them : "This is my beloved Son, in 
 whom I am well pleased ; hear ye Him" ; with 
 all this, and with yet much more filling his cup 
 of religious enjoyment to overflowing, it is, I 
 124 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 say, no wonder that Peter felt glad to be there, 
 and that he desired there also forever to re- 
 main. Speaking as he felt, it is not strange 
 that he exclaimed, as he did : "Lord, it is good 
 for us to be here; good to be here and good, 
 also, to stay here. Here, in the bliss of this 
 holy mount, let us abide. If thou wilt, let us 
 here make three tabernacles, one for Thee, one 
 for Moses, and one for Elias." 
 
 And Peter was right, as he appreciated the 
 situation, in what he thus said. It was good 
 to be there, so far as Peter himself was con- 
 cerned, and so far as mere present religious 
 enjoyment was concerned. 
 
 And yet his proposal was sadly defective 
 and wrong, viewed in a broader and better 
 light. In wishing as he did to stay there, in 
 selfishly forgetting the sinful and suffering 
 world down at the foot of the mount, in mak- 
 ing more of mere religious enjoyment than of 
 the higher claims of religious duty, in thinking 
 more of himself, and of the immediate present, 
 than of his obligations to others and in forget- 
 ting that he himself was under discipline for 
 an eternal and heavenly life, of which all that 
 
 125 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 transfiguration glory was only the faintest 
 symbol or foreshadowing, in all these respects 
 his proposal was greatly defective. Good to 
 be there? Yes ! But not best to remain there. 
 Why not? Simply because God had better 
 things in store for Peter than that joy of the 
 Mount of Transfiguration, ecstatic as that was. 
 He purposed bringing him to Mount Zion on 
 high, to an infinitely greater glory, to the un- 
 veiled radiance of Christ, his Master, in His 
 celestial and eternal kingdom, to the presence 
 and companionship, not of Moses and Elijah 
 only, but of all the countless multitudes of the 
 redeemed, and of all the innumerable hosts of 
 angels around the throne of God in His eter- 
 nal presence. But Peter was far from being 
 yet prepared for this glorious heavenly life. 
 He needed a discipline which no mere joyous 
 experiences on the Mount of Transfiguration 
 could give him; which no mere sitting there 
 and quietly beholding the revealed glory of 
 Christ, delightful as that was, could work 
 within him, but which only stern and unflinch- 
 ing and brave fidelity to Duty, which only the 
 rough and painful experiences of contact and 
 126 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 conflict with a wicked world, which only the 
 sharp and lacerating discipline of labor and 
 suffering and even of martyrdom itself, for 
 Christ, could and finally would bestow upon 
 him. The way for Peter, as also for each one 
 of us, and for all Christ's disciples, and even 
 for our Divine Master Himself by which to 
 attain to heaven and to eternal life, leads not 
 up from the bliss and glory of the Mount of 
 Transfiguration, but is always trodden with 
 bleeding feet, slowly, through the darkness of 
 the garden of Gethsemane, and around the 
 brow of Calvary. 
 
 Hence, though, as a matter of enjoyment, 
 it was "good" for Peter to be there with Christ 
 on the Mount, it still would not, as he re- 
 quested, have been good for him to have re- 
 mained there. Religious duty, patient labor, 
 quiet suffering, holy living, victorious dying, 
 down at the foot of the Mount, and out amid 
 the noise and dust and conflict of the busy 
 world, trying to win it to Christ and seeking 
 to save it by the power of the Gospel — that, 
 for Christ, for Peter, and for the world would 
 be infinitely better. Jesus wanted no Taber- 
 127 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 nacles built, as quiet places of mere enjoyment, 
 neither for Himself nor for any of His dis- 
 ciples, there in the Mount of Transfiguration. 
 With Him Religious Duty, then and always, 
 was before mere religious enjoyment; and He 
 then and always regarded Religious Enjoy- 
 ment as valuable only in so far as it was helpful 
 in any way to the better discharge of Religious 
 Duty. 
 
 This lesson Jesus still teaches His disciples. 
 He takes us, at times, up into Blessed Spiritual 
 Mounts, not, however, to stay in the glory of 
 them; not for the mere sake of the enjoyment 
 itself, as an end, which we may there experi- 
 ence, but in order that we may in these Mounts 
 gather strength and encouragement for the 
 Christian duties which lie in our pathway of 
 life, and which meet us down at the foot of 
 these Transfiguration Elevations. 
 
 Two Questions may profitably, in our con- 
 sideration of this text, engage our thoughts, 
 namely : 
 
 I. Why was it good, as Peter declared, to 
 be there on the Mount of Transfiguration with 
 Christ ? And, 
 
 128 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 II. Why would it not have been good, as he 
 wanted, to have remained there with Christ? 
 
 Let us consider each of these questions in 
 the order stated. First, then, we ask : 
 
 I. Why, as peter declared, was it good 
 
 FOR HIM AND JAMES AND JOHN TO BE THERE 
 WITH JESUS ON THE MOUNT. 
 
 One reason manifestly lies in the very fact 
 that Jesus Himself had taken them there. 
 
 "And after six days, Jesus," we read, "tak- 
 eth Peter, and James, and John, his brother, 
 and bringeth them up into a high mountain 
 apart, and was transfigured before them." They 
 were, therefore, at that time, just where Jesus 
 wanted them to be. It is always good to be 
 where Jesus wants us to be; where He takes 
 us, or where He bids us go, or where He goes 
 with us, and where we can know and feel that 
 He is with us. He does not always want us 
 in the same place, even though it be in itself 
 the holiest or best place. Just then He wanted 
 Peter, James and John in the Mount. The 
 very next day, however, He wanted them down 
 with Him in the World. So with us, Our place 
 129 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 today is in the Prayer-meeting, or at the Com- 
 munion Table; tomorrow it is in our shop or 
 store, or nursery. Jesus calls us to all these, 
 and is with us in all these. There is a proper 
 time for worship, and another proper time for 
 work; a time for enjoyment, and a time for 
 energy; a time for devotion, and a time for 
 duty; a time for the gathering of spiritual 
 strength, and a time for the expenditure of 
 that strength; a time to sing, and a time to 
 suffer ; a time to be on the Mount, and a time 
 to be down amid the dust and toil and sweat 
 of service for Christ and for humanity. And 
 wherever Jesus calls us to go or be, there, at 
 that time, we ought also to go or be, and there 
 it will then also be good for us to be. And 
 there we can then say : "Lord, it is good to be 
 here." 
 
 That Mount Hermon, where the Transfig- 
 uration took place, was, in itself, no very de- 
 sirable place to be. It was difficult to ascend, 
 was rough, bleak, cold, inhospitable. But, led 
 there by the Saviour, and accompanied thither 
 by His presence, it instantly became to these 
 disciples a Mount of Glory, a very Gateway 
 130 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of Heaven. So pathways of Duty, and Crosses 
 of Sorrow, and days of Trial, Sick Beds, Be- 
 reavements, Sufferings, Poverty, Experiences 
 of any kind, if accompanied by Christ's pres- 
 ence and grace, become to us also, such Blessed 
 Mounts, and lead us also to say, as Peter here 
 said : ''Lord, it is good to be here." This has 
 often been the joyous experience of the disci- 
 ples of Christ. 
 
 Go, then, my hearer, wherever duty, at the 
 time, bids you go. But go nowhere, and be 
 nowhere where Christ is not, and where you 
 cannot take Christ with you. When Christ 
 bids you, or invites you, go up with Him into 
 the Mount; and when He bids you, go down 
 again into the busy secular life. The one 
 place, with Christ, is as sacred as the other. 
 The one duty is worship much as the other. 
 We glorify Christ, by holy honest living, 
 through the week, as much as we glorify Him 
 by singing, and praying, and preaching, on 
 Sunday. The home, the shop, the mill, the of- 
 fice, the market, the store, the street with 
 Christ and in the line of duty and living there 
 for the glory of God, is holy ground, and as 
 131 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 near heaven as the consecrated sanctuary, or 
 the house of God. To us, as to St. John, even 
 dreary islands, like Patmos, if we are in com- 
 munion with Christ, become gateways of heav- 
 en. 
 
 "While blessed with a sense of His love, 
 
 A palace a toy would appear ; 
 And prisons would palaces prove 
 
 If Jesus would dwell with me there. " 
 
 But it was thus "good" to be there upon that 
 Mount of Transfiguration also, because there 
 Jesus wondrously revealed Himself to His dis- 
 ciples. 
 
 There "His face," we read, "did shine as the 
 sun, and His raiment was white as the light." 
 There they "beheld His glory, the glory as of 
 the Only Begotten of the Father, full of grace 
 and truth." There the splendor of His Deity 
 shone out through the Veil of His Humanity, 
 and there He stood revealed before them as 
 they never had beheld Him before. And it 
 was "good" for them thus to see Him there, 
 in the radiance and glory of His Divinity. For 
 thus seeing Him, it gave a new and clearer 
 132 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 view of His real and true being. It confirmee] 
 their faith in Him, and it fitted them to go 
 down from that Mount, and with new courage 
 and strength and zeal to follow Him and to 
 confess Him everywhere. 
 
 And, for this same reason, it is good also 
 for us often to go up into the Mount of our 
 Spiritual Privileges ; the Mount of God's Word 
 and Sacraments, the Mount of the Sanctuary. 
 It is good for us to ascend the Mount of Pray- 
 er, the Mount of Communion with Christ, be- 
 cause thus we come into holier and closer near- 
 ness to Christ. In all these, Christ is revealed 
 more and more clearly before us ; stands out, as 
 it were, "transfigured" before us, and we catch 
 new and more precious views of Him as our 
 Divine Saviour, and because of these new and 
 more precious views of him, our faith in Him 
 is strengthened, our love deepened, our zeal 
 for His glory anew enkindled, and we come 
 down from these "Mounts of Communion" and 
 Revelation animated anew to confess Him be- 
 fore men, and to live and labor, and, if need 
 be, even die for Him. Yes ! It is "good" to 
 go to our Bibles, to our Churches, to our Lord's 
 133 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Tables, to our Closets of Prayer, because there 
 we see Jesus as we see Him nowhere else. On 
 the Mount and not down in the low plains of 
 earth, is His Temple and Means of Grace, and 
 not in the world of Sin He reveals Himself 
 to us. , 
 
 Use faithfully, then, my hearers, God's ap- 
 pointed Means of Grace. To see the moral and 
 spiritual glory of your Lord Jesus Christ, go 
 to His House, seek for Him in His Word, feed 
 upon Him in His Holy Supper, lift up your 
 Spirit to Him in prayer. Thus look for Him, 
 and you will see Him. Thus seek Him, and 
 you will find Him. Thus desire to behold 
 Him, and He will reveal Himself also glori- 
 ously to you. 
 
 ,It was "good," however, also for the disci- 
 ples to be there in the Mount of Transfigura- 
 tion with Christ because of the holy joy which, 
 because of His glory, they there experienced. 
 
 ,The revelation of the glory of Christ, which 
 he there beheld, filled Peter's heart with un- 
 utterable gladness. His cup of bliss was there 
 full. There was, in that glad hour, a very 
 foretaste of heaven in his soul. His happiness 
 134 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 was perfect, and he was willing, if Christ so 
 willed, to build tabernacles, and abide there 
 forever. 
 
 But, thus does Jesus now often, when His 
 disciples are in the Mount of Communion with 
 Him, gladden their hearts and fill them with 
 joy. How often, for example, in the sanctu- 
 ary, is not the Christian's soul thus filled with 
 joy, so that he says : "Lord, it is good to be 
 here." Especially at the Lord's table. What 
 a joyous Mount of Transfiguration there often 
 is to the disciple of Christ ! How the moral 
 radiance of His glorified Redeemer there shines 
 out upon him, and fills and thrills his soul with 
 the very ecstacy of heaven, and, in the fulness 
 of his joy, he cries out : "Lord, it is good to 
 be here/' And so, also, at times, in our closets 
 of prayer! How full the cup of joy which is 
 there sometimes poured out by the Transfig- 
 ured Saviour's hand, into our souls ! How 
 "good" to be there ! 
 
 The world thinks a religious life a gloomy 
 
 and a joyless life. They think we Christians 
 
 have no happiness. Poor souls ! It is Religion 
 
 alone that gives real joy. It is we Christians 
 
 i35 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 alone who are really happy. We are not al- 
 ways, of course, on the Mount. It would not 
 be well for us if we always were. But still, 
 we sometimes are, and some of us often are. 
 We have, at times, as Christians, special ex- 
 periences of our Saviour's nearness and com- 
 fort and of our rich blessedness and heirship 
 in Him ; and we have always peace of soul and 
 quietness of conscience, and hope of eternal 
 life through Him. All this the world does not 
 have, and without Christ, cannot have. Hence 
 it is ever restless and unsatisfied, and is ever 
 asking : "Who will show us any good ?" With- 
 out Christ, and reconciliation to God, and qui- 
 etness of Conscience, it can never, with Peter, 
 say: "Lord, it is good to be here; here we 
 have all we want; here let us build taberna- 
 cles." That satisfaction and peace and rest, 
 the soul alone possesses that seeks and finds 
 its happiness in Christ. 
 
 But, while it was thus "good" for Peter to 
 be in the Mount awhile with Christ, I now re- 
 mark: 
 
 136 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 II. That it would not have been good 
 
 FOR HIM, AS HE DESIRED, TO HAVE BEEN AL- 
 LOWED TO REMAIN THERE. 
 
 The proposal to build three tabernacles 
 there, and then stay there, and give themselves 
 up to the mere soft luxury of enjoyment — 
 that proposal was, in every way, a very short- 
 sighted and ignorant and selfish proposal. It 
 was born, indeed, of pure selfishness. All who 
 were there upon the Mount, Peter himself in- 
 cluded, the world down below the Mount, we, 
 all men, would all have been losers had his 
 proposal been granted. Think for a moment 
 how much would have been lost. Moses and 
 Elijah would have been kept away from 
 heaven. Jesus would have been detained from 
 His great life work of human redemption. The 
 world would have been deprived of an atone- 
 ment for its sins. Peter would have lost all 
 the grand career of usefulness which he after- 
 ward wrought, and would thus have missed 
 the bright crown of Eternal Salvation which 
 he now wears as the reward of all his labors 
 and sufferings for Christ. The truth is, Peter, 
 137 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 in thus desiring to stay there upon the Mount, 
 made several very great mistakes; mistakes, 
 alas ! which we, too, are constantly prone to 
 make. 
 
 His first mistake was in making Religion 
 consist so much in mere religious enjoyment. 
 
 To be there in the Mount ; to behold the glory 
 of Jesus ; to be feeling "good ;" to be listening 
 to the conversation of Moses and Elijah; to 
 be having, in a word, "a happy time of it"; 
 that seemed to Peter to be the perfection of 
 piety, the highest and most desirable attain- 
 ment possible in Christian life. 
 
 There are many such Christians now. They 
 estimate the measure of their piety altogether 
 by the tone and character of their feelings. 
 They value a religious service by the amount 
 of good feeling that it creates. "Feeling/ 1 
 "enjoyment," is with them everything. 
 
 But this is surely a great mistake. Piety 
 does not consist in mere experiences occasion- 
 ally of religious ecstacies. It consists in relig- 
 ious knowledge, in Christian fidelity, in the 
 culture of a Christian conscience, in unselfish 
 Christian activity, in holiness, in consistency 
 138 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of daily life, in increasing likeness to Christ, 
 in solid Christian character. This is genuine 
 Christian piety. And happiness is only an in- 
 cidental fruit of all this Christian living and 
 character. Only because Peter was a real and 
 true and advanced disciple of Christ, did Christ 
 take him up into the Mount at all, and his 
 happiness there was granted him only as an 
 encouragement to him in his subsequent Chris- 
 tian service and suffering when he should 
 again go down from the Mount. 
 
 Beware, Christian friends, of substituting 
 good feeling for goodness, or mere occasional 
 pious emotions for piety, or mere excited and 
 aroused religious sensibilities for religion. You 
 are a "Christian," not in proportion to how 
 "happy" you may occasionally get in a relig- 
 ious meeting, but in proportion to your like- 
 ness in spirit and life to Christ, and in propor- 
 tion to how squarely and fairly you act and 
 speak and live when you are not in a religious 
 meeting, and when you are not especially 
 happy, and when you are down again from 
 the Mount, and out amid the dust and tussle 
 and struggle of every day life. Then is the 
 139 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 time to measure our piety, and know about 
 how much real "grace" we have; or rather, 
 how T little we have, even the best of us. 
 
 But a second mistake which Peter made was 
 in entirely forgetting and ignoring the claims 
 upon him, as a disciple of Christ, of the 
 wretched and perishing World, down at the 
 foot of that Mount of Transfiguration. 
 
 He, Peter, was all right ; he was near Christ 
 up in the Mount, happy, seeing and hearing- 
 blessed things, enjoying the company of visit- 
 ors from heaven, and himself on the way to 
 heaven, and little now did he think or care for 
 all the vast multitudes of sick and sorrowing 
 and suffering and sinful and perishing, that 
 were not up there where he was. Little did 
 he think of going down and carrying to them 
 the blessed message of all that he had there 
 seen and heard and felt of Christ, and try to 
 bring them, also, to Him. No! He thought 
 in that glad hour only of himself. He wanted 
 to stay there. And Jesus had first, as it were, 
 to put out the Light and Glory of that Trans- 
 figuration Scene, and, as it were, push him 
 down from the Holy Mount before he was will- 
 140 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ing to relinquish his enjoyment, and leave the 
 bliss that he was there selfishly drinking in, 
 and come down again to live and labor and 
 even die to lead others to Christ. 
 
 And that, also, is the very mistake which 
 from the early days of Christianity, Christian 
 men and women, for the sake of holy devo- 
 tion and enjoyment, have made, who as an- 
 chorites, and hermits, and monks, and nuns, 
 have shut themselves up in caves and cells and 
 monasteries, to be there alone with God. Some 
 of the saintliest of Christ's disciples, sick of 
 sin, and longing for closer communion with 
 God, have done so. But it was a mistake. 
 The world needed them, and was left worse 
 and morally more helpless without them, and 
 their duty was to have remained, as moral 
 lights and teachers and workers for Christ in 
 it. And they also needed the discipline which 
 contact thus with the wicked world would 
 have given them. Their piety would have 
 grown infinitely more robust and healthful and 
 vigorous by remaining in the world, and bat- 
 tling against sin, and relieving sorrow and 
 141 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 seeking to save the world, than selfishly fleeing 
 from it all. It was a mistake. 
 
 But that is a mistake which we all, as Chris- 
 tians, are apt to make. We are prone to make 
 our religion terminate too much with ourselves. 
 If only we ourselves are Christians, if we 
 think it is all right with our own dear selves ; 
 if only we are on the Mount with Christ, and 
 on the way to heaven, then we rest there, and 
 we concern ourselves, alas ! but little about the 
 suffering and perishing world around us. 
 
 All this, however, is certainly wrong. It is 
 intensely selfish. Our duty is to seek to save 
 others as well as ourselves. Our duty is not 
 selfish enjoyment, but unselfish, earnest Chris- 
 tian activity. As long as the world is so full 
 of sin and of sorrow and of suffering, and 
 has such need of Christ and of salvation, our 
 place is not on the Mount of Ease or Enjoy- 
 ment, but it is down and out in this lost world, 
 seeking by every means in our power to bring 
 it also to the Christ Whom we have found and 
 in Whom we rejoice. 
 
 A third mistake which Peter, in desiring to 
 remain upon the Mount, made, was : In sup- 
 142 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 posing that enjoyment, or exemption from suf- 
 fering, was better than suffering. 
 
 Jesus had foretold the sufferings which He, 
 as Redeemer, w T as soon about to endure. And 
 He had, also, foretold to Peter the sufferings 
 which he, as His disciple, would endure. But 
 if he thought at all, Peter thought that to stay 
 there on the Mount, and escape all these pre- 
 dicted sufferings, would be much better than 
 to go down from it and meet and endure them 
 all. Better for Christ, he perhaps thought, to 
 stay here than to go down, and be "rejected 
 of the Jew r s, and suffer many things of the 
 elders and chief priests and scribes, and be 
 killed." And better, also, for myself, he per- 
 haps thought, to stay here than to go through 
 all that is before me as an apostle of Christ. 
 But would it have been better ? No ! It would 
 not have been better. It was better for Christ 
 Himself, better also for Peter, and infinitely 
 better, surely, for us and for the world, that 
 that Transfiguration Scene did not continue; 
 that Christ and His chosen three did not stay 
 there upon the Mount. That enjoyment of the 
 Mount, and that exemption from suffering 
 i43 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 which would then have been escaped would, 
 no doubt, have been vastly pleasanter, but it 
 would certainly not have been better. Better 
 in the end for them all possible suffering than 
 even an endless enjoyment such as they were 
 then possessing. 
 
 And so with us. We shrink, I know, from 
 trials and from sorrows and from sufferings. 
 We deem them often only an evil. We prefer 
 present and constant enjoyment. We would, 
 if we could, like Peter, always stay upon the 
 Mount. But, even for ourselves, this would 
 not be "good." Enjoyment is not the highest 
 good. Moral discipline is our highest good. 
 Culture of character, holiness, likeness to 
 Christ, spiritual readiness for heaven; these 
 are the best attainments. And yet all these 
 come to us, not in the sunny Vale of Prosperity, 
 not in the Mount of Enjoyment, but down in 
 the valley of sorrow, by the experience of af- 
 fliction, and of heartache, and of tears, and of 
 suffering. "No Cross, no Crown/' No fur- 
 nace of fire, no purifying of the gold! No 
 suffering, then also no sanctification ! No ho- 
 liness, no heaven! 
 
 144 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 "The path of Sorrow, and that path alone, 
 Leads to the land where Sorrow is unknown." 
 
 One other mistake which Peter, in this wish 
 of his to remain there upon the Mount, made, 
 was : In supposing that anywhere upon this 
 earth of ours, even upon the Mount of Trans- 
 figuration, it would be safe or good to build 
 tabernacles and hope for full and permanent 
 enjoyment in them. 
 
 Peter said : "Lord, it is good to be here ; 
 here let us build tabernacles. " But Jesus said : 
 "No! Neither here, nor anywhere else on 
 earth do I wish you to build for yourself a 
 home, and hope to abide in it." 
 
 And He says the same to us. How often 
 we feel that it is good to be here, in this place 
 or that, here on earth. How disposed we all 
 are to build tabernacles for ourselves and rest 
 in them, and say : "In these, now, will be our 
 stay." What a beautiful tabernacle, for ex- 
 ample, we sometimes build for ourselves of 
 wealth, or of health, or of worldly honor, or 
 of our children and households, and we say to 
 ourselves : "It is good to be here." But ad- 
 versity comes, and sickness comes, and disap- 
 145 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 pointment comes, and death comes, and our 
 tabernacles fall. And we bow weeping over 
 their ruin. And then, standing by our side, 
 as we gaze thus tearfully upon their wreck, 
 Jesus says to us : "O, disciple of mine, I told 
 you not to build tabernacles for yourself upon 
 earth. It is not good to build tabernacles for 
 thyself anywhere here below, or of any ma- 
 terial which this world affords thee. He builds 
 too low who builds below the sky. Build for 
 thyself, by faith, love and hope and holiness, 
 a tabernacle in the world to come, in heaven, 
 the bright and beautiful home of God. There 
 build, for there only canst thou build safely. 
 Tabernacles reared there never fall. There 
 only is the true and abiding "Mount of Trans- 
 figuration" ; there where the radiant glory of 
 Christ shall forever shine forth; there where 
 Moses and Elias and the Apostles and the 
 Saints of all ages shall hold eternal companion- 
 ship with thee ; there where the bliss of the re- 
 deemed shall never end. There thou canst, 
 at last, rightly and safely say: "Lord, here it 
 is good to be; here with Thee; here without 
 sin or sorrow; here where change and disap- 
 146 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 pointment and loss and death never can come ; 
 here in this divine abode, blissful, permanent, 
 unfluctuating, everlasting. Lord, here it is 
 good to be ; here let us now build tabernacles ; 
 here, with Thee and with all Thy saints, in 
 light and glory ineffable and enduring, let us 
 stav forever." 
 
 M7 
 
CONCERNING PAUL'S 
 THORN. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "And lest I should be exalted above measure 
 through the abundance of the revelations, there was 
 given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
 Satan, to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above 
 measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, 
 that it might depart from me, and he said unto me, 
 My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is 
 made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore 
 will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power 
 of Christ may rest upon me." — 2 Corinthians xii. 7-9. 
 
 The Apostle Paul here gives us a page from 
 his inner or private Christian experience. He 
 takes us, as it were, into his especial confidence, 
 and tells us of something which had befallen 
 him which, for a while at least, was a great sor- 
 row or trouble to him, but which he carried to 
 God in prayer, and which, by His grace, was 
 made the occasion and means of great spirit- 
 ual blessing to him. He calls it, whatever it 
 was, his "thorn in the flesh": that is, it was 
 148 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 some affliction, or trial of some kind, which 
 was to him annoying and irritating, just as a 
 thorn would have been which had accidentally 
 been run into some sensitive part of his body, 
 and was now lodged and festering there. 
 
 Let us study concerning Paul's Thorn in 
 the flesh ! 
 
 I. What was it? 
 II. Why was it given him ? 
 III. What did he do with it? 
 
 Let us ask and answer these three ques- 
 tions, in the order stated, and thus seek to un- 
 derstand a most interesting experience in the 
 life of the great Apostle; and an experience, 
 also, whose lessons may be most helpful to us 
 in connection with our "thorns in the flesh." 
 
 I. What was this thorn in the Flesh, 
 which was thus given to the Apostle, and of 
 which he here, in our text, speaks? 
 
 "There was given to me," he says, "a 
 thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to 
 buffet me." 
 
 I need hardly remind you of the fact that 
 there has been an almost countless number 
 of conjectures concerning the exact nature 
 149 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 or character of this trial which had befallen 
 the Apostle, and which he here, so express- 
 ively and almost pathetically calls his "thorn 
 in the flesh. " No two expositors seem fully 
 to agree in their judgment of what it was. 
 Some suggest that it was a stuttering or 
 stammering in his speech. Others, that it was 
 a ridiculous or mirth-provoking distortion of 
 his countenance or muscles of his face. 
 Others, that it was a paralytic disorder. 
 Others, that it was an epileptic affection. 
 Others, that it was a weakness or disease of 
 his eyes, an impairment of his sight, the re- 
 sult of the glorious vision of Christ and of 
 Heaven which he beheld at the time of his 
 conversion, on the way to Damascus ; St. Chry- 
 sostom tells us that it was probably headache ; 
 Tertullian, that it was earache ; and Rosenmil- 
 ler, the German critic, desides that it was what 
 he calls "Gout in the head," a periodical dis- 
 order which affected his brain. Many of the 
 old Latin fathers, on the other hand, held that 
 it was no physical or bodily disorder at all ; 
 that the words, "thorn in the flesh," are used 
 by him entirely in a figurative sense ; and that 
 150 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 he meant by them some ungovernable lust, 
 some passion, some temper, some sore spirit- 
 ual trial or temptation, wrought in him by the 
 agency of the devil; and that he, therefore, 
 very properly speaks of it as "the messenger 
 of Satan to buffet me." 
 
 Thus there have been all kinds of opinions, 
 wise and otherwise, in answer to the question : 
 "What was Paul's Thorn in the Flesh?" The 
 simple truth is: we do not know certainly 
 what it was. All that we can, with any as- 
 surance, say concerning it is : that it was some 
 kind of humiliating, annoying or painful afflic- 
 tion. Most probably it was some bodily de- 
 formity or infirmity. Possibly there was such 
 an impression or effect produced upon him at 
 his conversion, or later, when he was, as he 
 tells us here in the context, once caught up 
 into Paradise, and heard unspeakable words 
 which it was not possible for him to utter, as 
 to leave some permanent physical infirmity; 
 affecting, as we may gather, here and there 
 from his epistles, his appearance, his sight, his 
 speech, his hands. For you remember that he 
 generally wrote his epistles, save a few trem- 
 151 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ulous lines at their close, by the hand of an 
 amanuensis. You remember, also, how he 
 speaks, in one place of his "temptation or trial 
 which was in his flesh" ; how he tells us that 
 his bodily presence was weak, and his speech 
 contemptible"; how he speaks of himself as 
 "always bearing about in the body the dying 
 of the Lord Jesus" ; and how, here in our text, 
 in speaking of this thorn, he speaks of it spe- 
 cifically as "a thorn in the flesh". And, besides, 
 he here adds, that, since divine strength was 
 made manifest to him in connection with this 
 weakness, or trial, he "glories in his weakness 
 or infirmity" : something which he surely 
 would and could not have done had this 
 "thorn in the flesh" been, as some have sug- 
 gested, some moral trial, some spiritual tempta- 
 tion, some weakness in his Christian char- 
 acter or life. 
 
 Summing up, then, all the probabilities in 
 the case, we conclude that Paul's "thorn in 
 the flesh" was a bodily disorder of some kind ; 
 some physical defect; or painful or humiliat- 
 ing distortion of his face, perhaps; or some 
 weakness, perhaps, in his vision or eye-sight; 
 152 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 or some defect, perhaps, in his speech; or 
 some nervous or epileptic or paralytic infirm- 
 ity; something, whatever it was, that could 
 manifestly be seen by others and that rendered 
 him, as he thought, weak in his influence and 
 power over others, that made him to some an 
 object of remark and ridicule, and even of con- 
 tempt, and that, therefore, at times, greatly 
 mortified and humbled him. 
 
 And, besides, he also felt that Satan, in 
 some way was the author of it : that, while God 
 allowed the thorn, it was yet a thorn of the 
 devil's planting, and was designed by the 
 Evil One, not only for his annoyance and dis- 
 tress personally, but was especially designed to 
 weaken his Christian influence, and to dimin- 
 ish his power, as an Apostle of Christ and 
 as a Preacher of the Gospel. It was, he felt, 
 "the messenger of Satan to buffet him." 
 
 And this feature of it was to him an es- 
 pecial element of humiliation and distress : the 
 sharpest point of the thorn, the point that en- 
 tered deepest into his soul, and that hurt him 
 most. He chafed and fretted under the sense 
 that he in any way, should be under Satan's 
 153 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 power, and that the devil should in any way in- 
 terfere with his work for Christ. 
 
 But, has Satan power over human bodies? 
 Has he power to inflict disease? With divine 
 permission, he certainly has. He clearly did 
 so in the case of Job. He did so in the case of 
 the poor woman whom Jesus healed on the 
 Sabbath day, and whom He declared "Satan 
 hath bound, lo, these eighteen years." He 
 also clearly had this power and sadly exercised 
 it, too, in all the many instances of "Demoni- 
 acal Possession" recorded in the New Testa- 
 ment. And so here, in this case of Paul's 
 Thorn in the Flesh, he expressly assigns it to 
 Satan's agency. God, of course, permitted 
 it ; but Satan inflicted it. Satan gave it to him 
 in malice, and God allowed him to do so, and 
 then over-ruled it for good. In the end, as is 
 always the case in "thorns" of the devil's 
 planting, it became much more of a "thorn in 
 the flesh" to the devil himself than it ever 
 was to the Apostle. 
 
 And now, whilst having said so much about 
 Paul's "thorn in the flesh," let me add that 
 Paul is not the only Christian who went 
 154 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 through life with a "thorn in the flesh." He 
 is, indeed, in this respect, only a representative 
 of the condition of all Christians. His expe- 
 rience, in this respect, is the ideal of all gen- 
 uine Christian experience. You and I, as 
 Christians, also, either literally or figuratively 
 speaking, either physically or spiritually, have 
 our "thorns in the flesh:" not Paul's thorn 
 perhaps, not any one's else thorn exactly ; but 
 still a "thorn," a real thorn, our own personal 
 or individual thorn. 
 
 Any great trial that has come upon us : 
 bodily pain of some kind, continued ill health, 
 disappointed hopes, frustrated plans in life, 
 loss of wealth, some buried sorrow in our do- 
 mestic life, the slander of some enemy, the be- 
 trayal of our confidence by some once trusted 
 friend, the continued impenitence and wicked- 
 ness of some precious acquaintance or relative, 
 the death of loved ones dear to us as life itself, 
 struggles with poverty and anxiety for our 
 future wants, sorrow over the low condition 
 of the Church, grief because of the Christian 
 inconsistencies of others, and lamentation es- 
 pecially over some humiliating spiritual weak- 
 155 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ness or "besetting sin" of our own; all these 
 are now "thorns in the flesh" in Christian ex- 
 perience. One or the other of these, or of 
 some yet other similar experience, is the "thorn 
 in the flesh" now of every true child of God. 
 We all, as we walk heavenward, carry buried 
 somewhere in our being, a weakness, an in- 
 firmity, a special temptation, ,a great hidden 
 sorrow, of some kind, known, perhaps, only 
 to God and to ourselves, which is our "thorn 
 in the flesh." 
 
 II. But let us now inquire, as our second 
 question : Why was this "thorn in the flesh" 
 thus given to the Apostle ? 
 
 The divine purpose in it, Paul himself here 
 plainly declares. It was given him, that is, 
 God allowed Satan to give it to him, "lest he 
 should be exalted above measure by the abund- 
 ance of the revelations" with which he had 
 been favored. By that expression : "the abund- 
 ance of the revelations," he evidently refers to 
 the ecstatic trance, related in the context, in 
 which, as he tells us, he was caught up into 
 Paradise, and was favored with such a glori- 
 ous and rapturous vision of the future life of 
 156 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 God's people that words utterly failed him, 
 inspired as he was, to describe it. His lan- 
 guage is : "I knew a man in Christ, about 
 fourteen years ago, whether in the body I 
 cannot tell, or whether out of the body I can- 
 not tell, God knoweth, such an one caught up 
 to the third heavens ; and I knew such a man, 
 whether in the body or out of the body, God 
 knoweth, how that he was caught up into 
 Paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which 
 it is not lawful, or possible, for a man to utter." 
 Who was this man? Evidently, as the whole 
 context shows, it was Paul himself. He was 
 "the man in Christ/' or the Christian man, 
 who had been thus highly favored with this 
 celestial vision. 
 
 But, right in this now, lay, also, as God 
 saw, his spiritual danger. Great gifts, and 
 even great spiritual graces, are always sources 
 of great spiritual peril. So here, in this spe- 
 cial divine favor vouchsafed the Apostle, there 
 lurked a source to him of real spiritual danger. 
 What was it ? Why, danger of spiritual pride ; 
 danger of self-conceit; danger of vain per- 
 sonal elation; danger that he would grow 
 157 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 proud of the fact that God had thus singled 
 him out and granted to him what He granted 
 to no others ; danger that he might feel : "I, 
 Paul, am more than an ordinary Christian; 
 am endowed with gifts superior to others; 
 am favored of God above others." That, I 
 say, was Paul's especial spiritual danger, at 
 that time, because of the especial spiritual ex- 
 altation and honor which had been placed on 
 him in the vision of celestial glory which he 
 had just enjoyed. 
 
 And now, because of this spiritual danger 
 to which he was thus exposed, in order to 
 save him from the spiritual pride and self-con- 
 ceit, and self-sufficiency, which would have 
 been a great weakness in his Christian char- 
 acter, and would have robbed him of that 
 fine Christian power which springs from hu- 
 mility and lowliness of spirit, there was given 
 him this "thorn in the flesh/' this "messenger 
 of Satan to bufifet him," to keep him humble, 
 to check his rising vanity, to take him down 
 or keep him down from any high pedestal of 
 self-glorification to which otherwise he might 
 have mounted. As he himself says, "Lest I 
 158 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 should be exalted above measure through the 
 abundance of the revelations, there was given 
 to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of 
 Satan to buffet me." 
 
 Thus to humble His children, to save them 
 from the spiritual dangers to which, because 
 of His very goodness to them, because of the 
 superior gifts with which He has endowed 
 them, and graces He has bestowed on them, 
 and positions to which He has exalted them, 
 and honors and influence with which He has 
 crowned them, He often finds it necessary, 
 along with His abundant revelations of His 
 goodness to them, also to give them some trial, 
 some affliction, some sorrow, some "thorn in 
 the flesh" of some kind, to humble them, to 
 take them out of all conceit of themselves, 
 and to keep them in lowly and humble depend- 
 ence upon Him. 
 
 It is with this divine purpose of love; with 
 this intent, on God's part, to impart to us 
 thorns to buffet us in life's experience : thorns 
 not only in our flesh, but often also in the 
 very marrow and quick of our souls. It is 
 all done for our good. God's thorns hurt; 
 i59 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 but still they all have a blessing in them. And 
 God plants them in our being, and allows 
 others to plant them there, not because He 
 delights in our quivering suffering as they 
 pierce and force their way into us, and then 
 often remain lodged in us, as sources of con- 
 scious weakness and self-humiliation to us, 
 down to the very close of our earthly exist- 
 ence, but only because, as in Paul's case, He 
 means to give to us some richer and higher 
 spiritual experience and greater spiritual pow- 
 er than we, without them, could possibly at- 
 tain. 
 
 And what effective cures for our vanity, 
 and self-righteousness, and spiritual pride, 
 these "thorns in the flesh" are! Has God 
 given you some specially fine endowment; 
 some "talent" or "gift" which lifts you above 
 most of your fellow men? .Has He granted 
 you some special spiritual favor: some unus- 
 ual religious experience, some clearness of spir- 
 itual vision, some specially joyous communion 
 with God? And now, you, perhaps, are spir- 
 itually proud of this divine exaltation; or, if 
 not, there is, at least, danger than you will 
 160 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 be. And so God gives you a "thorn/' some 
 trial, or sorrow, to keep you humble and de- 
 pendent on Him. Or the "thorn," perhaps, is 
 some great conscious defect in your Christian 
 character: your ungovernable temper, your 
 hasty speech, your uncharitable spirit, your in- 
 consistent life, your selfishness showing itself 
 in a hundred ways : weakness in yourself of 
 which you are heartily ashamed, thorns which 
 sting you into moral self-loathing, so that, in- 
 stead of being proud or vain of your spiritual 
 strength or of your superior piety and good- 
 ness, you lie humbled in the dust under an 
 abasing sense of your spiritual weakness and 
 sinfulness and you despise yourself. And 
 hence, paradoxical as it may appear, the holier 
 you grow, the greater also under this disci- 
 pline of God will become your sense of your 
 unholiness ; so that, at last, like Paul himself, 
 in the last epistle which he wrote, you will 
 cast away from you every vestige of self- 
 righteousness, and will rely only on the mer- 
 its of Christ for salvation, saying: "It is a 
 faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, 
 161 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 that Christ Jesus came into the world to save 
 sinners, of whom I am the chief." 
 
 Blessed be God, then, for these "thorns in 
 the flesh," these experiences of our Christian 
 life which make us conscious of our spiritual 
 weakness, which humble us, which drive and 
 hold us to God, which cause us to cling always 
 and only, for pardon, and strength, and sal- 
 vation, to the Lord Jesus Christ! 
 
 III. But we must now yet consider : What 
 Paul did with his thorn. 
 
 ,He did with it simply what was the wisest 
 and most Christian thing that he could have 
 done, namely : he carried it to Christ in prayer. 
 
 It was a great annoyance and humiliation 
 and real grief to him; and hence he wanted 
 very much to get rid of it and to go on through 
 life without it. And so he prayed earnestly 
 and repeatedly for its removal. "For this 
 thing," he says, "I besought the Lord thrice 
 that it might depart from me." 
 
 In all this he did entirely right. A "thorn 
 
 in the flesh" of no kind is pleasant; neither 
 
 are thorns of any kind, in themselves, apart 
 
 from God's grace, a blessing. By God's grace, 
 
 162 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 sanctifying us under them and through them, 
 they can be made to us very great blessings, 
 but in themselves, I repeat, they are no bless- 
 ings. And hence Paul very properly submit- 
 ted his thorn in prayer to the Lord, and asked 
 Him, if it was in accordance with His will, 
 to take it out, to relieve him of it. Jesus 
 did the same with His great trial or sorrow 
 in the Garden of Gethsemane. He also there 
 prayed three times that the cup, "if possible/' 
 might be removed from Him. 
 
 And this is the privilege of each one of 
 us, also, in all our trials of life, of whatever 
 character. Whatever may be the "thorn" that 
 pierces us, we are justifiable in asking God 
 to remove it from us. .Some of our thorns 
 we ought, indeed, pray God very vigorously 
 and persistently to get out of us; e. g., all 
 those bad thorns of our remaining depravity; 
 the thorns of sin and selfishness that are purely 
 of Satan's planting, that are always and only 
 a moral weakness in us and an injury to oth- 
 ers, and that God wants to rid us of as soon 
 as possible: for the removal of all that bad 
 lot of thorns let us daily pray. 
 163 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 But we are justifiable, also, in praying God, 
 if it be His will, to remove from us any thorn 
 that pierces us, that is, any sorrow, any trial 
 of life under which we may be suffering. 
 
 But was Paul's thorn in answer to his pray- 
 er divinely removed ? No. It was not. God 
 saw best, both for Paul's own highest good, 
 and for the greatest good, through Paul, to 
 others, that it should not be taken away. That 
 thorn had a blessing in it, both for Paul and 
 for many others. And so, painful and humil- 
 iating and trying to the blessed man as it was, 
 God did not, even in answer to his earnest 
 prayer, take it away. He kept it there; and 
 Paul, I suppose, carried that "thorn" of his 
 down with him all through life. God does 
 not always grant even to the holiest of His 
 children what they pray for : simply because 
 He knows better than they do what is best 
 for them. 
 
 Their prayers, however, are still not un- 
 answered. God may not, as here in Paul's case, 
 give them just the very thing for which they 
 pray. He will yet, however, always, in answer 
 to their prayers give them something; and 
 164 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 always, also, will He give them something 
 much better than they had asked for. 
 
 It was so here in Paul's case. The "thorn" 
 was not removed as he had prayed that it 
 might be; but Paul received, in answer to his 
 prayer, such a precious promise from God 
 that he could, indeed, well afford to keep his 
 thorn. That promise was : "My grace is suf- 
 ficient for thee, for My strength is made per- 
 fect in weakness." A promise which, fully 
 interpreted, means, "Keep your thorn, Paul. 
 It is painful to you, I know ; and, as your 
 Heavenly Father, I feel for you as you suf- 
 fer under it. It is not, however, best to take 
 it away. It is best for you and for others 
 that it remain. But this I now promise you : 
 I will give you very especial grace to bear 
 it; I will make that thorn of yours a very 
 spring of richest spiritual blessings to you; 
 I will so bless and comfort and strengthen 
 you under all that you suffer from it, that, 
 instead of not wanting it, you will come to 
 thank and praise me for it." This is what 
 God promised. 
 
 And all that God thus promised to the 
 165 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Apostle, He, also, gloriously fulfilled. And 
 hence, fourteen years afterward, when Paul 
 wrote this epistle, he thanks God for his 
 "thorn." It had been the occasion of great 
 spiritual strength and blessing to him. It had 
 secured for him wonderful experiences of 
 God's grace. It had been a means to his sanc- 
 tification. It had brought him steadily nearer 
 to God. It had increased his spiritual power 
 in the ministry. It had ripened him for 
 Heaven. And so he blessed God for his 
 "thorn." "Most gladly, therefore," he ex- 
 claims, "will I rather glory in mine infirmities 
 that the power of Christ may rest upon me." 
 
 But this Promise, Christian Friends, is ours 
 as well as Paul's. To us, as well as to him, 
 God says : "My grace is sufficient for thee." 
 To us, too, He says : "The pain and burden 
 of your thorn I will help you to bear, and I 
 will make it a blessing to you, and you will 
 come eventually to praise me for it." 
 
 And so He will. For every sorrow of life 
 His grace will be sufficient for us. Every 
 trial has a blessing in it for us. For every 
 166 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 thorn that now pierces us we shall praise and 
 bless God eternally. 
 
 Have you, then, Christian Friends, any spe- 
 cial sorrow, or weakness, or sin: any "thorn" 
 that has entered your soul and is distress- 
 ing you ? Do with it as Paul did with his : 
 carry it to God in prayer! If, by His grace, 
 He does not remove it from you, He will do 
 for you something infinitely better : He will 
 give you grace to bear it and grace to sanctify 
 it to you, and grace to comfort you under it, 
 and grace to strengthen you spiritually through 
 it, and grace to save you by it; so that, at 
 last, when you have reached heaven, you will 
 look back over your earth-life; and think of 
 your "thorn" and will say : "Blessed Thorn ! 
 How much I owe to it! God, I thank Thee 
 for having ever given me that thorn." 
 
 167* 
 
PAUL'S UNWAVERING CON- 
 FIDENCE IN CHRIST. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "/ know whom I have believed, and am persuaded 
 that He is able to keep that which I have committed 
 unto Him against that day" — 2 Timothy i. 2. 
 
 There is nothing that gives us such assur- 
 ance of the reality and blessedness of our holy 
 Christian religion as the testimony to its pre- 
 ciousness by the dying. We feel that a religion 
 that in that hour sustains and comforts and 
 gladdens the soul, possesses indeed divine 
 power, and is all that it claims, and all that we 
 desire and need. 
 
 Such dying testimony in favor of the sus- 
 taining power and comfort of Christ and 
 Christianity, St. Paul gives here in these words 
 of our text. He had often borne his testimony 
 to its divine character in his active lifetime, 
 when in health and strength, and when death 
 168 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 was yet in the distant future. But now, shut 
 up in a Roman prison, forsaken by friends, 
 aged, expecting each moment to be led out to 
 a martyr's cruel death — how now? "More 
 precious now," he answers; "than ever. More 
 convinced of its divine reality now than I have 
 ever been. It is now all that I could possibly 
 desire; Christ is to me now an all-sufficient, 
 a divine Saviour. My faith in Him now sus- 
 tains, cheers, strengthens me. I know whom 
 I have believed, and am persuaded that He is 
 able to keep that which I have committed unto 
 Him against that day/' 
 
 Let us analyze this hopeful and confident 
 language of the great apostle, and see how 
 much there is in it to stimulate our faith and 
 to brighten our hope. 
 
 The subject which it presents is : 
 
 "The Apostle's Faith :" And concerning 
 this faith of his, he here tells us three things, 
 namely : 
 
 I. The Object of His Faith : "Whom I 
 have believed." 
 
 169 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 II. The Nature of His Faith: "That 
 which I have committed to Him against that 
 day." And then, 
 
 III. The Certainty of His Faith : "I 
 know Whom I have believed. I am per- 
 suaded," that is, convinced, certain, assured 
 beyond a doubt. 
 
 Let us look at these three thoughts. 
 
 I. The Object of His Trust. 
 
 That Object was not a thing, but a Person. 
 It was a belief, not in a "religion," but in a 
 Redeemer; a faith, not in Christianity, but in 
 Christ ; a trust, not in a plan of salvation, but 
 in a Saviour ; not in a creed only, but a Christ ; 
 and not a Christ only, but the Christ; the 
 Christ of actual fact, the Christ of scripture, 
 the "God Man," as set forth in the gospel, in- 
 carnate, atoning, risen, ascended, glorified. It 
 was faith in Christ as a person ; a trust of him- 
 self as a being to Christ as a being, to save 
 him. And hence he does not here say, "I know 
 what I have believed," but he says, "I know 
 Whom I have believed." And he does not 
 170 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 even say, as he might, "in Whom/' but directly 
 "Whom" ; as though he would not allow even 
 so small a thing as that little preposition "in" 
 to come between him and Christ ; meaning thus 
 to teach us that his faith rested directly and 
 solidly, not on something about Christ, or re- 
 lating to Christ, but on Christ Himself, His 
 very person, as well as His work. 
 
 And true, saving faith is always thus faith 
 in Christ as a "person." "This is life eternal, 
 that they might know Thee, the only true 
 God, and Jesus Christ, Whom Thou hast sent." 
 And again we are repeatedly told: "Believe 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ," not simply on some- 
 thing concerning Him, but on Him, on Him 
 directly, as a person, "and thou shalt be saved." 
 
 And so everywhere in the Bible. Its one 
 command to every inquiring soul is : "Believe 
 on the Lord Jesus Christ, the divine human 
 person, the One only all-sufficient Saviour, 
 Son of God and Son of man, offered of God 
 as a Saviour, and thou shalt be saved." All 
 creeds and all systems of theology and all the 
 teachings of the church concerning Christ, in 
 171 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 so far as they are indeed the teachings of God's 
 word concerning Christ, are, of course, divine 
 truth and must be accepted, and, because they 
 are God's word concerning salvation, there can 
 be no saving faith, no salvation, without ac- 
 cepting them. But there is such a thing as 
 accepting truth concerning Christ without sav- 
 ingly accepting Christ. Hence, the sacred 
 Scriptures say: "Believe on the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, and thou shalt be saved." 
 
 Now right here lies a source of very great 
 spiritual danger to us all. We are in danger 
 of believing something about Christ. That 
 "something" may be all true, and just what we 
 ought to believe, and must believe, in order 
 to be saved, and yet not be all that we must 
 believe, or the vital thing that we must believe 
 in order to be saved. A Christian Creed is all 
 true, but it is all only a formulated statement 
 of truth concerning Christ. It is not itself 
 Christ, but only something about Christ. And 
 hence, he whose object of faith is his creed, 
 however thoroughly Christian and orthodox, 
 and who rests in his acceptance as divine truth 
 of its articles, who goes in faith thus far and 
 172 j 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 no farther, has not yet truly and savingly be- 
 lieved. We must not only believe all that the 
 Scriptures teach about Christ, but we must also 
 believe Christ; not the doctrine only, but the 
 living divine Saviour-Person. 
 
 The two things surely are not the same. 
 There is certainly a vital difference between 
 believing even true things concerning Christ, 
 and, in the Scriptural sense of saving faith or 
 trust, believing Christ. In the one case, we 
 give intellectual assent to the truth; in the 
 other, we give ourselves in trust to the Being 
 of whom the truth speaks. In the one, we are 
 logically convinced of what we ought to do 
 concerning Christ; in the other we act upon 
 our convictions, and positively do what we 
 are convinced we ought to do. In the one 
 case, we intellectually accept a System of 
 Christian Doctrine; in the other, we cast our- 
 selves helplessly for Salvation upon a Personal, 
 Living, Divine Saviour. In the one case, in a 
 word, we give the consent of our judgment, 
 the approval of our conscience; in the other, 
 we give our supreme affections, our act of will, 
 our individual choice of Christ, our full sur- 
 i73 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 render of ourselves to Him, the confident re- 
 pose of our soul upon the beating heart of 
 Christ. 
 
 And this brings us now to notice : 
 
 II. The nature of Paul's faith. 
 
 As expressed here in our text. To see the 
 difference of which I have spoken between 
 believing even Bible truth concerning Christ 
 and believing Christ, notice carefully how Paul 
 here describes the exact character of his faith 
 in Christ. What was the exact character of 
 his faith? What, in its essential nature, was 
 his faith ? Study his language, as he here de- 
 scribes it. It was, he tells us, you will observe, 
 an act. He did something with himself toward 
 Christ. He represents himself as having given 
 something to Christ to keep for him. "That 
 which I have committed unto Him against that 
 day." And what had Paul thus given or com- 
 mitted to Christ for safe-keeping? Himself, 
 His own soul, that soul which through sin was 
 lost, w 7 hich he himself could not save, which 
 Christ only could save. That soul of his, that 
 is, himself, he tells us, by an act of his will, as 
 i74 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 an act of trust, he had deliberately taken from 
 his own keeping and laid on the Outstretched 
 and Almighty Arms of Christ to keep for him. 
 
 Paul's Faith, therefore, you see, was more 
 than an "opinion" : it was an "act." It was 
 more than believing something concerning 
 Christ : it was an actual giving something to 
 Christ. And that "something" was the most 
 precious thing he had : his own soul, his im- 
 mortality, his destiny for eternity. All that, 
 as if he had reached into himself and taken 
 himself out of himself, and then carried him- 
 self to Christ, he thus trusted, for safe-keeping ; 
 to Christ, with fullest confidence of its perfect 
 safety there. Just as you might take your 
 most precious jewels, or your most valuable 
 papers, or your most costly treasures of any 
 kind, and carry them to a "Bank of Deposit," 
 and say: "Keep these for me; in my keeping 
 they are not safe ; in yours they are." It was 
 a committing, a committing or giving of him- 
 self, for safe-keeping, to Christ. 
 
 And that, and nothing less than that, is 
 just what saving faith is. Not in the case of 
 Paul's salvation only, but in yours, and in 
 175 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 mine, and in the case of all persons: only he 
 who thus believes on Christ is saved. Only 
 he that thus, as a perishing sinner, gives him- 
 self to Christ as a real, living, personal, divine 
 Saviour, is saved. 
 
 To illustrate this nature of faith as an act 
 of the soul's full trust of itself for salvation 
 upon Christ, suppose you and I had engaged 
 passage for Liverpool upon the same ocean 
 steamer. The vessel is ready to sail, and we 
 stand together upon the wharf before her. 
 She is a grand vessel. As we stand there and 
 look at her I am carried away with admiration 
 of her. I praise her fine proportions, her sym- 
 metry, her magnitude, her elegance. I tell 
 those around what a magnificent steamer she is. 
 I tell of the many successful voyages she has 
 made. But now, when the time comes to go 
 on board of her, to trust myself to her, with 
 all my fine talking about her, I am afraid. I 
 refuse to risk myself on her. I say: "She 
 may sink, and I perish; I will stay where I 
 am." Now, have I faith in that vessel? Yes, 
 some faith, but not a sufficient faith; not the 
 faith of trust, of self-committal; not the faith 
 176 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 which will move me to put myself on the ves- 
 sel, and which I need in order to get myself 
 across the sea and into the destined foreign 
 harbor. You have that needed confidence in 
 her; you put yourself trustingly on her; and 
 you are carried safely across. Your faith is 
 a trust; it leads you to act; it moves you to 
 commit yourself, your very life, your whole 
 being to that vessel. If she sinks, you sink. 
 But you have faith in her to believe that she 
 will not sink, and hence you give yourself to 
 her. And that is the nature of saving faith 
 in Christ. Like Paul's, it is a committing of 
 one's self to Christ. It is, by an act of your 
 soul or will, putting yourself on Christ, just 
 as, by an act of your will, you put yourself 
 in trust on that vessel. 
 
 Dr. Chalmers, it is said, on one occasion, 
 went, as a pastor, to visit a lady who was under 
 deep conviction of sin, but who could not some- 
 how rightly understand and exercise saving 
 faith in Christ as her Saviour from sin. In 
 front of her home was a small stream of 
 water, across which was a board or plank. As 
 the Doctor approached her home and came to 
 177 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 this plank he saw that it was weak, and hes- 
 itated for a moment to trust himself on it. 
 The lady saw him and called out to him : "Put 
 yourself boldly on it, Doctor; it will bear 
 you." And so, when he had reached the home, 
 and was trying to simplify to the woman the 
 nature of faith in Christ, and tell her what 
 believing in Christ was, he used her own lan- 
 guage to him: to trust himself on the plank, 
 as an illustration. He told her that thus just 
 as he, trusting her word, had put himself on 
 that plank, so she, trusting God's Word, must 
 put herself on Christ. "Is that faith?" she 
 asked. "Is that all that saving faith is?" 
 "That," he said, "is saving faith. That only 
 is. He that thus believes on Christ is saved." 
 "How simple," she exclaimed. "I see it all 
 now. I do thus now commit my soul for sal- 
 vation to Him." 
 
 And that, Christian friends, is true saving 
 faith : it is, by the power given us by the 
 Holy Ghost, a putting of ourselves as sinners 
 on Christ as a Saviour: a full trusting of 
 ourselves to Him for salvation. 
 
 And now notice : 
 
 178 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 III. The Strength or Assurance of 
 Paul's Faith. 
 
 Having thus committed his soul to Christ, 
 did he feel uncertain or doubtful about the 
 safety of his soul in the keeping of Christ? 
 Not in the least. On the contrary, his faith 
 rises into highest assurance. He has given his 
 soul to Christ to keep for him, to save, to 
 preserve for him. And he knows that He also 
 can and will do it. He does not only hope 
 that he will be saved, or expect, or think, that 
 he will be, but he knows that he will be. He 
 is sure that he will be. His faith is a cer- 
 tainty. "I know," he exclaims, "whom I have 
 believed ;" no mere man, no angel, no highest 
 archangel, but one diviner and greater than 
 all — the God-Man, the Almighty Saviour, 
 Christ Jesus, "able to save unto the uttermost ;" 
 and this being the character of Him to Whom 
 I have committed my soul, I am sure that in 
 His hands it is safe. He, I am persuaded, 
 convinced, assured beyond a doubt, is able to 
 keep it against that day. Even in the Great 
 Judgment Day, when the heavens shall be 
 wrapped in flame, and the earth shall be dis- 
 179 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 solved, and all nature shall tremble under the 
 footstep of the descending Judge, and men's 
 hearts shall be filled with fear, and even the 
 great ones of earth shall call upon the moun- 
 tains and rocks to hide them from the face of 
 Him that sitteth upon the throne, even then I 
 shall be secure. He will keep me. He is able 
 to keep me. He has promised to keep me. 
 Committed as I am in His hands, I cannot 
 possibly perish." Or, as elsewhere he ex- 
 presses it: "I am persuaded that neither 
 death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
 nor powers, nor things present, nor things to 
 come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other 
 creature, shall be able to separate us from the 
 love of God which is in Christ Jesus." What 
 strong assurance, what certainty of faith such 
 language expresses. But such was Paul's faith. 
 He knew Whom he had believed. "I am per- 
 suaded," he exclaims, "of the full ability of 
 Jesus Christ to save me." Such was Paul's 
 assurance of his salvation. 
 
 And you notice it is an assurance that is all 
 based on what Christ is, and not in any respect 
 because of anything that he himself is. All 
 180 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 that he has done is just, as a poor sinner, una- 
 ble'to save himself, to throw himself on Christ 
 to save him; and then, because of Christ's 
 promise and Christ's ability, feel sure that he 
 will be saved. He himself is weak, but Christ 
 is strong ; unworthy, but Christ is worthy ; sin- 
 ful, but Christ is holy; a perishing soul, but 
 Christ is an Omnipotent Saviour. And so Paul, 
 as you notice, has no doubt whatever about his 
 salvation, simply because he never forgets in 
 Whose hands his salvation is; how great a 
 Saviour his Saviour is ; how absolutely impos- 
 sible it is for any soul that has trustingly laid 
 itself for salvation into Christ's hands ever to 
 drop out of them into eternal death. "My 
 salvation," he cries, "is sure, for I know Whom 
 I have believed, and am assured that He is 
 able to keep that which I have committed unto 
 Him against that day. Not I, but He." 
 
 Christian Friends, this assurance of faith 
 which Paul thus possessed, you and I, as 
 Christians, ought to possess. Its possession is 
 both our privilege and our duty. We both 
 dishonor our Saviour and we rob ourselves 
 by not having it. Why should we not possess 
 181 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 it? If Christ is able to save at all, He is able 
 to save fully. If His blood has sufficient aton- 
 ing power in it to blot out one single sin it 
 has atoning power enough in it to blot out 
 the whole record. If He is able to bring us 
 part way towards heaven, He is able to bring 
 us all the way. He is either no Saviour at 
 all, or else He is a perfect, an all-sufficient, 
 an Almighty Saviour. 
 
 And such absolutely perfect Saviour is just 
 the kind of Saviour the Scriptures everywhere 
 exhibit Him. "Mighty to save" ; "able to save 
 unto the uttermost all that come unto God 
 through Him" ; His blood "blood that cleanses 
 from all sin"; both "the Author and Finisher 
 of our Faith" ; both "the Alpha and the Omega, 
 the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, 
 which is, and which was, and which is to 
 come, the Almighty." , 
 
 Thus great and perfect a Saviour is Christ. 
 How worthy, then, of our perfect trust. 
 And hence how we dishonor Him by not fully 
 trusting ourselves, as Paul did, to 'Him. Be- 
 ing in Himself "the fullness of the Godhead 
 bodily," an infinite, boundless, inexhaustible 
 182 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ocean of grace and salvation, how we wrong 
 Him by withholding from Him our full faith, 
 as though, possibly after all, we could not 
 safely trust our all to Him. 
 
 And yet many professing Christians do, just 
 in that half-measure way, believe on Christ. 
 They have never yet risen up to the assurance 
 of faith. They have never yet come to say: 
 "I know Whom I have believed," "I am per- 
 suaded, convinced, assured, of the full pardon 
 of all my sins, of my reconciliation to God, of 
 my adoption as His child of the entire safety 
 of my soul in the keeping of Christ." They 
 have never come, I say, into the Pauline posi- 
 tiveness and fulness, and certainty of faith. 
 They walk only in the dim twilight of Chris- 
 tian confidence. Their best Christian vocabu- 
 lary can say only, "I think, I hope." Their 
 piety can speak only in the subjunctive mood: 
 "Possibly I may be saved." 
 
 Paul, on the contrary, knew. "I know 
 Whom I have believed; I am sure that He 
 is able to keep that which I have committed 
 unto Him." And John knew. "We know," 
 he cries, "that we have passed from death unto 
 183 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 life." And Peter knew. "Thou," he ex- 
 claims, "art the Christ, the Son of the Living 
 God." And Thomas knew. "My Lord and 
 my God," is the glad utterance of his assured 
 faith. And Job knew. "I know that my Re- 
 deemer liveth." And thousands and millions 
 of God's saints have thus known, walking 
 through life in the abiding assurance of their 
 acceptance with God, and of the certainty of 
 their salvation, because their faith rested un- 
 shaken upon God's pledged word in Christ. 
 Not because of what they were in themselves, 
 but because of what Christ was, and because 
 of what Christ had suffered and done for 
 them, and because of what God had in His 
 Word promised to them for Christ's sake, 
 which Word of God their faith fully accepted 
 and trusted, they knew that they were saved. 
 Not that they would be saved, but were now 
 already saved. Their salvation was not merely 
 a hope, but an assurance, a blessed certainty. 
 With Paul they could say: "I know." 
 
 And then, how we, also, by this feebleness 
 of our faith in Christ as our Saviour, rob 
 ourselves. 
 
 184 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 If Christ is what the Scriptures say to us 
 that He is, and what Paul took and found 
 Him to be, and what to thousands and millions 
 of Christians, in all ages, He has, by blessed 
 experience, proven Himself to be, then we have 
 in Him a fulness of salvation for every want 
 of our spiritual being, both for this life and 
 for the life to come. By faith we may reach 
 out and take to ourselves from Him a supply 
 for our every possible want. Taking Him, 
 we have all. 
 
 Is it pardon of our sins we want? Is it 
 reconciliation to God we want? Is it comfort 
 under the sorrows of life we want? Is it 
 strength for life's duties we want? Is it 
 power over temptation we want? Is it deliv- 
 erance from the dominion of sin within us 
 that we want? Is it holiness and greater like- 
 ness to God we want ? Is it assurance of sal- 
 vation we want ? Is it triumph over death we 
 want ? Is it the resurrection of our bodies, the 
 blissful immortality of our souls, is it heaven 
 and holiness and happiness and home eternally 
 with God we want? Oh, if our faith would 
 but lay hold on them, they are all laid up for 
 185 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 us in Christ, and offered to us, as our unlim- 
 ited possession in Christ! 
 
 "All things," says Paul, in his letter to the 
 Corinthian Christians, "all things are yours, 
 whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the 
 world, or life or death, or things present, or 
 things to come : all are yours and ye are 
 Christ's and Christ is God's." And writing 
 to the Romans, he says : "He that spared not 
 His own Son, but delivered Him up for us 
 all, how shall He not with Him also freely 
 give us all thing's?" 
 
 Thus is Christ, as a Saviour, a great infinite 
 treasure-house both of grace now and of glory 
 hereafter. In Him is offered to us an abun- 
 dant supply for every need. Empty, we can fill 
 ourselves with the very fulness of God. Sin- 
 ful, we can through Him be made white as 
 the driven snow. Dead, in Him we can have 
 life, and can have it abundantly. "Christ 
 Jesus," says Paul, "is of God made unto us 
 wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
 and redemption." What a sweep of blessings, 
 both for time and for eternity, that includes! 
 How it embraces the whole circle of our wants 
 186 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 both now and forever! The soul, means the 
 Apostle, that has Christ, has all. Or as the 
 poet has sung: 
 
 "Jesus Christ is my All in All, 
 My Comfort and my Love ; 
 
 My Life below, and He shall be 
 My Joy and Crown above." 
 
 187 
 
UN-UPLIFTED SAVIOUR 
 THE GREAT ATTRACTION. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will drazv 
 all men unto Me" — John xii. 32, 
 
 In some relation, when Jesus died upon the 
 Cross of Calvary, every rational and spiritual 
 being in all the universe fixed its eye upon 
 Him and turned, as it were, to behold and con- 
 sider that awful tragedy which was there, in 
 His Death, transpiring. All with feelings of 
 some kind, as He here in our Text predicts, 
 were drawn to Him. 
 
 God, His Divine Father, was then drawn to 
 Him; every attribute of the Godhead inter- 
 ested ; divine love melted into pity, divine jus- 
 tice satisfied, divine holiness vindicated and 
 gloriously revealed. 
 
 The Angelic Hosts of Heaven were then 
 drawn to Him, lost in wonder over that mys- 
 tery of mysteries, the death, in agony and 
 shame, for sinful man, of Him Whom in His 
 188 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 celestial glory they had worshipped as their 
 Divine Lord and King. 
 
 ,Satan, also, and all his fallen spirits, in 
 that hour, were then drawn to the sight of 
 that uplifted Christ, knowing that then, by 
 that wondrous death, their sceptre of moral 
 dominion over man was being broken, and 
 that the lost human race was then being de- 
 livered from their thralldom and restored again 
 to God. 
 
 And, to that Uplifted Dying Saviour were 
 also then drawn all classes, and all conditions, 
 and all characters of human spectators. The 
 prejudiced and malignant Scribes and Phari- 
 sees, rejoicing in their supposed victory, at 
 last, over Him ; the embittered and raging Jew- 
 ish Multitude crying out : "His blood be upon 
 us and upon our children" ; the noble company 
 of Holy Women, faithful to Him even when 
 boasting Apostles had forsaken Him and fled ; 
 the Convicted Centurian, testifying: "Truly 
 this was the Son of God" ; the Penitent Thief, 
 meekly praying: "Lord, remember me when 
 Thou comest into Thy Kingdom" ; the Rough 
 Soldiers, plunging the cruel Spear into His 
 189 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Holy side, and casting lots for His seamless 
 robe; the Beloved Disciple John, standing 
 silently and gazing up with tearful look of 
 sympathy and love into His marred and sor- 
 row-stricken face; His Mother, into whose 
 soul, at last, as the aged Simeon long before 
 had predicted, the sword had indeed entered ; 
 the Awe-Struck Spectators, filled with alarm 
 as they beheld the Sun veil himself in dark- 
 ness, the earth quake, the Temple Veil rend 
 itself in twain from top to bottom, the Rocks 
 rend, the Graves open, the Sheeted and Buried 
 leap into life — all these were observers of that 
 dying scene of the Son of God, and beheld 
 as He, the Uplifted and Atoning Saviour then 
 and there laid down His life as a ransom for 
 guilty man. , 
 
 Literally, then, did Jesus, "lifted up on the 
 Cross," draw all to Him. God and Man, 
 Heaven and Hell, Earth and Sky, Friend and 
 Foe, Angels both of light and of darkness, 
 Beings both visible and invisible, incarnate 
 and unincarnate, all, all, all, in that pivotal hour 
 in the world's history, either in love or in hate, 
 either in friendship or in enmity, were attract- 
 190 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ed, directed, "drawn/' to Him who there ex- 
 pired as an atoning sacrifice for the sins of 
 the world. Yes : the Universe gathered there ; 
 and beheld and listened; and, in some way, 
 were all affected by that wondrous death which 
 was there endured. The beams of moral in- 
 fluence, radiating from that uplifted Cross of 
 Christ, like the out-going rays of some bril- 
 liant calcium light, rose up to Heaven, pierced 
 down into the very darkness of Hell, and illu- 
 mined the whole wide universe of God. Then, 
 being there, on the Cross, lifted up, Jesus did, 
 as He foretold, draw all, literally all, all na- 
 ture, all men, all angels, all fiends, all be- 
 ings, human, angelic, spiritual, divine unto 
 Himself. "And I if I be lifted up on the 
 Cross from the earth there to die as I will, 
 an atoning death, I will, by My death, and 
 in My very act of dying, draw all, as to one 
 great center, unto Me." 
 
 But these words of Jesus have a deeper sig- 
 nification than this merely historical or literal 
 one. They possessed in His mind, when He 
 uttered them, an infinitely higher sense. Pro- 
 phetically they express also a great spiritual 
 191 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 fact ; a present and ever abiding spiritual truth ; 
 a divine promise, left to the Church as a legacy 
 from her Ascended Lord, even to the end of 
 time, for guidance and encouragement. "And 
 I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw 
 all men unto Me." 
 
 By this Jesus means, we may say, 
 
 That if he be morally and spiritually 
 lifted up, he will morally and spiritual- 
 ly draw men to himself. 
 
 The Uplifted Christ is still the great Attrac- 
 tion. Jesus, if held up rightly before the 
 world, will now as ever, draw to Himself the 
 World. 
 
 "If I be lifted up; if I be spiritually lifted 
 up by My Church before the world, as the 
 world's one and only Saviour ; if I be preached 
 truly and faithfully by My Ministry; if I be 
 exhibited aright in the holy life and charac- 
 ter of My people ; if I be labored for earnestly, 
 by mind and heart and tongue and time and 
 talent and influence and wealth and sacrifice, 
 on the part of all My professed disciples ; if I 
 be thus "lifted up/' if only this one simple 
 condition be complied with, then will I draw all 
 192 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 men unto Me, all classes, all ages, all characters. 
 Then will I convict, convert, sanctify and save 
 all kinds of souls. Then, as the magnet draws 
 to itself the filings of steel, as the moon moves 
 and sways under her influence the tides of the 
 sea, as the sun attracts and holds in their 
 orbits the worlds and planets of the great 
 Solar System, so will I also, by My attractive 
 grace, by the divine moral magnetism of My 
 Being and Character, gather to myself the 
 nations, and everywhere draw to Myself the 
 hearts of the children of men. Then will I 
 build Zion as a City, and then will I cause 
 My glory to cover the earth as the waters 
 cover the sea." 
 
 Such, I believe, is the deep spiritual signifi- 
 cation of this language of the Saviour; and 
 this is the great spiritual truth which here, in 
 these words, He inculcates. 
 
 But is this, indeed, a truth? Does Jesus, 
 if presented aright to the hearts and consciences 
 of the children of men, thus draw them unto 
 Himself? Is there this spiritual "attractive- 
 ness" in the Uplifted Christ? For your 
 answer turn to the history, for a moment, of 
 193 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the Christian Church. On every page of that 
 history from the very birthday of Christianity 
 down to this present hour, there may be found 
 an abundance of confirmation. From every 
 part of it flashes out the evidence that an 
 earnest faithful "lifting up" of Christ, by the 
 Ministry and by the Church, has always re- 
 sulted in the drawing of men to Christ, in 
 their conviction, conversion, salvation. John 
 the Baptist thus in the Wilderness of Judea 
 and on the banks of the Jordan uplifted Him, 
 saying to all around: "Behold the Lamb of 
 God that taketh away the sins of the world/' 
 and some immediately became His disciples. 
 Peter, on the Day of Pentecost, thus uplifted 
 Him, and, at once, drawn by the magnetism of 
 His grace, three thousand convicted and peni- 
 tent souls believed on Him and confessed Him 
 as their Saviour. Paul, also, thus uplifted 
 Him, in Rome, in Thessalonica, in Corinth, 
 in Philippi, in Athens, in innumerable places 
 and nations, everywhere with earnest eloquence 
 pointing men to Him as their one only Re- 
 deemer, bidding all "Believe on Him if they 
 would be saved," and lo! everywhere multi- 
 194 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 tudes, drawn to Him by the preciousness of 
 His character and His divine ability to satisfy 
 all the deep longings of their hearts, did be- 
 lieve on Him and found in Him the peace 
 and life for which they sought. And thus also 
 did all the Apostles uplift Him, beginning at 
 Jerusalem, then finding their way to the ends 
 of the earth, holding Him up in the streets 
 of Rome and even in the palace of the Caesars, 
 in Scythia on the north, in distant India on 
 the east, in Gaul on the west, in Egypt and 
 Ethiopia on the south, everywhere publish- 
 ing Him as the Divine Christ, as Jesus and the 
 Resurrection, as the one only and sufficient 
 Saviour for sinful and sorrowful and perish- 
 ing humanity ; and soon, as the result of such 
 uplifting of Christ, Christianity became the 
 victorious and acknowledged Religion of the 
 civilized world. This new Faith, whose sym- 
 bol was the Cross, seated itself upon the mighty 
 throne of the Roman Empire, silenced the 
 wisdom of the Schools, closed the Temples of 
 Paganism, put out the fires of sacrifice upon 
 the altars of heathen idolatry, and everywhere 
 reared Houses of Prayer and Praise and Wor- 
 195 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ship, in the name of Christ, to the one only 
 true God. Thus, by the Uplifting of Christ, 
 did Christ draw, in the early days of Chris- 
 tianity, all the World to Himself. 
 
 And thus, also, in all the centuries since those 
 early and grand aggressive days of primitive 
 Christianity, whenever and wherever He has 
 been truly lifted up by His Church before the 
 World, rightly lived and proclaimed by those 
 who called themselves His disciples, Jesus has 
 drawn souls to Himself and saved them. Al- 
 ways, as He here in our text promises, has 
 He proved Himself the World's great moral 
 attraction. When Wickliffe, for example, 
 "bright Morning-star of the Reformation/' up- 
 lifted Him in England; when John Huss up- 
 lifted Him in Bohemia ; when Luther so brave- 
 ly and faithfully uplifted Him in Germany; 
 when Calvin and Zwingle uplifted Him in 
 Geneva, and throughout the Valleys, and over 
 the Alpine Mountains of Switzerland; when 
 courageous John Knox uplifted Him in Scot- 
 land; when Wesley and Whitfield uplifted 
 Him first in the Old World, and then here 
 in the New; when the dear Moravians up- 
 196 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 lifted Him in Greenland and in the West In- 
 dies ; when Ziegenbalg, and Schwartz, and 
 Carey uplifted Him in India ; and Judson in 
 Burmah ; and Henry Martyn in Persia ; and 
 Robert M orison in China ; and David Brain- 
 erd and John Eliot and the Swedish Lutherans 
 upon the banks of the Delaware, before the 
 landing of Penn, among the American Indians ; 
 and Moffat and Livingstone and Officer and 
 Day uplifted Him in Africa; everywhere, in 
 all these places, throughout all these widely 
 scattered lands, among all these greatly diver- 
 sified tongues and peoples. He did also draw 
 all men unto Him. Everywhere the simple 
 story of the Cross had divine power. Every- 
 where it was clothed with mighty attraction. 
 Everywhere it won its way into men's souls, 
 subduing their stubborn wills, conquering their 
 love of sin, melting their hard hearts into peni- 
 tence, bowing them in faith at the feet of 
 Jesus, and influencing them to embrace and 
 confess Him as their Lord and Saviour. Our 
 text, then, expresses an undeniable fact, a 
 glorious and most encouraging truth, namely, 
 that Jesus, if He be spiritually lifted up, will 
 197 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 also spiritually draw men to Him, in nearness 
 of character and life, and save them. 
 
 From this truth we may now, in conclusion, 
 learn two practical lessons. 
 
 We may learn from it a lesson of Personal 
 Duty. That duty is to lift up Jesus; and so 
 to lift Him up that the world may see Him 
 clearly and fully, and in no clouded or dis- 
 torted or erroneous vision, but in all His real 
 and true divine-human self, Son of God and 
 Son of Man, able and willing Saviour of all 
 who will believe on Him, just as He stands 
 here revealed to us by the Holy Ghost in the 
 written Word. For, only when He is thus 
 rightly lifted up, will, or can He draw men 
 to Himself. 
 
 Our World, now as ever, is a lost World. 
 Men everywhere are in the way of sin and 
 death. Jn our own day, and here in our own 
 land, sin appears especially to abound. We 
 seem to have come in our national history to 
 a great moral and religious crisis. The forces 
 of evil stand massed today, as perhaps never 
 before, against Christ and His Church ; numer- 
 ous, skillful, bold, defiant, malignant, united, 
 198 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 mighty. Skepticism, Ritualism, Rationalism, 
 Mormonism, Communism, Rumism, Anti-Sab- 
 bathism, all these stand marshaled, today, 
 here in our land, against our holy Protestant 
 Christian Faith. Scorn for the Bible as the 
 Word of God ; Desecration of the Lord's Day ; 
 Contempt for Authority, human and divine; 
 Profanity ; Lewdness ; Intemperance ; Worldli- 
 ness and Mad Thirst for Wealth; Wicked 
 Monopolies and Heartless Trusts; Socialism 
 and Bitter Hate on the part of the Poor against 
 the Rich; Decay of the Home-Life and of 
 Home Government and Education of the 
 Young ; Degeneracy of the Moral Tone of the 
 Secular Press ; Wide-Spread Dissemination of 
 Infidel and Corrupting Literature ; Low Views 
 of the Sanctity of the Marriage Relation and 
 an alarming Increase of Divorces; Political 
 Corruption and Prostitution of Political Parties 
 at the feet of saloonists and hoodlums, beg- 
 ging for their suffrage; Infidelity scoffing at 
 Christianity; and Atheism, calling itself Ag- 
 nosticism, hooting God out of His Universe; 
 alas ! what a hideous catalogue of moral foes 
 and dangers this is which is today cursing 
 199 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 our land and threatening us with national 
 ruin ! 
 
 And what is the remedy for it all? How 
 shall all this dreadful on-rushing tide of sin 
 be stayed, and rolled back again, and our dear 
 land be saved from its engulfing and damning 
 power ? How ? How ? Our text gives, I be- 
 lieve, the one only true answer. That answer 
 is : "Lift up Christ Crucified ; Hold up Jesus ; 
 Plant the Cross in the way of all these per- 
 ishing multitudes." 
 
 This, especially in our day, is what we, as 
 ministers, must do. In order to reform society, 
 in order to regenerate the World, in order to 
 purify the Church, in order to reach and 
 uplift and save souls, we must, in all our 
 preaching, lift up Christ. Not ourselves, but 
 Christ ; not the Church, but Christ ; not Forms 
 and Ceremonies, but Christ ; Christ, as the In- 
 carnation of Deity, as the Revealer of the will 
 of God, as the Great Teacher of Man, as 
 the high Model of faultless character and of 
 holy living, as the Divine Benefactor of the 
 human race ; and especially must we preach 
 Christ as "lifted up," the Christ crucified, suf- 
 200 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 fering, bleeding, dying on the Cross as a Di- 
 vine Sacrifice for man's sins, and as man's 
 ransom from eternal death; this must be the 
 chief burden and theme of all our preaching. 
 
 And this, also, will always be successful 
 preaching. The pulpit that thus preaches 
 Christ will always be a pulpit of power. Men 
 will be arrested by it, convicted of sin by it, 
 converted, sanctified, saved by it. Such a 
 pulpit becomes the great regenerating and 
 uplifting agency of society. It reforms and 
 purifies the whole social life of the state. It 
 is the salt, the life, the salvation of the world. 
 It is the power of God unto salvation. 
 
 And not only is there power in the pulpit 
 that thus lifts up Christ, but there is also 
 abiding freshness and attractiveness in it. It 
 has in it the element of permanent and in- 
 creasing popularity. This preaching of Christ 
 never grows stale or old. It is always the "old, 
 old story/' yet always new. 
 
 This, then, is the one duty of the pulpit: 
 
 namely, always and only to preach Christ and 
 
 Him crucified. Then only will it be a pulpit 
 
 of real, living, permanent power. And then, 
 
 201 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 also, in the best and truest sense of the word, 
 will it be an attractive pulpit, drawing men's 
 souls to Christ, even as Jesus here says : "And 
 I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me." 
 There is, however, here in our text, also, 
 A lesson of Encouragement for us, as Chris- 
 tians, as well as a lesson of Duty. 
 
 Often, under a conscious sense of our per- 
 sonal weakness and insufficiency, and want of 
 talent, and lack of ability, we shrink even from 
 the attempt to do anything for Christ, and for 
 the salvation of souls. We ministers often 
 feel thus; often with the Apostle exclaiming: 
 "Who is sufficient for these things ?" and often 
 with the Prophet crying out : "Ah, Lord God, 
 I cannot speak. I am a child." Oh, how 
 often this sense of weakness, of inability for 
 the great work before us has almost crushed 
 us. And you, also, of the laity, members of 
 the Church, how often doubtless you, too, have 
 been thus burdened, feeling that you could do 
 nothing by which souls would be saved. But 
 why, now, should any of us feel or speak 
 thus ? Our ground of encouragement in Chris- 
 tian work is not in ourselves, but it is in 
 
 202 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Christ. Jesus, here in our text, reveals to us 
 a secret by which we can all have power to 
 win souls, by which we may all be successful 
 workers for Him. He here says to us : "The 
 power to awaken, draw, convert, sanctify, and 
 save the souls of men is not in you, but in Me. 
 I, if I be lifted up, I will draw all men unto 
 Me ; not you, but I ; if only I be lifted up, that 
 is all you have to do, I will draw men to My- 
 self and to Heaven; only so I be lifted up, 
 preached, consistently lived, tenderly and lov- 
 ingly spoken of, rightly presented to the 
 world, no matter how feeble the hand that 
 lifts Me up, or how stammering the tongue 
 that speaks for Me, or how broken the voice 
 that sings for Me ; I, not you, by your elo- 
 quence, or learning, or talent, but I, wholly 
 by the divine attractive power that, as the Son 
 of God, is in Me, I will draw all men unto 
 Me; I will do it all; all you have to do is to 
 so hold or lift Me up that sinners may see Me." 
 Brethren and Friends, what a blessed secret 
 that is ! What encouragement to us all, even 
 to the least talented, these words of the Mas- 
 ter are ! In the magnet, not in the hand that 
 203 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 holds it, is the attraction. In the candle, not 
 in the candlestick in which it is placed, is the 
 light. In the Brazen Serpent, not in the pole 
 upholding it, was the healing power. And so 
 the power to win and save souls is not in us, 
 but in Christ. We cannot draw them, but He 
 can. We cannot melt and change their hard, 
 bad hearts, but He can. And, if only He be 
 indeed by us rightly lifted up, He also, as 
 He here promised, most certainly will. 
 
 Not long ago, a railroad bridge was sud- 
 denly washed away. The watchman's little 
 daughter was the only one, for some reason, 
 who, at the moment, knew what had occurred. 
 A train was soon due. She saw the danger 
 and death, which, unless warned, awaited it. 
 And so, taking her dead father's red signal 
 flag, and going up the road, she stood aritl 
 waited until the train came in sight, and then, 
 raising the flag, she waved it, checked the 
 train, saved it. It was only a child's hand that 
 held and waved that danger signal and saved 
 that onrushing train. In herself alone, with- 
 out that flag, she could have done nothing. 
 Planting herself before that train, her little 
 204 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 body could not have stayed it. Her feeble 
 voice could not have called it to a halt. The 
 power was in the flag, symbol of danger, which 
 her childish hand there so nobly held up. 
 
 And so, beloved, the power to save men is 
 not, I repeat, in us. The strongest of us, 
 the wisest, the holiest are, in our- 
 selves, but little children, unable to 
 save one single soul. But the power 
 is all in Christ. He saves them. And we can 
 be instruments by which He will save them. 
 We can show sinners the Cross. We can tell 
 them of Jesus. We can be uplifters of this 
 Son of God as the lost World's one only Re- 
 deemer. This we all can do. This we all 
 ought to do. 
 
 Make this, then, your one grand life-work, 
 my brother. Be ever, in every possible way, 
 an uplifter of Christ. By your faith in Him, 
 by your confession of Him, by your life for 
 Him, by your worship of Him, by your labor 
 and giving and sacrifice for Him, manifest 
 Christ; ever remembering what He says in 
 our text : "And I, if I be lifted up from the 
 earth, will draw all men unto Me." 
 205 
 
THE STRENGTH OF YOUNG 
 
 MEN. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "/ have written unto you young men, because ye 
 are strong." — 1 John it. I4. 
 
 One of the marked characteristics of all 
 young life is Strength. There is still in it 
 the unexpended force or energy of its own 
 fulness and freshness of being. It y has as yet 
 lost nothing of itself in conflict with the other 
 forms of life outside of itself and opposed pos- 
 sibly to itself. It is life, also, untouched as 
 yet by the breath of decay, by the , frost of 
 age, by the law of decline, by the force within 
 itself of dissolution and death. It is young 
 life, fresh from God, who is the Infinite Foun- 
 tain of Life; and, because thus young and 
 fresh from God, it is also robust, healthful, 
 strong life. Because of its very newness of 
 being it has in it the quality of strength. 
 
 This is true of all vegetable life. It is true 
 
 of all irrational animal life. It is especially 
 
 true of all human life. Man has his fullest 
 
 vigor, energy, force of being, in his first man- 
 
 206 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 hood years. Not in all respects, by any means, 
 has he then his best strength, but he then has 
 strength, inherent strength, potential strength, 
 strength as yet undisciplined, and perhaps un- 
 harnessed and undirected as yet to any one 
 great purpose or end in life, but, nevertheless, 
 strength. 
 
 Pre-eminently strength is the characteristic 
 of every young man. He is, in many respects, 
 already strong. Especially has he in himself 
 the potencies of strength: possibilities of 
 strength, germs of power, enlarging capacities 
 of great future achievements, a latent force of 
 being which, both in time and in eternity, will 
 either lift him up into ever higher planes of 
 Life and Light and holy Fellowship with God, 
 or will sink him, like a falling star, down into 
 ever deepening lower depths of moral dark- 
 ness and death. 
 
 In what respects is the young man strong? 
 In what centers his strength? Samson's 
 strength was in his hair. The strength of 
 Hercules was in his brawny muscle and 
 mighty arm. The strength of Mercury was 
 in his eloquence. In what is every young 
 207 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 man strong? Where lies his strength? In 
 a number of things. 
 
 There is, in connection with every young 
 man, I remark, 
 
 I. The strength of joyous hope and of 
 
 BRIGHT EXPECTATION BY PARENTS AND FRIENDS. 
 
 No words can well express how strong every 
 young man is in his mother's love, and in his 
 father's hopes and ambitions. There is no 
 affection like the affection of a Parent; no 
 devotion or attachment so deep, so fervent, so 
 enduring, so quenchless. Time does not 
 weaken it. Distance does not diminish it. 
 It lives on in the parental heart as long as 
 that heart continues to beat on earth; and 
 when Death at last stills it here, it lives on 
 forever in it in the life to come. The most 
 immortal thing on earth or in heaven, next to 
 the love of God Himself, is the love of father 
 or mother for a child. 
 
 Here, then, in the love of his parents, in 
 their willing sacrifices for him, in their pride 
 in him, in their expectations and hopes con- 
 cerning him, every young man is strong. 
 208 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Those hearts he has it in, his power either to 
 fill with gladness or to break with sorrow; 
 either to send singing and happy along life's 
 pathway and make joyous even in death, or 
 compel to walk life's journey in tears, and 
 go, at last, in sadness to their graves, exclaim- 
 ing as did David over Absalom : "O my son, 
 my son, would God I had died for thee !" It is 
 the strength of Love : the Love of a father, 
 the holy deathless Love of a mother; placing 
 itself in the power of the child, and saying: 
 "Love makes me your, prisoner ; my life is in 
 your determining; yours is the voice which 
 decides for me either my happiness or my 
 misery ; my joy or my sorrow." Blessed is the 
 young man who recognizes this strength over 
 Parental Destiny which Parental Love thus 
 gives him, and who nobly resolves never to 
 use that strength in wounding and breaking 
 a father's or a mother's heart, but to so ex- 
 pend it as ever to make life to them an un- 
 broken psalm of praise, and cause them, even 
 down to its close, and even through all eter- 
 nity, to bless God for the gift to them of such 
 a Son. 
 
 209 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 But every young man is strong in himself. 
 In his own being, as well as in the love for 
 him of others, he is power. There is, I there- 
 fore yet remark : 
 
 II. The strength of splendid endow- 
 ments AND MAGNIFICENT POSSIBILITIES IN 
 EVERY YOUNG MAN. 
 
 What fine endowments God has given in a 
 fully and symmetrically developed young man ! 
 What lofty gifts such a young man possesses ! 
 
 He possesses physical strength; and that is 
 a blessed gift. A strong physique is a choice 
 possession. A clean, pure, healthy, and well 
 developed body is something of great value, 
 worthy to be sought after. It is the work- 
 manship of God. It is the temple of the soul. 
 It is the instrument by which the spirit puts 
 forth its energies and achieves its purposes. 
 Honor, therefore, as a young man, your body. 
 By fresh air, the use of simple and nutritious 
 food, manly exercise, an abundance of sleep, 
 abstinence from all harmful vices, develop it 
 into best possible perfection. By athletic 
 games and steady and wise gymnastic practice 
 210 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 secure for yourself, as you can thus do, a 
 strong physical manhood. 
 
 But intellectual strength is also an endow- 
 ment of the ideal young man. Athanasius 
 was but a young man when, in the Great Coun- 
 cil of Nice, he stood forth as the able and elo- 
 quent defender of the Deity of Christ. John 
 Calvin was but, a young man when he wrote 
 his immortal "Theological Institutes," a work 
 which, however men may differ in their re- 
 spective views of its doctrines, must be con- 
 fessed to be one of the most masterly pro- 
 ductions that has ever been penned. Luther, 
 also, was but a young man, only thirty-four, 
 when, by nailing up his ninety-five theses, he 
 struck his first great open blow against the 
 errors of Rome. 
 
 And so in the history of the World, as well 
 as of the Church, young men have generally 
 been the Chief and Prominent Actors. 
 
 Washington was not yet thirty-three when 
 he took command of the Continental Army. 
 Alexander Hamilton was only thirty-three 
 when he became Federal Treasurer, and, as 
 Webster said, "smote the corpse of public 
 
 211 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 credit, and it rose upon its feet." John Jay 
 was only thirty-one when he took his seat as 
 President of the First Continental Congress. 
 James Madison was only thirty-six when he 
 wrote his famous papers in the "Federalist." 
 William H. Seward was already a profound 
 thinker, philosopher, lawyer, and was already 
 in the State Senate at thirty-two. Alexander 
 had already conquered the world at thirty- 
 three. Cicero was famous as an orator already 
 at twenty-six. Napoleon was already Emper- 
 or before he was thirty-four. Pitt was Prime 
 Minister before he was thirty-four. 
 
 And so in multitudes of other cases. In 
 both Church and State, all along in the World's 
 History, it is young men who have, in large 
 measure, been the great leaders of thought, 
 and of the great historic activities of the hu- 
 man race, and who have moulded and deter- 
 mined the character and destiny both of their 
 own age and of the ages following. They 
 were then already, as young men, strong, 
 either as a blessing or as a curse both to them- 
 selves and to thousands and even millions of 
 others. Intellectual power, as well as physical, 
 212 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 generally decays with advancing years. Men 
 of great intellectual strength, like John Quincy 
 Adams, like Bismarck, like Gladstone, at sev- 
 enty and eighty years of age, are, in this re- 
 spect, exceptional. The rule is that age brings 
 with it enfeebled mental force. The Duke of 
 Marlborough, for example, one of the greatest 
 of the World's soldiers, is reported, in his last 
 years, to have lost all memory of his own 
 great exploits, and when, for his entertain- 
 ment, the history of them was read to him, 
 rising up he would enthusiastically ask : "Who 
 commanded?" And so, also, Sir Isaac New- 
 ton, whose strength of intellect in his full 
 manhood years was unequaled, in his last 
 years was unable to understand the simplest 
 principles of the great problems which he had 
 once solved with greatest ease. And thus 
 generally. In old age there is the waning of 
 intellectual power, the abating of the mental 
 strength of earlier years. ■ 
 
 But young men are y strong also in Spirit : in 
 
 Heart and Hope, in Enthusiasm, in Self-Con- 
 
 fidence and heroic Daring. The blood ever 
 
 courses warm and swiftly through a young 
 
 213 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 man's veins, inciting him to difficult under- 
 takings, and assuring him of success in it 
 whatever may oppose. Not so with old men. 
 They, on the contrary, taught by experience, 
 remembering many past disappointments and 
 surrounded by the wrecks of many shattered 
 idols and blasted hopes, are timid and cau- 
 tious, have lost spirit, are reluctant to make 
 ventures. They lack the faith and, hope of 
 success which they once had, and which are al- 
 ways necessary in order to spur one on to brave 
 and great endeavors. It is the young man 
 who possesses these, who will dare anything, 
 who, in his, warm enthusiasm and assurance 
 of success, will attempt the achievement of 
 even things seemingly impossible, and who, 
 because thus hopeful and daring, is strong, 
 and accomplishes what he attempts, "I write 
 unto you, young men, because ye are strong." 
 Such, now, hastily, outlined, are the endow- 
 ments of young men, and in these endowments 
 is their strength. And hence, also their Pos- 
 sibilities. Clothed with such power, having 
 such Strength, they are capable of great 
 things. They are invested with magnificent 
 214 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Possibilities: possibilities of usefulness, of 
 honor, of happiness, of blessing, and possibil- 
 ities also of fearful self-degradation, of shame, 
 of harm to society, or injury to the Church and 
 to the Cause of Christ, of moral ruin both to 
 themselves and to others both in time and in 
 eternity. 
 
 And right there centers the importance of 
 every young man. It is that which awakens 
 such deep interest in him on the part of all 
 thoughtful and good people older than him- 
 self. Not so much because of what he yet is, 
 but because of what he may, and necessarily 
 will, either for evil or for good, become ; par- 
 ents, teachers, pastors, the State, the school, 
 the u Church all fix upon him their anxious 
 thought and seek to guide him into those right 
 pathways both of character and life which 
 will make him a blessing to himself and to all 
 with whom he has to do. In him is tremen- 
 dous latent strength, a pent-up energy and. 
 force which is mighty. How shall that strength 
 be expended? What moral direction in life 
 shall that energy take? To what uses shall 
 that force be applied? On yonder railway 
 215 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 track stands a locomotive. The fire is burn- 
 ing in its furnace. Its water is heated into 
 steam. Power has been generated. Its every 
 part is trembling with the mighty force which 
 throbs within it. It has great possibilities 
 within it. It may sweep on in safety to their 
 distant homes the hundreds and thousands of 
 passengers filling the train attached to it, or 
 it may dash both itself and them over the preci- 
 pice into ruin and death. Its power gives it 
 mighty possibilities; but they are possibilities 
 of death as well as of life. And so with every 
 young man. He has power. He is strong. 
 And because of his strength he has vast, 
 weighty, far-reaching, important possibilities 
 before him. Something will come from him. 
 His life will tell in some direction. That 
 power in him will expend itself in some way. 
 The anxious question is : Where, how, in 
 what way ? For evil or for good ? As a bane 
 or as a blessing? For the Church or against 
 her? For the benefit of Society or for its 
 curse? For his own salvation in eternity, 
 or for his eternal destruction? That is the 
 question. 
 
 216 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 And this leads me to remark : 
 III. That to every young man there is, 
 
 ESPECIALLY IN THIS DAY, THE STRENGTH OF 
 MIGHTY PERILS AND MORAL DANGERS. 
 
 Satan is working hard to gain young men. 
 He, too, knows that they are strong. He sees 
 the power there is in them, and he well knows 
 that if he can gain them they will do hin^good 
 service. And hence all his subtle, captivating, 
 varied, persistent, mighty efforts to win them. 
 What agents and agencies thus to gain them 
 he has at work ! What allurements and temp- 
 tations ! What deceptions and wiles ! What 
 appeals to taste, to imagination, to their love 
 of the beautiful, to their hope of gain, to their 
 pleasure in society, to their appetite and pas- 
 sion and lust! What an undermining of 
 moral principles and of Christian faith. What 
 assaults of doubt and scepticism. What temp- 
 tations to aimlessness in life, to idleness, to 
 extravagance, to untruthfulness, to dishonesty, 
 to profanity, to intemperance, to lewdness, to 
 vice of every kind! What perils, on every 
 hand, from bad literature, bad company, bad 
 217 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 practices, bad places : from the liquor saloon, 
 from the house of the strange woman, from 
 the gaming table: from all these, and from 
 many other places, what moral perils face and 
 lure on to ruin our young men ! 
 
 In the midst of such dangers a young man 
 well needs to be strong. His foes also are 
 strong. Like a very giant he needs to stand 
 up in his integrity against them and heroically 
 resist them. He dare not dally with them. 
 He must not parley with them a moment. He 
 must not yield to tljem an inch. His strength, 
 and God's strength in him, must be uncom- 
 promisingly and unyieldingly set against them 
 or he will go down before them. Many young 
 men have, alas! thus yielded to temptation, 
 have dallied with these enemies of their souls, 
 have listened to the siren songs of sin, and 
 have gone down. You can see them every- 
 where. Sad sight, indeed! A ruined young 
 man ! Ruined already in the morning of his 
 life. The captive of Satan, the bondservant 
 of vicious habits, manhood degraded, purity 
 gone, character wrecked, reputation lost, awak- 
 ened hopes blasted, possibilities of honor and 
 218 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 happiness and usefulness all thrown away, the 
 man in body and soul a wreck, life here and 
 hereafter lost. I know of no sadder sight! 
 Even angels might well weep over it. And 
 its deepest sadness comes from the fact, of its 
 commonness. It is such a frequent sight : We 
 see it so often, and everywhere. Our land is 
 full of young men who are thus going down 
 before these moral perils which assail them. 
 And many of them, alas ! come from our Chris- 
 tian homes, and from the altars of our Chris- 
 tian Churches, and from our Christian Col- 
 leges, and go< down before these forces of evil 
 into ruin r even from the very clasp and hold 
 upon them of our best Christian love. 
 
 Young men, you to whom I speak this even- 
 ing, I beg you to recognize in their true char- 
 acter these perils to which you are exposed. 
 Know these enemies who are thus seeking to 
 rob you of your virtue, your manhood, your 
 piety, your purity, your happiness, your life, 
 and set yourself against them with all the 
 might of your being. "Be not overcome of 
 evil." But stand. Stand for your life, your 
 life here, your eternal life, for he who surren- 
 219 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ders to sin, he who breaks faith with God, he 
 who is disloyal to Conscience and Truth and 
 Christ, loses both. 
 
 But I advance to another thought. Has the 
 young man, arrayed against him and seeking 
 his destruction, the Strength of Mighty Perils 
 and Moral Dangers, then has he, I now remark, 
 
 IV. The strength of mighty helpers 
 
 AND STRONG MORAL ALLIES ARRAYED FOR HIM. 
 "THE REFORMATION AS THE WORK OF god/' 
 
 I can but enumerate these helpers and allies 
 which stand, like guardian angels, around 
 every young man in the moral conflict of life. 
 Their number is large; their power to help 
 him, if he will avail himself of it, is great; 
 so that we may say encouragingly to every 
 young man, assailed by these moral foes which 
 are seeking his ruin, as Elisha said to his 
 affrighted servant: "Fear not: for they that 
 be with us are more than they that be with 
 them." 
 
 The sweet memories of childhood are with 
 them. The remembrance of the Old Home 
 Life : of a father's prayers, of a mother's love, 
 220 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of the family altar, of the old family Bible, of 
 the Scripture lessons taught, of the moral prin- 
 ciples inculcated, of the religious habits once 
 practiced, of the worship of God once enjoyed : 
 the remembrance of all these still lingers in 
 the young man's soul, and, in temptation, helps 
 him to be strong. The voice of Conscience is 
 with him, and, in the midst of life's moral 
 conflicts, rings out its words of warning and 
 bids him bravely stand. His Reason and sober 
 Judgment are with him and tell him not to 
 allow his own undoing. His sense of self-re- 
 spect is with him and pleads with him to scorn 
 what .would cost him his own self-degradation. 
 His early habits of Christian living are with 
 him and hold him to a continuance in well 
 doing. ,His training and education are with 
 him : the many high moral lessons of truthful- 
 ness and honesty and purity and righteousness 
 and morality and godliness impressed upon 
 him by parents and pastors and teachers, the 
 many influences for good brought by them to 
 bear upon him and to mould his character : 
 all these still are with him. The interest in 
 him of multitudes of loving friends, concerned 
 
 221 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 for his welfare, desirous for his success, re- 
 joicing in his unsullied and unstained young 
 manhood, pained if he should fall, following 
 him with their friendship, giving him their 
 confidence and love : all these, also, are with 
 him. His own interest in himself, or consid- 
 eration of his own best welfare: regard for 
 his health, for his reputation, for the esteem 
 of his fellow 7 men, for his prosperity in busi- 
 ness or trade, for his good standing in society, 
 for his accumulation of wealth, for his pro- 
 motion to places of honor and power and trust 
 in the State or in the Church, for his fame 
 both while living and when once removed 
 by death, for his happiness here and his sal- 
 vation hereafter : regard for his own best in- 
 terests in all these respects is ever, if he is 
 thoughtful of himself as he ought to be, with 
 him inciting him to the right and checking 
 and restraining him from the wrong. The 
 Institutions of our holy Christian Religion are 
 also with him: the Church, the Ministry, the 
 Preached Word, the Sacraments, the Social 
 Fellowship of Christian People, the Bible, the 
 Christian Press, the Lord's Day, the Christian 
 
 222 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Home, the Christian College or School: all 
 these are helps and allies to the Young Man 
 to strengthen his moral character, to confirm 
 him in sound moral principle, to develop him 
 in strong and noble Christian Manhood. And, 
 finally, best of all God is with him : with him 
 by His Providence to guard and guide him; 
 with him by His Spirit to sanctify, comfort 
 and strengthen him ; with him by His Church 
 to instruct, nourish, keep him; with him by 
 His Son to redeem, pardon, bless and save him. 
 All these are allies of the young man in his 
 warfare with his spiritual foes, in his resis- 
 tance of temptation, in his battles against sin. 
 He does not stand alone. A great host of 
 spiritual warriors stand around him and fight 
 for him. The combined power of all that is 
 good both upon earth and in heaven is arrayed 
 in his behalf. All the saintly in the Church 
 below, all the redeemed in the Church above, 
 all the sympathy of Christ who died for him, 
 all the omnipotence and pity and love of God 
 his Father who made and keeps him, all are 
 on his side and are supporting and sustaining 
 him. 
 
 223 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 With such allies in the fight is not the 
 Christian Young Man strong? Was not the 
 Apostle right in his estimate of such when he 
 wrote : "I write unto you young men because 
 ye are strong" : strong in the strength of God,, 
 strong in the power of the Holy Ghost, strong 
 in a moral might given from above and which 
 makes them conquerors and more than con- 
 querors through Him who loved them. But 
 only such are strong. Only the young man 
 who thus is strong in God's strength, is really 
 strong, is strong enough to stand in the moral 
 battle which he must wage. His own strength, 
 unhelped by God's strength, is weakness. His 
 will power, his best resolutions, his firmest pur- 
 poses, will all prove unable to resist the shock 
 of the conflict. Contending alone and in his 
 own strength he will go down before his foes 
 as the ship goes down before the storm. Hun- 
 dreds and thousands, strong as any, have thus 
 gone down. Alexander, proudly called "the 
 Great," and who was also great as men es- 
 teem greatness, great in his exploits, in his suc- 
 cess, in his achievements, in his intellect and 
 will, in his mastery over men, in his military 
 224 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 genius, who with his mighty armies conquered 
 the world, whom neither rapid rivers, nor 
 rugged mountains, nor opposing nations, nor 
 countless enemies, could discourage nor deter 
 from his purpose nor overcome, this man, so 
 great, who having conquered the world sighed 
 for yet other worlds to conquer, in his own 
 strength was yet unable to conquer himself 
 and went down while yet a young man, the 
 slave of his own passions, the helpless victim 
 of his own bad habits. And thus many young 
 men, today, strong in their own fancied 
 strength, go down as moral wrecks into the 
 whirlpool of destruction. I wish I could make 
 every young man, who reads this, feel deeply 
 this truth, namely, that he is strong morally 
 only as God, by His grace, makes him strong. 
 Divine strength is alone real strength; and is 
 alone sufficient strength. As young men have 
 that are they strong, and then only are they 
 strong. Only when they have God as their 
 Friend, and Christ as their Helper, and the 
 Holy Ghost as Heart-guest, and the Church as 
 their Spiritual Home, and the People of God 
 as their Companions, and the Bible as their 
 225 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Pilot and Compass, only then will they safely 
 make the voyage of life here and enter, at last, 
 in triumph "the harbor of eternal life on the 
 other shore." 
 
 "I can be my own pilot," was recently the 
 haughty answer of a young sea captain, when 
 admonished that the coast was dangerous and 
 that he should signal for a Pilot: "I can be 
 my own pilot." He was his own Pilot. But 
 the vessel struck the rock, and the next morn- 
 ing his dead body, and fragments of his queen- 
 ly ship, and remnants of his costly freight 
 were scattered in mockery, as it were, all along 
 the surfy shore of the angry sea. He was his 
 own Pilot. But there was his fatal mistake. 
 It gratified, for a moment, his vanity, but, in 
 the end, it cost him his life. Oh, young men, 
 repeat not his folly. Seek not to be your own 
 Pilots over the dangerous Sea of Life. It 
 will cost you your soul. Take Christ as your 
 Pilot. In prayer throw out, this moment, a 
 signal of distress. Send a message to Heaven 
 for help. Telegraph to the skies for a Pilot. 
 
 Young men, this is the strength you need. 
 There are burdens to be borne through life, 
 226 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 our own and others' ; there are enemies to over- 
 come, passions to subdue, vices to uproot, vir- 
 tues to implant, services to execute, work to 
 do — and the natural man, with all his won- 
 derful capacities and capabilities, does not pos- 
 sess the strength or power of endurance for 
 such undertakings. Nevertheless, the old 
 apostle in Patmos furnishes the secret: "Ye 
 are strong, and the Word of God Abideth in 
 you" — the Word of God; the written Word, 
 bearing within itself Christ the Incarnate 
 Word, who takes up His abode within us. In 
 order, then, to possess strength, Christ must 
 thus enter the heart and find lodgment within. 
 There must be a willing surrender of the cita- 
 del of Man's soul to King Emanuel. Give 
 Jesus, then, a thrice blessed welcome. Enter- 
 tain this Divine Guest. He will become your 
 Captain, and will lead you forth to victory. 
 
 When Robert Bruce lay dying he gave 
 charge to the black Douglas to bury his heart 
 in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. The 
 brave general, in obedience to the dying wishes 
 of his king, carried in a silver casket hanging 
 from his neck the embalmed heart of Bruce, 
 227 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 and with a few Scottish cavaliers set out for 
 the Holy Land. They met with many impedi- 
 ments on their onward march, the Moors in 
 Spain being especially antagonistic. On one 
 occasion when the little band of Scotchmen be- 
 held the numbers of the enemy they became 
 demoralized and would have fled from the foe ; 
 but Douglas, taking from his bosom the pre- 
 cious relic, threw it at the enemy, and grasping 
 his sword with renewed energy cried to the 
 little band, "Scotchmen fight for the heart of 
 Bruce I" ,The word thrilled his brave follow- 
 ers, who charged upon the Moors and drove 
 them from the field, knowing that the heart 
 which ever throbbed with affection for them 
 was now in danger of being trampled under 
 foot. Though inanimate that heart, it recalled 
 heroic deeds of the great Bruce which filled 
 them with frenzy, inflamed them with renewed 
 zeal until strengthened they went forth to vic- 
 tory. Soldiers of Christ, your inspiration is 
 far higher, nobler, and more effective. For 
 not the embalmed heart of our glorious Leader 
 have we in the field, but His living presence. 
 Hear Him declare, "Lo, I am with you alway !" 
 228 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Let that ringing word rally all around His 
 banner, and giving the enemy no quarter, en- 
 tering into no compromise with the foe, "fight 
 the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal 
 life," and win for yourselves the blessed 
 plaudit, "I have written unto you, young men, 
 because ye are strong, and the Word of God 
 abideth in you, and ye have overcome the 
 w r icked one." "Let the Word of Christ dwell 
 in you richly in all wisdom, speaking to your- 
 selves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, 
 singing and making melody in your hearts to 
 the Lord," for "the joy of the Lord is your 
 strength." 
 
 Unsaved, ungodly, Christless young man, 
 one word more to you. Remember that "when 
 we were yet without strength Christ died for 
 the ungodly." But God raised Him from the 
 dead, and through Him now is preached unto 
 you forgiveness of sins, and everlasting life. 
 Yield your life to Him who is your best Friend, 
 then shall you be strong in battling for the 
 Lord. 
 
 229 
 
THE RESURRECTION 
 BODY. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "But some man zvill say, How are the dead raised 
 up? and zvith what body do lliey come?" — 1 Corin- 
 thians xv. 35. 
 
 Our text is a question. It is not necessarily 
 the question of a Sceptic or doubter. It may 
 be the question of honest search after light 
 and after clearer understanding of the doc- 
 trine in connection with which the question is 
 asked. 
 
 The Apostle, by a most masterly argument, 
 had established the great truth of the Resur- 
 rection of the Body. The logic he employs 
 in his argument is convincing; the conclusion 
 is irresistible, and the fact is proven beyond 
 room for rational doubt. The dead shall all 
 again be restored to life, and shall all again 
 rise. There will be a Resurrection of the 
 Bodies of the dead. 
 
 But, whilst thus convinced, by irresistible 
 
 argument, of the fact that the dead shall again 
 
 rise, the manner of their resurrection is still 
 230 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 an unsettled question. How will they be raised 
 up? With what kind of bodies will they, in 
 the Resurrection Morning, come forth? Will 
 the body that rises from the grave be the same 
 body that was laid in the grave? In what 
 respects will our present bodies and our future, 
 or resurrection, bodies be alike? In what re- 
 spects will they differ? If the same, in what 
 will consist their identity? What will be the 
 character of our future or resurrection body 
 contrasted with the character of our present 
 body? What precisely will be the relation of 
 the one to the other? Admitting the fact 
 of the resurrection of the dead, how will they 
 arise ? "But some man will say, How are the 
 dead raised up? and with what kind of body 
 do they come?" 
 
 We would first maintain that the 
 
 SAINTED DEAD, IN THE MORNING OF THE RES- 
 URRECTION, WILL NOT COME IN A BODY 
 WHICH IS LITERALLY AND ABSOLUTELY, IN ALL 
 ITS MATERIAL PARTICLES. PRECISELY THE SAME 
 AS THAT WHICH IN BURIAL WAS LAID AWAY 
 IN THE GRAVE. 
 
 231 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 It is evidently erroneous to hold, as some 
 do, that the future or resurrection body shall 
 be composed of precisely the same matter, and 
 in precisely the same quantities and same pro- 
 portions, as compose the Christian's present 
 body. Such a literal or material theory of the 
 Resurrection is, I say, evidently erroneous and 
 untenable. The resurrection body, in its ma- 
 terial composition, will, most evidently, not be 
 precisely the same as the present body, that 
 is, the same matter exactly, and no other. For, 
 in opposition to such a theory as this, the Scrip- 
 tures expressly declare that "flesh and blood" 
 shall not inherit the Kingdom of God. Be- 
 sides, Science, also, well asks : "How can 
 possibly the body ever be thus literally raised 
 us?" It tells us that in a man's life-time the 
 matter composing his body is so constantly 
 changing that every seven years he has a new 
 body; and, hence, pointing to a man who has 
 lived to be seventy years old, it asks, with a 
 sneer, whether the matter that composed this 
 or that one of the ten bodies which were each 
 successively here his, will there and then con- 
 stitute his resurrection body ? Or, it points us 
 232 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 to bodies that have been consumed by fire, and 
 their ashes scattered by the winds of heaven 
 over the face of the earth ; and to others that 
 have been eaten by wild beasts and, as food, 
 have helped to constitute their bodies, or been 
 eaten by cannibals and have been assimilated 
 and entered into the composition of other hu- 
 man bodies ; and to still others that have been 
 dissolved on battle fields and enriched the soil, 
 and been absorbed by the roots of trees and 
 grasses and harvests of corn and wheat, and 
 have been changed into fruit or grain, which 
 were eaten by man or beast, and thus passes 
 into other animal systems and, as muscle or 
 bone or blood, become part again of some 
 other living organization ; science, I say, hon- 
 est, thoughtful inquiry upon this subject, points 
 to all these facts involving considerations con- 
 cerning the matter which now composes our 
 bodies and it well asks : How can, in view of 
 these facts, there ever be such a thing as a 
 Resurrection of the very same body which is 
 laid in the grave? How can just precisely the 
 matter which now constitutes my body also 
 constitute my resurrection body, when that 
 233 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 matter before it composed my body was pos- 
 sibly part of some other human body, and af- 
 ter I have laid it aside, and it is dissolved into 
 air and gases and water and soil, and, changed 
 into some other form, it may enter into the 
 structure of a dozen or a hundred other hu- 
 man bodies? 
 
 And those are hard questions to answer. You 
 may, I know, answer them by simply saying to 
 the Objector : "With God all things are pos- 
 sible. He could create the body and He also 
 can re-create it. He can re-collect the scat- 
 tered particles, and can re-organize them, and 
 can re-construct the body again of the same 
 particles precisely of which it is now composed. 
 Let them be where they will, at His bidding 
 they can all be summoned back again, and 
 can be made to compose the same form exactly 
 which they once composed when the body was 
 laid in the grave." "Yes," I answer, "that is, 
 I suppose, all true. God has all power." But 
 in this case it is not a question of mere Divine 
 Power: it is a question simply of fact. God 
 can do all that He wills to do, and all that 
 He has said He will do. And, hence, if God 
 234 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 anywhere in His word had said that in the 
 Morning of the Resurrection He would raise 
 up from the grave the same body precisely 
 which had been laid away in the grave, that 
 is composed of the very same particles which 
 now compose it, He also could do it, and most 
 surely would also do it. And then, if thus 
 declared in the word of God, no matter how 
 many objections might by human science or 
 philosophy be made to it, or how many diffi- 
 culties and seeming impossibilities might be 
 advanced against it, I would still most firmly 
 believe it, and we all would. For God's word 
 is always truth. 
 
 But happily God's Word makes no such tax 
 upon our faith as all that. God's Word no- 
 where teaches that our Resurrection Bodies 
 will thus be composed of the same precise mat- 
 ter which now composes our bodies, or which 
 will compose them when at our death they are 
 laid away in the grave. Paul, indeed, in an- 
 swer to this question of our text, "With what 
 body do they come?" most positively asserts 
 just the reverse. To the Objector, who asks 
 the question, and who assumes that if the 
 235 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 dead, as Paul taught, really do again rise, 
 then they must also rise in the very same ma- 
 terially composed bodies which they here in- 
 habited, and which were here buried, says: 
 "Thou fool ! That which thou sowest is not 
 quickened except it die; and that which thou 
 sowest, thou sowest not that body that shall 
 be, but bare grain, it may chance of wheat or 
 of some other grain/' That is : "There is a 
 difference between the seed sown and the liv- 
 ing plant that springs from that seed. You 
 drop into the earth, he means, a grain, and 
 there comes up, not a grain, but a green, liv- 
 ing stalk or tree; and whilst the stalk or tree 
 has, indeed, sprung from the grain which you 
 planted or sowed, there is yet not a particle 
 of that grain now in the stalk or tree. The 
 matter in the stalk or tree is all matter which, 
 as a living organism, it has, through its roots 
 and leaves, or lungs, absorbed and assimilated 
 into its own being from the soil and air and 
 water around it; and the seed from which it 
 sprung was simply the germ or source of its 
 life. The seed sown had in itself a hidden and 
 indestructible life-force, capable of assimi- 
 236 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 lating new matter and of clothing itself 
 with a new and more beautiful vegetable body 
 — that is, it dissolved and died, and in its dis- 
 solution and death, or rather by its dissolu- 
 tion and death, this life-force was set at lib- 
 erty, and sprung into activity, and ushered 
 into being a new and higher form of life. 
 
 "And so," is the Apostle's meaning, "it will 
 also be with the Resurrection Body. It will 
 not be the bare grain merely of the body that 
 was sown or buried that will come up, but it 
 will be the new and higher organism of a glo* 
 rified body. It will be a body sprung from the 
 old, yet not the old; a body the same in its 
 identity, yet not the same in its composition, or 
 in its component material quality." 
 
 This, then, is now the first answer to the 
 question of our text: "With what body do 
 they come?" namely, They come, or they will 
 arise, not in bodies composed of precisely the 
 same matter, and in the same organism, as now 
 constitute or characterize our present bodies, 
 or as compose the body when, at the close of 
 our earth-life, it is laid in its last sleep in the 
 grave. But, 
 
 237 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 II. Whilst the resurrection body of 
 
 THE SAINTS WILL THUS NOT BE, LITERALLY 
 AND MATERIALLY, JUST PRECISELY THE SAME 
 AS THEIR PRESENT BODY, THERE WILL STILL 
 BE SUCH AN ORGANIC AND VITAL CONNECTION 
 BETWEEN THE TWO THAT THE FUTURE OR RES- 
 URRECTION BODY WILL RETAIN AND PER- 
 PETUATE THE IDENTITY OF THE PRESENT BODY. 
 
 This the Apostle here clearly teaches by his 
 figure of the seed and that which springs from 
 the seed. The new stalk is not, it is true, in 
 substance the old seed ; and yet there is, as all 
 can see, a vital connection between the stalk 
 and the seed. It is the same species. It pro- 
 duces again the same kind of seed, and not 
 another kind. The one owes its being to the 
 other, and is really the perpetuation of the 
 same life that was in the other; so that how- 
 ever unlike in form and appearance the seed 
 and the stalk that grows from it may be, there 
 is still "identity/' identity of species and or- 
 der, identity of inward being and onward flow 
 of life. 
 
 And just so there exists "identity" between 
 238 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the Resurrection Body and the present body 
 that is laid in the grave. Our present body 
 is the "grain." The Resurrection body is the 
 "stalk" that by divine power is made to grow 
 up out of this grain. The grain dies, but 
 there is in that dying grain an invisible and 
 an indestructible germ of life or of life-force, 
 which in the Morning of the Resurrection, at 
 God's bidding, will assume to itself new form 
 — that is, the form of its future or resurrec- 
 tion body, just as the seed, in dying, gives 
 up its old form of a seed and develops into 
 the new form of a plant, and then, in that new 
 form, it will perpetuate the life which it lived 
 here, in its present form. Thus is there con- 
 nection, and thus also is there living and un- 
 broken identity between our present and our 
 future bodies. They are different, yet they 
 are identical; different in appearance, in per- 
 fection, in glory, yet identical as the unbroken 
 onward flow of the same individual existence 
 or personality. "There is one glory of the 
 sun, another glory of the moon, and another 
 glory of the stars, for one star differeth from 
 another star in glory;" "and so," the Apostle 
 239 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 means to say, "there can and will be a great 
 difference not simply between Resurrection 
 bodies in general, but also in each individual 
 case, between the old body and the new, and 
 yet their identity remains. "So," is his lan- 
 guage, "is the Resurrection of the dead." 
 
 Besides, do we not find analogies of this very 
 thing, of this preservation, I mean, of identity 
 amid change and transformation in the insect 
 and animal creation all around us? Look at 
 the moth, the caterpillar, the locust. In the 
 case of each, when a transition from one mode 
 of life to another is to take place, the germs or 
 the embryo organism of the future or coming 
 being are wrapped up in the organization of 
 the present being, so that whilst in the transi- 
 tion something of the old is left behind, and 
 much is gained in the new, yet the identity of 
 the being remains unbroken through every 
 stage of the transformation. 
 
 And so with us. The germ of our future 
 Resurrection body is, in some mysterious way 
 wrapped up and hid away in our present body, 
 as the body of the oak is hid away in the acorn, 
 or the body of the butterfly is hid away in the 
 240 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 caterpillar, or the body of the stalk is hid 
 away in the seed or grain, or the beauty and 
 fragrance of the flower is hid away in the 
 root or bulb. The one gives being to the 
 other. The life in the one, after sleeping in 
 the grave, awakes and perpetuates itself in 
 the other. 
 
 But the question may here be asked: If 
 the Resurrection body is so different from the 
 present body, if it only comes up from the 
 present body and yet is not fully the present 
 body itself, how, then, will we ourselves, or 
 how will others, be able to recognize the Res- 
 urrection body as being, indeed, the same 
 body that we here inhabited? How will we 
 assuredly know and feel that the body into 
 which my soul shall then enter, is, indeed, 
 my old body? Will it not possibly be so en- 
 tirely different that it will virtually be to me 
 an entirely new and strange body? 
 
 To this question I answer: No. How the 
 consciousness of bodily identity will be se- 
 cured, I do not know. But my body then will 
 most clearly be seen to be the same body 
 which is my body now. Of this God's Word 
 241 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 assures me. Paul, here in the context, says : 
 "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him, 
 and to every seed his own body." The im- 
 plied argument of which is that in some sense 
 the same body which we had before we shall 
 have then. To each one will be given "his 
 own body." There will be identity. It will 
 be his own body. 
 
 And hence, also, our Saviour, after His Res- 
 urrection, appeared to the disciples in a 
 "form" or "body" which, whilst glorified and 
 greatly changed, yet presented so fully the 
 same outward appearance as that in which 
 He had dwelt among them before His death 
 that they were enabled to recognize Him, and 
 to be assured that it was really He with whom 
 they had before, as Master and disciples, been 
 associated. 
 
 Our Resurrection body then, whatever it 
 may in itself exactly be, and however differ- 
 ent from and superior to our present body it 
 undoubtedly then will be, will yet in some 
 way be identical with our present body, and 
 will so far retain the appearance and individ- 
 uality of our present body that in that future 
 242 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Resurrection body we will easily be recog- 
 nized by those who knew us, and will be 
 known as the same distinct personalities 
 which we are now known to be in our present 
 body. 
 
 But, if now we inquire yet more closely into 
 the exact Character of the Resurrection body 
 and seek to give, if possible, a still more defin- 
 ite answer to the question of the text: With 
 what body do they come? then we have only 
 to notice yet more carefully : 
 
 III. The apostolic description here in 
 
 THE CONTEXT OF WHAT OUR RESURRECTION 
 BODY SHALL BE. 
 
 Two things concerning it he states very 
 emphatically. He tells us : 
 
 (a.) That it will be such a body as it may 
 please God in the Resurrection to give us. 
 "God giveth it a body as it hath pleased Him." 
 
 Nowhere around us can we discover such 
 a thing as naked life. It is always incorporate 
 or embodied life. And He who has thus given 
 body to life is God. The form of the human 
 body for the habitation of the human life, the 
 243 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 form of irrational animals for mere animal 
 life, and of insects for insect life, and of plants 
 for plant life, all these are His materialized 
 conceptions or creations. To each of these 
 special kinds of life He has given a body as 
 it hath pleased Him, and as the special life 
 in each required. And so, also, in the Resur- 
 rection, the Apostle assures us, God will give 
 to each of us a Resurrection body as will 
 please Him — that is ; such a body as He in His 
 infinite wisdom and benevolence will choose 
 for us as suited to the new, celestial and 
 glorious heavenly life to which we shall then 
 be exalted. "God giveth it a body as it hath 
 pleased Him." A body so beautiful, so radi- 
 ant, so perfect, so capable, so glorious, so im- 
 mortal, and so adapted to be the home of the 
 redeemed immortal soul, that it will please 
 Him, and that He can again, as at first, in 
 Eden, in strictest truth, pronounce it "good." 
 
 But in answer to the question : "With what 
 body do they come?" the Apostle presents 
 also, 
 
 (b.) Some points of contrast between the 
 Resurrection bodies which we shall then have 
 244 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 and our present bodies, and he shows that our 
 Resurrection bodies will be infinitely superior 
 in every possible respect to our present bodies. 
 Our present body, he notices first, "is sown 
 in corruption ;" but our future body, he de- 
 clares, "shall be raised in incorruption. ,, 
 "Sown in corruption/' How true! The 
 "Corruption" begins with the very beginning 
 of our bodily life. Paul says, "I die daily." 
 What toil, what care, what sickness, what suf- 
 fering, what infirmities, whaft decay, what 
 dissolution finally in the tomb, make up the 
 experience here of the body! But how dif- 
 ferent it will be with the Resurrection body! 
 The Apostle says: "It shall be raised in in- 
 corruption." Every sign or tendency to im- 
 perfection will then be forever gone. No pain, 
 no sickness, no death. Elasticity in every 
 limb, health on every cheek, joy in every eye. 
 
 "No chilling winds, nor poisonous breath, 
 
 Can reach that happy shore ; 
 Sickness, and sorrow, pain and death, 
 
 Are felt and feared no more." 
 
 Blessed Hope ! Death, with all its sad and 
 painful preliminaries, shall then be known no 
 245 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 more. Glorified the body shall then stand 
 forth in the glow and bloom and beauty of 
 eternal youth. We shall all then, as disci- 
 ples of Christ, be changed. This corruptible 
 will then put on incorruption ; and this mortal, 
 or this present death-tendency in us, will then 
 put on immortality. "So when this corrupti- 
 ble shall have put on incorruption, and this 
 mortal shall have put on immortality, then 
 shall be brought to pass the saying that is 
 written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O 
 Death, where is thy sting? O Grave, where 
 is thy victory?" 
 
 Again, however, in his exhibit of this con- 
 trast between our present and future bodies, 
 the Apostle says, concerning the present body : 
 "It is sown in dishonor/' but concerning the 
 future body, "it is raised in glory." It goes 
 down to the grave dishonored : dishonored by 
 the touch and blight of sin ; dishonored by 
 all the destroying consequences of sin ; a prey 
 to the spoiler Death. But "it shall be raised 
 in glory." "Jesus shall change our vile body 
 that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious 
 body." 
 
 246 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 What a contrast! What a comfort! All 
 the imperfections and blemishes and defects 
 of the present body gone. All the curse of 
 the fall which has fallen on the body eternally 
 lifted. And, instead of all these, there will 
 then in our bodies be the beauty, the faultless- 
 ness, the perfection, the symmetry, the sun- 
 like radiance and effulgence, the glory even 
 of the body of the Saviour Himself as it once 
 appeared on "the Mount of Transfiguration," 
 or as it even now appears seated upon the 
 Throne of Heavenly Royalty. "For we shall 
 be like Him." 
 
 But more. The Apostle also further says, 
 concerning our present body, "It is sown in 
 weakness;" but concerning the future body 
 he says, "it is raised in power." It goes down 
 steadily already in weakness, as the years go 
 by, under the burdens and sicknesses and 
 struggles of life; and goes down, at last, in 
 utter weakness into the grave, conquered by 
 death. But how gloriously it is raised. "It 
 is raised," says the Apostle, "in power:" in 
 power over Death ; in power over sin ; in pow- 
 er over all the Christian's Spiritual Foes; in 
 247 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 power over all Physical Weariness; in power 
 to pass on errands of God from world to 
 world; in power without cessation to live, 
 and labor, and love, and worship forever 
 around the throne of God. 
 
 But, once more, concerning our present body 
 he says : "It is sown a natural body" — -that is, 
 an animal, an earthly body, adapted to ma- 
 terial surroundings, itself material, and need- 
 ing material food to sustain it; but it shall, 
 he declares, "be raised a spiritual body" — that 
 is, a body which will consist of the most re- 
 fined and purified substance; "matter," but 
 transparent-etherealized matter; "matter," but 
 matter spiritualized in its character; "matter," 
 but matter approaching the nature of spirit; 
 "matter," but matter sublimated and elevated 
 above the laws and conditions which now 
 govern our material bodies. "It is raised a 
 spiritual body:" a body, but a body of spirit 
 or a body resembling spirit. Amazing para- 
 dox! I speak, I know, of a great "mystery." 
 I do not understand it. But I speak a great 
 and most precious revealed fact. Our future 
 Resurrection bodies shall be glorious, Spirit- 
 248 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ual Bodies, infinitely superior in all respects to 
 our present bodies, incorruptible instead of 
 corruptible, perfect instead of imperfect, 
 strong instead of weak, immortal instead of 
 mortal, spiritual instead of material, glorious 
 like Christ's own body, instead of inglorious 
 and dishonorable as now under the ruin of sin 
 and the law of Death. 
 
 Disciples of Christ, great is the bodily exal- 
 tation that awaits you. Surely, "it doth not 
 yet appear what we shall be." Not our Spirits 
 only, but also our Bodies shall be gloriously 
 redeemed from sin. These poor, suffering 
 bodies of ours, shall also through the redemp- 
 tive power of our Divine Lord, be perfectly 
 delivered and glorified. 
 
 Let this be our Comfort. Let this be our 
 hope. Body, soul and spirit, our whole being, 
 will be glorified in the Day of His Coming. 
 Rejoice in this blessed truth when you go to 
 your grave, and rejoice in it for all your loved 
 ones who now sleep there in Jesus. 
 
 249 
 
THE CHARACTER OF THE 
 LORD'S SUPPER. 
 
 A Synodical Communion Sermon, 
 TEXT. 
 
 "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the 
 communion of the blood of Christ? The bread 
 which we break, is it not the communion of the 
 body of Christ?" — 1 Corinthians x. 16. 
 
 The Apostle, in this language of our text, 
 presents to our attention the Nature of the 
 Lord's Supper, declaring it to be a "Com- 
 munion" : a communion or a partaking in the 
 bread which we eat, and in the wine which 
 we drink, "of the Body and of the Blood of 
 Christ." 
 
 This, of course, is a great "mystery." We 
 know not how it can be. The Scriptures do 
 not tell us how Christ is present in this Holy 
 Sacrament. Here and elsewhere they simply 
 state the fact of this Real Presence of Christ 
 in the Supper. The mode or manner of it 
 they do not state. That fact, therefore, wheth- 
 er we can understand it or not, we must either 
 250 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 accept by faith on the statement of it in God's 
 word, or, because we cannot understand it, 
 assume the responsibility to deny and reject 
 it. 
 
 This Holy Supper is the "Farewell Sacra- 
 ment" of our Ascended Saviour: His almost 
 last act before His Passion and Death as a 
 Sacrifice for our Sins. Its institution oc- 
 curred under the most tender and solemn pos- 
 sible circumstances. The Saviour's life-work, 
 upon earth, was almost finished ; His ministry 
 of teaching and of revelation to man of the 
 will and purposes of God was fast drawing 
 to a close; and His feet were trembling, as it 
 were, upon the threshold of the door opening 
 out before Him to Gethsemane and to Cal- 
 vary. Only a few hours more, and He would 
 be in the hands of His enemies ; and, as man's 
 Substitute, He would be enduring the curse 
 of the broken divine law, and would be drink- 
 ing the bitter cup of divine wrath for human 
 guilt. 
 
 Under such circumstances, and in that sol- 
 emn hour, gathering His disciples around Him, 
 He instituted this Blessed "Sacrament." The 
 2 5i 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 holy Evangelists, Matthew, Mark and Luke; 
 together with the holy Apostle, St. Paul, all 
 note this feature of the specially solemn time 
 and tender circumstances of its institution; as 
 if desirous thus to emphasize its sacredness, 
 and to impress us with its preciousness and 
 tenderness, and all of them using the same lan- 
 guage, saying: "Our Lord Jesus Christ, in 
 the night in which He was betrayed/' as His 
 farewell act, and as His last act of love be- 
 fore going to the cross, "took bread, and when 
 He had given thanks He brake it, and gave it 
 unto His disciples, saying: Take, eat, this is 
 my body which is given for you : Do this in 
 remembrance of me. Likewise, after the Sup- 
 per, He took the cup, gave thanks, and gave 
 it to them, saying : Drink ye all of this ; this 
 cup is the New Testament in my blood, which 
 is shed for you and for many for the remis- 
 sion of sins : Do this, as often as ye drink 
 it, in remembrance of me." 
 
 This Sacrament was instituted, we are there- 
 fore here taught, as a Commemorative Ordi- 
 nance, as a Memorial Sacrament. Jesus 
 wished to be remembered by His disciples. 
 252 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 He did not want to be forgotten by them when 
 once out of their sight. "Do this," He says, 
 "in remembrance of me"; meaning by these 
 words : "I am about to be withdrawn in vis- 
 ible bodily form from you; you will see and 
 hear me no more : the old relation which has 
 subsisted between us in the flesh is now about 
 to be terminated; but when I am gone, I do 
 not want to be forgotten, I want you still to 
 think of me, to bear me tenderly and lovingly 
 in your mind and heart, to remember what 
 I was to you while I was here with you ; what 
 I have spoken to you; how I love you; how 
 I even at last died for you upon the cross. In 
 a word, this command : "Do this in remem- 
 brance of me/' was a tender appeal to His 
 disciples to be cherished in their memory when 
 once, after His death and ascension, He would 
 visibly be no longer with them. 
 
 There is a revelation in all this of the true 
 humanity of Christ. For how genuinely hu- 
 man is this desire to be remembered by our 
 friends when once we are gone! 
 
 A n d, in compliance with His wish, Christ, 
 in this Sacrament, has also been remembered. 
 253 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 This Sacrament, thus instituted "in the night 
 of His betrayal" by our Saviour, in order that 
 He might be remembered, has been sacredly 
 observed by the Church, in obedience to her 
 Lord's command, in all ages and lands, ever 
 since. Doctrinal differences concerning it, 
 almost without number, have marked, and 
 alas ! have also divided the Church in all her 
 history ; and the followers of Christ, even now 
 yet, see not "eye to eye" with regard to its 
 content or essential nature. But, to all, it is 
 still a precious " Sacrament ," and is observed, 
 with rare exceptions, by all who profess His 
 name, in obedience to the command of their 
 one common Lord. In her past history the 
 Church has been driven by the cruel hand of 
 persecution out into the wilderness, and has 
 been compelled to hide herself in dens and 
 caves of the earth, in catacomb and forest and 
 field; has been homeless ,and shelterless; has 
 been without sanctuary or altar ; and yet always 
 even in her darkest days has she heeded this 
 command of her dying Lord, and, in her 
 use of this holy Sacrament has honored Him 
 254 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 as her Saviour, and has fed upon Him as her 
 living bread. 
 
 And thus she is today still doing. In Prot- 
 estant, in Greek, and in Roman Catholic 
 branches of the Christian Church, on continent 
 and island of the sea, in Gospel and in heathen 
 lands, wherever Christ anywhere has those that 
 love and fear Him, there also, in some form, 
 and with some approach of fidelity to its right 
 apprehension and use, seeking her Lord in 
 it, and striving by its observance to honor Him, 
 the Church, today, as ever since the night of 
 its institution, observes this Sacrament of the 
 Altar. 
 
 And thus, also, will she observe it to the 
 very end of time. For always will Christ have 
 a church in the world, and always, until time 
 shall be no more, will that Church also honor 
 her Lord by the use of His parting sacra- 
 ment; as the Apostle teaches, when he says, 
 "As often as ye eat this bread, and drink this 
 cup, ye do show the Lord's death till He 
 come." 
 
 And may it not be that even in the life 
 eternal, in the Church redeemed and triumph- 
 255 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ant above, when once the saints of all ages, 
 and of all lands, shall be gathered into the 
 one General Assembly and Church of the First 
 Born on high, may it not be that even there 
 and then it still will, in some form, be eter- 
 nally observed? Most probably it will be. 
 As a remembrance of Calvary, as an eternal 
 medium of Communion with Christ, and of 
 feasting upon Him, even in His immediate and 
 glorified presence, it is probable that this Holy 
 Sacrament will still be observed. "Verily I 
 say unto you, I will drink no more of the 
 fruit of the vine until that day that I drink- 
 it new in the Kingdom of God." "They shall 
 hunger no more, neither thirst any more; 
 for the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
 throne shall feed them, and shall lead them 
 unto living fountains of waters.'' How in- 
 spiring the thought. 
 
 In its moral and spiritual influences and 
 benefits this Holy Sacrament is incalculably 
 precious. It is a full rich "channel of grace" 
 to the believing soul; a divinely established 
 medium in which Christ Himself is received as 
 256 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 a savor of life unto life by all those who come, 
 in true spiritual worthiness, to it. 
 
 I. There is no other ordinance which brings 
 so vividly before us, as does this, the great 
 central fact of our Saviour's atoning death for 
 us upon Calvary. Regarding it still as a mere- 
 ly commemorative ordinance, it points us back 
 to Golgotha ; reveals to us the Cross ; tells us 
 of atonement, of vicariousness, of substitution ; 
 speaks to us of Christ, the innocent One, dying 
 for us, the guilty ones ; pictures to us our re- 
 demption, not with silver and gold, but with 
 the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb 
 without blemish and without spot. Using the 
 Apostle's language, we may say that Christ, 
 in this Sacrament, is evidently set forth, cru- 
 cified before us. The broken bread speaks to 
 us of his broken body. The cup, with its crim- 
 son contents, tells us of His Blood : ''the blood 
 of the New Testament which is shed for many 
 for the remission of sins." 
 
 All this is, indeed, most precious truth; the 
 very core and heart of the Gospel ; so that 
 every time we come to the Lord's Table we 
 come also, as it were anew to our Lord's Cross, 
 
 2 = 7 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 And we all, in this day, need as Christians, 
 to emphasize to our faith this old Gospel fact. 
 Much of our modern theology is tainted with 
 unsoundness of this vital fact. "The Cross," 
 now, as of old, is to many an "offence. " With 
 many there is but a feeble apprehension of 
 human sinfulness, of man's guilt before God 
 as a sinner, and of his need of a Saviour ; and 
 hence, there is also a corresponding tendency to 
 lower, and even to ignore entirely, the atoning 
 nature of the death of Christ; to spurn what 
 they scornfully call "blood theology," as the 
 true solution of the mystery of that Death. 
 
 But, reject it who will, it still remains true, 
 and will abide eternally true, that we are saved 
 "by the Blood" ; that the "cross" is the foun- 
 tain of our salvation ; that Christ, by His death 
 in our stead, and as a Sacrifice for our sins, 
 saved us from death; in a word, that the 
 "Atonement" is a precious central fact: the 
 pivotal fact in the whole amazing divine scheme 
 of human redemption. "Having made peace," 
 says the Apostle, "through the Blood of His 
 Cross." "Neither by the blood of goats and 
 calves, but by His own blood, He entered in 
 258 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 once into the Holy Place, having obtained 
 eternal redemption for us ;" "And they sung 
 a new song, saying : Thou art worthy to take 
 the book, and to open the seals thereof, for 
 thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God 
 by Thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue 
 and people, and nation." 
 
 Hold fast, then, my brethren, as the central 
 fact of redemption, to the atoning character of 
 the death of Christ. Regard it, now and al- 
 ways, as a most precious divine verity. Em- 
 phasize the Cross. Make much of the Blood 
 of Christ. Keep on singing, as from childhood 
 you have sung: 
 
 "There is a fountain filled with blood, 
 Drawn from Immanuers veins ; 
 
 And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
 Lose all their guilty stains." 
 
 This law or principle of Vicariousness ex- 
 ists, indeed, everywhere under God's moral and 
 providential Government. The most common 
 experience in common life is vicarious pain. 
 In the home, society, the state, we continually 
 see one person bearing the suffering due to 
 259 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 another. Luthardt says, "Love is, in its na- 
 ture, substitutionary." Parents bear their 
 children's burdens; one friend takes another's 
 pain. 
 
 It is sometimes said that vicarious suffering 
 is not just or equitable. Objection is made 
 that the "innocent cannot in fairness, bear the 
 punishment of the guilty." True, if the suf- 
 ferer receives no adequate compensation. But 
 Christ was rewarded. "He saw of the travail 
 of His soul and was satisfied." True, if there 
 was unwillingness on the part of either party 
 to the transaction. But there is none here. 
 Christ is willing to suffer ; God is willing that 
 Christ should suffer ; and if, now, the sinner is 
 willing that God should save him through the 
 suffering of Christ, who shall offer objection? 
 
 ,It is also said that this view of the atone- 
 ment encourages a continuance in sin. Just the 
 reverse is true. Paul answers that objection in 
 Romans vi. 1-4. 
 
 Believe it, then, and rest your trust for sal- 
 vation solidly on it. Let it be a blessed reality 
 in the grasp of your faith here, to-day. The 
 design of this Holy Supper is to give it such 
 260 
 
Jov in the Divine Government. 
 
 reality to your faith, and to make the death 
 of your Saviour as a High-Priestly and Sacri- 
 ficial act stand out before the vision of your 
 soul in all possible clearness, and fulness, and 
 joy. 
 
 II. This blessed Sacrament is, however, to 
 us as believers and disciples of Christ, infinitely 
 more than merely thus commemorative of His 
 death. It communicates, as well as commem- 
 orates. It brings to us a present Christ, with 
 all the treasures of His saving grace, as well 
 as reminds us of the historic Christ that once 
 was : the Christ who once in the past lived, 
 and then died for us upon the Cross. It pre- 
 sents to us a Saviour living now, actually now 
 present with us in this Holy Sacrament, giving 
 Himself to us now, as once upon Calvary, eigh- 
 teen hundred years ago, He gave Himself for 
 us. , 
 
 The blessings which Christ here, in this 
 Holy Sacrament, in and with Himself, bestows 
 upon us, as His believing disciples, are both 
 many and precious. He here brings us indeed 
 into His banqueting chamber and His banner 
 over us is "Love." 
 
 261 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Here at our Saviour's Table, we, as Chris- 
 tians, have, first of all, the blessed assurance 
 and joy of the full pardon of all our sins. 
 
 "Calvary" was, as we have seen, an atone- 
 ment for sin. Whose? "Mine," says the be- 
 liever, as he stands at the Table of his cru- 
 cified Lord, "Mine." He here hears the Saviour 
 say to him: "Take, eat, this is My body 
 which is broken for you." "This cup is the 
 New Testament in My blood which is shed 
 for you." "For you." "For me?" cries the 
 believer. "Yes," says the Divine Word, "for 
 you." "Thank God," his faith now exclaims, 
 "it was for me." "He loved me and gave 
 Himself for me; my Lord and my God; O 
 Christ, I accept the work which Thou didst 
 there thus accomplish for me, and which the 
 Holy Ghost now in the Word, offers to me; 
 trusting that word, word sure as God Himself, 
 word divine which can never be broken, I 
 know I am pardoned, justified, saved." 
 
 "My soul looks back to see 
 The burden Thou didst bear 
 
 When hanging on the cursed tree, 
 And knows her guilt was there." 
 262 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 And thus, by simple faith in the Word of 
 Christ, spoken in the institution of this Holy 
 Sacrament, the believing communicant has the 
 assurance and joy as he partakes of it that 
 he is, indeed, a pardoned and saved sinner. 
 
 But, here at the Lord's Table, we have, 
 also, as Christians, not only the deepest appre- 
 hensions of the greatness of Christ's love for 
 us, but also the warmest quickening of our 
 love to Him. 
 
 At no other time does the infinite largeness 
 of the love of Christ for us sinners so impress 
 us as here at His Table. How eloquent of 
 divine love this holy ordinance is ! How touch- 
 ingly it shows us, as it were, the very heart 
 of God! That death of Christ on Calvary, 
 which the Lord's Supper exhibits, was, indeed, 
 the highest possible expression of the infinite 
 love. So the Scriptures always express it. 
 "God so loved the world that He gave His 
 Only-Begotten Son." Christ, "having loved 
 His own, which were in the world, loved them 
 even unto the end." "Greater love hath no 
 man than this, that a man lay down his life 
 for his friend, but God commendeth His love 
 263 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 toward us in that while we were yet sinners, 
 Christ died for us." Thus was infinite, unmer- 
 ited, divine love the inspiration of that death 
 on Calvary of Christ Jesus for us. And now 
 that "love" this "Holy Supper," as in a pic- 
 ture or object lesson, reveals before us. Faith 
 sees it. And as it is thus looked at by faith 
 through these broken emblems the Holy Spirit 
 whispers to the soul of the believer : "It was 
 thee whom He thus loved unto death; it was 
 for thy salvation that He thus bowed Himself 
 in the bitterness of all that dreadful agony : 
 
 For love of thee He bled, 
 
 And all in torture died; 
 'Twas love for thee that bowed His head, 
 
 And oped his gushing side. 
 
 And this revelation to us in the Lord's Sup- 
 per of Christ's love for us, serves, also to 
 quicken our love to Him. Made, in this blessed 
 ordinance, to realize the greatness of Christ's 
 love for us, we also, as we stand at the Lord's 
 Table, are in return quickened in our love 
 for Him. Here, more than any where else, 
 we are made to love Him, because here we 
 264 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 are made to see and feel as nowhere else, how 
 much He loved us. The love of Christ here 
 constraineth us. The sight, by faith, of the 
 Cross of our Saviour, the witnessing thus of 
 His great Love for us, and of all which, moved 
 by love, He suffered for us and purchased for 
 us, melts our hard hearts, starts tears of grate- 
 ful love to our eyes, and draws us in reciprocal 
 love to Him as our Infinite Benefactor. And, 
 moved by this quickened love, we fall in holy 
 adoration before Him, and, in our hearts, cry 
 out to Him: "I love Thee, I love Thee, O 
 Christ. Thy love has won me. I cannot but 
 love Thee. 
 
 "Yes ! Thou shalt always have my heart, 
 My soul, my strength, my all ; 
 
 With life itself 111 freely part, 
 My Jesus, at Thy call." 
 
 But this Holy Sacrament is precious also to 
 us because there is no time when, as believers 
 in Christ, our love for each other is so quick- 
 ened, and when our hearts are so melted into 
 fervent and fraternal unity. 
 
 Here, at the Lord's Table, we are made to 
 265 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 realize, as nowhere else, that we are brethren. 
 In the holy presence of our common Lord, 
 in this Communion, all strife is hushed, all 
 wrongs forgiven, all enmities melted into love 
 in the light and warmth of the love of Christ, 
 Him Who is the Great Reconciler of us all to 
 all alienations reconciled in the presence of 
 God. 
 
 It is said of Bishop Warburton, of England, 
 that in giving the cup, on one occasion, to 
 a communicant who had been his life-long 
 enemy, he tenderly bent over him and said: 
 "Dear brother, let this cup to-day be the cup 
 of mutual love and reconciliation between us." 
 So it has often been between those who had 
 been estranged. So should it always be be- 
 tween all who come together to their Mas- 
 ter's Table. So let it here be, to-day. So it 
 is, I trust. When you come here then, to-day, 
 to your Master's Table, stand close together, 
 my brethren. Let heart beat warm to heart. 
 Let hand clasp hand in love. Forget not 
 that ye are all children in the same blessed 
 household of faith, heirs of the same God 
 and joint-heirs with the same Lord Jesus 
 266 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Christ, to the same inheritance, even that 
 which is "incorruptible, and undefiled, and that 
 fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you." 
 
 But this Holy Sacrament is more yet in 
 blessing even than all this, to those who come 
 to it in true faith. 
 
 It not only thus, in its subjective influences, 
 brings us spiritually to Christ, and to each 
 other, but better than all these it also brings 
 Christ to us, gives to us our personal Lord Him- 
 self. This is, indeed, in the deepest, truest sense 
 of the word, a Sacrament, "commanded of God 
 and having the promise of grace." In the 
 words of our Catechism, "It is the Body and 
 Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, under the 
 external signs of bread and wine, given unto 
 Christians, to eat and drink, as it was insti- 
 tuted by Christ Himself." 
 
 ,This Holy Sacrament has in itself objective 
 reality, inherent sacramental character and 
 blessing. It is, by virtue of its divine insti- 
 tution, a channel or "Means of Grace." We 
 do not make it such means of grace : Christ 
 has made it all this. We put nothing into it; 
 we only receive from it the divine contents 
 267 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 which Christ has placed in it, namely, the 
 grace, the heavenly blessing, Christ Himself, 
 Who, through it, communicates Himself to all 
 who eat and drink of it. 
 
 It is not a mere remembrance, a mere con- 
 fession, a mere witnessing : it is really a "com- 
 munion/' an actual feeding of the soul upon 
 the glorified Christ. It is the Lord's Supper. 
 Jesus Himself is in this sacrament, and through 
 it, He is offered to, and received by, all who 
 partake of it. As our Confession declares : 
 "Of the Supper of the Lord they teach that 
 the Body and Blood of Christ are truly pres- 
 ent, and truly communicated to those that eat 
 in the Lord's Supper." Or, as even Dr. Watts 
 has sung: 
 
 "Here, at Thy table, Lord, we meet 
 
 To feed on food divine; 
 Thy body is the Bread we eat, 
 
 Thy precious Blood the wine." 
 
 To this Holy Sacrament we are now, as 
 Brethren in the Gospel Ministry, and as fellow 
 members of the Church of Christ, about to 
 come. "All things are now ready." The 
 Feast is prepared. The Master Himself has 
 268 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 set for us the Table. "Thou preparest a table 
 before me in the presence of my enemies, Thou 
 anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth 
 over." And now he invites us to it, and waits 
 to welcome us as His guests. 
 
 Come, then. Come, hungering after Christ 
 as the divine food for your soul. Come, thirst- 
 ing for Christ, as the divine water of life, 
 "of which if a man drink he shall never thirst." 
 Come in humility, in penitence, in faith, in love, 
 in renewed consecration of yourself, and your 
 all, for time and eternity, to Him. And, thus 
 coming, we, as the disciples on the way to 
 Emmaus, holding blessed converse and com- 
 panionship here to-day with our Risen Lord, 
 shall feel the warm glow of His love, and shall 
 say to each other: "Did not our heart burn 
 within us while He talked with us by the way ?" 
 
 Brethren of the Gospel Ministry. You espe- 
 cially will, to-day, rejoice to stand here to- 
 gether at the Table of your Divine Lord. 
 Toiling, as we are, in widely separated Fields ; 
 often burdened with duties and cares and sor- 
 rows beyond our strength ; isolated, lonely, and 
 often cast down ; how we long for each other. 
 269 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 How our hearts ache, at times, for each other's 
 presence, and sympathy, and words of cheer. 
 To-day that longed-for joy is realized. We are 
 to-day together. And together we are now 
 to stand here, side by side, at this Table of 
 our Master. It is a blessed privilege. I rejoice 
 in it. My heart quickens at the thought. I 
 grow impatient in my love for you, as brother 
 ministers, and as brethren in Christ, to come 
 with you here. May He, whose servants we 
 are, whom we preach, and to whom we have 
 given up our lives, as His ambassadors; He, 
 who is the Chief Shepherd of us all ; may He, 
 I say, to-day, gloriously and abundantly impart 
 Himself in all the fulness of His Divine- 
 Human Person, to each one of us. May He 
 fill us with the comfort and strength of the 
 Holy Ghost. May we here, by this food from 
 heaven, be girded anew for our work. And 
 having all stood faithfully at our various posts 
 of duty, and done for Him here on earth our 
 work, when at last one by one we fall in death, 
 as soon w T e will, may it only be to arise and 
 awake in that other and heavenly life, where 
 forever we shall be with each other and with 
 the Lord. 
 
 270 
 
DR. MARTIN LUTHER AS A 
 CHRISTIAN. 
 
 TEXT. 
 u He being dead yet speaketh" — Hebrews vxi. 4. 
 
 To a consideration of this purely Christian 
 side of Dr. Luther's character, or to the con- 
 templation of Luther simply as a disciple of 
 Christ, I wish, to-day, to invite your atten- 
 tion. It is both an interesting and profitable 
 subject, and its study will do us good. Mar- 
 tin Luther, as an example of piety, commends 
 himself to the imitation of us all, and, in this 
 respect especially, he, being dead, yet speak- 
 eth. 
 
 Considering him in this respect, let us look 
 at Luther's piety. 
 
 I. In its experimental and deeply spir- 
 itual BEGINNING \ AND 
 
 II. In its lofty subsequent development 
 
 AND MATURITY. 
 
 Luther's Christian life began where a gen- 
 uine Christian life always begins, and where 
 271 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 alone it can begin; viz., in his personal spirit- 
 ual quickening by the Holy Ghost. It began 
 in his coming by faith, as a lost sinner, to 
 Christ, and in his acceptance of Him as his 
 own personal Saviour. From his childhood 
 he had not only been strictly moral but had 
 also been in external devotion exceedingly re- 
 ligious. Never had a day of his life passed 
 without Prayer. Always he had faithfully 
 observed every requirement of the Church, 
 and no known religious duty did he ever omit. 
 Like Paul, he was, "in the law blameless. " 
 But yet, with all this fidelity to the external 
 duties of a religious life, he had no true peace ; 
 no real rest of conscience. He still felt bur- 
 dened with a sense of guilt and of unreconcil- 
 iation to God. "How shall man be just with 
 God?" "What shall it profit a man if he gain 
 the whole world and lose his soul?" These 
 were questions which often, he tells us, 
 pressed heavily upon him and often filled him 
 with inexpressible wretchedness. No one, per- 
 haps, ever had a deeper sense of sin or came 
 under a deeper sense of his lost and ruined 
 state because of sin, than he did. When 
 272 
 
Joy in the Diving Government. 
 
 Alexis, one of his intimate college friends, 
 was assassinated he was most deeply affected, 
 and cried out: "What would have become of 
 me had I thus suddenly been called away?" 
 Soon afterward, in the same year, 1505, when 
 on a visit to his parents, a short distance from 
 Erfurt, he was overtaken by a terrific thun- 
 derstorm, and was filled with terror at the 
 thought that his hour had come, and that he 
 might now be summoned to meet God. Fall- 
 ing upon his knees he prayed earnestly for 
 mercy. And thus, for several years, he felt 
 fiis guilt ; saw the pollution of his soul ; real- 
 ized himself a lost, undone sinner, seeking 
 peace meanwhile in the prescribed works and 
 ceremonies of the Church and in efforts at 
 self-salvation, with none to show him to Christ 
 and to the Cross. So great was his convic- 
 tion that, at length, when he was a student in 
 the University of Erfurt, his distress of soul, 
 under this burden of his sinfulness and lost 
 condition became so great, so utterly intoler- 
 able, that, relinquishing all the fine prospects 
 before him, he fled into the neighboring Au- 
 gustinian Monastery, hoping there, by pen- 
 273 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ances and vigils and fasts and bodily morti- 
 fications, to work out a righteousness which 
 should be well-pleasing to God and bring him 
 the peace of soul for which he longed. But 
 the more he thus sought, the deeper he sank 
 in spiritual wretchedness; the denser became 
 the gloom of his soul ; the heavier pressed upon 
 him his burden of bitter anguish. 
 
 One day, when sitting at the table in the 
 Monastery silent and dejected, the Vicar-Gen- 
 eral said to him : " Why are you so sad, Brother 
 Martin ?" "Ah," he replied, "my sins, my sins. 
 Alas, I do not know what will become of me." 
 "It is vain/' he cried, "that I make promises. 
 Sin is ever the strongest." Then the Vicar- 
 General, Staupitz by name, who was himself 
 a true believer in Christ, said to him : "Why do 
 you thus torment yourself? Look at the 
 wounds of Jesus Christ. Look to the blood 
 which He shed for you. Instead of torturing 
 yourself thus about your sins, and trying your- 
 self to atone for them, throw yourself, by 
 faith, with them, into the Redeemer's arms. 
 Trust in Him; in the righteousness of His 
 life, in the atonement of His death. Do not 
 274 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 shrink back. God is not angry with you. It 
 is you who are angry with God." 
 
 Like a direct voice from heaven came these 
 gospel-words to Luther's wounded spirit. In 
 a moment he now saw it all ; saw God's whole 
 plan of salvation. Man is justified before 
 God, not by works but only through faith in 
 the blood of Christ. "God forgives man," he 
 exclaims, "freely, fully, immediately, alone 
 for the sake of Christ. By believing in Christ, 
 by trusting my soul to Christ, God promises 
 to forgive me. I do believe. I believe in the 
 forgiveness of sins. I believe in the forgive- 
 ness, for Christ's sake, of my sins. I now 
 believe." 
 
 Thus believing, at once the burden fell 
 from his soul, and the peace of mind which 
 he had so long sought was, at last, his. As 
 D'Aubigne writes : "From this moment light 
 sprung up in the heart of that young monk of 
 Erfurt. The word of divine pardoning grace 
 had been spoken to him; he believed it; and 
 now, disclaiming all self-merit of salvation, 
 he resigns himself confidingly to the favor 
 of God through Jesus Christ." 
 275 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Yet other experiences, however, were neces- 
 sary to bring Luther out into the full assur- 
 ance of this new life in Christ into which he 
 had thus been brought. And these, also, God 
 gave him. 
 
 Several years after this date, while Luther 
 was engaged in his duties as a professor in 
 the University of Wittenberg (in 1509), and 
 whilst preparing lectures on the Epistle to 
 the Romans, he came to the passage : "The 
 just shall live by faith.'' His meditations on 
 this Epistle had brought much of the light of 
 truth into his soul; but now. this passage 
 impresses him with more than ordinary em- 
 phasis. He receives it into his heart as a spe- 
 cial message from God. It gives strength 
 henceforth to the life of God in his soul. It 
 brings him victory in every hour of doubt 
 and conflict. On a journey to Rome (in 15 10 
 or possibly later), and being stricken down 
 with sickness at Bologna, his former distress 
 of mind again weighed heavily upon him, es- 
 pecially his sense of sin, in view of the near- 
 ness of the judgment. But just when his an- 
 guish was at its height this same word — "The 
 276 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 just shall live by faith" — again beamed in 
 upon his soul as a special ray from heaven. It 
 dispelled his fears and again brought him 
 peace and joy. 
 
 But Luther was not yet in the full and abid- 
 ing possession of gospel freedom. He was 
 still somewhat under the influence of a lin- 
 gering delusion. He could not yet fully rid 
 himself of the almost universal belief in the 
 efficiency of indulgences, and of masses, 
 prayers, and other good works, to deliver the 
 soul from the fires of purgatory. Having ar- 
 rived at Rome, he was one day, under the 
 power of this delusion, ascending upon his 
 knees "Pilate's Staircase." Whilst thus en- 
 gaged, he seemed to hear a voice speaking to 
 him in thundertones from the very depths of 
 his soul: "The just shall live by faith." It 
 was enough. Horrified, and ashamed of his 
 superstition and degradation, he sprung from 
 his knees, a free man forever — free in the ful- 
 ness of the gospel of Christ, and free from 
 the delusions and superstitions of Rome, for- 
 ever. He now speaks of himself as being 
 277 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 born again a new man, and as entering by an 
 opened door into Paradise itself. 
 
 God had now given His own work His own 
 finishing touch. He had taught Luther fully 
 the doctrine of <<r Juistificatior^ by Faith alone;" 
 and it, through Luther, went out henceforth 
 as the Church's hope, to fall no more forever. 
 Luther and the Church could henceforth sing : 
 "Ich habe nun den grund gefunden: 
 
 I now have found the sure foundation, 
 
 That holds my anchor evermore; 
 'Tis found alone in Christ's redemption, 
 And naught was in God's plan, before; 
 This anchor-ground shall ever stay, 
 When earth and heaven have passed away. 
 
 Thus did Luther, as a Christian, begin at 
 the real and true beginning of a Christian life. 
 He came ; as a convicted, sin-burdened soul, 
 to Christ. He cast himself, as such, by faith 
 on Christ, and on Him alone, for the salvation 
 he needed. He saw, in all its evangelical ful- 
 ness and clearness, God's method of saving- 
 sinners. He heartily accepted it. He, at once, 
 also felt and knew its blessed saving power in 
 278 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 his own soul. At once, also, he was assured 
 that he was in Christ; that he was reconciled 
 to God ; and that he had the testimony of the 
 Holy Ghost within his own heart through 
 faith in God's word, that his sins, for Christ's 
 sake, were pardoned, and that he now was in- 
 deed an heir of heaven. 
 
 And that also, I may add, was the birth- 
 hour of the Reformation. Then, already, 
 when Luther thus was once brought to see 
 that God's plan of saving sinners is, not by 
 works of man's righteousness, but only and 
 fully through simple faith in the Lord Jesus 
 Christ, then, I say, was the great Protestant 
 Reformation, also, born ; a Reformation whose 
 essential and cardinal doctrine is the great 
 gospel doctrine of "Justification alone by 
 Faith." 
 
 The true anniversary therefore of the Ref- 
 ormation is not the anniversary of Luther's 
 natural birth, November ioth, 1483, nor of the 
 nailing up of the ninety-five theses, but the 
 anniversary of his new, spiritual quickening. 
 The day when he thus first experienced, 
 through faith in Christ, that his sins were for- 
 279 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 given, that he was a redeemed and reconciled 
 child of God; that was the day on which the 
 Reformation was really born, the day when 
 the Gospel was again restored to man. 
 
 In view of this conversion, and real heart- 
 consciousness of his salvation, which Luther 
 thus experienced, let no one ever regard Luth- 
 er as some wrongly do, as a mere formalist or 
 half Romanist in religion. No one ever had 
 a deeper personal religious experience than 
 he. No one knew better than he what "Ex- 
 perimental Piety" is. 
 
 Proceeding, let us now notice : 
 
 II. — The Christian character or piety of 
 Luther in its splendid subsequent development 
 or maturity. 
 
 Luther not only began well as a Christian, 
 but he also continued well as such. He not 
 only received the new life of Christ into his 
 soul, but he also cultivated and carefully nour- 
 ished what he had thus received. 
 
 There are two means which God has pro- 
 vided, by whose faithful use our spiritual or 
 new life in Christ can and will be increased, 
 and will be made to grow, and expand into 
 280 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 healthful and fruitful vigor. Those two 
 means are God's Word and Prayer. The 
 Word is the soul's true spiritual food, con- 
 taining Christ, the Divine Manna from heav- 1 - 
 en, and he that eateth of that bread shall never 
 hunger. Prayer, as the expression of desire 
 and faith, is the spiritual hand by which man 
 reaches out and takes hold of this food ; or, in 
 answer to which, God imparts the blessed con- 
 tents of the Word to the soul, and feeds it 
 richly upon that food. And thus by the Word 
 of God, including, of course, always the Sac- 
 raments which are God's visible word to man, 
 the Christian life is nourished and is made 
 stronger day by day, down to the close of 
 life. 
 
 Thus pre-eminently did Luther, as a Chris- 
 tian, nourish the new life of Christ which was 
 begun in his baptism and quickened into con- 
 ciousness in his conversion. No one, as a 
 Christian, ever more loved, and studied, and 
 fed upon, and built himself up in christian 
 character, by the constant study of the Bible, 
 or Word of God, than did Luther. His love 
 for it was a very passion in his soul. What- 
 281 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 ever might be his other cares and duties, he 
 would still find a few hours' time each day 
 for the private reading and study of the Sa- 
 cred Scriptures; and often he would snatch 
 hours of needed rest at night, and devote them 
 to meditation upon the precious truths which 
 God here in His Word revealed to him. When 
 he was a prisoner for nine months in the 
 Castle Wartburg, all his time, day and night, 
 save only what was absolutely needed for 
 sleep, was given up to this one book: God's 
 Book. During the five months, also that he 
 was a prisoner in the Castle of Coburg, he 
 again gave himself up to the study of it alone. 
 And, to-day yet, in the room which he then oc- 
 cupied in the Castle of Coburg may be seen 
 written, in his coarse, bold chirography, all 
 over the walls and doors of the room, one pre- 
 cious passage of God's word after the other. 
 In one place, e. g., are these words : "I shall not 
 die but live and declare the works of the Lord." 
 In another place, over the head of his bed, is 
 this passage: "I will both lay me down in 
 peace and sleep, for thou, Lord, only makest 
 me dwell in safety." In the museum at Ber- 
 282 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 lin there is carefully preserved his hand Bible, 
 the copy which he had constantly on his 
 study-table, and which he daily used. The 
 margin of almost every page is all written 
 over with comments, suggestions, holy aspi- 
 rations and prayers; and on the title-page he 
 has written : "If this, Thy Word, O Lord, do 
 not comfort me, I shall perish in misery." 
 
 Thus was the Bible ever a precious book to 
 Luther ; and thus did he daily and hourly feed 
 his soul upon it, and build himself up in chris- 
 tian character and life by it. 
 
 Equally was Luther a man of prayer. His 
 biographers tell us that two hours each day 
 he gave up to private devotion ; and, in order 
 to have them, he would often rise long before 
 day, or sit up late in the night, but, under no 
 circumstances, would he suffer himself to be 
 deprived of this daily private communion with 
 God. He never felt himself prepared, is his 
 testimony, for the many cares and duties and 
 perplexities which each day brought to him, 
 until he had first gone in prayer to God, and 
 had received strength from Him for them. 
 283 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 And his motto was, you know: "To have 
 prayed well is to have studied well." 
 
 Thus, all through his life, he was a man of 
 prayer. Read his biography, and see what a 
 man of prayer he was. Nothing was begun 
 or done without prayer. Read his prayer for 
 God's help, e. g., before he went into the Diet 
 at Worms, where he made such a sublime con- 
 fession for Christ. Read his prayer, so ten- 
 der and submissive, as he bends over the form 
 of his darling little daughter Magdalene, cold 
 in death, saying : "I love her exceedingly, but, 
 O God, as it is Thy will to take her hence, I 
 willingly resign her to Thee." Read his 
 prayer at Melanchthon's sick-bed, where, in the 
 unyielding importunity of his mighty faith, he 
 almost demanded from God his recovery. And 
 read, finally, his matchless deathbed prayer, 
 where, in peace and triumphant hope, he 
 sweetly commits himself and his all into the 
 hands of his covenant-keeping God, saying: "I 
 thank Thee, O God, the Father of our Lord 
 Jesus Christ, that Thou hast revealed Thy Son 
 to me, on whom I have believed, whom I have 
 loved; whom I have preached, confessed and 
 284 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 worshiped, whom the Pope and all the ungodly 
 abuse and slander. O my Lord Jesus, I com- 
 mend my poor soul to Thee." 
 
 Thus was our Luther pre-eminently a man 
 of prayer. The "Mercy-seat," both in life 
 and in death, was his refuge. Thither he car- 
 ried all his sorrows. To that blessed heavenly 
 arsenal he daily repaired for the spiritual 
 weapons he needed, and for needed strength 
 to wield them in the desperate conflict he was 
 waging against God's foes. His help in every 
 time of need, his strength to battle as he did 
 against all the mighty hosts of hell by which 
 he was ever so sorely besieged, was all gotten 
 on his knees; and his whole grand life-work 
 for Christ and for His Church was born and 
 bathed in his own inner spiritual life of prayer 
 and communion with God. 
 
 And so was it also in all the other graces 
 which constitute a high and true christian life 
 and character. He was eminent in them all, 
 and, as a splendid model of christian manhood 
 in all respects, "he, being dead, yet speaketh." 
 He gave evidence of exalted piety, and mani- 
 fested daily, "the fruits of the Spirit" as proof 
 285 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 that the Holy Spirit had, indeed, renewed him 
 in the image of Christ. His spirit and life 
 both declare him to have been, indeed, a true 
 child of God, a sincere, earnest, holy disciple 
 of the Saviour. 
 
 I claim not, of course, perfection for Luth- 
 er as a Christian, for no one is perfect. Faults 
 and imperfections may easily be detected both 
 in his spirit and life. He made no attempt to 
 conceal them. They all lie on the outside of 
 his great rugged nature, out in the full sun- 
 light of broad and open day. But still study 
 that character of his. Get yourself once right 
 into the innermost soul of the man. Acquaint 
 yourself thoroughly with him. Know his life. 
 And where, I ask, in all the world's great 
 galaxy of heroes, in all the Church's long cal- 
 endar of saints, can you, in lofty christian 
 character and sublime nobility of life, find any- 
 where his equal. Since the days when Paul 
 so majestically trod the earth for Christ, who, 
 in strength and perfection of holy spiritual 
 being, in loftiness and singleness of aim, in 
 high and mighty achievement for Christ, can 
 rival this great and good and glorious Luther ! 
 286 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 What joy fulness and cheerfulness of christian 
 spirit. What submission and resignation to 
 God's will under sore affliction. What deep 
 consciousness of sin and what oft-repeated and 
 humble confession of it before God. What 
 simple and evangelical faith in Christ as his 
 only ground of justification. What sublime 
 christian courage. What brave confession of 
 Christ and of His truth, even at the constant 
 peril of his life. What unselfish and tire- 
 less labors for Christ and His Church. What 
 holy, strong and unwavering confidence and 
 trust, at all times, in God, even in darkest 
 and gloomiest hours, cheering both his own 
 soul and those of others, by singing, in in- 
 spired words : "God is our refuge and 
 strength, a very present help in trouble," or 
 by chanting his own sublime "Battle Hymn," 
 appropriately called the "Marseillaise of the 
 Reformation :" "Ein feste Burg ist unser 
 Gott," 
 
 A mighty Stronghold is our God, 
 A sure Defence and Weapon. 
 
 Thus, in all the graces which make up 
 287 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 christian character, how great was Luther! 
 And how, when thus studied and contemplated 
 simply as an humble and true disciple of 
 Christ, he shows himself, measured by God's 
 own word, one of the loftiest and purest, and 
 best of all the sanctified host who have made 
 up the long history of the Church, and one 
 of the saintliest in all the long line of illus- 
 trious Christians who shine out in spiritual 
 splendor, like stars in the hour of night, from 
 the resplendent celestial glory. 
 
 Beloved, in this grandness of his christian 
 character and christian life, are we followers 
 of Luther? His early convictions of sin, his 
 living, peace-speaking faith in Christ as his 
 Saviour — have we these ? His love and study 
 of God's word — are we like him in that? His 
 devotion to prayer — doweresemblehim in that? 
 His consecration of his whole self to the service 
 and glory of God — in that are we like him? 
 His diligence and tireless labor for the salva- 
 tion of souls, his zeal for God's cause, his 
 fidelity to conscience, his heroism for the 
 truth, his brave courage in confessing Christ, 
 his humility, his confidence in God, his simple 
 288 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 faith in Christ, his holy joy and hope of a 
 better life when this life ends — in all these 
 christian graces are we like him? Luther's 
 grand piety, have we it? By such fellowship 
 and by such holy similarity of christian char- 
 acter and life are we and he bound together? 
 Ah, to be Christians as Luther was; let that 
 be our ambition. In that let us all copy and 
 follow him. Ever, more and more, in that 
 let us covet resemblance to him. 
 
 May the mighty voice of this great man of 
 God, this grand moral hero of the ages, this 
 sublime champion of Christ and of the Gospel, 
 this holy and heroic Luther, fall, to-day, with 
 living power, like a voice from heaven, upon 
 the conscience and heart of each one of us, 
 upon the world dead in sin, and upon the 
 Church so cold and formal and in such need 
 of a new Reformation, and awake and quick- 
 en us all, bringing again a blessing both to 
 Church and State; and thus, not only now, 
 but on through the coming centuries, and 
 down even to the end of time, in louder and 
 yet louder tones, may "he being dead" con- 
 tinue to speak, speak for our pure Protestant 
 289 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Bible-faith, for holy spiritual life and charac- 
 ter in all who have named the name of Christ, 
 for a Church separate from the world and full 
 of the Holy Ghost, speak for the truth, for 
 the right, for souls, for Christ, for God. 
 
 290 
 
THE REFORMATION THE 
 WORK OF GOD. 
 
 TEXT. 
 
 "And their appearance and their work was as it 
 were a wheel in the middle of a wheel" — Ezekiel 
 i. 18, 
 
 It is not necessary to enter into critical ex- 
 planation of these words of our text. To 
 do so would consume more time than we now 
 have at our command. They express, I believe, 
 the great Truth that God is in all Human His- 
 tory; that in, and over, and above, all Human 
 Activities there is ever an all-controlling Divine 
 Providence, directing man's thoughts and plans 
 and agencies so as to bring about, as the final 
 result of all, His own great Moral Ends. It 
 is the free agency of Man and the Infinite 
 Sovereignty of God conjoined, co-operating, 
 unconsciously often on man's part, to effect 
 what God wills for man's good and for His 
 own Divine Glory. The work which we call 
 "History" is, as it were, as our Text declares : 
 "A Wheel in the Middle of a Wheel:" the 
 291 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 one visible, the other invisible ; the one human, 
 the other Divine; the one grinding out, as it 
 thinks, its own self-willed and self-accomplished 
 results, and yet ever, in doing as it will, achiev- 
 ing the purposes of the Higher Will of Him 
 Who sits supreme above and over all. 
 
 This great Truth of "God in History" stands 
 out with marvellous clearness in connection 
 with the Reformation of the Sixteenth Cen- 
 tury. The whole history of that Wonderful 
 Movement, from first to last, declares that God 
 was in it, and that it was all His Work. No 
 power less than His could possibly have 
 achieved it. No other Philosophy or Solu- 
 tion of it than that which recognizes God as 
 its Author can ever satisfactorily explain it. 
 The Reformation is and can be only the Work 
 of God. Whatever may have been the sec- 
 ondary aids and occasions of the Vast Move- 
 ment; whatever may have been the mighty 
 Human Instrumentalities employed by which 
 to prosecute it, and by which it was led to 
 a successful and glorious issue, still before 
 all, back of all, above and over all, as the real 
 Cause and Power and Author of all, producing, 
 292 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 controlling, and determining all, was God. 
 "The world," said Luther, himself, one day, 
 "is a vast and magnificent Game of Cards, 
 made up of Emperors, Kings, and Princes. 
 The Pope, for many Centuries, beat the Em- 
 perors, Kings, and Princes. They yielded and 
 fell before him. Then came our Lord God. 
 He dealt the Cards. He took the lowest, 
 Luther, and with it He beat the Pope, that 
 Vanquisher of the Kings of the Earth. As 
 Mary sung: 'He hath put down the mighty 
 from their seats and exalted them of low de- 
 gree.' " 
 
 I wish to speak, to-day, upon 
 
 "The reformation as the work of God/' 
 
 I. There is clear proof of divine agency 
 
 ALREADY IN THE MULTIPLIED AND MARKED 
 OCCURRENCES WHICH PRECEDED THE REFORMA- 
 TION. 
 
 He entirely misconceives the real facts of 
 
 history who supposes that the Reformation, 
 
 like Minerva from the Brow of Jupiter, burst, 
 
 at once, born in a day, upon the World. On 
 
 293 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the contrary it was, like all real works of 
 God, brought into existence slowly. There 
 was a long Dawn before Day; Twilight be- 
 fore the full-orbed Sunrising; Prophecy of 
 better things before those better things them- 
 selves were given. As John the Baptist went 
 before the Coming Christ, and prepared the 
 way for Him, so there were Reformers before 
 the Reformation ; Lutherans before Luther ; 
 Protestants before Historic Protestantism; 
 Providences before the final Providences which 
 gave birth, at last, a second time, to Apostolic 
 Christianity in the World. 
 
 The Hundred Years preceding the Birth of 
 Luther were Years during which God was 
 busy, getting the World and Church ready 
 for Luther ; and without which Divine Prepar- 
 atory Work, Luther would have been an His- 
 toric Impossibility, and the Reformation un- 
 heard of in the past Annals of Time. But 
 God, I repeat, was busy. 
 
 What true Gospel Preachers, for example, 
 
 there were before Luther! John Wicklifife, 
 
 the Morning Star of the Reformation, born 
 
 in 1324 — more than 150 years before Luther, — 
 
 294 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 preached mightily the pure truth, translated 
 the Scriptures, lived and died for Christ, and 
 left a deep religious impress upon his day and 
 age. John Huss, born in 1369 in Bohemia, 
 had, a century before Luther, bravely exposed 
 the Corruption, and defied the Power, of the 
 haughty Church of Rome ; and when, July 6th, 
 1415, he was burned at the stake for the heroic 
 Confession which he had thus made, there 
 was "started a Fire the Red Glow of whose 
 Flames flashed far out upon the dark night, 
 and continued to shine until, at last, the new, 
 longed-for Reformation Day arose." Savona- 
 rola, also, the noble Italian Reformer, Patriot, 
 Martyr, right in the very Heart of Popedom, 
 held faithfully aloft the pure Banner of the 
 Cross, and bade men trust for salvation in 
 Him who there died for them! And then 
 what a long line of noble Martyrs, also, in 
 lower Ranks, before Luther, there were ! What 
 witnesses for Christ there were, here and there, 
 in many Lands, sealing their testimony with 
 their blood: more than two hundred having 
 been burned as heretics at the Stake in the 
 very City of Augsburg, where afterward the 
 295 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Reformers made their brave Confession of 
 our Holy Faith. And all these witnesses were 
 kindling the Fire and preparing the Conditions 
 of Success, for the great final Witnessing by 
 Luther and his fellow Reformers. 
 
 But there were many other marked prepara- 
 tory Providences. The discovery of the Art 
 of Printing in the year 1440, less than half 
 a Century before Luther was born; the Dis- 
 covery of America in 1492, only nine years 
 after his Birth; the Overthrow, just at that 
 time, of the Dominion of the Moors, who for 
 the previous eight hundred years had ruled 
 over Southern Spain and had menaced Europe ; 
 the Check which, at last, had just then been 
 given and the Victories which had just then 
 been secured over the invading Turks; the 
 Printing, just then, of the Bible ; the Founding 
 of the University of Wittenberg, in 1502, by 
 the Elector of Saxony, which afterward be- 
 came the very Center of the work of the Refor- 
 mation; the Conflicts of Rival Popes, and 
 the Divisions by which the Church of Rome 
 was then torn and shaken to her Center; the 
 Jealousy and Contests for Supremacy between 
 296 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 the Papal and the Imperial Power; the Re- 
 vival of Learning, and especially of the Study 
 of the Classics, and of Biblical Hebrew and 
 Greek, under Reuchlin and Erasmus and oth- 
 ers; the Dethronement of Scholastic Philoso- 
 phy, and the awakened Desire of the Literary 
 World for a more solid Scholarship ; and, above 
 all, the deep-seated and inextinguishable Long- 
 ing of Human Hearts, every where, for a 
 clearer Knowledge of God, and for a more 
 satisfying Way of Salvation: these all reveal 
 the Presence and over-ruling Agency of God, 
 working in anticipation of the Reformation, 
 breaking up the fallow Ground, removing 
 obstacles, overturning opposing forces, gather- 
 ing the needed materials, kindling and fanning 
 the increasing flame, and every where, by the 
 awakened mental activities of the age, by social 
 upheavals, by political complications and en- 
 tanglements, by the growing corruptions and 
 oppressions and wicked ambitions even of the 
 Church, by the sudden birth and progress of 
 Science, of Literature, of Art, of Discovery, of 
 Invention: by all of these factors, God Him- 
 self, in that Century, trod with Divine Imperial 
 297 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 step out ove*r the broad busy Theatre of the 
 World's History, and, louder and mightier than 
 all other Voices, His Voice commanded : "Pre- 
 pare ye the Way of the Lord, make His paths 
 straight. Let every Valley be exalted, and 
 every Mountain and Hill be made low, and 
 the crooked be made straight, and the rough 
 places plain; and the Glory of the Lord shall 
 be revealed, and all Flesh shall see it together : 
 for the Mouth of the Lord hath spoken it." 
 But we have also: 
 
 II. Clear proof of God's agency in the 
 
 REFORMATION PERIOD ITSELF! IN THE INSTRU- 
 MENTS, INFLUENCES, ACTORS, AND FORCES 
 THERE EMPLOYED. 
 
 ,These are all intensely at work, acting and 
 counter-acting on each other, aiding or check- 
 mating each other, each with its own special 
 object or end in view, and yet each, as we 
 can see now, whether Friend or Foe, whether 
 desiring to do so or unwilling to do so, each, 
 I say, helping on to Success the Great Re- 
 formation Work, and all together revealing 
 God, presiding over all, and, by and through 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 all, working out His own great Purposes of 
 Blessing to the World and to the Church. 
 
 Take Luther, for example, the chief Actor 
 in the stirring Drama, the mighty Human 
 Leader of the august Movement, the princi- 
 pal Instrument, under God, by which the 
 sublime Work was achieved — what a child 
 of Providence he was ! How his history from 
 Beginning to End, shows Divine Purpose, 
 Guidance, Protection, Control! What suc- 
 cessive Providential Links bind together and 
 unify the whole Life of that Wonderful Man ! 
 Who can read his Marvellous Biography and 
 not be compelled to say : "This Man is a very 
 Prophet of the Almighty, divinely created 
 for His Work, separated from his very Birth 
 to it, directed at every step of his Being in 
 it !" Read his Life ! With what transcendent 
 natural abilities for his Work did not God 
 endow Him ! Physically, mentally, socially ; 
 his will, his courage, what traits characterize 
 him! And then what a Providential History 
 he had! How clearly God's Hand was in it 
 all! His birth, for example, of peasant, and 
 not of noble, blood, so that the Glory of his 
 299 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 great Work could be attributed only to God 
 and not to Man ; the Piety of his Parents, and 
 their earnest Religious Training of him; his 
 Father's Efforts, poor as he was, to give the 
 promising boy an Education; the boy's own 
 insatiable Thirst for Learning; his painful 
 Experiences as a Charity Student at Mans- 
 feld, at Magdeburg, at Eisenach, at Erfurt; 
 his Poverty, compelling him to sing before 
 the doors of the citizens of Magdeburg, cry- 
 ing, "Panem propter Deum," "Bread for God's 
 sake" ; his Adoption into her home by the com- 
 passionate Madam Ursala Cotta, where he 
 remained three years ; his astonishing Success 
 as a Student in the University of Erfurt, where 
 his genius arrested the attention of all, and 
 gave promise of a most brilliant Future; his 
 Providential Discovery while there of a Copy 
 of the Bible; its Effect upon Him, in reveal- 
 ing to him the Errors and Corruptions of the 
 Church, and, above all, revealing the Sins of 
 his own heart, and of his Need of a Saviour ; 
 the Incident of the Thunder-Storm, and the 
 sudden Death, right by his Side, of his young 
 Friend; his own nearness to Death by a 
 300 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Wound which he accidentally received; his 
 deepening Sense of Sin ; his Flight for Spiritual 
 Relief into the Monastery ; his Disappointment ; 
 his Direction, through the faithful Study of 
 God's Word and the Evangelical Teachings 
 of the Vicar-General, to Christ as the bur- 
 dened Sinner's only Saviour; his Trust, his 
 living Faith in Christ; his Joy, and Peace, in 
 his newly- found Saviour; his grasping and 
 clear Apprehension, from his own Experience, 
 of the cardinal Doctrine of the Gospel, and 
 of Protestantism, "Justification by Faith in 
 Christ alone/' thus fitting him spiritually, by 
 the Holy Spirit's leading of him, to be the 
 Leader of the Church, and of the World back 
 again to a pure Apostolic Christianity; and 
 then, after this, his ordination as Priest; his 
 Visit to Rome, and the awful Revelations of 
 the Corruptions of the Church, by which his 
 honest German Soul, on that Visit, was made 
 acquainted and shocked ; his being made Doctor 
 of Divinity, when he took a solemn Oath to 
 be always true to the Teachings of God's 
 Word, and to follow it, at any Sacrifice, wher- 
 ever it may lead him ; his Election as Professor 
 301 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 of Theology in the University of Wittenberg; 
 his righteous Indignation over the Iniquitous 
 Sale of Indulgences ; his forced Conflict with 
 the Pope ; his compelled Antagonism, more and 
 more, even contrary to his own Will, to the 
 Church; his Burning of the Papal Bull, by 
 which he destroyed the last Bridge to a Recon- 
 ciliation with Rome ; his Disputations with the 
 Roman Doctors by which, more and more, his 
 Eyes were opened, and he came to see the 
 wide Difference between Romanism and a Pure 
 Christianity; his final open and positive Rup- 
 ture with the Church and bold and defiant 
 Attitude against her; his Summons, by the 
 Emperor, before the Diet of Worms, where, 
 at the peril of his Life, he stood up grandly 
 for Christ, and was true to his Conscience and 
 to the Pure Word of God; his Imprisonment 
 in the Wartburg, by which he was providen- 
 tially led to translate the Holy Scriptures, the 
 greatest Achievement, perhaps, of his whole 
 Life, and itself sufficient, if he had done noth- 
 ing else, to have immortalized him ; and a thou- 
 sand other Occurrences and Experiences in 
 his History, stretching down over his whole 
 302 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 marvellous Biography: how they all reveal 
 God's Hand at every Step, and all show that 
 Luther, the mighty human Actor in the great 
 Work of the Reformation, was divinely en- 
 dowed, fitted for, and guided to and through 
 the sublime Reformation which he thus accom- 
 plished. 
 
 He is, indeed, willfully blind, and worse than 
 blind, who can rise from the Reading of this 
 Life of Luther and not be compelled to 
 acknowledge: "It was not Luther, but God, 
 in and by and through Luther, who wrought 
 the Reformation." As Luther himself in his 
 grand Battle-Hymn sings: 
 
 "In our strength can naught be done — 
 
 Our loss were soon effected ; 
 There fights for us the Mighty One, 
 By God Himself elected. 
 Ask you who frees us? 
 It is Christ Jesus — 
 
 The Lord Sabaoath, 
 There is no other God; 
 He'll hold the Field of Battle. 
 
 But the Hand of God, in the Reformation, 
 is seen, also, in many other Aspects of it. 
 303 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 It is seen in the many Powerful Helpers 
 in the Work, which, in various Relations, were 
 raised up, on every Hand, to help it forward. 
 How could the Reformation have ever, for 
 example, humanly speaking, succeeded with- 
 out the Friendship and Mighty Protection, 
 especially in its early Stages, of the noble and 
 God-fearing Elector of Saxony? How could 
 Luther ever successfully have waged the Con- 
 flict he did, had not God raised up, to stand 
 by his Side and help him, such grand Assist- 
 ants as Melanchthon, Jonas, Bugenhagen, 
 Brentius, and other illustrious Co-Workers, all 
 over Germany; and such men, also, in course 
 of time, in other Lands, as Calvin, and Cran- 
 mer, and Knox, who, lighting their Torch of 
 Truth at the Altar of the German Reforma- 
 tion, bore abroad the blessed Fire of the Gospel 
 into other lands, and soon made all Europe 
 light with its divine Flame? 
 
 God's Hand is seen, however, also in the 
 Checks and Restraints which He then so mani- 
 festly threw around the Enemies of the Re 
 formation, and by which He kept them back 
 from their purpose to utterly destroy. In 
 304 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 nothing is God's Agency in connection with 
 the Reformation more clearly seen than just 
 in this very respect of thwarting the plans of 
 the Enemies of the Reformation. Its Preser- 
 vation, under the Circumstances, was simply 
 a Miracle. It lived only because God marvel- 
 lously kept it, holding back, with the bit and 
 bridle of His Providence, its infuriated Foes, 
 saying to them : "Thus far, and no farther." 
 Looking back now upon that Reformation 
 Period what a Checkmating of Forces, by the 
 Hand of God, cannot we everywhere see ! 
 Charles the V., had he been free, would, at 
 once, have crushed Luther, and, by one stroke 
 of his Imperial Sword, would have ended the 
 Reformation. But he was held back by the 
 Providential Disposing of things, from doing 
 what he thus would have done. At war as 
 he then was with the powerful King of France, 
 and threatened, as he then w r as on every hand, 
 by the Turks, and having troubles in the Neth- 
 erlands, and embarrassments in Spain, and 
 needing German Money and German Soldiers ; 
 anxious as he was to please the Pope by de- 
 stroying Luther, he knew full well that he 
 305 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 could not afford to offend the Lutheran Princes 
 of Germany, and especially the Elector of Sax- 
 ony, to whom, indeed, he owed his Imperial 
 Crown, but who was an ardent Friend of 
 Luther and of the Reformation. And hence, 
 thus held in check by these Providential Re- 
 straints, which God had thus cast, as bands 
 of iron, around him, he was rendered harmless, 
 and was compelled to pursue a mild and vacil- 
 lating Course toward that which, in his Heart, 
 he hated, and would gladly at one fell Stroke 
 of his Imperial Power, have destroyed. So 
 with regard to the Pope, also, and to the 
 Church and the Kings and Princes, who were 
 Enemies of the Reformation and hated it with 
 an almost fiendish hate ; who stood eager with 
 all their Armies, and Wealth, and Influence, 
 and Power, to ride it down under their Iron 
 Heel into the dust ; they were all, in some 
 way, checked and held back from their pur- 
 poses by the Invisible and yet Almighty Hand 
 of God, and by His Irresistible Voice they 
 were bidden : "Touch not Mine Anointed and 
 do My Prophets no harm!" 
 
 And there is further Proof that the Reforma- 
 306 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 tion was God's Work in the fact that it was 
 all accomplished by no other Weapon or Means 
 than simply God's Word. The one great 
 Means, above all others, by which the Reforma- 
 tion was effected was the Word of God. Moral 
 weapons alone were used for a great Moral 
 End. God, in the Reformation, employed and 
 honored, as an Instrument of mighty Spiritual 
 Power, only His own Inspired Truth; that 
 Sacred Volume of which Rome had long cru- 
 elly robbed the World, but which it was the 
 glorious Mission of the Reformation again to 
 unloose, and, in all its unchained and open 
 Freeness, again to give back to Earth's spiritu- 
 ally famished Millions. The Bible, God's 
 Word, first made Luther free and led him 
 into the Light and Liberty of Christ; and 
 then, by that one single Instrumentality, "the 
 Sword of the Spirit," he went forth and cut 
 off from Men the Cords of Ignorance and 
 Spiritual Bondage by which every where they 
 were bound, and gave to them also, the same 
 Freedom which God's Word had given him. 
 That Word he translated; that Word he 
 preached with inspired Eloquence from the 
 307 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 pulpit; that Word he simplified in Catechisms 
 for the Children; that Word he expounded 
 and applied in countless printed Volumes, 
 which were scattered every where and read by 
 eager Millions; and that Word, during the 
 Thirty-Nine Years of his Connection with the 
 University of Wittenberg, he taught as Theo- 
 logical Professor to thousands on thousands 
 of Students, who afterward became Ministers, 
 and went every where preaching that Word 
 which they had heard from his lips, and thus 
 was God's Word the Means by which the 
 Reformation was achieved. This was the 
 Weapon by which the Battle was fought. 
 Against Papal Anathema, against Imperial 
 Ban, against Fires of Persecution, against 
 Wealth, and Custom, and Superstition, and 
 Prestige, and Power, against all these it won 
 its way into Life and Victory, and planted 
 itself immovably, as a mighty Moral and Reli- 
 gious Factor, in the very Life-Current of the 
 World. Not by force of Arms, not by the 
 Power chiefly of Learning and Scholarship, 
 not by the Friendship of Kings and Great Ones 
 of the Earth, but in spite of these, by this one 
 308 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 Mighty Agency of the Word of God ; the Word 
 of God preached, and taught, and lived, by 
 men who themselves had experienced its 
 Power; the Word of God vivified and driven 
 home on men's Consciences and Souls by the 
 Holy Ghost, its Divine Author, by this it was 
 that the Reformation was born, and was car- 
 ried on, step by step, to glorious Victory, and 
 thus proved itself, by this very means of its 
 achievement, to be, indeed, the Work of God. 
 Mighty Power of the Word of God ! Foe of 
 Rome! Bulwark of Protestantism! Key- 
 stone of the Everlasting Arch of Christianity ! 
 Only Means needed by the Church, then or 
 now, or any time, for Defence, for Conquest, 
 for Victory ! God's Word ! Sole Rule of Faith 
 and Life to the Reformers, sole Weapon of 
 their Defence, sole Ground of their Comfort, 
 Hope and Joy, sole Instrumentality by which 
 they wrought their grand work for God and 
 for the World! May that simple Word of 
 God ever thus, also, be our Trust ! And, with 
 Luther, clasping the Bible to our Hearts, using 
 it as our Tower of Defence, let us bid defiance 
 to World and Devil, singing: 
 309 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 "And were the World with Devils filled, 
 
 All waiting to devour us, 
 We'll still succeed, so God hath willed — 
 They cannot overpower us; 
 
 The Prince of this World 
 To hell shall be hurled; 
 He seeks to alarm, 
 But can do us no harm ; 
 God's smallest Word can fell him." 
 
 Passing now to a final thought, I yet remark, 
 
 III. That in the perpetuity and growth 
 
 OF PROTESTANTISM, SINCE THE REFORMATION, 
 WE HAVE A STILL FURTHER PROOF THAT THE 
 REFORMATION WHICH GAVE BIRTH TO PROT- 
 ESTANTISM WAS INDEED THE WORK OF GOD. 
 
 After four Centuries Protestantism still 
 lives. Through all the mighty opposition 
 which has, from time to time, been arrayed 
 against her, she has successfully fought her 
 way. Through the Thirty Years' War, 
 through the unceasing Hostility of the Church 
 of Rome, through the Tortures of the Inqui- 
 sition, through all the Wiles and Ceaseless 
 Activities of Jesuitism, through the Enmity of 
 310 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 powerful kings and nations, through the Early 
 Strife of its Leaders and its oft-repeated own 
 internal Dissensions and Schisms, through the 
 Reactionary Age of its own Lifeless Ortho- 
 doxy, through the long, dark night, in its very 
 Birthplace, of heartless Rationalism, through 
 all the fierce and persistent Assaults upon it 
 of Religious Indifferentism, of FalSe Protest- 
 antism, of Romanizing Ritualism, through all 
 these this Work of the Reformation has bat- 
 tled its Course, and still lives, a "Burning 
 Bush," burning yet never consumed, because 
 God, its Divine Author, is in it, and keeps it, 
 and by its very Preservation amid all these 
 mighty Forces which have thus been mar- 
 shalled for its Destruction says to all : "This 
 Work of the Reformation is My Work. Pro- 
 testantism is My child. And because I am its 
 Preserver it lives and will live." 
 
 And see, also, as another proof that it is, 
 indeed, God's Work, to what marvellous Great- 
 ness, under God's Blessing, it has, in these 
 Four Centuries, attained. "Protestantism" is 
 to-day the Religion of the Civilized world! 
 Over one hundred millions of souls are enrolled 
 311 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 under its Banners and hold and confess its 
 precious Faith, and over four hundred millions 
 are under its sway and influence. In Numbers, 
 in Intelligence, in Influence, in Moulding 
 Power over the Governments, Laws, Institu- 
 tions, Literature, Commerce, of the World it 
 has risen into Queenly Supremacy; and, to- 
 day, sways its controlling Sceptre over all the 
 Earth. God has thus made her great. He 
 only could thus have made her great. And 
 thus, also, He has acknowledged her as His, 
 and has placed upon her the Stamp of His 
 divine Approbation, declaring her thus to be 
 a Tree of His own Planting, a Fountain of 
 Living Water of His own Opening, whose 
 Healing Waters have flowed and shall flow 
 on for the assuaging of the World's Thirst 
 down to the End of Time. 
 
 And, further: in the very Character of the 
 Blessings which Protestantism has conferred 
 upon the World, we have additional Proof 
 of its Divine Origin and have still other Evi- 
 dence that God only can be its Author. How 
 numerous, how invaluable, how elevating, how 
 ennobling its blessings ! Universal Emancipa- 
 312 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 tion of Thought, Freedom of Conscience, Lib- 
 erty of Speech, of Press, of Education, of Gov- 
 ernment, of Worship, of Science, and Art, 
 Progress in and along all the lines of Civil, 
 Political, Social, Moral, and Religious Eleva- 
 tion throughout all the World. Taught by 
 God's Spirit and Word that God alone is 
 Supreme, and that He alone is Lord of the 
 Human Conscience, Luther held in his Hand 
 the Key to the Lost Paradise, and with it re- 
 opened again to man its long-closed Gates, and 
 bade him enter in and again be heir of all. 
 And now by these Divine Fruits of the Reform- 
 ation men can know it. These blessed Results 
 of Protestantism attest its Divine Origin and 
 declare God and God only to be its Author. 
 
 As God's Work then, and not as Man's let 
 all Protestant Christians of every name, to-day, 
 upon this Anniversary of the Reformation, 
 recognize and hail the Great Event. It was 
 all pre-eminently God's Achievement, and to 
 Him therefore belongs the Glory. Luther was 
 His creation: His Gift to the whole world. 
 The Reformation was His Blessing bestowed 
 313 
 
Joy in the Divine Government. 
 
 upon enslaved Humanity. Protestantism is 
 the Rich Heritage of the Race. 
 
 Let the whole Protestant World, the Entire 
 Protestant Church, unite in praising God for the 
 Reformation, for Luther, for the Unspeakable 
 Blessings both of Civil and Religious Freedom 
 which have come down to us all from Luther 
 and the Reformation. And let all who bear 
 the Protestant name be true also to their 
 Protestant Christianity : true to the Great Doc- 
 trines and Principles for which Luther and the 
 Reformers contended so bravely. In all the 
 Protestant world let Luther's Name be forever 
 held in highest honor, and by every Protestai I 
 let God forever be thanked for having raised 
 him up and enabled him to accomplish the 
 Mighty Work which he did. 
 
 THE END. 
 
 314 
 
Apr -12 WQ\ 
 
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