{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_24396/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_24396","id":"gutenberg_24396","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/24396","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Methodist Church -- Sermons"],"text":"Transcribed from the 1866 John Snow and Co. edition by David Price, email\nccx074@pglaf.org\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE WESLEYAN METHODIST PULPIT IN MALVERN.\n\n\n                                 SERMONS\n                               PREACHED AT\n                           THE OPENING SERVICES\n                                  OF THE\n                        WESLEYAN METHODIST CHAPEL,\n                                 IN 1866,\n                               AT MALVERN,\n                                    BY\n                REV. W. M. PUNSHON,           REV. W. ARTHUR,\n                REV. J. H. JAMES,             REV. C. PREST,\n                REV. J. PRIESTLEY,            REV. G. SMITH,\n                                REV. G. WOOD.\n                     With a Preface by Knowles King.\n\n                                 LONDON:\n                        JOHN SNOW & CO., IVY LANE,\n                             PATERNOSTER ROW;\n                     WARREN HALL & CO., CAMDEN ROAD.\n                                  1866.\n\n                                    TO\n                          RALPH BARNES GRINDROD,\n                               OF MALVERN,\n             M.D., LL.D., F.L.S., F.R.G.S., F.G.S., &c., &c.,\n                          This Volume of Sermons\n                        IS RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,\n                IN THANKFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF THE LEARNED\n                     DOCTOR'S GREAT GIFT OF HEALING;\n                BUT MORE ESPECIALLY OF HIS LARGE CHARITY,\n                      AND HIGH CHRISTIAN CHARACTER.\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe Sermons which make up this volume were preached at Malvern, in 1866,\nat, and immediately after, the opening services of the Wesleyan Chapel\nthere.\n\nThis beautiful and commodious building owes its erection to the piety and\nenergy of the Rev. W. M. PUNSHON, who, in the year 1862, proposed by\nLectures, and otherwise, to raise a fund for building Wesleyan Chapels in\nplaces of summer resort.\n\nThis proposition was well responded to by Mr. PUNSHON'S friends, and the\nWesleyan public, and forty thousand pounds have already been expended in\nthe erection of new Chapels at Ilfracombe, Dawlish, the Lizard, Brighton,\nWeymouth, Eastbourne, Walmer, Folkestone, Bournemouth, Blackpool,\nLancing, Llandudus, Rhyl, Saltburn, Bray, Matlock, _Malvern_, Keswick,\nBowness, and the Isle of Wight.  Others are in progress.\n\nThese Sermons are published with the consent of the several preachers,\nbut it must be stated that they were preached without any view to\npublication, and now appear in print, nearly word for word, as they were\ndelivered, extempore, from the pulpit.  Some of them, indeed, have never\nbeen committed to writing by the authors; for instance, of the beautiful\nsermon of Mr. ARTHUR, \"not a word\" was written by him either before or\nsince its delivery.\n\nThis will account for the fact that the subjects are not treated with any\ndegree of scientific exactness, as essays might require; but in a manner\nintended to suggest useful thoughts to serious audiences.\n\nAlthough myself of the Church of England, I have had many opportunities,\nduring the past thirty-five years, of hearing discourses from Wesleyan\nministers, and making personal acquaintance with them; and I believe the\nfollowing Sermons are a fair specimen of the Wesleyan teaching in this\ncountry.\n\nWhy should not the Church of England and the great Wesleyan body be\nunited?  Circumstances are entirely altered since Wesley, and his\ncoadjutors, were compelled to run away from the Church of England.  Now,\nthank God, the majority of our clergy, like the Wesleyan ministers, are\nzealous, and energetic, and evangelical men; popular in the style of\ntheir addresses, distinguished by the vigour of their pastoral\nministrations, and incessant in them; paternal in their care of the poor,\nof broad and social Christian sympathies, and earnestly pursuing the\nsecular and religious education of the young.  Why should not the priests\nof the Church of England and the ordained Wesleyan ministers be permitted\nto exchange pulpits as they may think fit?  There is little danger that a\nWesleyan minister would proclaim unsound doctrine.  Such an evil is much\nmore shortly and sharply rectified by Wesleyan discipline, which the\nCourts of Law uphold, than by any mere legal action to which the Church\nof England is bound.\n\nMay it please God, by His Holy Spirit, to make these Sermons effectual\nfor the spreading of His truth and the quickening of His people.\n\n                                                             KNOWLES KING.\n\nSIDMOUTH HOUSE, MALVERN,\n_December_ 3, 1866.\n\n                                * * * * *\n\n _If any profit shall accrue from this publication_, _it will be given to\n                 the religious institutions at Malvern_.\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIVELY STONES.\nREV. W. MORLEY PUNSHON.\n\n\n    \"Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy\n    priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by\n    Jesus Christ.\"--1 PETER ii. 5.\n\nThere is a manifest reference in the fourth verse to the personage\nalluded to in Psalm cxviii. 22, 23: \"The stone which the builders refused\nis become the head stone of the corner.  This is the Lord's doing; it is\nmarvellous in our eyes.\"  And this passage is applied by Christ to\nhimself in Matthew xxi. 42: \"Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in\nthe scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become\nthe head of the corner: this is the Lord's doing, and it is marvellous in\nour eyes.\"  The Apostle therefore places the beginning of any connection\nwith Christianity in coming to Christ, and assures believers that in\ntheir union with Him alone consists the fulness of their dignity and\nprivilege.  And there is no truth that will more readily be acknowledged,\nor receive a heartier acquiescence from the heart of a believer.  What\ncould we do without Jesus?  In our every necessity He is our \"refuge and\nstrength,\" in our perils He compasses us about with songs of deliverance,\nhis life is our perfect example, his death is our perfect atonement.\nWell might the Apostle interrupt the course of his argument with the\ngrateful apostrophe, \"Unto you, therefore, which believe, He is\nprecious;\" and exhort them \"that ye should show forth the praises of Him\nwho hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light.\"  The text\npresents us with topics of meditation worthy of our prayerful study, as\nit reveals to us--\n\nI.--THE CHARACTER.\nII.--THE PRIVILEGE.\nIII.--THE DUTY OF BELIEVERS.\n\nI.  You observe that in the text believers are presented as a spiritual\nhouse and a holy priesthood; two different illustrations, which, if you\ntranslate the word here rendered \"house\" by the more sacred word\n\"temple,\" will be found to have the same religious significance, and a\nclose connection with each other.  Coming to Christ as the\nfoundation-stone of the building, \"disallowed indeed of men, but chosen\nof God, and precious,\" the Church rises into a spiritual temple.  From\nChrist, the great High Priest, \"consecrated after no carnal commandment,\"\nbelievers rise into a holy priesthood by a majestic investiture that is\nhigher than the ordination of Aaron.  There are two points in the\ncharacter of the ransomed Church which are illustrated in these\nwords:--_spirituality_ and _holiness_.\n\nTake the first thought, spirituality.  They are lively or living stones,\nbuilt up into a spiritual house.  Any one who thoughtfully observes the\nsuccessive ages of the world's history, will not fail to discover that\neach generation of men has in some important particulars progressed upon\nits predecessor.  There has been not only an accumulation of the\ntreasures of thought and knowledge but an increase of the capacity to\nproduce them.  Hence in every age there has been a higher appreciation of\nfreedom, a quickened enterprise of enquiry, the stream of legislation has\nrefined and broadened in its flow, improvement has extended its acreage\nof enclosure, and principles proved and gained have become part of the\nproperty of the world.  Our nature has had its mental childhood.  The\nestablished laws of mind admit only of a gradual communication of\nknowledge.  It was necessary, therefore, that men should be first stored\nwith elementary principles, then advanced to axioms and syllables, and\nafterwards introduced into the fellowship of the mystery of Divine truth.\nHence any reflective mind, pondering upon the dealings of God with men,\nwill discover a progressive development of revelation, adjusted with\ncareful adaptation to the preparedness of different ages of mankind.  In\nthe first ages God spake to men in sensible manifestations, in visions of\nthe night, by audible voice, in significant symbol.  As time advanced the\nsensible manifestations became rarer, and were reserved for great and\ndistinguishing occasions.  From the lips of a lawgiver, in the seer's\nvision, and in the prophet's burden of reproof or consolation, the Divine\nspake, and the people heard and trembled.  At length, in the fulness of\ntime, the appeal to the senses was altogether discarded; the age of\nspirituality began, and in the completed revelation men read, as they\nshall read for ever, the Divine will in the perfected and royal word.\nAnd this progress, which appears through all creation as an inseparable\ncondition of the works of God, present in everything, from the formation\nof a crystal to the establishment of an economy, is seen also in the\nsuccessive dispensations under which man has been brought into connection\nwith heaven.  You can trace through all dispensations the essential unity\nof revealed religion.  There have never been but two covenants of God\nwith man--the covenant of works and the covenant of grace; never but two\nreligions--the religion of innocence, and the religion of mercy.  Through\nall economies there run the same invariable elements of truth.  The first\npromise contains within itself the germ of all subsequent revelation--the\nAbrahamic covenant, the separation of Israel, all the rites and all the\nprophecies, are but the unfoldings of its precious meaning.  Sacrifice\nfor the guilty, mediation for the far-off and wandering, regeneration for\nthe impure, salvation through the merit of another; these are the inner\nlife of the words, \"the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's\nhead.\"  The gospel therefore was preached unto Abraham.  Moses felt the\npotent influence of \"the reproach of Christ.\"  David describeth the\nblessedness of \"the man unto whom God imputeth not iniquity.\"  \"Of this\nsalvation the prophets enquired and searched diligently.\"  Christ was the\none name of the world's constant memory, \"to Him gave all the prophets\nwitness,\" and from the obscurest to the clearest revelation all testified\nin tones which it was difficult to misunderstand.  \"Neither is there\nsalvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given\namong men whereby we must be saved.\"  The patriarchal dispensation had no\nelaborate furniture nor gorgeous ritualism.  The father was the priest of\nthe household, and as often as the firstling bled upon the altar it\ntypified the faith of them all in a better sacrifice to come.  Then came\nthe Jewish dispensation with its array of services and external\nsplendour, with its expressive symbolism and its magnificent temple; and\nthen, rising into a higher altitude, the fulness of time came, and\nChristianity--the religion not of the sensuous but of the spiritual, not\nof the imagination awed by scenes of grandeur nor bewildered by\nceremonies of terror, but of the intellect yielding to evidence, of the\nconscience smitten by truth, of the heart taken captive by the\nomnipotence of love--appeared for the worship of the world.  Our Saviour,\nin his conversation with the Samaritan woman, inaugurated, so to speak,\nthe dispensation of the spiritual, \"The hour cometh, and now is,\"--there\nis the moment of instalment, when the great bell of time might have\npealed at once a requiem for the past and a welcome to the grander\nfuture, \"when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and\nin truth.\"  Requiring spiritual worship, it was natural that God should\nhave \"built up a spiritual house,\" wherein he should dwell in statelier\npresence than in \"houses made with hands.\"  Hence there is now rising\nupon earth, its masonry unfinished, but advancing day by day, a spiritual\ntemple more magnificent than the temple of Solomon, costlier than the\ntemple of Herod.  \"Destroy this temple,\" said the Saviour to his\nwondering listeners, \"and in three days I will raise it up.\"  \"Forty and\nsix years was this temple in building, and will thou rear it up in three\ndays?\"  \"But He spake of the temple of His body.\"  \"What, know ye not\nthat _your_ bodies are the members of Christ?\"  Yes! believers everywhere\nare stones in the spiritual house, broken perhaps into conformity, or\nchiselled into beauty by successive strokes of trial; and wherever they\nare, in the hut or in the ancestral hall, in the climates of the snow or\nof the sun, whether society hoot them or honour them, whether they wrap\nthemselves in delicate apparelling, or, in rugged homespun, toil all day\nfor bread, they are parts of the true temple which God esteems higher\nthan cloistered crypt or stately fane, and the top stone of which shall\nhereafter be brought on with joy.\n\nThe second representation of a believer's character is _holiness_, \"a\n_holy_ priesthood.\"  In the Jewish dispensation the word was understood\nto mean no more than an outward and visible separation unto God; the\npriests in the temple and the vessels of their ministry were said to be\nceremonially \"holy.\"  But more is implied in the term as it occurs in the\ntext and kindred passages than a mere ritual and external sanctity.  It\nconsists in the possession of that mind which was also in Christ Jesus,\nin the reinstatement in us of that image of God which was lost by the\ndisobedience of the fall.  You will remember numerous scriptures in which\nholiness, regarded as the supreme devotion of the heart and service to\nGod, is brought out as at once a requirement and a characteristic of a\nChristian.  \"What manner of persons ought we to be in all holy\nconversation and godliness?\"  \"Be ye holy, for I am holy,\" \"as He which\nhath called you is holy, so be ye holy in all manner of conversation.\"\n\"God hath not called us to uncleanness but unto holiness.\"  \"Having these\npromises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of\nthe flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.\"  And it is\nabsolutely necessary that this grace should be cultivated if we would\neither fulfil the mission of our priesthood or abide in the Divine\npresence for ever.  Holiness is requisite whether to see the Lord or to\nwalk before men unto all well-pleasing; and as living witnesses,\ntranscripts of _His_ holiness, enabled by his grace to maintain purity of\nheart and life, God has promised to establish those who put their trust\nin Him.  Some Christians have been deterred from the search after this\nblessing of heaven by the mistakes of those who have endeavoured to\nexpound it, or by the hypocrisy of those who have assumed its profession\nthat they might the better sin.  It is marvellous how many different\nviews of it have at times obtained currency in the world.  By some it has\nbeen resolved into a sort of refined Hinduism, a state in which the soul\nis \"unearthed, entranced, beatified\" by devout contemplation into a\npietistic rapture; others have deemed that the best way to secure it was\na retirement from the vexing world, a recreant forsaking of the active\nduties of life, as if it consisted in immunity from temptation rather\nthan in victory over it.  Others have placed it in surpliced observance\nor in monastic vow; an equivocal regard to patterns of things in the\nheavens which common men mistake for idolatry.  Others again, reversing\nthe old Pythagorean maxim, and wearing the image of God upon their ring,\nhave expressed it by unworthy familiarity, a continual adverting to the\ngifts of the spirit, and the experience of the soul in the flippancy of\nordinary conversation, as did some of the fanatics of the Commonwealth.\nOthers have represented it as a perpetual austerity, an investiture of\nour family circles with all the hues of the sepulchre, and a flinging\nupon the face of society the frown of a rebuking fretfulness, which would\nmake the good of an archangel evil spoken of in this censorious world.\nBut the scriptural holiness which believers long for, and which the\nChurch is to spread through the land, is not a necessary adjunct of any\nor all of these.  It is not the acting of a part in a drama, but the\nforth-putting of a character in life, the exhibition in harmonious action\nof the humble love and filial fear with which men \"work out their\nsalvation.\"  \"A holy priesthood.\"  It is remarkable of this spiritual\npriesthood that it descends in no particular succession, nor limits its\nprivileges to any exclusive genealogy.  The holiness which is at once its\ndistinctiveness and its hallowing comprehends and can sanctify all\nrelations of life.  Let the minister have it, and the love of Christ, his\nsupremest affection, will prompt his loathing of sin and his pity for\nsinners; will fire his zeal and make his words burn, and will often urge\nhim to cast himself upon the mercy-seat that his labours may not be in\nvain.  Let the merchant, or the manufacturer, or the man of business have\nit, and it need neither bate his diligence nor hold him back from riches;\nbut it will smite down his avarice and restrain his greed of gold; it\nwill make him abhor the fraud that is gainful, and eschew the speculation\nthat is hazardous, and shrink from the falsehood that is customary, and\ncheck the competition that is selfish; and it will utterly destroy the\ndeceptive hand-bill, and the cooked accounts, and the fictitious capital,\nas well the enormous dishonesties as the little lies of trade.  Let this\nholiness actuate the parent, and in his strong and gentle rule he will\nmould the hearts of his children heavenward, and train them in the\nadmonition of the Lord, until, a commanded household, comely in their\nfilial love, they shall reverence their Father who is in heaven.  Let the\nchild be impressed with holiness, and he will have higher motives to\nobedience than he can gather from the constraint of duty or from the\npromptings of affection.  Let the master be holy, and while he upholds\nauthority he will dispense blessing.  Let the servant be holy, and\nservice will be rendered with cheerfulness, \"not with eye-service as\nmen-pleasers, but in singleness of heart, fearing God.\"  Let the man be\nholy, and vigorous health and lofty intellect and swaying eloquence and\nquenchless zeal will all be offered to God.  Let the woman be holy, and\npatient prayer will linger round the cross, and ardent hope will haunt\nthe envied sepulchre, and pitying tenderness will wail on the way to\nCalvary, and the deep heart-love will forget all selfish solicitudes in\nthe absorbing question, \"Where have they laid my Lord?\"  Let the world be\nholy! and the millennium has come, and wrong ceases for ever, and the\ntabernacle of God is with men, and earth's music rivals heaven's.\nBrethren, let us seek this blessing for ourselves.  There, at the foot of\nthe Throne, let us plead the promise, \"I will sprinkle clean water upon\nyou, and you shall be clean.\"  Imagination, intellect, memory,\nconscience, will;--sanctify them all.  \"Then will we teach transgressors\nthy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto Thee.\"  It is done, surely\nit is done.  The hands are upon us now.  We kneel for the diviner\nbaptism, for the effectual and blessed ordination.  Listen, the word has\nspoken, \"Ye are an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices\nacceptable to God by Jesus Christ.\"\n\nII.--Certain blessings are presented to us in the text as the heritage of\nthis spiritual and consecrated Church.  _Increase_ and _acceptance_.  The\nspiritual house is to be built up firm and consolidated on the true\nfoundation.  The services of the holy priesthood are to be \"acceptable to\nGod through Jesus.\"  Take the first thought.  \"Ye are built up a\nspiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices\nacceptable to God by Jesus Christ.\"  The fact of God's constant\nsupervision over his Church and care for its stability and extension is\none that is impressed with earnest repetition upon the pages of his word.\n\"Thine eyes shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that\nshall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be\nremoved, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken, but there the\nglorious Lord will be unto us a place of broad rivers and streams.\"\n\"Then shall thou see and flow together, and thine heart shall fear and be\nenlarged, because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto thee,\nthe forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.\"  \"Then shall the\nmountain of the Lord's house be established in the top of the mountains,\nand shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto\nit.\"  \"As I live, saith the Lord, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them\nall as with an ornament, and bind them on thee as a bride doeth.\"  From\nthese passages, and many others breathing the same spirit, we may\nlegitimately infer that it is the purpose of God that the kingdom of\nMessiah shall be universal; that the Church shall increase in steady and\ncumulative progression, and realize in herself all the \"glorious things\"\nwhich by the holy prophets were \"spoken of the city of God.\"  And in this\nmatter God has not left himself without a witness.  The present existence\nof the Church, after it has encountered and outlived all varieties of\nopposition, is in itself a proof which even its enemies, if they were not\nstupid and indocile learners, might ere this have discovered, that the\neternal God is its refuge, and that the Highest will establish it for\never.  From its institution it has had in the heart of every man a\nnatural and inveterate enemy.  The world has uniformly opposed it, and it\nhas been unable to repel that opposition with weapons out of the world's\narmoury; for it is forbidden to rely upon the strength of armies or upon\nthe forces of external power.  Fanatics have entered into unholy\ncombination.  Herod and Pilate have truced up a hollow friendship that\nthey might work against it together.  Statesmen have elaborated their\npolicy, and empires have concentrated their strength; the banners of\nbattle have made hideous laughter with the wind; the blood of many\nsainted confessors has been shed like water, and the vultures of the crag\nhave scented the unburied witnesses and have been ready to swoop down\nupon the slain.  And yet the Church is living, thriving, multiplying;\nwhile the names of its tyrants are forgotten, and their kingdoms, like\nsnow-flakes on the wave, have left no trace behind.  No inborn strength\nwill account for this mystery.  No advance of intelligence nor\nphilosophic enlightenment will explain this phenomenon.  The acute\nobserver, if faith have cleared his eye or opened an inner one, will go\nback for the explanation to an old and unforgotten promise, and will\nexclaim when he sees the Church struggling, but triumphant, like the\nfire-girdled bush at Horeb, \"God is in the midst of her, she shall not be\nmoved; God shall help her, and that right early.\"  And not only in the\npreservation from her enemies but in her unfailing progress among men in\nevery age, has God shown that his purpose is to build up the spiritual\nhouse.  The rapid spread of the truth in primitive times was a marvel and\na mystery to those who saw not the arm which upheld it and the power\nwhich bade it multiply and grow.  The whole history of gospel extension\nis indeed a succession of wonders.  It began with a Pentecost, local, but\nprophetic of a universal one, when \"its sound shall have gone out into\nall the earth and its words to the end of the world.\"  In the times of\nthe Apostles, and of their immediate successors, it overleaped the\nboundaries of nation after nation, acquired lodgment and proselytes in\nthe proudest cities, subjugated the barbaric magnificence of Asia Minor,\nhad its students in the schools of Greece, and its servitors in the\nimperial household at Rome.  In its triumphant course it attacked\nidolatry in its strongholds, and that idolatry, though fortified by habit\nand prejudice, and sanctioned by classic learning, and entwined with the\nbeautiful in architecture and song, and venerable for its wondrous age,\nand imperial in the dominion which it had exercised over a vassal world,\nfell speedily, utterly, and for ever.  And in each succeeding age,\nobscured sometimes by the clouds of persecution, and sometimes by the\nmists of error, its progress has been gradual and sure.  If it has not\ndissipated it has relieved the darkness.  It has stamped itself upon the\ninstitutions of mankind, and they reflect its image.  It has insinuated\nits leavening spirit where its outward expressions are not, and there is\na vast amount of Christian and humanizing sentiment abroad, a sort of\natmosphere breathed unconsciously by every man, whose air-waves break\nupon society with unfelt but influencing pressure, but its source is in\nthe gospel of Christ.  The building rises still!  In distant parts of the\ngreat world-quarry stones of diverse hardness, and of diverse hue, but\nall susceptible of being wrought upon by the heavenly masonry, are every\nday being shaped for the temple.  Strikes among the workmen, or frost in\nthe air, may suspend operations for awhile, but the building rises!\nOften are the stones prepared in silence, as in the ancient temple-pile,\nwith no sound of the chisel or the hammer.  The Sanballats and Tobiahs of\ndiscouragement and shame may deride the work and embarrass the labourers;\nbut one by one the living stones, polished after the similitude of a\npalace, are incorporated into it.  Yes! the building rises, and it shall\nrise for ever.  God has promised increase to the Church, and her enemies\ncannot gainsay it.  From the more effectual blessing on churches already\nformed, from the reversal of the attainder, and the bringing into his\npatrimonial portion of the disinherited Jew, from the proclamation in all\nlands of the message of mercy, they shall throng into the city of our\nsolemnities until \"the waste and the desolate places, and the land of her\ndestruction shall even now be too many, by reason of the inhabitants, and\nthey that swallowed thee up shall be far away.\"  What Christian heart,\nlooking for this promised blessing, rejoices not with exceeding joy?  At\nthe foundation of the second temple, amid the flare of trumpets and the\nclang of cymbals, while the young men rent the air with gladness, there\nwere choking memories in many a Levite heart that chastened the solemn\njoy and were relieved only by passionate tears; but at the upbuilding of\nthe \"spiritual house\" the young and the old may feel an equal gladness,\nor if some memories steal over the spirit of primitive days, and of the\njoys of a forfeited Eden, they may be stilled by the memory of the\ngrander and abiding truth, that--\n\n    \"In Christ the tribes of Adam boast,\n    More blessings than their father lost.\"\n\nBrethren, have you this joy?  Does it pleasure you that the building\nrises?  Do your hearts thrill with gladness as you hear of accessions to\nthe Church and the conversion of sinners to God?  Do you love the gates\nof Zion more than all the dwellings of Jacob?  Have a care if you feel\nnot this sympathy, for ye are none of his.  If it is within you a living,\nearnest emotion, give it play.  \"Let the children of Zion be joyful in\ntheir King.\"\n\n_The second privilege is the acceptance of her service and sacrifice\nthrough Jesus Christ_.--To us, who are mean and unworthy, it is no small\nprivilege to be assured of welcome when we come to God.  To us, who are\nguilty and erring, it is no small privilege that we can come by Jesus\nChrist.  The hope of acceptance is necessary to sustain the heart of the\nworshipper, which without it would soon sink into despair.  The apostle,\nyou perceive, places the ground of the acceptance of our services upon\nour union with Jesus Christ.\n\n    \"Vain in themselves their duties were,\n       Their services could never please,\n    Till join'd with thine, and made to share\n       The merits of thy righteousness.\"\n\nHe is careful to impress upon us that in our holiest moments no less than\nwhen we are wayward and criminal, our trust for personal safety, and our\nonly chance of blessing are from our exalted Daysman, who can lay his\nhand upon us both.  Our praise would be unmeaning minstrelsy, our prayers\na litany unheard and obsolete, all our devotional service a bootless\ntrouble, but that \"yonder the Intercessor stands and pours his\nall-prevailing prayer.\"  It is \"through Him we _both_,\" the Jews who\ncrucified Him and the Gentiles, who by their persevering neglect of Him\ncrucify Him afresh, \"have access by one spirit unto the Father.\"  The\nwords of promise touching the acceptance of the worship of the Church are\nexplicit and numerous.  \"They shall come up with acceptance on mine\naltar, and I will glorify the house of my glory.\"  \"That I should be the\nminister of Jesus Christ to the Gentiles, ministering the gospel of God,\nthat the offering up of the Gentiles might be acceptable, being\nsanctified by the Holy Ghost.\"  \"In the place where my name is recorded,\nthere will I accept.\"  \"In every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh\nrighteousness, is accepted with Him.\"  Oh, comforting thought, when I am\nconvinced of my own sinfulness, and restless and disquieted wander about\nin distress, and lie down in sorrow, there is One who hears the stammered\nentreaty, and smiles a pardon to my agonized cry, \"God be merciful to me\na sinner.\"  When in my daily life I encounter a terrible temptation, a\ntemptation so strong that it tries my strength to the uttermost, and\ngives my heart a struggle and a bitterness which no stranger may know,\nthere is One who marks my resistance and counts my enduring faith for\nrighteousness, and whispers me that by and bye, he that overcometh shall\nwear the conqueror's crown.  When in some moment of unguardedness I\ngrieve the good Spirit, and become unwatchful, and in remorseful\npenitence I could almost weep my life away, the offering of my contrition\nis accepted, and there is One who heals my backsliding and soothes my\nfretting sorrow.  My prayers offered in secret, pleading for purity and\nblessing, my praises, when the full heart, attuned, gives its note of\nblessing to swell the choral harmony, wherewith all God's works praise\nHim, the active hand, the ready tongue, the foot swift and willing in his\ncause, the service of labour, the service of suffering,--all these, if I\noffer them rightly and reliantly, are acceptable unto God by Jesus\nChrist.  There is no room for distrust or for misgiving.  I need not fear\nthat, after all my efforts, I shall be met with an averted glance, or\nwith a cold denial.  The promise standeth sure, \"To that man will I\nlook.\"  Oh, if there had been a pause after this announcement, how would\nthe eager solicitudes of men have gathered round it, and waited for the\ncoming of the words.  Where wilt thou direct thy look of favour?  To him\nwho is noble, or wealthy, or intelligent?  To him who with scrupulous\nrigidness fasts twice in the week, and gives tithes of all that he\npossesses?  To him whose quick sensibility revels in all expressions of\nthe beautiful, or whose graceful impulse moves him in all works of\ncharity?  No, to none of these, but, \"To him that is poor, and of a\ncontrite spirit; and that trembleth at my word.\"\n\nIII.--If there be this assurance of acceptance, how solemn and resistless\nis the call to duty, \"To offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God\nby Jesus Christ.\"  Sacrifice, properly speaking, is the infliction of\ndeath upon a living creature for the purposes of religious worship, but\n_this_ sacrifice and offering, happily, God requires not at our hands.\nNo filleted firstling need now be led to the altar, the flocks of Kedar\nand the rams of Nebaioth may browse quietly in their pastures, for the\nGreat Sacrifice has been offered, and it _abides_--\"_one sacrifice for\nsins for ever_,\" needing no repetition, one for ever! unexhausted in its\nvirtue, and unfailing in the blessing it confers.  But in a secondary\nsense the recognized and fulfilled duties of the Church are fitly called\nsacrifices, for they cannot be properly discharged without the alienation\nfrom ourselves of something that was our own, and its presentation,\nwhether time, ease, property or influence, to God.  Brethren, to this\nduty you are called to-day.  The name you bear has bound you.  The holy\npriesthood must offer up spiritual sacrifices.  Suffered to become\nChristians, permitted, a race adulterous and dishonoured as you were, to\nbe united to Christ and partakers of his precious grace, the spell of\nthese high privileges enforces every obligation, and hallows every claim.\n_Ye_ are not your own.  First offer yourselves upon the altar, renew your\ncovenant in this the house of our solemnities, on this the instalment of\nour great Christian festival.  It will be easy to devote the accessories,\nwhen the principal bestowment has been rendered.  I claim from you this\nsacrifice for God.  _Yourselves_, not a half-hearted homage, not a\ndivided service, not a stray emotion, not a solitary faculty;\n_yourselves_, _you all_, and _all of you_; your bodies, with their\nappliances for service; your souls, with their ardour of affection;\nintellect, with its grasp and power; life, with its activity and\nearnestness; endowment, with its manifold gifts; influence, with its\npersuasive beseechings.  I claim them all.  \"I beseech you therefore, by\nthe mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy,\nacceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.\"  This\nconsecration made, all else will follow in the train; litanies of earnest\nsupplication will rise from the full heart; the \"prayer will be offered\nas incense; the lifting up of the hands as the evening _sacrifice_.\"\nGlad in its memory of the past, and hopeful in its trust for the future,\nthe hosanna of gratitude will rise; \"the _sacrifice_ of praise\ncontinually; the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.\"  The\nproperty received gratefully from heaven will be offered freely and\nbountifully for Christ; and some outcast housed in a safe and friendly\nshelter, some emancipated slave or converted Figian, some Indian breaking\nfrom his vassaldom of caste and Shaster, and longing to sit at Jesus'\nfeet and hear his word, will say rejoicingly of your liberality, \"Having\nreceived of Epaphroditus the things which were sent from you, an odour of\na sweet smell, a _sacrifice_ acceptable, well-pleasing to God.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHRIST'S WORK OF DESTRUCTION AND DELIVERANCE.\nREV. JOHN H. JAMES.\n\n\n    \"That through death He might destroy him that had the power of death,\n    that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death were\n    all their lifetime subject to bondage.\"--HEBREWS ii. 14, 15.\n\nThere is a special and ordained connection between the incarnation and\nthe death of our blessed Lord.  Other men die in due course after they\nare born; he was born just that he might die.  He came \"not to be\nministered unto, but to minister, and to give\" his \"life a ransom for\nmany.\"  It is therefore evident that the theology which magnifies the\nincarnation at the expense of the atonement is fundamentally, fatally\ndefective.  The brotherhood of Christ with every son of Adam is a blessed\ntruth, but it is by no means the whole truth, nor can it be practically\navailable and influential apart from the offering of his body upon the\ncross as a sacrifice for sin.  This is very clearly and strongly put in\nthe text.  The incarnation of the Son of God is proved from the Old\nTestament, and shown to have had reference to his redeeming death.  Many\npurposes were answered by his becoming partaker of flesh and blood.  His\ninfluence as a teacher, the power of his spotless example, his\nidentification with the needs and sorrows of humanity, and the deep\nsympathy resulting therefrom,--these and similar ends were contemplated\nand fulfilled.  But the grand purpose was disclosed and accomplished on\nthe cross, where God made his soul an offering for sin.  \"Forasmuch then\nas the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also himself\nlikewise took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him\nthat had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who\nthrough fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.\"\n\nThe death of Jesus, then, and the end to be accomplished by it,\nconstitute the central, vital, culminating truth of Christianity.  The\napostle puts the death of Christ in a striking point of view,--as a work\ndone, rather than a calamity suffered.  And it was a double work,--a work\nof destruction on the one hand, and of deliverance on the other,--of\ndestruction in order to deliverance.  That is the conception of his\nmission embodied in the first promise.  The bruising of the serpent's\nhead by the bruised heel of the Saviour, in order to repair the ruin\nwrought by the tempter, suggests very significantly the truth which is so\nexplicitly announced here.  And a similar combination runs through the\nancient providential history.  The destruction of the old world in order\nto the salvation of the righteous, and the fulfilment of the promise of\nredemption; and the destruction of the first-born of Egypt in order to\nthe deliverance of Israel, are instances in point.  But the death of\nChrist upon the cross in order to the emancipation of the slaves of Satan\nis the most glorious and perfect illustration.  Let me ask your attention\nto the work of Christ's death,\n\nI.--AS IT IS A WORK OF DESTRUCTION.\n\nII.--AS IT IS A WORK OF DELIVERANCE.\n\nI.  AS IT IS A WORK OF DESTRUCTION.  \"That He might destroy him that had\nthe power of death, that is, the devil.\"\n\n1.  _Satan_, _then_, _is a person_, _and the enemy of Jesus_, _who died\nto destroy him_.\n\n(i.)  The personality of the devil is necessarily implied in the words of\nthe text.  The theory which seeks to divest all that is said about the\ndevil in Scripture of everything like personality, and to refine it away\ninto figurative representation of \"the principle of evil,\" is as\nunphilosophical as it is unscriptural.  How can we conceive of moral evil\nin the abstract?  How can we think of it apart from the depraved will of\nsome intelligent being?  Whatever theories may be held respecting the\ndifficult question of the origin of evil, it is surely inconceivable that\nit should exist independently of some living, conscious, intellectual\nauthor.  No truer or more philosophical solution can be found than that\nof the Bible, which attributes it to the devil,--a being originally good,\nwho fell from his first estate, broke his allegiance to the Creator, and\nso became the leader of a vast and fearful rebellion against Almighty\nGod.  The case of man shows us the possibility of a being existing in a\nholy but mutable state, and lapsing, under certain inducements, into sin.\nWhat the inducements were in the instance of the prince of darkness we\nare not told; and thus the question of the origin of evil seems to be\ninsoluble by us.  But the identification of it with the personal\ndefection of Satan is far more intelligible and reasonable than the\nattempt to treat it as a metaphysical abstraction.  All the\nrepresentations of the Bible on the subject are instinct with the awful\npersonality of the devil.  He is our \"adversary;\" he is \"the accuser;\" he\nis \"the God of this world;\" he is \"the prince of the power of the air,\nthat wicked one that now worketh in the hearts of the children of\ndisobedience;\" he that hath \"blinded the minds of them that believe not;\"\nhe \"leadeth\" sinners \"captive at his will.\"  Surely that is a bold and\nunscrupulous theology which resolves all these clear and strong\nexpressions into the mere ideal impersonation of a principle.  O no!\nSatan is a being of subtle intelligence, with a depraved, unconquerable,\nmalignant will; a dread living power, with whom we have continually to\ndo, who \"desireth to have us, that he may sift us as wheat,\" and with\nwhom, if we wish to get to heaven, we must be prepared to fight at every\nstep of our way.\n\n(ii.)  And he is emphatically the enemy of Jesus, who came to \"destroy\"\nhim.  \"I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed\nand her seed.\"  It was in pursuit of his designs against the living God\nthat Satan persuaded our first parents to commit sin; it was by lying\ninsinuations against God that he deceived her who was \"first in the\ntransgression.\"  Of course, he is the enemy of man.  Of course, his\ndesign is to inflict ruin and misery on men, and to bring them to his own\nstate and place of torment.  But he does this by seducing them into\nrebellion against the Most High.  Hatred of God is the spring of all his\nconduct, the motive of every enterprise which he undertakes.  And Jesus,\nthe Son of God, the vindicator of the divine honour, is necessarily the\nsworn eternal foe of the devil; and He has come into our world as into\nthe arena of a supreme conflict for the defeat and overthrow of Satan;\nhas assumed the very nature which the foul fiend seduced and degraded, in\norder that, in that same nature, he might avenge the wrong done to the\nbeing and government of God, and put an eternal end to the usurpation and\ntyranny of his enemy.\n\n2.  _The devil_ \"_had the power of death_.\"\n\n(i.)  We must not understand this as meaning that Satan has direct,\nindependent, and absolute control over death, inflicting it how, and\nwhen, and where, and on whom, he will.  The later Jewish writers taught\nthe horrible doctrine that the fallen angels have power or authority\ngenerally in reference to life and death.  But this never was the case.\nDeath was the sentence pronounced by God upon man, and it could only be\ninflicted by his appointment and concurrence.  The power of life and\ndeath is necessarily in God's hands, and his only.\n\n(ii.)  But Satan had the power of death, in this sense; namely, that he\ntempted man to commit the sin which \"brought death into the world, and\nall our woe.\"  He enticed Eve to sin, partly by denying that her offence\nwould be visited with the punishment of death.  \"Ye shall not surely\ndie,\" was the lie by which he contradicted and defied the God of truth,\nand induced the woman \"to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge\nof good and evil.\"  And so, he was \"a murderer from the beginning.\"  \"God\nmade man to be immortal, an image of his own eternity; nevertheless,\nthrough envy of the devil came death into the world.\"  In this sense,\nthen, as the author and introducer of that sin whose \"wages\" is death,\nSatan \"had the power of death.\"\n\n(iii.)  Moreover, it is the work of Satan to invest death with its chief\nterrors.  We shrink indeed from the humiliating prospect of corruption\nand decay; we cling fondly to those companionships, associations, and\npleasures, from which death for ever separates us; we deprecate and dread\nthe blighting of our earthly hopes, and the ruthless frustration of our\nschemes.  These are very painful accessories of death; but they are not\nits sting; they do not make it a poison for the soul as well as for the\nbody.  \"The sting of death is sin.\"  That sting has been drawn for the\nChristian, and death hath no terrors for him.  But, had the power of the\ndevil in death been unassailed and uncounteracted, the dissolution of the\nbody and the eternal ruin of the soul would have been alike complete and\nirrecoverable.  By the consciousness of guilt, Satan has infused an\nelement of insupportable terror into death.  For it is that consciousness\nwhich makes death dreadful.  It is quite probable that, if man had not\nsinned, his body would have undergone some great change, that it might be\nfitted for that \"kingdom of God,\" which \"flesh and blood cannot inherit;\"\nbut such change would have inflicted no pain, and involved no\nhumiliation; it would only have been a change \"from glory to glory;\" and\nwould have been anticipated with no sentiments contrary to desire and\nhope.  But death, besides its own inherent ghastliness, is rendered\ndreadful through the malice of the devil, and the guilty fear of the\npenal hereafter which haunts all those who are in his power.\n\n3.  _Jesus died to destroy_ \"_him that had the power of death_.\"  He has\nindeed provisionally destroyed death itself for all \"the sons of God.\"\n\"Death, the last enemy, shall be destroyed.\"  But it is not absolutely\nand immediately abolished.  The death of the body remains, even for God's\npeople, as a sad and humiliating monument of the evil of sin; but to them\nit is not now a punishment, but the mode of their birth into a new and\nmore glorious life.\n\n    \"Mortals cry, 'A man is dead!'\n    Angels sing, 'A child is born!'\"\n\nIt may be truly said of the hour when a good man dies, that it is the\nhour when he enters into life.  And this is because Jesus destroyed \"him\nthat had the power of death.\"  He did not annihilate him, the word does\nnot mean that, but He neutralized, counteracted, stripped him of his\npower.  The whole design and effect of death, when in the power of the\ndevil, has been defeated and reversed by the death of Christ.  Though the\nbodies of his people be consigned to the grave, it is in sure and certain\nhope of the resurrection to everlasting life.  That melancholy seed-time\nin which we cast the dust of our beloved into the earth, is the prelude\nto a glorious harvest; that when \"He giveth his beloved sleep,\" is\npreparatory to their awaking to glory and immortality.  \"It is sown in\ncorruption, it is raised in incorruption; it is sown in weakness, it is\nraised in power; it is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory; it is\nsown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body.\"  This is what\nChrist's death has done for the bodies of his people; and is it not an\nentire breaking of the power of the devil over death?  As to their souls,\ndeath delivers them from the burden of the flesh, that they may be in joy\nand felicity with God.  \"Absent from the body,\" they are for ever\n\"present with the Lord.\"  Death is no longer a dark and dreadful phantom,\nrising from the abyss, to drag down his victims and gorge himself upon\nthem.  He is an angel, pure and bright, sent to summon God's beloved to\ntheir Father's house above.  That which men naturally dread as the crown\nand climax of all evils, becomes an object of wistful longing, for God's\nservants have \"a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far\nbetter.\"  This stripping away of Satan's power, this destruction of \"him\nthat had the power of death,\" is due to the death of Jesus.  He thus\nredeemed us from the debt of death, \"acknowledging the debt in the manner\nin which he removed it.\"  \"Christ, by giving himself up to death, has\nacknowledged the guilt, and truly atoned for it; He has, in one act,\natoned for the sinner and judged the sin.\"  By dying for sins, He\nexpiated that which gives to death its \"sting,\" its power to injure and\nto terrify.  He\n\n    \"Entered the grave in mortal flesh,\n    And dwelt among the dead,\"\n\nthat He might put an end to Satan's power in and over death.  Some sound\nand excellent divines are of opinion that, in the interval between his\ndeath and resurrection He literally \"descended into hell,\" and there, in\npersonal conflict, grappled with and overthrew the devil.  However this\nmay be, it is certain that the bruising of his heel by Satan was the\nchosen means for his bruising of Satan's head.  Our enemy, who brought\ndeath into the world, is entirely baffled and defeated, as to the purpose\nand effect of that calamity, in the case of all who believe in the death\nof Christ.  Their last act of faith gives them \"the victory through our\nLord Jesus Christ.\"  Then the God of peace \"finally beats down Satan\nunder their feet.\"  Death is \"swallowed up of life.\"  What power over\ndeath has the devil in such a case?  Is it not wholly counteracted?  Is\nnot death a wholly different, nay, opposite thing to what he intended,\nwhen by tempting and conquering our first parents he brought it into the\nworld?  The body of the good man \"is buried in peace, and his soul is\nblessed for evermore.\"  He shall never more, through the long eternity of\nbliss, be assailed or injured by \"him that had the power of death:\" nor\nshall he see his enemy again, unless it be to triumph openly over him, in\nthat day when \"death, and hell shall be cast into the lake that burneth\nwith fire and brimstone.\"  Many good people are unduly afraid of the\ndevil, and especially they are in dread of his possible power in their\nlast moments.  But we may dismiss this fear as altogether needless and\nunworthy.  Christ has not only rendered our great enemy utterly powerless\nfor evil, but has, by his own most precious death, compelled even Satan\ninto the service of the sons of God.  He has turned the supreme calamity\nbrought into the world by the arch-fiend into the supreme glory and joy\nof all who believe in himself.  To all those who are by Jesus' death \"to\nlife restored,\" the day of death is infinitely preferable to the day of\nbirth, for then beginneth that new life which shall never die.  \"I know\nwhom I have believed, and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which\nI have committed unto Him until that day.\"\n\nII.  LET US NOW CONTEMPLATE THE WORK OF JESUS, IN HIS DEATH, AS A WORK OF\nDELIVERANCE.  \"And deliver them who, through fear of death, were all\ntheir lifetime subject to bondage.\"  If we ascertain the import of this\ndescription of those whom Christ died to deliver, we shall easily\nunderstand the nature and mode of the deliverance wrought out for them.\n\n1.  _They were in bondage_.  They were in fact enslaved by \"him who had\nthe power of death.\"  This is a very fearful view of our natural state,\nand one which contradicts all the conclusions of our own vanity and\nself-complacency.  Unconverted men believe that Christians are slaves,\nfettered by doubts, scruples, self-accusations; bound in the bands of\nmoral routine, and able only to move in certain prescribed grooves;\nafraid to do as they list.  According to their notion, true liberty\nconsists in throwing off religious restraints, and following as much as\nmay be \"the devices and desires of our own hearts.\"  But this is a\nterrible delusion, which only serves to show the depth and subtlety of\nhim who, besides having \"the power of death,\" is also \"the father of\nlies,\" the great deceiver and ensnarer of mankind.  History is full of\nanalogous examples among men.  In how many instances have the most cruel\nand remorseless tyrants made use of the passions and brute force of the\nmultitude to secure their own elevation to absolute power, inducing their\nvictims to forge and rivet their own chains.  And it is so in this case.\nSinners are the slaves of Satan; those evil desires and inclinations\nwhich they so recklessly obey are but the tools and bonds of the great\noppressor.  The wicked man sells his soul to the devil for the price of\nindulgence in \"the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season.\"  There\nis a very easy way of testing this question of freedom or bondage in sin.\nIf you are really free, free to do as you like, you can do good as well\nas evil; you can give up your companionship with iniquity, and break your\ncovenant with darkness, as readily, and with as little difficulty, as you\nmade the compact.  Let the man who rejoices in his liberty to sin try to\nabandon iniquity; he will surely find it an impossible task.  However\nclearly he may discern the purity, justice, and goodness of God's law,\nhowever passionately he may long, and however earnestly he may strive, to\nregulate his life by it, he will find himself \"carnal, sold under sin;\"\nhe will \"find another law in his members warring against the law of his\nmind, and bringing him into captivity to the law of sin and death.\"  It\nis easy to float with the stream, and the stronger the current the more\nbuoyantly and exultingly it bears you on.  But try to breast the current.\nYou will soon find that you have undertaken a task which is \"impossible\nwith men,\" and will sink exhausted and undone with the vain endeavour.\nAlas! Satan is in very truth the lord of every enslaved soul, not\nrightfully, only by virtue of the foulest usurpation; but he is so in\nfact, and he \"binds our captive souls fast in his slavish chains.\"  And\nby this bondage unto sin he holds us captive to death.  His law is \"the\nlaw of sin and death;\" and till Christ redeem and actually deliver us, we\nare bound over to endure \"the bitter pains of eternal death.\"  It is an\nawful thought, but it is as true as it is awful.  Our cruel and\nrelentless jailer keeps us in the prison of sin, shut up under his power,\nwith a view to our everlasting death.  May we be made conscious of our\nenslavement, for till we become so, we are not likely to seek for\ndeliverance!\n\n2.  _The sure sign of bondage to Satan is continual subjection_, _or\nrather liability_, _to the fear of death_.  It would scarcely be true to\nsay of the great mass of the unconverted, that they are continually\nhaunted and incommoded by the fear of death.  Their general condition is\none of thoughtless and careless ease, but they are always, even through\ntheir whole life, liable to be thus haunted and incommoded.  Whenever the\nthought of death is brought home to them, as in the course of events it\nis ever and again sure to be, they are appalled and terrified.  They then\nfeel that death has a sting, and they have some foretaste of its\nsharpness and venom.  They see nothing in death but the ruin of all their\nearthly hopes and schemes, and nothing after death but \"a certain fearful\nlooking for of judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the\nadversaries,\" and when they seem to be themselves stricken by the hand of\ndeath, how do the terrors of hell make them afraid!\n\n    \"O death, how shocking must thy summons be,\n    To him that is at ease in his possessions!\"\n\nThere is a difference however, and a very great one, between the fear of\ndeath and the fear of dying.  Many good people are often tormented by the\nlatter kind of fear.  It is frequently the result of a sensitive\norganization, or ill health, or a naturally gloomy temperament; and many\nwho have been much troubled by it through life have found it to vanish\ncompletely when the supreme moment came.  But the fear of death is\nfounded on the consciousness of unpreparedness for it, and on the\nanticipation of the punishments which it will bring.  Every unsaved\nsinner has abundant reason for the fear which, however he may laugh it\noff, will assuredly at times gain the mastery over him.  The brooding\nsense of insecurity; the secret sudden pang, stabbing him in the midst of\nhis wildest joys; the desperate effort never to think, and the resolute\nrefusal ever to speak of death; tell their tale, and show that the slaves\nof Satan are always liable to the fear of death.  O, if this be your\ncase, it is high time to look to yourselves!  If you cannot bear the\nthought of death; if the great and solemn hereafter is haunted by images\nthat scare and threaten you; if you \"put far away the evil day;\" be sure\nthere is something radically wrong.  Be sure, by that token, that you are\nthe slave of the devil.  Be sure that you \"are in jeopardy every hour.\"\nNever rest, never for a moment be satisfied, till you can look death\ncalmly in the face, and discern for yourself the life to come, and your\ninheritance in heaven.\n\n3.  _For we all may have deliverance from our bondage to Satan_, _and\nfrom this characteristic effect and sign of it_.  The death of Jesus has\nprovided this deliverance for us.  By depriving Satan of his power over\ndeath, by expiating that sin which is the sting of death, and so entirely\nreversing and counteracting its penal efficacy, Christ hath wrought out\nfor us a great salvation.  And when we commit ourselves to Him, relying\non the efficacy of his atonement, our chains are broken, and our craven\nfears are banished.  Among the \"first words\" of newly-converted souls\nnone are more common or triumphant than these, \"I am not afraid to die\nnow!  I have a hope beyond the grave!\"  It is indeed a mighty\ndeliverance.  What calm, what security, what blessed hope does it\ninspire!  To lose all fear of the last and greatest of human calamities;\nto look into the face of that which was \"once an uncouth hideous thing,\"\nand to find that through our Saviour's death it hath become \"most fair\nand full of grace;\" to see no longer a dark and shrouded fiend arrayed in\nmortal terrors, and poising an envenomed dart for the purpose of laying\nus low, and compassing our lasting ruin; but a shining and smiling\nmessenger from the King of kings, bidding us to an everlasting banquet in\nhis royal palace; is not this true, priceless, boundless liberty,--worth\ntoiling, striving, suffering, dying for?  This flower of immortal hope\nblooms for each of us at the foot of the cross.  If by the death of Jesus\nwe gain spiritual life, we shall rejoice in hope of the glory of God, and\nshall look forward to the day of our death as the day of our eternal\nmarriage with the King of glory.  Let us not lose this unspeakable\nprivilege!  Let us, by faith in the death of our Lord, secure our freedom\nand our birthright!  And, as we think of our smitten friends, let us\nthank God for their final deliverance from the power of death, and their\nadmission into everlasting life.  Finally, let us more and more glory in\nthat cross whereby our Saviour Christ \"hath abolished death, and hath\nbrought life and immortality to light.\"\n\n\n\n\nINCONSIDERATION DEPLORED.\nREV. JOSHUA PRIESTLEY.\n\n\n    \"And they consider not in their hearts that I remember all their\n    wickedness.\"--HOSEA vii. 2.\n\nIs it possible for any man to conceive of truths more fitted to arrest\nthe attention and impress the heart than are those contained in this\nvolume?  It has been said that if a blank book had been put into our\nhands, and every one of us had been asked to put into it the promises we\nshould like to find there, we could not have employed language so\nexplicit, so expressive, and so suited to all our varied wants, as is\nhere.  And may I not say that no facts and declarations and appeals could\nbe more fitted to rouse the conscience, and to regulate the life, than\nthose we here find.  Alas! however, with what affecting appropriateness\nmay the Almighty say of Englishmen as of Israelites--of persons living\neighteen centuries after Christ's death, as of those living eight\ncenturies before it--\"They consider not in their hearts that I remember\nall their wickedness.\"\n\nThis passage brings before us two parties.  One is the speaker, the other\nthe persons addressed.  It states a fact respecting each.  Let us look at\nthese facts:--\n\nI.  \"I remember,\" says Jehovah, \"all their wickedness.\"  What an idea\ndoes this statement furnish of the unlimited vastness of the Divine mind!\nFor if He remembered all the evil deeds of all the Israelites, He\nremembered the evil deeds of all other persons.  If He remembered all the\nevil deeds of all then living, He remembered all the evil deeds of all\nwho ever had lived.  And if He remembered all evil deeds, assuredly He\nremembered all good ones.  The Scriptures declare this fact for the\ncomfort of the righteous.  What a cheering declaration to a good man is\nthat found in Hebrews vi. 10, \"For God is not unrighteous to forget your\nwork and labour of love, which ye have showed toward His name, in that ye\nhave ministered to the saints, and do minister.\"  What a vast number of\nincidents are included in the space of but one year in the history of\neach one of us!  What a still vaster number in the whole period of life!\nAnd when we think of the ten hundred millions of mankind now peopling our\nglobe; when we add to these the almost countless millions that have\ndeparted, and realize the fact that every incident of every individual of\nthem is remembered--remembered as distinctly too as if one solitary\nincident were all that memory was charged with, what an idea is given us\nof the vastness of the Divine mind!  What can we do but wonder and adore!\n\nMy text says much, but like many others, it means more than it says.  How\nmuch of what Scripture intends to teach us shall we fail to learn, if we\ndo not consider what is included and involved, as well as what is\naffirmed!  This declaration imports three things.  It imports--\n\n1.  That God observes all our wickedness.  To remember a thing implies\nknowledge of it.  This knowledge the Scriptures frequently declare the\nDivine Being to possess.  They tell us that His eyes run to and fro the\nearth, beholding the evil and the good; that all things are naked and\nopen to His eyes.  They go further.  They teach us that He is always\npresent with us all, that there is no part of this earth, of the vast\nuniverse, from which He is ever absent.  David expresses himself\nstrikingly on this point--\"Whither shall I go from Thy spirit?\" says he,\n\"or wither shall I flee from Thy presence?  If I ascend up into heaven,\nThou art there: if I make my bed in hell (hades), behold, Thou art there.\nIf I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of\nthe sea, even there shall Thy hand lead me, and Thy right hand shall hold\nme.  If I say, surely the darkness shall cover me, even the night shall\nbe light about me.  Yea, the darkness hideth not from Thee; but the night\nshineth as the day: the darkness and the light are both alike to Thee.\"\nPsalm cxxxix. 7-12.  How certainly therefore does God observe all our\nwickedness!  Did we but constantly realize this fact what a restraining\npower it would exert over us when we are tempted to evil.  A man left his\ncottage very early one morning taking with him a sack, and accompanied by\nhis son, a little boy.  That boy was a Sunday scholar, and little\nsuspected his father's errand.  After proceeding some distance the father\nentered a turnip field, and throwing down his sack, looked in this\ndirection and in that to see whether any one was observing him.  On\ndiscovering the father's object, the child said, \"Father, there was one\nway you did not look.\"  \"Indeed,\" replied he, hastily; \"which was that?\"\n\"You did not look upward,\" was the rejoinder, \"and God is observing you.\"\nThat was a word in season.  The father's arm was paralyzed.  He took up\nhis sack and returned home.  Remember, my friends, that the sleepless eye\nof the Omnipresent One is upon you.  The man that goes forth at the\nstill, dark, hour of midnight to plunder our habitations, how startled\nwould he be if an inmate should noiselessly and suddenly present himself\nbefore him--the servant that robs his master, the circulator of base\ncoin, the man of fraud--would these practise their misdeeds if they\nrealized this truth: \"Thou God seest me?\"  Would the slanderer, or\nbackbiter, or hypocrite, indulge their habits if they realized this\ntruth?  Of what immense benefit would the realization of this truth be,\nboth personally and socially!\n\n2.  When God says that He remembers all our wickedness, He means us to\nunderstand that He will exhibit it all.  Why did He tell this people that\nHe remembered all their wickedness?  The Scriptures answer that question.\nThey inform us that He intends to make use of the stores of which memory\nis possessed, and that He intends to make this use of them--to hold them\nup to the gaze of the universe.  They teach us that the conduct of every\nindividual will be investigated and published.  \"For God shall bring\nevery work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or\nwhether it be evil.\"  \"Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall\ngive account thereof in the day of judgment.\"  Important purposes will he\nanswered by this.  A declaration will be made of the righteousness of God\nin condemning the ungodly.  He will hold up to view the nature and extent\nof the requirements He made of us, their reasonableness and\nbeneficialness we shall all acknowledge.  He will then make known the\ninnumerable acts of goodness He bestowed--His forbearance to inflict\npunishment, and the various methods He employed to bring us to\nrepentance.  And by the side of all this He will exhibit our conduct\ntoward Him--our ingratitude, our disobedience, our perverseness.  And\nwith what enormity will these things then appear invested!  So guilty\nwill thy conduct then appear, O sinner, that thou wilt be constrained to\nexclaim: \"Thou art righteous, O Lord, which art, and wast, and shall be,\nbecause Thou hast judged thus.\"  What an exhibition will he made on that\nday!\n\n3.  When God says that He remembers all our wickedness, He means us to\nunderstand that He will punish for it all, if it be not repented of.  The\nmaintenance of law and order in the universe require the Divine Being to\ndisplay His abhorrence of transgression.  And how can that abhorrence be\nsuitably displayed otherwise than by punishment?  And the punishment must\nbe of a degree to represent the guiltiness of the conduct.  It must be\nimpartial, and be inflicted therefore on every transgressor.  The rich\nman cannot buy exemption from it.  The man of mighty intellect, or\npowerful eloquence, cannot persuade himself, not to say the righteous\nJudge, into the belief that he ought to be exempt.  The man of good\ndesires and pious resolutions, he who was born of praying parents, and\noften bowed his knees at the footstool of his Maker, but delayed to\nsurrender his heart, cannot escape.  No, my friends, the decree of the\nAlmighty has gone forth, it is irreversible--there is none more\nrighteous, and none that will more certainly be fulfilled: \"Though hand\njoin in hand the wicked shall not be unpunished.\"  \"The wicked shall be\ndriven away in his wickedness.\"  \"The wicked shall be turned into hell.\"\nWhat a mercy that we are not receiving our merited punishment at this\nmoment!  And why are we not?  Because the God whom we have so shamefully\nand inexcusably resisted and provoked \"is long-suffering to us-ward, not\nwilling that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.\"\nOpportunity is afforded for repentance.  He employs means to bring us to\nrepentance.  How good, how loving, God is!  \"God is love.\"\n\nCan any of you still resist the strivings of his Spirit?  \"Turn ye, turn\nye, why will ye die?\"\n\nChrist has died that you might live, live with Him in His kingdom of\nglory for ever.  He shed for you His precious blood.  For you He now\nintercedes at the right hand of the Majesty on high.  And if you come to\nHim, however guilty you are, truly sorry for your sins, and believe His\nown gracious declaration, that He came into the world to save sinners, to\nseek and to save that which was lost, He will pardon and bless you.  \"If\nwe say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in\nus.  If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our\nsins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.\"\n\nGod remembers all our wickedness.  How much of it do you remember?  How\nlittle of it do any of us remember!  The past is to a large extent a\nvague and dim expanse.  Many of you have climbed these noble hills, and\nas you stood on the summit, you observed that distinct as were the\nobjects near, those remote were quite indistinct.  It is but a few\nconspicuous objects you can discern at any considerable distance.  Just\nso it is in reviewing our past lives.  We can call to mind a few things.\nWe can remember well--ah, we cannot forget, we have often wished we\ncould, an act of rebellion against our parents of which we were once\nguilty; of obstinacy toward a master; of ingratitude toward a benefactor;\nof dishonourableness toward a friend, or unkindness toward a neighbour.\nThere are several sad deeds in the life of every one of us which we\ncannot forget, but how many which we have all forgot.  The things we can\nremember are as the milestones to the weary traveller, far, far apart.\nYes, we forget, but God does not.  He remembers them all.  There is not a\nsingle improper word we have ever uttered, not a wrong feeling we have\ncherished, not an ungodly deed we have done, not a duty we have\nneglected, but God knew it, will exhibit it, and if unrepented of, will\npunish for it.  Hear it, ponder it, hide it in the depths of your heart,\nGod remembers all our wickedness.\n\nHaving considered the import of the declaration as it regards Almighty\nGod, we come now to consider--\n\nII.  The charge against the Israelites.  They are not charged, you\nobserve, with denying the truth the Divine Being affirms respecting\nHimself, or even with doubting it.  They admitted it, believed it, but it\nwas unpalatable to them, and therefore they put it away from their\nthoughts.  What a melancholy exhibition of character was this!  And yet\ndoes not this declaration hold true of greatly more than one-half of the\npopulation of this evangelized land?  Does it not hold true of every\n_drunkard_?  Could he spend his hard-earned money in that which stupifies\nhis mind, injures his body, degrades his character, shortens his life,\nand destroys his soul; and besides all this, brings want and wretchedness\non his family, and makes himself a scandal and reproach to\nhumanity--could any man yield himself to the power of intoxicating liquor\nthat considered what is involved in such a course?\n\nDoes not this charge hold true of every _sensualist_?  Could any man\nbecome the victim of degrading passions, could he consent to sacrifice\nthe mental and moral part of his nature--the man to the animal--if he\nconsidered what was due to himself, to society, and to God?\n\nDoes not the charge hold true of the _pleasure hunter_?  As a condiment,\nas a relaxation, pleasure seeking, if of the right sort, is not only\nallowable but commendable.  He who gave life intended it to be a joy.  To\nbe always seeking after pleasure, however, exercises a dissipating and\ndebilitating influence on the mind, and prevents the acquirement of true\nnobleness and worth of character.  And would a creature, which is the\nhighest workmanship of Infinite Excellence with which we are acquainted,\nyield himself to this, if given to the consideration of the fact the\nAlmighty here states respecting himself?\n\nTo mention but one other class of character, does not the charge hold\ntrue of _the fraudulent_?  Would a man rob his soul to enrich his pocket,\nwould he narrow his heart to expand his purse, would he build up a\ncharacter that is to endure for ever with such ill-tempered mortar as\nfalsehood; would he be willing to encounter all the piercing looks and\naccusing words with which those he wronged will one day assail him, if he\nhad taken his relationship to God, and man, and eternity, into\nconsideration?\n\nWhat incalculable mischief and misery this neglect of consideration has\nwrought in our world!  Had our first parents considered the sad\nconsequences that would ensue to themselves and their posterity, would\nthey have plucked the forbidden fruit?  Through what a long and mournful\nlist of events that have happened from that day to this might I easily\ngo, all of which would have been avoided if right consideration had been\ngiven!  Every day during those six thousand years a multitude of such\nevents have happened.  Is there one of you but can recal deeds respecting\nwhich you say with bitterness of heart, I wish I had given it\nconsideration--I wish I had considered it more fully?\n\nMy young friends permit me to urge consideration upon you.  Your welfare\nfor both worlds is largely in your own keeping.  You can secure it or\ndestroy it.  But to secure it, consideration is essential.  If you don't\naddict yourselves to reflection you will be largely at the mercy of\nimpulse, be enticed probably by evil companions, and get wrong perhaps in\na thousand ways.  Reluctant as you may feel at first to engage in\nit--uninteresting as you may deem it, do not, as rational creatures,\nprefer the pleasing to the right and good.  The young man of reflection\nis more respected, more valuable, and unspeakably more happy, than the\nfrivolous and vain.  If you forget all else I say, do not forget this--it\nis the declaration of your loving Father in heaven, who wishes to welcome\nyou there, but can welcome those only who yield to Him a filial love--\"I\nremember all their wickedness.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE FRIEND WHOSE YEARS DO NOT FAIL.\nREV. W. ARTHUR, M.A.\n\n\n    \"And thy years shall not fail.\"--HEBREWS i. 12.\n\nYou know that these words are taken from the hundred and second Psalm.\nThere, they are addressed to God the Creator; here, to Christ the\nRedeemer.  In both cases they express the same truths.  Man finds himself\nhere, looks out to what he can see around him, and then in thought passes\non to what he cannot see.  He knows that a very little while ago he was\nnot here, he was not anywhere.  He has an instinct within which tells him\nthat though it is so short a time since he was not the time will never\ncome when he will not be--an instinct that cries for a permanent\nfoundation.  He is not such foundation himself--he feels that.  He stands\nupon the foundation of the earth: he did not lay it; it did not lay\nitself.  Those layers of rock were not their own framers.  But the\nfoundation _was_ laid.  \"Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the\nfoundation of the earth.\"\n\nHe is under a covering as well as on a foundation.  He did not pitch that\ncanopy, nor fix those lights, nor hang those curtains by whose silent\nclosing and withdrawing the light is heightened or dimmed.  \"The heavens\nare the work of thy hand.\"  But will these last?  Will this earth that I\nstand upon last?  No; I see on it the marks of age and decay as on\nmyself.  Like me it will perish.  And those heavens that are over me,\nthey shall perish--will all things perish?  Will everything that is go\nout of being?  \"Thou remainest.\"  They shall wax old, it is true, but\nthat is only as if a garment waxed old; \"As a vesture shalt thou fold\nthem up and they shall be changed.\"  All this that the eye can see above,\nbelow, around, is to the great King but as the robe upon the Sovereign to\nhis person, and dominion, and when he folds up that vesture and lays it\naside he will command another wherewith to show his glory to his\nsubjects.  \"They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax\nold as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they\nshall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail!\"\n\nWe have here a preacher, a listener, a subject: changeful nature, mortal\nman, immutable Godhead.\n\nChangeful nature is a perpetual preacher, evermore proclaiming to us the\ntwofold lesson, our own mortality and God's immutable glory and power.\n\"Thy years shall not fail.\"  What strange language applied to the Divine\nBeing--perfectly natural as applied to us--\"years!\"  Our life is finite,\nour life is measured, our life is dealt out to us in parcels.  For us to\nspeak of our \"years\" is natural, but when we look up to Him that is\nunmeasured, infinite, eternal, then this word \"years\" becomes but the\nrepresentative of our small transient life when trying to contrast itself\nwith his broad and Infinite Being.  We are constantly speaking of two\nthings wherewith we find ourselves related--space and time: and what are\nthey?  We hardly know.  We know but something like this: space is a\nmeasured distance in infinity; time a measured duration in eternity.\n\nWe are launched in the midst of a sea of eternity, and all the time that\ncomes to us comes by solemn public measurement, measurement conducted in\nthe most formal and stately manner by the hand of the Creator.  He made\nthat heaven from which we can never shut our regard--we must see it; and\nin it He set those lights \"for signs and for seasons and for days and for\nyears.\"  He might easily have given us a being that would have flowed on\nevenly from its beginning to its close without anything to mark it off\ninto stages.  We may almost watch a sunbeam starting from the sun and\nracing all the way to our world, passing over it, far on beyond it, till\nour eye and even our thought cannot follow it, and never anything to\ncheck or register its progress.\n\nBut not so the career that God has appointed to us.  Everything is dealt\nto us under an economy of measure, of trust and of account.  \"For\nsigns\"--He set those things above us for signs.  Cannot earth be a sign\nto herself?  Cannot man be his own directory?  Cannot the seas and the\nmountains and the rivers and trees and houses be their own tokens?  Try\nthis.  Let that ship at sea, on which the fog has settled, ask the waves\nto say where is north, south, east or west; and when the gale springs up\nand the clouds cover the heavens let her ask the winds to tell how far\nfrom port.  No, if the heavens give no signs she has none, she cannot\ntell where she is or whither she is going.\n\nSuppose you find yourself within a mile of the house in which you were\nborn: you know, as you think, every step of the way as well as you know\nyour own bedroom; but there is neither sun nor moon nor star, the heavens\nare completely shut off and you are left to earth alone.  Will the trees\ntell you the way?  Will the houses show themselves?  Will the road be its\nown exhibitor?  No, if heaven fails you you cannot even see your own\nhand.  You are under the perpetual preaching of the sky, that all your\nhours and all your movements are dependent upon heaven!\n\n\"For seasons\" as well as for signs.  The Lord might easily have\nestablished our lifetime under a different economy; might have given us\none perpetual summer, or a perpetual spring, or a uniform co-existence of\nall the seasons, the fruits being sown, ripening and reaped\nsimultaneously.  But not so.  He has settled two things so clearly that\nnone, even the most sordid worm that ever wriggled under the clay,\nshowing himself above it as little as possible, can help seeing them.\nFirst a fixed order that nothing can change and that proclaims one Lord,\none will, one dominion, one plan.  The seasons come in regular\nsuccession.  Every man living knows when the summer is gone that winter\nis coming.  That will not and cannot be changed.  Were the whole world to\nconspire in one effort that spring should come next it would be\nunavailing.  The winter is coming.  But with this fixed order is\nestablished perpetual change, variety, mutability, so that although we\nknow the season that is coming we know not what kind of a season it shall\nbe, and all our temporal interests hang upon that question.  When the\nmerchant has got his stock, when the man of pleasure has fixed for his\nparty, when the General has planned his campaign, when the Admiral has\nlaid down the arrangements for the battle, when the grand politician has\nperfected the plot for a new crisis of the world, what must they do?  Not\nlook to what the earth but what the heaven will do.  Everything depends\nupon that.  They cannot decide the market price even of hard sovereigns,\nthey cannot foretell the value of their wheat, they cannot determine the\nlife and health of their soldiers or the hours and effect of movements\nindependent of that one consideration, what will the heavens do?  Three\ndays rain will change a whole campaign or a harvest.  By the arrangement\nof the seasons we are constantly kept at the door of Divine mercy,\nbegging \"Give us this day our daily bread.\"  That eternal voice preaching\nthrough all our temporal interests is to us the solemn, never-ceasing\nprotest against worldliness, earthliness, vanity, living for time, living\nfor the body; and, above all, against every impure or ungodly method of\nattempting to secure our temporal aims.\n\n\"For days\" as well as for seasons.  The season passes slowly, but the\nday--oh what a solemn appointment is that!  When the Lord made the sun to\nrule the day and the moon to rule the night it would have been very easy\nfor Him to make two suns so that we should bask in perpetual daylight.\nBut no, it was his will that our life should be cut into very short\nlengths and that by a mark so deep, broad, black, that the dullest man\ncould not escape its impression.  The dark gulf that lies between the\ndead day and the day unborn is the ever recurring remembrancer--Thy days\nare numbered; thy life is held under law; thy time is a measured current\nof golden sands.  Every particle as it comes may easily slip away, if\nunwatched _will_ slip, and once past thy hand it will be borne off by the\nrushing river and thou shalt never see it again, but if caught, held and\nbrought to the mint of the great King it will there be turned into\nprecious coin to serve in perpetuity the double purpose of enriching man\nand recording the majesty of God.  Seize upon thy days as they pass!  The\nheavens tell thee to do it; the dark and mantled earth tells thee; thy\ndrowsy faculties tell thee; thy weary limbs tell thee; all are saying\n\"numbered, numbered, numbered.\"  Life is running away fast.\n\nNot only for days but \"for years.\"  The days, as I have said, are short;\nthey pass rapidly, and we calculate that the days of our years are\nthreescore years and ten.  And when you come to multiply 70 by 365 it\nmakes a very large number, and if we have lost a few handfuls of days,\nwell, cannot we make them up?  Have we not been young, and are we not in\nthis pleasant watering place, where one must see life and have a little\npleasure, and if we do throw away a few days, why, cannot we recover\nthem?  Can we say that of the years?  Are the years so very\nplentiful--such a large number assured to you that you can afford to\nsquander a few, to turn them not only to useless purposes but to bad\nones.  Can you?--the years!--oh is not it wonderful, the way in which thy\nLord and my Lord, thy Creator and my Creator, marks out before our eye\nthe progress of the years?\n\nPerhaps you may remember in childhood watching the day as it grew and\nspread itself out, making conquests from the night and winning moments,\nminutes, hours, till you began to think the day was going to do away the\nnight.  You saw it stretching over the hours that once were dark till it\nseemed as if the tips of the sunset touched the tips of the sunrise, and\nstill the light was gaining so that in a little time the darkness would\nbe all driven away and it would be day the twenty-four hours round.  But\njust then the night began to come back and the day grew shorter, dimmer,\ncolder, and the darkness spread itself over the light till it seemed as\nif in its turn the day was going to be quenched and darkness to wrap up\nthe whole twenty-four hours.  But then the day returned.\n\nWas it an accident this first time?  Would it ever occur again?  You\nwatched it: just the same process and at the same time, and you began to\nfeel--it is a wheel! with its regulated, measured appointed movement;\nsteady, by rule it rises to a certain point, and then comes down to a\ncertain point, then turns again and comes up.  It is a perfectly balanced\nwheel, making its revolution steadily, steadily.  I did not fix those\nrevolutions: the great Architect did!  He knows how many the wheel itself\ncan perform; He knows what each revolution marks off and what it\naccomplishes, and He knows too how many shall measure off my thread of\nlife.  I do not know the number, you do not know; but this we do know, it\nis marked upon the dial, and we are tolerably sure it is not more than\nthreescore and ten.  Suppose you saw the dial of life before your eye as\nplain as that dial is and the hand pointing twenty, thirty, forty, fifty\nof the divisions gone--gone never to return!  Suppose you felt that that\nhand was pressing forward and would point and point to successive lines\ntill at last, without a moment's warning, the hour will strike and it is\nover, no recall!  Man of twenty, proud of thy youth! man of fifty, proud\nof thy maturity! man of seventy, proud of thy years! are you prepared to\nmeet your God?  Has your time been spent with a view to eternity?  Has\nthe measure of your days been taken?  Has the course of your years been\nrun in holiness?  If not, by the deep voice of the heavens above thee;\nthat voice which evermore is speaking; by the night and the day, and the\nseason and the year, I charge thee prepare to meet thy God.  For thy time\nis passing and eternity at hand.\n\n\"Thy years shall not fail.\"  The thought of man never feels that it can\nsay this to nature.  He sees the stones themselves have marks of age and\ndecay--the very mountains, the very seas tell of change and limit.  And\nin the skies too far off for us to trace decay we trace something\nelse--measure.  Everything is measured.  The moon goes by measure and the\nsun by measure, and the way of the stars is all measured.  There are\nclear tokens that not one of them is its own master or gives its own law.\nOne government moulds them all.  They say \"We serve.\"  I take up the\nblade of grass and at once feel He that made that grass made the light of\nday, the dew of the morning, the beast that feeds upon it.  One law\npervades them all.  I take up the corn.  He that made that made the sun\nthat ripens it and the soil that fattens it, and my blood that is my\nlife.  Everywhere is one mind, one plan, one hand, one sceptre, and all\nnature says \"I serve, I serve.  There is a force external to myself.  I\nam measured.  I move by rule.\"  \"I revolve,\" says every wheel in the\nheaven, \"I roll round by regular law.\"  \"Measure\" always means\n\"beginning.\"  That which is measured must have begun.  Beginning always\nsuggests the possibility of end.  That which once was not hereafter may\nnot be.  Nature fails to fill the mind of man in any one of the three\ndirections--the past, the future, the outward and the infinite.  It\ncannot fill up this thought of ours that claims an eternity before, an\neternity coming, an infinity on every side; and we feel nature is like\nourselves--a servant, a creature, a machine, an organ, and every part of\nit proclaims a mind that lived before it.\n\nThen will all things fail? all decay?  No--\"Thy years shall not fail.\"\nWe turn to Him that made the law whereby the blade of grass grows, that\nwhereby the sun statedly comes to it, that whereby the animal feeds upon\nit, that whereby the man lives upon the animal, and that whereby the\nhuman mind reigns over the animal, cultivates the grass and makes use of\nthe light.  We come to that great Being whom all these things indicate\nand proclaim.  In Him we find no external law or force compelling Him.\nAt his footstool all say \"We serve,\" and to all He says either \"Be\" or\n\"Do\" or \"Do not.\"  We find in Him no internal decay.  Years come, ages\ncome, worlds arise and worlds pass away, but \"Thou art the same\"--the\nsame in strength, the same in youth, the same in beauty, the same in\nglory, the same in wisdom.  Never old, only \"ancient of days.\"  \"Over\nall, God blessed for ever.  Amen.\"\n\nThe years of his divine existence shall never fail, the years of his\nredeeming reign shall never fail.  As I said, this Scripture is quoted\nfrom the hundred and second Psalm.  If you turn to it you will find in it\na contrast between man's perishing life and the eternal lifetime of the\nLord; and especially the glorious lifetime of his Messiah and Messiah's\nkingdom.  \"My days are like a shadow that declineth, I am withered like\ngrass.\"  The Bible makes everything preach--it makes the sparrow preach\nand the bush preach, and the grass and the lily.  It makes even the very\nshadows preach--\"My days are like a shadow that declineth.\"  Perhaps\nsometime in the morning you have stood and seen the great tree lying on\nthe east of the hill, throwing its shadow broad and thick over the\nhill-side as if it really was a substance.  But as the sun went up in the\nsky that shadow gradually shrank down until it totally disappeared under\nthe leaves of the tree.  My days are like that shadow--perhaps not like\nthat only.  You may have seen in the very bright moonlight shadows lying\nacross the street till they looked solid as if they were something, so\nmuch so that the young colt started from them.  But a cloud passed over\nthe moon and where was the shadow?  My days are like that.  \"But thou, O\nLord, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.\"\nThe remembrance of man is calling to mind those who are no more; the\nremembrance of God is calling to mind Him that is unseen.  \"Thy\nremembrance shall endure unto all generations.  Thou shalt arise and have\nmercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come.\nFor thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust\nthereof.  So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the\nkings of the earth thy glory.\"  Not only will his days endure but his\nkingdom will endure; not only will it endure but it will go forward with\na perpetual progress.  \"Thou shall arise and have mercy upon Zion.\"  The\nLord is building a city in the world, a city that hath foundations, a\ncity that is compacted together, a city that has its families and houses\nand companies, its solemnities and social joys; a city that is all one\nbrotherhood though composed of every nation and kindred and people.  The\nLord will arise in his strength to build this city and one of the signs\nfor his time to favour her is when her children take pleasure in her\nstones and favour the dust thereof.  We have that sign in our day.  God's\nchildren are taking pleasure in the stones of Zion and favouring the dust\nthereof.  Let us then, looking at the sign, lift up our eye for the\nfulfilment of the promise, \"When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall\nappear in his glory.\"  We are trying to build Zion and the Lord is\npleased to see it; but let us call upon Him--\"Appear in thy glory!  Do\nthou come and build!  Give us the living stones, bring them to us by thy\npower out of the rocks, out of the heights and depths we cannot reach\nunto wilt thou not bring living stones to thy temple?\"  Call and He will\ncome and He will build, and \"the heathen shall fear the name of the\nLord.\"\n\nYou will say, \"They have not heard it yet\"--but they shall.  You say many\nthat have heard it do not fear it, but they shall, they shall fear the\nname of the Lord--\"and all the kings of the earth thy glory.\"  The kings\nfear his glory!  They think of ancestral glory, courtly glory, military\nglory, political glory; they do not think about Christ and his glory.\nBut they shall, they shall fear his glory.  The proudest kings in the\nearth shall feel that the glory of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is to them\nmuch as the sun is to that shadow I have spoken of upon the hill.  Their\nglory must pale and pass away.  It is but a little time ago, only\nnineteen centuries ago, since Christ had no kingdom in the earth, no\nfollower, no temple, no power.  Now is there a monarch in the world will\ncome out and say, \"I shall sweep the name, the law, the love, the power\nof Christ out of the earth?\"  No, of all powers now acknowledged there is\nnone so deep, wide and mighty.\n\nEvery day adds to that power; every year opens to it new spheres, new\nlanguages, new adherents, and on will it go and on till the whole earth\nis subdued under the power of the Lord and his Christ.  What is the\ninstrument of its progress?  \"He will regard the prayer of the destitute\nand not despise their prayer.\"  Not despise prayer!  Why, do not the wise\nmen of the world despise prayer?  Do not many talkers tell us that prayer\nis a thing not to be looked upon as a force in the light of elevated\nreason?  You may despise it if you please and try to rear a kingdom over\nhuman souls on a system that does.  God will not despise it, Christ will\nnot despise it.  There is a kingdom to be invoked by prayer, with its\nthrone and its crown and its sceptre.  All the powers of that kingdom are\nmoved with the cry of a destitute heart.  It is so, and you cannot alter\nit.  \"This shall be written for the generation to come,\" how you go and\nwrite down that prayer is of no effect, and we will write \"He will not\ndespise their prayer,\" and let the \"generation to come\" judge.  Your\npredecessors, eighteen hundred years ago, wrote what you say--ours wrote\nthese words, and see the kingdom of Christ to-day!  \"This shall be\nwritten for the generation to come: and the people.\"  What people \"shall\npraise the Lord?\"  The people that are in Jerusalem?  No.  In Rome? in\nAthens?  No.  What people?  The people that are not anywhere; the people\nthat are neither in heaven nor in earth; \"the people that shall be\ncreated.\"  \"That shall be created\"--existences now not existing, beings\nnow not being, offspring of God and members of the family of immortals\nnot yet born--they shall praise the Lord.  Coming up out of the dark of\nthat great future they shall rise to obey the King we worship and to\npraise the Saviour we love.  \"For He hath looked down from the height of\nhis sanctuary: from heaven did the Lord behold the earth.\"  Ay, from that\nholy place, that sanctuary--from that high place, that heaven--He looked\nto behold this earth, this vile place, this base place.  Yet it was not\nto curse it--He looked \"to hear the groaning of the prisoner; and to\nloose those that are appointed to death.\"  Here in every corner of the\nworld you will see a man who is appointed to death, accused, guilty, a\nlawbreaker, with witness heard and evidence taken and judgment\nrecorded--the sentence is against him.  Oh, if we had an eye such as\nlooks from above how many might we see in this fair congregation who are\ncondemned to death.  You know it; you are breakers of eternal law; just\njudgment is against you; you are appointed to death, and unless you are\ndelivered from that condemnation die you shall, die by a public execution\nbefore all worlds in the great day.  But He comes to deliver them \"that\nare appointed to death\"--to bring you pardon, to bring yon salvation, to\nbring you mercy, to make you a child of God, to blot out all the sin that\nyou have committed.  Christ died that you might be delivered; reigns that\nyou may be delivered, and this day He is speaking to thy heart that thou\nmayest turn from thy sin, seek mercy and follow Him in the way of life.\n\nSo the Psalmist goes on ever anticipating the growth and stability of\nthis kingdom.  \"He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my\ndays.\"  God does not make his Church and work to depend upon the length\nof any man's days.  \"I said, O my God take me not away in the midst of my\ndays: thy years are throughout all generations.  Of old hast thou laid\nthe foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands.\nThey shall perish, but thou shalt endure? yea, all of them shall wax old\nlike a garment; as a vesture shall thou change them, and they shall be\nchanged; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.\"  Ay,\nand there is something else that has no end.  The heavens shall perish,\nthe earth shall perish.  God will endure.  And will nothing else endure.\nYes, \"The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall\nbe established before thee.\"  The servants, the children of God, those\nthat are born again by the Spirit's grace, those that come to Christ, the\nMessiah, and through Him recover, by adoption, the place in the family of\nGod that was lost by sin, they shall continue, they shall be established.\nWhat! when the earth flees away?  Yes, when the earth flees away.  What!\nwhen the heaven falls?  Yes, when the heaven falls; they shall be\nestablished with the same immortality as their Father in heaven.  \"Thy\nyears shall not fail.\"  God will not fail; Christ will not fail; the Rock\nof Ages will not fail; and all and every one that through Christ is in\nGod will never fail.  The world will pass away, the word of God will not\npass away, and the child of God will not pass away.\n\nTake then this word to thy heart and say \"Thy years shall not fail.\"  It\nwill give you a worthy fear.  Man is always rightly or wrongly fearing\nsomething.  One is afraid of a man that has him in his power.  He says,\n\"If I offended him I should lose my bread; it would be as much as my\nliving is worth; I must take care not to offend him;\" and rather than\noffend that man he will stain his conscience and offend his God.  Come\nback in twenty years and ask where that man is, and they will take you to\nhis grave, and that was what you were afraid of!  Another fears this\nbright, witty, active young man, whose word either cuts or flatters with\namazing power.  He feels as if he could not face him; as if he could not\nbear that he should look him in the face and call him a saint or tell him\nhe had been praying to God or been commending his soul for mercy to\nChrist.  If he said these things to him it would actually appear as if it\nwas something against him, something he ought to be ashamed of!  Come\nback in twenty years and enquire for him--perhaps you will find him in a\nmad-house, perhaps in a gambling-house, perhaps in chains among convicts.\nPerhaps you will find a broken-hearted mother in black, wishing that he\nhad never been born, and that is what you are afraid of!  Another is\nafraid of the fashion.  Every one does it, and if he did not do it he\nwould be remarked.  Every one says there is no harm in it, and if he\nscrupled they would make fun of him, and on this account he will do a\nthing that he knows ought not to be done.  Come back in two generations\nand enquire from the grandchildren of these people about this fashion and\nyou will find they are all laughing at the folly of their grandfathers\nand grandmothers.  And that is what you are afraid of!  Set the Lord\nalway before you.  Say, \"Thy years shall not fail.  Thou art worthy to be\nfeared.  I will fear thee.  Thou hast power--power over my breath, over\nmy body, over my day, over my night--power to destroy both body and soul\nin hell; power to kill, power to make alive; power to condemn, power to\nsave; power to cast me down, power to lift me up to heaven--I will fear\nthee, O God in Christ, and be thou my only fear.\"\n\nSet the Lord alway before you and there you will find a sure refuge.\nNature is changing and decaying, and we are changed faster than nature.\nWe are all passengers in a ship that is floating in an ocean and has fire\nin her hold.  This air around us has an ocean in it, an ocean of real\nwater, and did God will it a little change in the weight of the air would\nbring a universal deluge.  This earth has fire in it, stores of fire, and\ndid God will a very little change in the chemistry of the air it would be\na universal blaze.  We are passengers, I say, in a ship sailing in an\nocean with fire in the hold, and we know that the fire is to break out\nand that the moment will come when the ship will be burnt up.  You and I\nare pacing this deck with the fire beneath, and the day, the hour, the\nmoment, that the signal will be given no man living can tell.  Are we\nprepared to meet our God?  Can we look forth from this frail world unto\nthat infinite bosom of eternal rest and say, \"Thou art mine and I am\nthine to all eternity?\"  You may look to other refuges but they are not\nsecure, to other coverts but they are not safe.  Here is the Rock of Ages\nand that rock is cleft for you.  God manifest in the flesh.  Behold\nChrist crucified and flee to Him, flee for refuge, flee to-day; once in\nChrist you will know that you are safe.  Let the storm come, let the\nwinds blow, let the floods beat, let the fires break out, safe! safe!\nsafe!  Nothing can move Him and nothing can touch thee.  Thou shalt\n\"dwell under the shadow of the Most High.\"\n\nSet the Lord alway before thee and you will have an unfailing stay, an\nunfailing resource.  Many things you may think will not fail.  Here is\nthe old man, and his friends tell him he does not fail, and how he likes\nto hear it!  \"Thy years do not weigh thee down.\"  He goes on and it seems\nas if to him the years come as the snow falls on the mountains, not to\nenfeeble but to embellish.  He does not fail.  Ay, but he will fail and\nbe bowed down to the dust.  And the wiry woman that has gone through\nenough to kill many and yet hath more spirit and energy than the young.\nAy, she shall fail too; you will see her smitten and trodden under the\ngrass.  \"Well I know I must fail,\" one says, \"I _am_ failing, but then\nthere is my boy, I shall never want some one to lean upon, I can trust\nhim.\"  Ah! he may fail; you may stand by the grave where they are saying,\n\"Dust to dust,\" or you may with your hands over your eyes look upon a\nsadder grave where his character lies corrupting.  Another says, \"Well, I\nknow I am failing, but there is my daughter so good and sweet and true--I\nshall never want a comforter for my old age.\"  Ah, you do not know, she\nmay fail, you may have to weep over her coffin or to blush over her\nfaults.  And another says, \"Well, I have never depended upon anything but\nmy own honest industry.  I have something to rely upon.  Mine is not\nspeculation, it is good steady business--I can trust it.\"  Can you? can\nyou?  God may permit you by one mistake to undo the doing of a life.\n\"But I am not depending upon the chances of business--my position is\nsecure--settled property.  I shall not fail.\"  Are you sure?  You know\nnot the ways by which earthly things can make themselves wings and flee\naway; or if they do not flee you may depart from them.  Another says,\n\"Well, I have never trusted to anything but my right hand and I shall not\nwant--wherever I go I can take care of myself.\"  Ay, but suppose the\nright hand should fail?  As long as the strong arm and the strong will\nwork together it is well, but suppose a day should come when an invisible\nknife should pass between the arm and the will: and the will said,\n\"Stretch forth!\" but the arm hung idle by the side.  It may fail.  \"Well,\nbut my heart never fails me; whatever goes wrong I can make the best of\nit.\"  But suppose your heart should fail and that you became one of those\nto whom the grasshopper was a burden, one that made the worst of\neverything, that could look no difficulty in the face.  Your heart may\nfail, your flesh may fail, your money may fail, your employ may fail,\nyour friends may fail, everything upon earth may fail.  If you have\nChrist for your friend you will never fail, if you have God for your\nFather you have a shelter, a home, a comfort that will never fail.  If\nyou have not you have nothing that you can count upon.  Then come this\nday, come and say to all the shadows, \"I trample over you, I clasp the\nsubstance.  Holy God, my Eternal Father, let me be reconciled to thee!\nBe thou my God!  Make me thy child!  Give me a part and a lot in the\nfamily of the holy!  For the sake of Jesus, who is the same yesterday,\nto-day, and for ever, write my name in thy book of life and cover me from\nthe storm that is coming, so that amid the change of life and the ruin of\ndeath, the awe of the judgment-day, my spirit may abide under an\neverlasting shelter! may look forward to the eternity that is to be and\nsay to it, 'Welcome--open all thy scenes--uncover thy deepest\nsecrets--world of the unknown, bring out all that thou hast hidden, for\nall things are mine, for I am Christ's, and Christ is God's.'\"  Amen and\nAmen.\n\n\n\n\nGOD'S CONTROVERSY WITH MAN.\nREV. CHARLES PREST.\n\n\n    \"Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because I will do\n    this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.\"--AMOS iv. 12.\n\nThis chapter refers to the condition of Israel at the time of this\nprophecy, and to the expostulation and threatened procedure of God\nconcerning the nation.  God's people had revolted from Him; they had sunk\ninto idolatry; they had been often reproved, but had hardened their\nnecks, and therefore the Lord, after recapitulating the calamities which\nhad befallen them, and which all came in the way of fatherly\nchastisements for their recovery to righteousness, and indicating that\nhis anger was not turned away, says, \"and because I will do this unto\nthee\"--and because having done this repentance does not appear, then\nprepare to meet me.  That is, meet me in battle.  If you will not submit,\nthen let the battle be fought; if you will not bow down to these kind\nmodes of discipline--kindly intentioned, however terrible in execution,\nthen prepare to meet me.  This expostulation proceeds upon a very\nintelligible principle--a principle, however, which we sometimes sadly\nforget, and which we are too much in the habit of neglecting--on the\nprinciple that man is an accountable creature; and secondly, that God\nwill call him to account for his conduct.\n\nGod has a controversy with man, with us--a controversy with us because of\nour sin, our sin being an outrage against the divine love; a controversy\nwith us because He is right and we are wrong; because He designs the\nwelfare of all, and the sin that we love is productive of universal\ndestruction; a controversy with sinners that can only be terminated in\none of two ways--a controversy with every unconverted person here to-day.\nDo not deceive yourselves: if you are strangers to the life of God, you\nare in opposition to Him, and with you as sinners there is a controversy\nonly to be terminated--first, by your submission, your repentance--and,\nthank God, He has prepared a perfect and suitable method for our\nsubmission, and for our repentance.  If He has a controversy with us, He\nwills it to be terminated in such a mode as shall secure the original\npurpose of his great love, which our sin has outraged.  Christ has\nappeared in our behalf, and for this purpose has offered a full, perfect,\nand sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for our sins.  For\nthis purpose the Divine Spirit waits in all our assemblies, and now in\nthis place, that any of you who are now enemies to Him by wicked works,\nbeing pricked in your hearts on account of your sins, and groaning under\nyour condemnation, may fly for refuge to the hope set before you in\nChrist Jesus our Lord.  So God would have this controversy terminated.\nSo He invites you in his great mercy to terminate it.  And for this\npurpose we are ministers of reconciliation, and \"we pray you in Christ's\nstead, be ye reconciled to God.\"\n\nThere is but one other way of terminating this controversy, and that is\nby our destruction.  If we will abide in our controversy, if we will wage\nthe battle to the end, this destruction must ensue, here is no method\nelse--no escape any where between the one extreme and the other; it is\nsubmission and life, it is battle and death--death eternal.  O that death\neternal!  What is it?  Not the annihilation of your souls.  What is the\ndeath of a soul?  The loss of the life of God--the loss of communion with\nGod.  The soul is made for such a communion: this is its true life; it\nhas no satisfaction apart from this enjoyment.  There cannot be communion\nwithout love; that is the soul of communion; and if you renounce the\nreign of love, and come under the dominion of enmity, you cut yourselves\noff from the life of God, you die, and must endure the bitter pains of\neternal death.  I pray God that you may terminate this controversy, and\nthank God that you may do so, by the submission of your hearts to his\nmerciful provision of salvation, that so you may live in hallowed\nChristian blessedness here, and inherit perfect fellowship and communion\nwith God hereafter.\n\nWe should humble ourselves in the presence of that great calamity which\nhas fallen upon our flocks and upon our herds.  I think it is well in\ntimes of public calamity that public attention should be called to these\nthings; and our attention has been called thereto--not, it is true, by\nthe governing authorities of the country.  No matter for that.  It is\nright that we should listen to the admonition that we have received in\nour own denomination, and do all we can rightly to humble ourselves, and\nabove all, earnestly to pray to God that He would take away the evil from\nus, and that, in taking away the evil, He would render us the less liable\nto promote the dire necessity of future visitation.  Let me then call\nyour attention to some general principles connected with God's dealings\nwith the nations.\n\nThere is a national as well as an individual providence.  In the ancient\ngovernment of God over the nations of the earth, in his dealings with his\nown people and with the heathen peoples about them, his hand was clearly\ndiscerned on many occasions, and his arm sometimes made bare.  There were\nthe predictions of certain events to come, and there was the recognised\naccomplishment of those predictions sometime afterwards.  Then, again,\nyou find miraculous interpositions of correction, of punishment, or of\ndeliverance.  If you turn your attention to the history of God's Church,\nyou find all these things manifest; you find Israel in Egypt; then the\ncommand that they should be allowed to pass away from their bondage; you\nfind Egypt resisting the command, and God sent among the people of Egypt\nsigns and wonders, and plagues by the hand of Moses, but they submitted\nnot.  He called them to obedience, but they rebelled.  By and bye, He\nslew their firstborn, the chief of all their strength, and then the\npeople came out with silver and with gold.  Nations are not simply\nchastised in this world, they are also punished.  Every one of us shall\ngive an account of himself to God at the last great day, and strictly\nspeaking, the punishment of separate individuals will not begin in this\nlife; but nations cannot be judged collectively hereafter; they are dealt\nwith here; and God's dealings with the nations stand out in his palpable\nacts with these Egyptians.  They saw the hand of God for a time, but they\nfell back into their ancient rebellion and pursued the Israelites to the\nRed Sea, and God made that sea a way for his ransomed and destroyed the\npursuing host.  Go through the entire history of God's ancient people.\nYou find the Assyrians round about Jerusalem, you see the angel of God\ngoing forth, and that mighty host is destroyed.  Go through all the\ndealings of God with heathen nations, and you find these physical\nmanifestations of God's power.  In our day there are no such\nmanifestations as these.  In modern times the events of the divine\ngovernment are not so authoritatively predicted, and the exceedingly\nfoolish attempts of some people to interpret prophecy and to apply it\narbitrarily to passing events cannot be too severely condemned.  They\ntend greatly to prejudice the proper interpretation of Scriptural\nprophecy before the world, and deserve severe reprehension, and should be\naltogether discountenanced by all men of sound mind.  In our day we have\nnot these authoritative predictions of events.  But amid all this there\nis a tendency to ignore the action of God in the government of the world\naltogether.  Instead of recognising his presence or acknowledging his\npower, the varied events--political, social, and otherwise--events like\nthe one to which I have just referred, affecting the nation, are denied\ntheir true character; and the view that I have ventured to place before\nyou in many places would be treated with ridicule.  Men say, when they\nlook at political events, that they are to be traced to the conclusions\nof well-directed political economy, or to the failure of the application\nof sound principles of government.  I know very well that if the\npestilence comes there are men who trace it to no higher than physical\ncauses.  I know very well that if great calamities happen in storm or\ntempest the physical cause is alone recognised.  And with reference to\nthe scourge of our cattle clever men look, as they ought, after the\nphysical causes.  They look, as I think they are bound, to the\ndevelopment of the evil influences leading to such a result.  But if men\nnow-a-days are Christian enough to recognise God in the parliament of\nthis country there is no great response, unless it be a response of\nill-concealed scorn; and even among people who profess more of\nChristianity there is a danger of leaving the stern, enlightened, and\nfaithful recognition of God which distinguished our fathers, and of\nlooking, in some fancied superiority of our intellect--which is but a\nfancy; for there were wise men before us--for explanation in something,\nin anything oft-times, rather than the recognition of God's power.\n\nRemember this, however, brethren, that the principles of God's government\nin our day are the same which have inhered in that government in all\nages--that, however human circumstances may differ, however the nations\nof this world may alter, however the powers of men may vary time after\ntime, God's government is an immutable thing; it changes not.  The\nperfect idea of a human government is this--I do not say it is\nrealised--to have certain fixed principles that are to abide, and then in\nthe application of those principles to find an elasticity which shall\nmeet every conceivable alteration of circumstances about us.  That is the\nidea of a perfect human government; but human governments do not attain\nto it.  The government of God, however, is perfect.  The great principle\nis love--\"God is love;\" its great end, the welfare of man; the purpose of\nthat government, the spread of Christianity for the welfare of mankind.\n\nThere is no expediency in this government, as men understand it.  The\ngovernments of this world are too much founded upon expediency--the\ngovernment of this country for the last sixty or seventy years lamentably\nfounded upon it.  There was a time when there was less of it here, but\nthe disciples of expediency increase, and it is now rather \"What is\nconvenient?\" than \"What is right?\"  There is an expediency taught in the\nBible, but it is nothing more than the best way of doing the right thing.\nIt never truckles.  The government of God knows nothing of our human\nexpedients; it knows a great deal of Divine arrangements, and God as\ntruly governs as though in his government of the nations He should work\nsigns and wonders and divers miracles daily.\n\nGod has spoken in the history of our own country.  Look at some of the\nstartling events of the last two hundred years.  You look at the act of\nour noble, intelligent, never-to-be-sufficiently-admired, firm old\nEnglish ancestors, in driving James the Second from his throne, and\nworking out the glorious Revolution of 1688.  Well, if you look at all\nthis politically, you speak of their wisdom, their fortitude, and their\nindomitable spirit; you speak too of storm and tempest all working in\ntheir favour.  Aye, aye, but the hand of God was there, as much in\nsending away that unworthy King as God's hand was in sending\nNebuchadnezzar to feed among the oxen.  God's hand may not appear in our\nmodern times as in former days, but faith sees that hand in the common\naffairs of mankind.  But because we do not see the operation, because the\noperation is not palpable to men's senses, the agency of God is\nforgotten.  Depend upon it, it is a great mistake to imagine that if we\ncould see, now and then, some great miracle wrought, we should get into\nthe habit of recognising the power and wisdom of God.  The Israelites\nwere fed in the desert by miracle, and rebelled against God whilst they\nate the food miraculously given to them.  The wonder--the perfection of\nthe Divine operation is this, that without disturbing in our little\nindividual history any of the common affairs which arise in every-day\nlife, without working any miracle at all, and whilst to the eyes of men\nall things continue as they were from the beginning, whilst there is\nnothing observable in the method, He works all things together for the\ngood of them that love Him, combining opposing forces and blending\ntogether the elements of life and of death in one grand atmosphere of\nbenediction for the welfare of the righteous, and all this without\ndisturbing the ordinary course of cause and effect.  The power of God\nimpresses itself not merely through the lower links of the chain of\nprovidence--cause and effect, but upon the higher part of that chain\nwhich sends down its influence, its intelligence, its all-wise\nbenevolence, to work out the welfare of those that are the objects of his\nlove.\n\nSo it is with nations.  You will see public events rising up in\nconnection with ordinary causes, but we ought to acknowledge the great\nFirst-cause.  The principles of divine government which operated in the\nold time are now as surely in operation as they were then.  They are not\nantiquated: they are not at all supplanted; they operate in the same way,\nto the same ends; they operate to national and personal benefit, to\nnational and personal reproof, or, in the neglect of such admonition, to\nnational and personal punishment, showing us that God's government is now\nthe government which it was in the ancient days, and that though we see\nno miracles in our day God is as much in the midst of unthinking\nmultitudes as when men were startled by the visible interposition of his\nAlmighty power.\n\nLet us look, then, at the state of things about us now.  Is there not\nsufficient cause in this land to lead us to humble ourselves, to improve\nthe admonition of our God; that we should prepare to meet Him, in the\nonly way in which we can meet Him to our profit, by our personal\nsubmission to a greater extent; and if we love our country, that we\nshould put ourselves into a position to bring the nation out of any state\nof rebellion against God, to lead it back to a more perfect\nreconciliation with Him?  What evils have we now to deplore?  Why, a\ngreat number.  It is a blessed land after all; and there is more of\nChristianity found in it than in any other in the world.  There is\ndoubtless more of the direct influence of Christianity in our population\nthan you will find elsewhere, and certainly more of the indirect\ninfluence upon the constitution of the nation, upon our legislation, upon\nour national--aye, and upon our domestic habits.  There is a large amount\nof the indirect influence of Christianity in our midst, for which we have\ncause to be thankful.  But then, on the other hand, how much is there of\nevil?  There is great evil in our midst.  There is first, what really our\nfathers had not so much to do with--there is the presence and power of a\nsubtle, of a most ably-wrought and powerfully-patronised Popery, about\nwhich we have been asleep for too long a time, Popery, which is inimical\nto the welfare of any nation, and inconsistent with the political\nhappiness, prosperity and security of any people.  You have not far to go\nfor the proof of this.  You have only to go to the present miserable\ncondition of Ireland to prove it.  It is all very well for disclaimers to\narise from the men who created the disloyal element of this mischief, but\nthey must esteem the Protestants of this country more credulous than I\nhope they will prove if they expect them to believe their present\nprotestations.  What else have you?  You have the presence of this Popery\nalso where Protestantism alone ought to be known.  You have it\ndishonestly intruded into the temples of Christian truth; and you have\nthe pernicious nonsense of miserable and disgraceful antics obtruded into\nwhat men call divine worship, utterly beneath the dignity of sensible\nmen.  You have another thing.  You have infidelity, and in the pulpit\ntoo--the pulpit in high places--infidelity in its worst form.  You have\nall this, and no power, and very little inclination exists to correct it.\nYou have all this, and multitudes love to have it so.  That is one form\nof evil, leading to many other forms, and causing all thoughtful men to\ndeplore the condition of churches cursed with a schism like this, with a\nfalse doctrine and heresy so utterly opposed to the truth and to the\nsalvation of men.  Well, then, look, at the profanity of the people\naround us.  Look at the ungodliness of decent people.  I am not here\nto-day to call your attention simply, as people sometimes do, to the\nlowest classes of society.  They are bad enough.  They are a festering\nmass at the foundation of all the greatness of the nation; they are a\nmass which, if not corrected in their tendencies, may at any time be\nquickened into an activity that will utterly wreck the entire\nsuperstructure of all that as Christians and as Englishmen we hold dear.\nBut higher up, where there is no profaneness or criminality, or gross and\ndisgusting visible intemperance, what other evils are there?  There is\ndecency, but there is an absence of the recognition of God.  God is not\nin men's thoughts.  And there is a fearful and fatal indifference as to\nthe claims of religion that has come over the nations.  Multitudes\nneglect public worship.  I apprehend the least evidence that anybody can\ngive of religious impression, or of recognition of the claims of\nreligion, is that they should attend the public worship of Almighty God.\nYou find, however, hundreds of thousands in this nation who never attend\ndivine service.  If our churches and chapels in London were to be\nattended next Sunday by the usual number of persons, and those besides\nwho ought to attend were disposed to try to gain admission at any one\ntime during the day, we have not half churches and chapels enough to hold\nthem; whilst, as it is, the room provided is not occupied.  This\nindifference is a fearful thing.  Paul yearned over his countrymen, but\nin some respects our countrymen are worse than Paul's.  \"I could wish,\"\nsaid that glorious, patriotic man--that grand old man, that most blessed\nand chief of all the Apostles, with heaven in his view, his career\nwell-nigh ended, his work done, and Churches rising up around him of\nwhich he was the father--not churches built upon other men's\nfoundations--\"I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren,\nmy kinsmen according to the flesh.\"  Yet \"I bear them record, that they\nhave a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.\"  In England, at this\nday, there are multitudes of whom it may be said, \"God is not in all\ntheir thoughts.\"  And the heathenism spread about us is as bad in its\ndevelopments as in any other part of the world, and more aggravated in\nits character because of its immediate proximity with the light and truth\nof our blessed Christianity.  There is in this land, too, an absorbing of\nmen in worldliness: this, perhaps, comes nearer to us.  In my time I have\nseen worldliness not only enthralling obviously and professedly worldly\nmen.  I have seen worldliness come into the Church--aye, among\nMethodists.  How many young men have I seen, earnest, zealous, devoted,\ndoing just that work for God which must be done by young men if the\npopulation of this land is to be won to Christ--they enter into\nbusiness-life, by-and-bye God prospers their industry, and they begin to\nthrive in the world; and what then?  Oh, then this fervour abates--they\nget immersed in earthly things.  We lose their activities in the Church;\nthe ungodly part of the world lose the influence of a blessed example and\nof their Christian teaching.  They are too busy to attend to the service\nof God at all on the week days, they say to their ministers: \"We will\nfind the money if you will send men to do the work among these poor\npeople.\"  Find money to do it!  So they ought: but do they think they\nplace the Church under obligation by doing that?  Not a whit.  They ought\nto be thankful to the Church, and to the God of the Church, that He will\nhave their money, that God permits them gratefully to recognise in this\nway their stewardship; but I say to every such person, if you think you\ncan purchase exemption from personal devotion to God, and from such\ndevotion as shall lead you to spread the truth by your personal labour,\nto the utmost extent of your ability, you are greatly mistaken.  We can\nhave no such compositions of God's claim; you must not dream of them.\nThere is a feebleness, therefore, of the Church; oft-times arising from\nthis cause, a feebleness we must seek to cure, as it only can be cured,\nby an increase of our own personal godliness.\n\nBut how do we stand just now?  God has sometimes admonished this nation\nfor its ungodliness.  I do not speak of the nation now as profane or\ncriminal.  Take the best view of it.  And I remember that a great\ntheologian has said, the true view of man's depravity is not that every\nman is profane or intemperate or mischievous--the great proof of the\nuniversal depravity of man is found in man's ungodliness--in his not\nrecognising the claims of God, and not bowing to his love.  We have had\nadmonition after admonition, within our own lives, most of us.  Not long\nsince God sent a pestilence into our midst--on two remarkable occasions.\nWell do I remember the state of the people where I was labouring in one\nof the large towns of this country, with between three and four hundred\ndeaths, from cholera, occurring every week.  The people were alarmed.\nThere was a national day of humiliation and prayer; our places of worship\nwere crowded.  The people were alarmed, but they were not permanently\nimpressed.  God heard prayer; yes, he delights to hear prayer.  God\nanswered it; he delights to answer it.  The evil passed away; the concern\npassed with it; and I shall never forget the contrast between the\ncongregations on the day of humiliation, and when they were summoned to\nthank God for the removal of the scourge.  \"Were there not ten cleansed?\nbut where are the nine?\"\n\nIt is only four years ago that another check came upon the nation--that\none of our great branches of national industry became suddenly paralysed;\nand what mercy was there in that!  There was the good hand of God in the\nadministration of that chastisement, in the conduct of the people under\nsuch calamities, and in the absence of mischievous, designing men from\namong them.  I have known the time when that population would have been\ninflamed by a calamity of far less consequence to acts of the greatest\nviolence.  God's hand was there.  He chastised the nation; but He guided\nthe chastisement.  And now again, another evil has come upon us--a\ngreater evil, perhaps, than people imagined at first--this plague among\nour herds.  There will be great loss to individuals, and no doubt there\nwill be great loss to all; for it is impossible for so much wealth or\nmoney's worth to be destroyed in any nation without all the people in the\nnation feeling it more or less.  I think it right, therefore, that we\nhave been called to recognise the hand of God therein--to look through\nall external causes to his hand.  It is a very dangerous thing, a thing I\nhave never done in my life, and never would do, to talk about the\nprovidence of God in its punitive power, to talk about retribution in the\napplication of God's providence in individual cases.  It is very unwise\nto do that, and sometimes it may be most uncharitable.  It is different,\nhowever, in God's dealings with a nation.  We are admonished, or\npunished, by a great national calamity that has stirred all classes of\nmen each in their own way, and has raised all their activities in order\nto see if evils of this kind may not be checked in their operation.  This\nevil is present with us.  And then, as to other evils that may arise.  If\nyou look abroad into the world, to the relations of this country to other\nnations, you have peace just now; but he would be a bold man who should\npredict the continuation of this peace for any length of time.  No, your\nstatesmen cannot keep the peace of nations; and the folly of our boasting\nabout the peace-working power of our commercial relations has already be\nseen.  We cannot give peace to the world.  Who can tell how soon the\ncalamity of war may afflict this country?  Not I trust on its shores; but\nwhat is this land that it has any right to expect a perpetual immunity\nfrom the horrors of war in her midst?  Do not say these things will pass\naway.  Do not say these things are remote.  They may quickly overtake us,\nand we should be careful that we do not provoke our God to hasten any of\nhis judgments or to aggravate present ones.  If you are delivered from\ncalamity--if this great national calamity, for such it is, has not\ntouched you, or at least not so touched you as to inconvenience you at\nall, remember to give sympathy to those that are suffering from it; and\nlet thankfulness for your present mercies manifest itself in that godly\namendment of life which shall prove your best contribution to the future\nsafety and the prosperity of the nation.  If we neglect this we place\nourselves in opposition to God's government, and are in danger, by our\nopposition, of being told to prepare to meet God in conflict.  Individual\nsinners do so who refuse repentance; nations do so that will not submit\nto God.  You that are living without God, pray what prospect have you,\nwhat prospect of victory?  The potsherd of the earth may strive with the\npotsherd, but woe to the man that strives with his Maker.  The God whom\nyou are called upon to meet is the \"God that formeth the mountains, that\ncreateth the wind, that declareth unto man what is his thought, that\nmaketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the\nearth, the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.\"\n\nLet the ungodliness of this land increase--and it will increase if we\nneglect the manifestation of godliness in opposition to it--and what\nthen?  There will be the culmination of national sin, and there will be\nthe enactments of Parliament against the law of God, as on a former\nmemorable occasion in France; let it come to that, and let a crisis\narise; and though your statesmen should be the most sagacious, and have\nall the ability which has ever distinguished the foremost men of the\nGovernment of this land; let your Parliament be intelligent and\npatriotic; let your sons be as brave on flood or field as their fathers;\nlet your commerce be ever so flourishing, your arts ever so perfect, your\nliterature ever so exalted--none of these things would save the\nnation--none of these things would be an effectual shield against\ncalamity; and upon the wreck of this grand old realm--wrecked by its\nungodliness, made rotten at its base by sin--upon the wreck of this\nnation which, had it been godly, would have borne the shock of all the\nearth, and dashed it back like foam--on the wreck of Britain shall be\nwritten, \"The nation, the kingdom, that will not serve thee shall\nperish.\"  That inscription has been often written upon empires as\nmagnificent, as powerful, and as illustrious as this.\n\nWhat, then, is our duty?  What have we to do with this?  We who are\ngathered together in this chapel may say, can we arrest the course of the\nnation?  Can we turn back the floods of ungodliness?  Can we go out and\nproduce an influence that may avert these calamities?  I do not say that\nyou alone can do this; but I do say, that you are bound to contribute\nyour utmost to the check of these evils, with as perfect a heart, and\nwith as earnest a purpose, and as free a will, as though your hand could\ndash back the evil and rescue the nation from its danger.\n\nOur immediate duty is repentance.  That is the duty of the nation.  But\nthe word nation is a comprehensive one; we lose ourselves in it.  We may\ndo as we are in danger of doing with the word Church, lose sight of our\nown individual responsibility in confused ideas of what the Church\ncollectively is to do.  God cannot yield in this conflict; his\nrighteousness forbids this.  The nation must yield and become obedient,\nor the result indicated must follow.  If then the nation is to repent,\nwhere is that repentance to begin?  Why in this place to-day, so far as\nwe are concerned.  In whose hearts must this repentance commence?  Why in\nthe hearts of every one of you unconverted persons, that are rather\ncontributing to the ungodliness of the country than to the increase of\nits spiritual power.  You may not be drunkards, you may not be\nprofligate; but if you are living without the recognition of God's love\nand the enjoyment of his favour, you are ungodly; and your first duty is\nto repent.  There is no salvation without this repentance, let some\nmodern preachers say what they will.  The Master of all preachers sent\nthe Apostles forth, and they preached everywhere that men should repent.\nThere is a fashionable preaching, I am told, that has no repentance in\nit.  So much the worse for the people that listen to such error.  There\nis no merit in repentance; the only meritorious cause of your salvation\nis the blood-shedding and the present and perfect atonement of Christ.\nBut \"the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.\"  The old\nPuritans were right who said, that the soundest conversions were those\nwith which the law had most to do.  Mount Sinai exhibited proofs of God's\nlove, and Christ, who died for us on Calvary, is the author and enforcer\nof the whole law.  There must be the bowing down of your souls to the\nclaims of the law, the struggle for amendment, the renunciation of sin,\nthe recognition of your own hopelessness, and the cry, \"What must I do to\nbe saved?\"  \"Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?\"  Then\ncomes Christ, and peace, and joy; a participation in the divine nature;\nand a power to contribute practically to the repentance of the nation.\nThis is your duty.\n\nYou Christian people, too, are called upon to repent.  Depend upon it as\nwe go through life an act of repentance, once for all, will not do: we\nshall need repentance daily.  When a man is admitted to the favour of God\nit is that his mouth should be stopped, it is that he should entertain\npenitential feeling as long as he lives--not the penitence of guilt, but\nthe penitence of gratitude.  The recollection, I am a sinner, will\ninspire and maintain such penitence; and a blessed end that man will\nmake, who in the full meaning of the words, pours out the prayer at the\nlast, \"God be merciful to me a sinner.\"  We need repentance--we all need\nit.  Let us turn our attention to ourselves, and ascertain how much we\nhave contributed to the existing evils of the nation.  How much have we\ncontributed to the present state of things which in the judgment of sober\nChristian concern may be held to have provoked the anger of God?  We may\nhave contributed to these evils, and I dare say we have, in two ways:\nfirst, by neglect of duty.  There are sinners about you, you need not go\nfar to find them--perhaps there are some ungodly people in your own\nhouses.  What have you ever done to make them godly?  What effort have\nyou made, what kind of an example have you set them in your words, in\nyour tempers, in your spiritual aspirations?  Now tell yourselves\nhonestly.  You have been living with them up to this day, living with\nthem during this day.  What have you said to them?  Do your conduct and\nyour words condemn their sin, and invite them to reconciliation with God?\nWhat does conscience say to this?  What does the recollection of the past\nfew hours say to this?  There are wicked people about you: some of you\nhave leisure; what have you done for your ungodly neighbours?  What poor\nman's house have you visited?  What wretched sinner have you talked to?\nYou have passed along the streets, and have seen sin abounding; have you\never tried to check it?  Have you ever thought it worth while to follow\nsome half dozen people deeply immersed in sin, and by patient, earnest,\ngodly admonitions, counsels, and entreaties, have you sought the\nsalvation of their souls?  Have you done this?  \"Oh!\" you busy men say,\n\"we have not time.\"  I know better; you must not tell practical men that;\nthey know that all of us waste a great deal more time than we want for\nsuch a purpose.  It is not a question of time at all, but a question of\ninclination.  Have we done so?  Are evils abating by our instrumentality?\nDo not say, \"I could do very little.\"  Do what you can!  \"If I could move\na multitude I would do it.\"  No, that will not do.  You good women, are\nyou doing all the good you can in your families?  Do you mothers give\nyourselves to the right training of your children?  Fathers, are you\npractically anxious for the spiritual good of your families?  Do you help\nyour wives to bring up a godly family, which shall prove a blessing to\nthe nation; and not such an one as Dr. Paley says, as shall turn out wild\nbeasts upon society.  You have little ability; well, if you have not ten\ntalents, do not bury the one talent.  Paul did one thing, and that was\nthe secret of all his greatness--he did _his_ duty.  Do you do _yours_?\nThere was a simplicity of purpose about him, an earnestness of endeavour,\na thoroughness in the doing of it that made him what he was, the greatest\nof all apostles and the greatest man that the Christian Church has known.\nTake that simple rule, you young people; strive to spread the influence\nof a godly example among all about you: do what you can, in a way\nconsistent with your position in life, and in a way consistent altogether\nwith modesty, humility, and a deep devotion to God, and you will not\nlabour in vain.  We are guilty of sins of omission, and we need\nrepentance.\n\nBut how have we contributed to the evils of the nation by our activities?\nSome of you were converted, perhaps, when you had lived to be twenty\nyears of age, some of you thirty or forty, some perhaps were older; what\nkind of lives had you led before that time?  How many of your former\ncompanions did you injure by a godless example? perhaps by foolish words,\nperhaps by ungodly actions.  God has rescued you; where are they?  What\nhas become of the seed you then planted in their minds?  If God drew out\nthe roots of vice by his grace from your hearts, the influence of this\nevil remains elsewhere.  What mischief is often done by men prior to\ntheir conversion in their families!  When you see there is so much\nwickedness in the land, then say, \"What have I done to increase it?\"  And\nI think we shall all find great need to repent; great need to set an\nexample of repentance to all about us.\n\nThe first thing, then, is this deep humiliation of heart that shall bring\nus all to bow before God, and cause us to join in the prayer, \"Enter not\ninto judgment with thy servants, O God, for in thy sight shall no man\nliving be justified.\"  But, then, you Christian professors must bestir\nyourselves.  This repentance must not be a passing emotion, not a\ntemporary influence, however powerful; but there must be a correspondent\ncontinued effort to promote it amongst your families and neighbours, and\nto the utmost extent of your power in the world; engaging meanwhile in\nearnest prayer; and then consecrating yourselves more fully to this work\nunder the influence of two things, a deep sense of personal\nresponsibility and of the constraint of divine love.  Submit, then, to\nthis will of God.  Know the rod, and Him that hath appointed it.  If the\nmultitudes about you do not know it you know it.  If God be not\nrecognised, let it be yours to recognise Him amid the surrounding\nworldliness, and depend upon it your purity of heart shall increase, and\nyou will see God in all things, in all calamities, and in all joys.  It\nis a strange thing that nations and individuals see God more readily in\ntrouble than they do in their joys.  Amid the immunities from ill which\nChristian people often enjoy how little they think of God.  Trouble\ncomes, calamity comes, and we owe the quickening of our religious\nfeelings, strangely enough, more to our fears than we to our gratitude.\nAnd it will be well if we are so quickened by present calamity.\n\nThus let us prepare ourselves to promote that condition of feeling in the\nnation which shall lead us to meet God not in conflict but in the way of\nhis judgments, to bow to his rule, to abate our ungodliness, and to\nbecome as a nation wise and understanding.\n\nOne remark as to the popular interpretation of the text.  You will have\nto meet God speedily in your death.  You should prepare to meet Him, for\nyou cannot resist; you cannot flee from Him.  Let us prepare to meet Him\nby embracing the mercy which He offers, receiving the love which He\ncommunicates to us, and devoting the rest of our lives to his service and\nglory.  You are called upon, then, and I think for these reasons properly\ncalled upon, to contribute to and to promote the humiliation of the\nnation.  Whatever other people do, humble yourselves before God.  And let\nnot the impression be a temporary one, but in the future seek that\npractical love which constitutes the repentance necessary to the nation,\nand necessary to you that you may prompt the repentance and reformation\nof those about you, and which can alone save the land of our fathers from\ncalamity and make her more fully what she ought to be, \"a praise in the\nearth.\"  Amen!\n\n\n\n\nTHE PROPHETIC THEME.\nREV. GERVASE SMITH.\n\n\n    \"Of which salvation the prophets have enquired and searched\n    diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should come unto you:\n    Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which\n    was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings\n    of Christ, and the glory that should follow.\"--1 PETER i. 10, 11.\n\nThere is a peculiar interest attaching to the writer of this epistle.\nAlthough it was probably in old age, when a large experience of labour\nand sorrow had chastened his spirit, and in prospect of martyrdom, that\nhe composed these chapters, they bear unmistakable proofs of his own\nvigour of thought, and suggest many reminiscences of his remarkable life.\nWhether you regard him as a man, a Christian, or an apostle, he presents\nan illustrious subject for the student of these modern times.  His\nhistory puts before us many and serious defects; but there is much more\nto approve and admire: and while a feeling or sorrow lingers over the\none, the other is so marked and prominent that it secures your sympathy,\nand you are drawn towards the man with an ineffable affection.  There is\na candour, and honesty, and generosity, and heroism, which gives to his\ncharacter a most healthy tone.  The qualities of his mind and heart, when\nsanctified by grace, become really noble; and if it were right, you would\nlike to forget his failings in presence of so much that is both manly and\ngood.\n\nHis two epistles are a precious legacy to the Church.  The first is\naddressed to the \"scattered strangers:\" but whether this expression refer\nto Jews, or converted Gentiles, or both, or to the \"dispersed\" of the ten\ntribes, there is no satisfactory evidence.  We are in similar doubt as to\nthe place from which it was written.  The _Church at Babylon_ is named in\nthe last chapter; but there was a Babylon in Egypt, and another in\nAssyria, and Rome itself is thus figuratively designated.\n\nThe style of the apostle's writing is just what you would expect from the\nman himself.  Vehemence, majesty, and, at the same time, ease and\nfreedom, are manifest in every page.\n\nThe chief design of this epistle is to administer comfort to those\nalready suffering; and to prepare others for the affliction they were\nabout to endure.  The first chapter adduces several considerations to\nuphold their constancy.  One is that they are _the chosen of God_; \"Elect\naccording to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification\nof the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus\nChrist: grace unto you, and peace, be multiplied.\"  Then, as the elect of\nGod, they had a _good hope of heaven_.  \"Blessed be the God and Father of\nour Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy, hath\nbegotten us again unto a lively hope, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ\nfrom the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that\nfadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of\nGod through faith unto salvation, ready to be revealed in the last time.\"\nA third consideration is, that though in the midst of trial, their\nSaviour was with them, and the end of their faith was sure.  \"Whom having\nnot seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see Him not, yet believing, ye\nrejoice with joy unspeakable, and full of glory: receiving the end of\nyour faith, even the salvation of your souls.\"  And, finally, they were\nto remember that this subject of their salvation had been matter of\nearnest enquiry among the prophets, whose labours are now made to\ncontribute to their comfort.  \"Of which salvation the prophets have\nenquired and searched diligently, who prophesied of the grace that should\ncome unto you: searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of\nChrist which was in them did signify, when it testified beforehand the\nsufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow.\"\n\nI.--THE STUDENT, AND\nII.--HIS THEME.\n\nI.  \"The prophets have _enquired and searched diligently_.\"\n\nThe term \"prophet\" is most properly applied to one who is divinely\ninstructed as to future events, and divinely inspired to make them known.\nIn an accommodated sense it is given to the apostles and public teachers\nof the primitive Church.  And now it is conventionally used to denote a\nsomewhat less honourable class.  \"The prophets of our day\" are many.\nFrom the positive style they have adopted, you would suppose that the\ngift of prescience had come upon them in a far more absolute form than\nupon the prophets of old.  With more dogmatism and less authority do they\npronounce upon \"the times and seasons.\"  Though failure on failure\nhappens, this seems rather to nerve their confidence; and every\nsuccessive mistake is followed by another guess with increased assurance.\n\n1.  _Who are the prophets referred to in the text_?  They are the men to\nwhom the term is strictly applicable.  We do not forget such names as\nMoses and Samuel, and Elijah and Elisha, and others; but their prophecies\nare not given with the formality of those distinct books to which perhaps\nSt. Peter refers.  In point of time Jonah comes just with his message of\nwoe to the city of Nineveh.  Amos the herdman and Hosea his contemporary\nfollow.  Then Joel with his thunder, and Isaiah with his evangelism;\nMicah with his earnestness; Nahum with his sublimity; and Zephaniah with\nhis severity, take their place in about equal succession.  Jeremiah then\nappears with all his weightiness of matter and solemnity of manner.\nHabakkuk in briefer form takes up the same subjects.  Daniel with great\ngrandeur of style dwells on the topics of the text.  Obadiah stands\nbetween him and Ezekiel as though to make them both more prominent.  At a\nlater period come Haggai and Zechariah; and then Malachi closes the\nillustrious train, taking the last pen from the wing of inspiration, or\nputting the signet upon the scroll of prophecy.  Some of these may be\nespecially referred to; but we include them all: for \"to Him give all the\nprophets witness; that in his name whosoever believeth in Him shall have\nforgiveness of sins.\"\n\n(i.)  They were _men_; not angels, or belonging to some order of being\nsuperior to ourselves; but they were members with us of the same human\nfamily, and \"subject to like passions as we are.\"  They were _sinners_:\nborn with the old taint of corruption; subject to hereditary guilt,\ndepravity, and death, and exposed to all the evils to which flesh is\nheir.  They were _redeemed sinners_, included in that same covenant of\nmercy of which we make our boast.  They were therefore _personally\ninterested_ in those truths which became the subject of their search.\n\nThe original promise belonged to them as well as to us.  They claimed an\ninterest in the leading facts of patriarchal history, and in the gorgeous\nceremonial of the Mosaic Institute.  All the events of divine providence\nwhich were preparing the way for the Messiah's coming, and the\npredictions which they themselves uttered, had some personal bearing.\nThey were not uninterested students of past history, of present\ncircumstances, or of future events.  Their own destinies were involved in\nthe truths they taught.\n\n(ii.)  They were _good men_.  That the Divine Being has sometimes made\n\"false prophets\" means of carrying out his purposes there can be no\ndoubt.  But he is a daring man who would venture from this either to\njustify or extenuate an impure ministry.  Sanctuary services are too pure\nand solemn to be performed by any but \"_clean hands_.\"  The instruments\nwhich God ordains are holy.  With a miserable exception here and there,\neven the enemies of truth have not denied to the ancient prophets the\ncrown of a good character.  Try them by any recognised standard of\nvirtue, and they will not be found wanting.  Trace the minutest\ncircumstances of their private life; their self denial; their exposure to\ndanger; their fearlessness in denouncing sin; their being proof against\ncorruption; their zeal; their sympathy; their benevolence--and they\npresent a startling contrast with the priests of Paganism, or the false\nprophets among the Jews.\n\nCall to mind the meekness of Moses; the heroism of Elijah; the gratitude\nof David; the sweetness of Hosea; the fervour of Isaiah; the tenderness\nof Jeremiah; the constancy of Daniel; the faithfulness of Ezekiel--and\nyou unhesitatingly endorse the inspired oracle, that they were \"holy\nmen.\"  And although some of the prophets are remarkable for particular\nfeatures of character, they are not wanting in all the others which are\nrequisite to constitute _goodness_.\n\nBut what a magnificent portrait could you present to the mind as you\nreview the whole!  The characteristics of these different men meet and\nblend in the photograph; and you look upon a being--human it is true, but\nsanctified by grace, and fitted to exercise \"a more telling influence\nupon the destines of the world,\" than the mightiest statesman, or the\nprofoundest philosopher, or the noblest warrior of which history can\nboast.  Like the hues of the rainbow, which in all their softness and\nsweetness and sublimity, rejoice to span the heavens together, and make\nup one token of the covenant, do the prophets stand before us as one\nclass of men, unfolding the covenant of mercy, and offering light and\nlife to a dying and dark world.\n\n(iii.)  They were _inspired good men_.  And here is suggested one of the\nmost formidable dangers of the present day.  An attempt is being made to\ndry up the most fruitful source of confidence which the Christian has in\nthe truth of his Bible:--viz., its plenary inspiration.  We know that\nthis is not new; but the lover of \"the Book\" had charmed himself with the\nhope that the controversy was over, and the truth triumphant.  He is now,\nhowever, alarmed on finding that in addition to the old adversaries--the\ninfidel, the sceptic, and the profane--he has to enter the lists with new\ncombatants altogether; and among the rest, the descendants of those\nglorious Reformers, who, centuries ago, shook the papal power to its\ncentre; melted the Bible's chain in the martyr's flame; and liberated the\nmind of a continent from the most crushing spiritual despotism the world\never knew.  It is a distressing sound to hear those academic halls, which\nhave been the greatness and the pride of Germany, resounding with\npernicious error, not to say, positive blasphemy.  Looking at the subject\nin the light of heaven we gratefully and confidently say that \"the word\nof the Lord endureth for ever;\" but humanly speaking, the Bible is in\ndanger.  And we must be prepared to meet it with a zeal, \"such as in the\nmartyr's glowed, dying champions for their God.\"  The plenary inspiration\nof the Scriptures, and therefore of the prophets--is our impregnable\nstronghold, and must never be abandoned.  The apostle says, when\nreferring to the Old Testament--\"All Scripture is given by inspiration of\nGod, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for\ninstruction in righteousness.  For the prophecy came not in old time by\nthe will of man; but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy\nGhost.\"  And by this inspiration we do not merely mean that some general\nideas were poured into their minds, which they clothed in their own\nlanguage, and then published them to the world as a revelation from\nheaven.  If the Bible be inspired _at all_, it is _fully_ inspired.\nOtherwise, you cannot tell where to make the distinction between what is\ndivine and what is human.  You must either maintain the truth of the\n_whole_ book, or abandon your conviction of its supreme authority.  We\nadopt the statement that the prophets \"composed their works under so\nplenary and immediate an influence of the Holy Spirit that God may be\nsaid to speak by them to man, and not merely that they spoke to men in\nthe name of God, and by his authority.\"  Mark the wide distinction which\nis here suggested.  Take the case of an earnest and trustworthy minister.\nHe tells his congregation that he is anxious to give them the truth; and\nhas been to God in his closet asking for light.  In answer to prayer he\nbelieves that the Holy Spirit has given him light; and, confident that it\nis the truth, he announces it to the people.  But you would not say that\nthat man is inspired.  There may be much of what is fallible and human\nwith what is truthful and divine.  Suppose, however, that on some Sabbath\nmorning, he could with authority stand up and say that what is now about\nto be declared is not his, but God's--that he is in ignorance of what the\nutterance will really be, and that in simple fact, God is to speak\nthrough him, using his lips only as the medium of communication; you have\nhere an instance of what is meant by plenary inspiration.  And this we\nsay is the case with the prophets.  These \"holy men of God spake _as_\nthey were moved by the Holy Ghost.  Not in the _words_ which man's wisdom\nteacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth.\"\n\n2.  _Their Conduct_.  They \"enquired and searched diligently.\"\n\n(i.)  What is implied in the _search_ they made?  It would seem as if for\nthe moment the thought of their inspiration was dropped; and like other\nearnest students of the Bible, they now search to ascertain the meaning\nof their own, and each other's prophecies.  There is here, however, an\nincidental, though strong proof of the justice of their claims.  The\npredictions they uttered were not their own conceptions; not the product\nof their own reasoning; and perhaps not even engraven on their own\nmemory.  They gave expression to statements beyond themselves, and the\nmeaning of which at the time, they did not understand.  And when (if we\nmay so say) the breath of inspiration had passed from them, they sat down\nto discover by diligent search the import of those utterances which they\nhad made.  They had _written_ for _the world_: they now _enquired_ for\n_themselves_.  Their _predictions_ are by the grace of God, the property\nof the Church: their _search_ is for their own personal benefit.  The\ntruths they proclaim, become the power of God to their own comfort and\npurity.\n\nThe metaphor is taken from the employment of a miner who digs deeply into\nthe caverns of the earth that he may find its treasures; and by their\nappropriation enrich himself.  The prophets were not satisfied with the\nmere knowledge of the fact that the mine existed, and that its contents\nwere more brilliant than any of Golconda, and beyond the price of rubies.\nThey went to dig for themselves; and seizing the precious pearls of\ntruth, they enriched and beautified and ennobled their own character,\nuntil their shining became too glorious for earth: they were then\ntranslated to heaven to sparkle amid eternal sunshine, and burn in glory\nfor ever.  How solemnly does the Great Teacher's injunction sound in our\nears--\"Search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life;\nand they are they which testify of Me.\"\n\n(ii.)  The _earnestness_ of their search.  They \"enquired and searched\n_diligently_.\"  This word is forceful and signifies to trace out or\nexplore thoroughly.  The idea which the apostle intends to convey is\nthought to be this: \"they perceived that in their communications there\nwere so great and glorious truths which they did not fully comprehend,\nand they diligently employed their natural faculties to understand that\nwhich they were appointed to impart to succeeding generations.\"  There is\nmuch of simplicity and power in the account which Daniel gives of his own\n_search_.  \"In the first year of\" the reign \"of Darius\"--\"I (Daniel)\n_understood by books_ the number of the years, whereof the word of the\nLord came to Jeremiah, the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy\nyears in the desolations of Jerusalem.  And I _set my face_ (marking\nearnestness and diligence and resolve) unto the Lord God to seek by\nprayer and supplication\" the meaning of these things.  You are not\nsurprised at the visit of the man Gabriel, who was caused to fly swiftly;\nand, touching him at the time of the evening oblation, said, \"O Daniel I\nam now come forth to give thee skill and understanding.  I will show thee\nthat which is noted in the Scriptures of truth.\"\n\nNow, if the prophets had thus with earnest diligence to search out the\nmeaning of their own predictions, what but our capacity should be the\nmeasure of our toil?  Nor is this labour to be confined to the pulpit.\n\"The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.\"  If you want to know\nthe meaning of your Bible, you must prayerfully study it.  \"These in\nBerea were more noble than those in Thessalonica, in that they received\nthe word with all readiness of mind, and searched the Scriptures daily,\nwhether those things were so.\"\n\nHere then is our Student: himself a study for all who are anxious to\ncomprehend this book.  There are only three orders of being by whom God\nhas spoken to the world: Christ; the angels; and _men_.  And among these\nmen the prophets hold the first rank.  At an early period--the elements\nof religion being already revealed--a new method of communicating truth\nwas employed; and man rose from the position of an _observer_, to the\ndignity and majesty of the prophet.  In some instances he is removed at\nonce into this office without previous training.  But generally God walks\namong \"the schools of the prophets;\" and laying his hand upon the chosen\none, He bids him go forth.  His very call seems to constitute him an\nextraordinary man.  Both his appearance and actions make him singular.\nHe stands alone.  The mountain or the sequestered vale is his abode; and\nhe is only seen among men when he has some message from God.  Clothed in\nhis sackcloth, he appears at the court, the city, and the village; and\nhaving pronounced the coming woe, or stated the imposed duty, or offered\npardon, he mysteriously disappears; and is seen no more, till the burden\nis again upon him, and forces him to come forth and speak.  There is a\nfire in his eye, but it is inspiration, not wildness.  There is a majesty\nin his gait, as though he is either great himself, or is employed by one\nwho is.  There is a solemnity of countenance and a nobility of manner,\nwhich say that he is not often among mortals, but dwells in a higher\nsphere.  In language which more fully pertains to us as Christians, his\n\"conversation is in heaven.\"  Carried up by the Spirit perhaps to the\nsummit of the mountain which covers his retreat, views of the future\nbreak upon his vision.  His eye burns; his lips quiver; his bosom heaves.\nAnd opening his mouth, he pours forth in more than angelic cadences, the\ndesigns of God concerning men, and kingdoms, and the human race.  It may\nbe that to himself all this is a mystery.  He therefore gathers up every\nutterance, and carries them to his mountain home.  In that consecrated\ncave he spreads out the panorama; and lifting up his eyes to heaven for\nlight, he traces the picture to see what \"the Spirit of Christ which was\nin\" him \"did signify.\"\n\n    \"Sweet is the harp of prophecy; too sweet\n    Not to be wronged by a mere mortal touch,\n    Nor can the wonders it records be sung\n    To meaner music, and not suffer loss.\"\n\nII.  THE THEME.--It is here presented in a twofold aspect.  First, in its\n_entirety_: and secondly, in one of its _branches_.\n\n1.  The great subject of prophetic enquiry is _salvation_.  \"Of which\n_salvation_ the prophets have enquired and searched diligently.\"\n\n(i.)  In its _nature_.  Is there a word in universal language which has\nas much meaning in it as this word salvation?  It takes within its range\nall time and all eternity.  Though specially designed for man, it has its\ninfluence upon every order of being God has made, and presents the most\nglorious manifestations of God himself which the world possesses.  It\nglares upon sin with indignation, but throws its arms of mercy around the\nsinner; offers to him a deliverance from the guilt and power and\npollution and inbeing of evil; gives him the favour and image of his\nMaker; assures to him victory over his final adversary; introduces him\nto, and acquits him before the great white throne; and arrays him in all\nthe glories of an everlasting heaven.\n\nTo understand it fully comes not within the range of angelic intellect;\nand yet it demands our highest regard, as it has had the attention of\nenquiring prophets.  'Tis true they had not the light upon it that a\nbetter dispensation has given to us.  It is not to be expected that they\nshould be penetrated with its glory as we ought to be; but they were so\nimpressed by its grandeur, that their thoughts were raised above all\nmerely temporal deliverances, and they felt that their own interests were\nwrapped up in the theme.  \"And thus,\" we are told, \"did this sweet stream\nof their doctrine, as the rivers, make its own banks fertile and pleasant\nas it ran by, and flowed still forward to after ages; and by the\nconfluence of more such prophecies, grew greater as it went, till it fell\nin with the main current of the gospel in the New Testament both acted\nand preached by the Great Prophet himself whom they foretold as to come,\nand recorded by his apostles and evangelists, and thus united into one\nriver clear as crystal.  This doctrine of salvation in the Scriptures\nhath refreshed the city of God, his Church under the gospel, and still\nshall do so till it empty itself into the ocean of eternity.\"\n\n(ii.)  This salvation _in its provision_, is _of grace_.  \"Who prophesied\n_of the grace_ that should come unto you.\"  The apostle does not mean to\nsay by this clause, that there is something in the theme _exclusively_\nadapted to those to whom he wrote.  But we understand him to mean, in\ngeneral terms, that the ancient seers searched diligently into that\nsystem of mercy, which should in after times, and under the Christian\ndispensation, be more fully revealed.\n\nThe word \"grace\" may have reference to _the manner_ in which this scheme\nshould be made known; intimating that it was by _divine favour_ that the\nnew economy supervened upon the old.  But we take it rather to denote\n_the gospel salvation itself_.  It is altogether a system of grace.  In\nits projection; in its development; in its accomplishment; in its\napplication; in its final consummation, it is all of grace.  \"By grace ye\nare saved.\"\n\nWe are not among the number of those who doubt or deny the entire and\nabsolute fall of man.  Whatever good there was in him was then destroyed;\nwhatever evil there is in him, was then induced.  He is fallen in mind\nand soul and body.  Physically, morally, spiritually, he is a wreck.  But\nwas no vestage left of that divine image in which he was created?  Not\none.  No lingering desire to regain his glory and the position he had\nlost?  None.  Was he altogether dead to virtue and his Maker's claims?\nYes, altogether.  But was his nature so far polluted as that no trace of\nhis original purity could be discovered?  Not a trace to be seen even by\nan Omniscient eye.  And was there left to him _no_ inherent power to do\nthat which is good?  None whatever.  \"From the sole of the foot even unto\nthe head there is no soundness in it; but wounds, and bruises, and\nputrifying sores: they have not been closed, neither bound up, neither\nmollified with ointment.\"\n\nThen see his position.  If his fall, which is so entire, is his own act,\nhe is as much amenable to his Maker as he was before.  The fact of his\nfall will not lesson his obligations: nor will it impose upon God any\nnecessity to show mercy.  He therefore stands before his Judge a\ncondemned criminal; and the course which the Judge shall take is entirely\nwithin himself.  There is nothing which can force Him to show favour.  If\nHe say, die, He is as justly glorious as He was before.  If then, there\nis _no_ obligation upon God to save: and if He _does_ determine to be\ngracious, the salvation _must be_ of grace.  Oh, is it possible to\nconceive the solemnity of that moment when the destinies of untold\nmillions were in the balance?  Can you picture the suspense of heaven and\nhell when waiting Jehovah's fiat?  Surely for the moment the pulse of\nnature throbbed not; heaven's music ceased to flow, and the howl of the\npit was hushed.  Then God, on his azure throne, holding in one hand the\nsword, and in the other the sceptre, stretched out the sceptre saying,\n\"Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.\"\n\nYour salvation is of grace.  You are required to _pray_; but you are\nsaved by grace.  You are required to _believe_; but you are saved by\ngrace.  You are required to _labour_; but you are saved by grace.  You\nare required to _suffer_; but you are saved by grace.  You will have to\n_die_; but when you stand a spirit glorified before the throne, it will\nbe by grace.\n\n(iii.)  Salvation in _its object_ is the soul.  \"Receiving the end of\nyour faith even the salvation of your _souls_.\"  By the soul we\nunderstand the immaterial principle or spiritual part of man; which\nthough united with the body, is perfectly distinct from it.\n\nAs to its _nature_, it is possessed of intelligence, volition, sensation.\nIt has capacities for enjoyment and suffering: for both good and evil.\nIts _immortality_ is assured to us by the mouth of God.  It may be lost.\nWith all its dignity and glory, it may be for ever crushed by the divine\nhand, but never destroyed.  While, however, it may be lost, it may be\nsaved.  The grace which can calm its fears, and satisfy its hopes, and\npurge its impurity, and consummate its bliss is now manifested.  How\ninsignificant does everything appear when compared with _its_ salvation.\nThe blotting of the sun, the desolation of an universe is a trifle when\nput in the balance with an immortal spirit.  Let the sceptic doubt its\nimmortality, and the atheist deny, and the scoffer jest; but let us look\nforward to the judgment-seat and beyond it, for \"the soul, immortal as\nits sire, shall never die.\"\n\n(iv.)  Salvation, _in its attainment_, is _by faith_.  \"The end of your\nfaith.\"\n\nThere is no article of our religion more plainly revealed than this--\"By\ngrace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the\ngift of God.  Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved.\nWhosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but hath eternal life.  He\nthat believeth shall be saved.\"  Faith is the simplest operation of the\nmind; and may therefore strictly be said to be incapable of definition.\nStill it is easy to say what is meant by the term when applied to\npersonal salvation.  It means the trust of the heart on the atonement of\nChrist, as the condition of pardon.  \"With the heart man believeth unto\nrighteousness.\"  It is however of the highest importance that the thought\nof its _simplicity_ be made prominent.  Let us not undervalue religious\nknowledge; for to some extent it is absolutely necessary.  But do not\nmystify the plan of mercy, and perplex the anxious seeker by requirements\nwhich the gospel has not made prominent.  Many a poor sinner exercises\nfaith in Christ who cannot give a philosophical disquisition as to its\nnature.  It is not necessary to be thoroughly acquainted with the science\nof optics in order to see.  A man may look through a telescope before he\ncan define the refraction or reflection of light.  Now all that is\nincluded in the word salvation hangs on this simple condition.\n\nThe question may be regarded perhaps more nice than wise as to _why_ such\na condition should have been appointed; and yet it will sometimes force\nitself upon the thoughtful mind.  The answer to it must in great measure\nbe conjectural, but may we not suppose that _one_ design of it was to do\naway with the last vestige of self-righteousness in man?  If Moses had\nstruck the rock with something more powerful than the little rod, the\ngushing of the waters might have been attributed to his own strength.  If\nJericho had been taken by a regular siege, the glory of its conquest\nwould have been ascribed to military science and the prowess of arms.  If\nsome heavy conditions had been imposed upon the sinner, he would have\n_claimed_ his pardon.\n\n    \"But, 'how unlike the complex works of man,\n    Heaven's easy, artless, unencumbered plan,\n    No meretricious graces to beguile,\n    No clustering ornaments to clay the pile.\n    From ostentation as from weakness free,\n    It stands like the cerulean arch we see,\n    Majestic in its own simplicity.\n    Inscribed above the portal from afar,\n    Conspicuous as the brightness of a star,\n    Legible only by the light they give,\n    Stand the soul-quickening words--Believe and Live.'\"\n\n2.  The apostle next concentrates attention upon one leading _branch_ of\nthis great theme.\n\nHaving put the whole subject before us in the word salvation, he now\nfixes our thought upon _the relation which Christ sustains to it_.\n\"Searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ which was\nin them did signify, when it testified beforehand the sufferings of\nChrist, and the glory that should follow.\"  The testimony which is here\nsaid to be borne to Christ, is by the Spirit, and the signification of\nthe Spirit in the testimony is that which the prophets sought.  He who in\nthe text is called \"the Spirit of Christ,\" in the following verse is\ndesignated the Holy Ghost, so that there can be no doubt as to the person\nreferred to.  He is variously spoken of as \"the Spirit of God\"--\"the\nSpirit of the Father\"--\"the Spirit of the Son\"--\"the Holy Spirit,\" and He\nis the third person in the Holy Trinity.  \"In the entire and undivided\nunity of the Godhead, there is a Trinity of personal subsistences;\nconsubstantial, co-equal, and co-eternal.\"  It was this \"Spirit of\nChrist\" who inspired the prophets; for these \"holy men of God spake as\nthey were moved by the Holy Ghost.\"\n\n(i.)  They sought the signification of the Spirit as to the _Saviour's\nperson_.  \"Searching _what_.\"  This expression is said to mean either\nwhat _time_; or what _people_; or what _person_.  But looking at the\nwhole passage it seems most naturally to refer to Him who is the subject\nof these predictions.  They therefore diligently enquired as to who He\nwas, of whom they, under inspiration, had been speaking.\n\n(ii.)  They also studied the prophecies as _to the time of his coming_:\n\"What manner of time?\"  This phrase has a twofold application.  It may\nrefer to that particular period of the world's history when the Saviour\nshould come to endure his sufferings and enter into his glory.  So Daniel\nreckoned up the number of the weeks, and sought to understand the time.\n\nIt may also have reference to \"the character and condition of the age\"\nwhen He should become incarnate.  \"What _manner_ of time?\"\n\nWe are now brought to the testimony itself which the Spirit beforehand\ngave.\n\n(iii.)  _The Saviour's sufferings_, in their relation to our salvation.\n\"The sufferings of Christ.\"\n\nWe limit ourselves to two thoughts: these sufferings _were predicted_,\nand those predictions _were fulfilled_.  Nearly the whole of the Old\nTestament has a connection with them.  They are predicted by the very\npage which records the fall.  \"And I will put enmity between thee and the\nwoman, and between thy seed and her seed: it shall bruise thy head, and\nthou shalt bruise his heel.\"  Under the patriarchal economy there was a\nsignificant allusion to them in the offering up of Isaac.  The Mosaic\ntypes were prophecies.  The paschal lamb; the smitten rock; the brazen\nserpent; and the scape-goat on the day of expiation, exhibited this\nfeature of Messiah's character.  Well nigh every page of the prophets is\nmarked by blood and sorrow.  The Psalmist, in thrilling tone, enquires,\n\"My God, my God why hast thou forsaken Me?\"  And in the last struggles of\ndeath Jesus quoted the passage in its application to himself.  The\nfifty-third chapter of Isaiah is an unapproachable description of a\nsuffering person.  Its reference to Christ has been extorted from the\nJew, and is confidently believed by every Christian.  The notion of two\nMessiahs--the one suffering and the other conquering--is an unworthy\nsubterfuge, and stands opposed to both fact and Scripture.  Daniel is\nsecond only to Isaiah in his minute and powerful description of the\nRedeemer's sufferings.  Zechariah almost closes the book by the startling\ncry, \"Awake, O sword, against my Shepherd, and against the man that is my\nfellow, saith the Lord of hosts: smite the Shepherd, and the sheep shall\nbe scattered; and I will turn mine hand upon the little ones.\"\n\nThat these Scriptures have been fulfilled who can doubt that believes the\ngospels?  Just before the Saviour's ascension, and while yet partaking of\nthe valedictory feast with his disciples, \"He said unto them, these are\nthe words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all\nthings must be fulfilled which were written in the law of Moses, and in\nthe Prophets, and in the Psalms concerning Me.  Then opened He their\nunderstanding that they might understand the Scriptures, and said unto\nthem, thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to\nrise from the dead the third day.\"  We pass by the pain and hunger and\nthirst which are the attributes of humanity; but from his very\nincarnation may it be said that his sufferings began.  Mark the meanness\nof his birth; the poverty of his circumstances; the persecution which\ndrove Him from his infant-home, and think of his manner of life prior to\nthe public announcement of his character, and you say with the\nprophet--\"A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief.\"\n\nNow look into Gethsemane's innermost recess and you see an amount of\nsuffering unendurable except under heavenly strengthening; \"And, being in\nan agony, He prayed more earnestly: and his sweat was as it were great\ndrops of blood falling down to the ground.  And there appeared an angel\nunto Him from heaven, strengthening Him.\"  Betrayed by a disciple, He is\napprehended by the \"multitude with swords and staves:\" then arraigned\nbefore the high priest; then before Pilate: then taken before Herod and\nclothed in the purple; then bound and dragged again before Pilate: then\nsmitten by the ruffianly attendants, and forsaken by his followers He is\ncondemned to die.  After the Roman fashion He is led away bearing his own\ncross to the fated hill.  Here is the consummation of their cruelty, of\nhis suffering, and of heaven's suspense.  The leader of an army to the\nbattle-field looks with anxiety to that moment of the day which decides\nthe conflict; and either covers him with a nation's glory, or overwhelms\nhim in a nation's disgrace.  The fate of empires has hung on the actions\nof an hour; and the liberties of a continent have trembled for an instant\nin the balance.  But the salvation of a world was hanging on Calvary till\nthe Sufferer exclaimed: \"It is finished.\"\n\nYou will not suppose that we have exhibited all, or even a principal part\nof \"the sufferings of Christ.\"  We do not wish to underrate this bodily\ndistress; but oh, compare it not with the depth of the soul's agony.  The\nhand of man which smote Him was malignant and painful too; but the hand\nof God with the sword of justice in it, fell in dreadful weight and\npierced his spirit.  His being betrayed and forsaken by the disciples was\na source of pain; but it was when the Father hid his face that his\nsufferings were complete.  \"My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken Me?\"\n\nIn addition to the general scope of prophecy, there are many minute and\nparticular predictions of suffering which were fulfilled.  The Psalmist\nsays--\"Yea mine own familiar friend in whom I trusted, which did eat of\nmy bread, hath lifted up his heel against me.\"  And you call to mind the\nbetrayal of our Saviour.  David says again, \"They pierced my hands and my\nfeet.\"  And when He was crucified the nails were driven through these\nparts of the body.  Isaiah says, \"He was numbered with the\ntransgressors;\" and we know that He was crucified between two thieves.\nProphecy says, \"They part my garments among them, and casts lots upon my\nvesture.\"  History says, \"And they crucified Him, and parted his garments\ncasting lots.\"  Prophecy says, \"A bone of Him shall not be broken.\"\nHistory says that when the soldiers \"came to Jesus and saw that He was\ndead already, they brake not his legs.\"  Prophecy says, \"They gave me\nalso gall for my meat, and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.\"\nHistory says, \"They gave Him vinegar to drink mingled with gall,\" when He\nsaid \"I thirst.\"  You are not surprised then, that after the fulfilment\nof so many and varied predictions, Jesus should have spoken to the two\ndoubting disciples with a somewhat sterner voice than was his wont: \"O\nfools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken,\nought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his\nglory.\"\n\n(iv.)  See the connection between this salvation and the Saviour, with\nregard to _the glory_ resulting from his passion and death.  \"And the\nglory,\" or glories, \"that should follow.\"  We distract not your mind with\nthe many meanings of the word \"_glory_.\"  In the text it signifies the\nhonour accruing to the Redeemer himself, and the benefit resulting to the\nworld from his sufferings.  It will apply to _his resurrection_; for even\nof this the prophets had some knowledge.  \"Thou wilt not leave my soul in\nhell; neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption.\"  It has\nalso reference to the Saviour's _exaltation to_ and _session at the right\nhand of the Father_: for this is the result of his humiliation.  \"We see\nJesus, who was made a little lower than the angels for the suffering of\ndeath, crowned with glory and honour; that He by the grace of God should\ntaste death for every man.\"  But it has another meaning.  The glory\nresulting from \"the sufferings of Christ,\" is to be seen in _the carrying\nout of his own scheme of mercy_, and _the universal happiness of man_.\nNothing short of this can satisfy the scope of the text; the expectation\nand claims of the Messiah; or the call of the Church.  It was no less an\nobject than this--the saving of a whole world--that brought Christ from\nheaven and raised up the Church on earth.  If you look or labour for\nanything short of this, you degrade your Master and dishonour yourselves.\nYou have got too large a machinery at work for anything less than this.\nYou will cripple the energies and damp the ardour of our Captain's\nembattled hosts, if you are satisfied with anything short of the conquest\nof a world.  The question therefore is, have we any fair prospect of, and\nguarantee for, universal glory?\n\nThe text itself affords ground of hope that in the Scriptures we shall\nfind all we desire.  An intimation is given that the prophets themselves\nnot only predicted it, but by their diligent search, apprehended and\nbelieved it.  And let us not suppose that our faith in a happy world\nrests on a few dark or obscure expressions thinly scattered over the\nBible, and requiring more than ordinary penetration to find them at all.\nScience by gigantic strides seems almost to have reached its perfection.\nWe are told that by its light the philosopher can, from a single bone put\ninto his hands, discover the existence of a \"great wingless bird\" of\nanother hemisphere, and can construct \"its skeleton so exactly, that when\nall the bones\" arrive in this country \"the correspondence between them\nand their conjectural portraits\" is complete; that the astronomer is able\nby his calculations to tell the existence of a planet, which observation\nproves to be strictly true.  But wonderful as is all this, we are not\nreduced to any such necessity with regard to the future of the gospel.\nWe have not to take a few dark sayings, or enigmatical expressions, or\nhieroglyphic inscriptions, and as we best may spell out the universal\nspread of truth.  As with the light of a sunbeam, or with \"the point of a\ndiamond,\" is it revealed.  He that runs may read.  Abraham saw it: \"And\nin thy seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed.\"  Jacob saw\nit: \"The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between\nhis feet, until Shiloh come; and unto Him shall the gathering of the\npeople be.\"  David saw it: \"Ask of Me, and I will give thee the heathen\nfor thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy\npossession.\"  Isaiah saw it: \"The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb,\nand the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf, and the young\nlion, and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them.\"  Oh\nwhat a state of security and peace!\n\n\"Lift up thine eyes round about, and see; all they gather themselves\ntogether, they come to thee; thy sons shall come from far, and thy\ndaughters shall be nursed at thy side.\"  Let the Church no more hang down\nher head with grief.  Look up, and see what is approaching.  \"All they\ngather themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from\nfar, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.\"  A general\nconfluence of the nations is at hand, and all will flow into the church.\n\"Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall fear, and\nbe enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be converted unto\nthee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto thee.\"  The\nvast-swelling multitude with their wealth shall come and beg admission.\n\"We have now to beg people to come into the church: the day is coming\nwhen they shall ask permission.  \"Who are these that fly as a cloud, and\nas the doves to their windows?\"  Who _are_ these myriads making their way\nto Christ?  \"And as the doves to their windows?\"  There is a storm at\nhand: the people foresee it, and run for refuge.  \"Thy gates shall be\nopen continually; they shall not be shut day or night; that men may bring\nunto thee the forces of the Gentiles, and that their kings may be\nbrought.\"  So constant is the pouring in that the doors must be kept\nopen.  It is now a rare thing to see a convert approaching; but then the\nstream will be continuous, and the houses of prayer open night and day.\n\n\"Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast\nof kings: and thou shalt know that I the Lord am thy Saviour and thy\nRedeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.\"  The very wealth which is now in\nheathen hands shall be consecrated to the further spread of the gospel.\n\"And thou shalt suck the breast of kings:\" for they shall become \"nursing\nfathers and queens nursing mothers;\" and the reign of the Messiah shall\nbe one of peace.  \"Violence shall no more be heard in thy land, wasting\nnor destruction within thy borders: but thou shalt call thy walls\nSalvation, and thy gates Praise.  The sun shall be no more thy light by\nday; neither for brightness shall the moon give light unto thee: but the\nLord shall be unto thee an everlasting light, and thy God thy glory.  Thy\nsun shall no more go down; neither shall thy moon withdraw itself: for\nthe Lord shall be thine everlasting light, and the days of thy mourning\nshall be ended.  Thy people also shall be all righteous; they shall\ninherit the land for ever, the branch of my planting, the work of my\nhands, that I may be glorified.  A little one shall become a thousand,\nand a small one a strong nation: I the Lord will hasten it in his time.\"\nDo not say that this glorious chapter is exceptional.  It is only a\nsample, and the bulk is equal in beauty.  If the Bible, then, be true, a\nredeemed universe is hastening upon us.  Paradise created even cannot put\nbefore us the glory of paradise restored.  All the events which are\npassing over us--even those which appear the most alarming--are under an\ninfluence which will make them tributary to the final issue.  \"Blessed be\nthe Lord God, the God of Israel, who only doeth wondrous things, and\nblessed be his glorious name for ever; and let the whole earth be filled\nwith his glory.  Amen and Amen.\"\n\n1.  Let us learn a lesson of _veneration for the Scriptures_.  Unless it\nbe the great doctrine of atonement, there is no truth to which the\nChristian clings, assailed with greater bitterness in our days than the\nplenary authority of the Bible.  Moreover the low views on this question\nwhich many professing Christians hold and teach, are most deplorable and\ndamaging.  We expect opposition from the avowed adversaries of the Book;\nbut, the source of truth is now imperilled by indifference and treachery.\nThe whole volume has a divine origin.  \"God who at sundry times and in\ndivers manners spake in times past by the prophets hath in these last\ndays spoken to us by his Son.\"\n\n2.  A lesson of _love to the Saviour_.  \"He hath died\" for us, \"the just\nfor the unjust, that He might bring us to God.\"  Do not forget your\npersonal interest in those sufferings to which the text refers.  They are\nin the strictest sense _vicarious_.  He suffered not for his own sins,\nbut for yours.  You may realise their saving efficacy, and be \"made meet\nfor the inheritance of the saints in light.\"  How great are his claims\nupon our affection and service!\n\n3.  A lesson of _duty to the world_.  The salvation of the whole race is\nprovided by \"the sufferings;\" and is included in \"the glory.\"  A\nsanctified universe is to be the result of the Saviour's cross: and to a\nlarge extent He has made the Churches responsible for the conversion of\nthe world.  A weight of obligation rests upon each member which cannot be\nput into language.  The wailings of a dying race call loudly for our\nzeal.  The groans of the lost gather strength as they ascend the pit.\nThe voice of heaven, from angels, saints, and God, urge us onward in the\ndischarge of duty.  Oh, the wreck is on the billow; hasten with the means\nof safety.  The plague-spot is in the camp; offer the incense of\natonement.  And let all your efforts be put forth in faith, and under a\ndeep impression of the truth of Cecil's memorable words: \"Faith is the\nmaster-spring of a Minister,\" as well as of every Christian.  \"Hell is\nbefore me, and thousands of lost souls are shut up there in everlasting\nagony.  Jesus Christ stands forth to save men from rushing into this\nbottomless abyss.  He sends me to proclaim His ability and love.  I want\nno fourth idea.\"\n\n\n\n\nTHE MIND WHICH WAS IN CHRIST JESUS.\nREV. GEORGE WOOD.\n\n\n    \"Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.\"\n    PHILIPPIANS ii. 5.\n\nThe Saviour left His followers an example that they should tread in His\nsteps; and His example in everything that appertains to His human nature,\nis not only practicable but essential.  We cannot imitate His power, or\nHis wisdom, or His miracles, or His sufferings, or anything in which His\nDivine nature was manifested or employed; but we can imitate His\nmeekness, His patience, His zeal, His self-denial, His superiority to\ntemptation, His abandonment of the world, His devotion to His Father's\nwill, in short, all those habits of mind and life which distinguished His\nearthly career.  And with this perfect example before us, we need never\nbe in doubt or perplexity as to what is our duty; we may test our motives\nand our conduct by the teaching and example of Christ, and if we possess\nHis mind we shall endeavour to copy His life--to \"walk as Christ also\nwalked\"--to be in this world as Christ also was.\n\nThis Epistle was addressed by the Apostle Paul to a Church which he\ntenderly loved, and for whose prosperity he constantly prayed.  He had\nsuffered much in the establishment of Christianity at Philippi, and the\nPhilippians had suffered much in the maintenance of their profession of\nfaith, chiefly from their fellow-citizens who continued heathen.  The\nApostle was a prisoner at Rome, with the prospect of martyrdom as the\ntermination of his glorious career.  Undaunted by the prospect, he\ndeclares his readiness--nay, more--his \"desire to depart and be with\nChrist.\"  He exhorts the Philippians to steadfastness, fidelity, and\npatience amid the sufferings to which they were exposed from without; and\nto simplicity and \"lowliness of mind\" amongst themselves.  He sets before\nthem the conduct of Christ in His condescension, and the glory of Christ\nin His exaltation; and exhorts them to imitate the Saviour's humility,\nthat they might share His triumph.  \"Let this mind be in you, which was\nalso in Christ Jesus.\"\n\nThis text is of universal application.  It applies to us.  The highest\ndignity attainable in this world is conformity to Jesus Christ.  In what\nthen does conformity to Jesus Christ consist?  In other words, what are\nthose elements of character and conduct which distinguished Him, and\nwhich are to be copied by us in our daily life?\n\nI.  The first which we mention, and which is prominent throughout the\nwhole of His history is _meekness_ or _humility_.  Dignified as was His\ncharacter, high as were His claims, glorious as was His mission, He was\nnever arrogant or boastful, proud or ostentatious.  He neither sought the\nhomage of the multitude, nor the society of the rich and the great.  He\naccepted these if offered, but He never sought them.  It is a fact that\nChrist never demanded, yet never declined the worship of men during His\nearthly sojourn.  The Apostles shrunk from it, Angels rebuked it when\noffered to them, Christ never did.  It was sometimes given, it was never\ndeclined.  He did not obtrude Himself upon the attention of the multitude\nas the Saviour of the world; but ate, and drank, and slept, and walked,\nand lived amongst them, and was in every respect a man with men.  He\nsometimes escaped from the society of the rich, that He might mitigate\nthe sorrows, and promote the interests of the poor.  He never sought\nhuman applause, and frequently retired from the scene of the most\nastounding miracle, charging the subject of His healing and His blessing\nto \"tell no man\" of Him.  He might have taken the throne, and reigned\n\"King of the Jews,\" in a political and worldly sense, had He been\ncovetous of regal honours, or ambitious for worldly power.  But He had a\nhigher mission.  His kingdom was \"not of this world,\" and He came \"not to\nbe ministered unto, but to minister.\"\n\nIt cannot, however, be asserted that Jesus was insensible, or altogether\nindifferent, to the temptations to popularity and power to which He was\nexposed; if so, His example is of no practical utility to us.  He did not\nfeel as we feel, and we can gather no instruction, and no motives from\nHis history or experience.  But we believe that He \"was in all points\ntempted _like_ as we are;\" that as a man He was the subject of all the\nemotions, affections, and impulses which we feel.  He could weep, and\nlove, and hate, and fear, and pure as His nature was, He had to battle\nwith the various temptations of the world and the wicked one, all the\nmore perhaps because of the sinlessness of His holy humanity.\n\nGreat and frequent were the provocations of His enemies, but He never\nlost His temper--He never forfeited the claim to be called \"the meek and\nlowly Jesus.\"  If you follow Him to the house of Caiaphas the high\npriest, to the judgment hall of Herod or of Pilate, or to the Cross\nitself--though He was buffetted, accused falsely, condemned, spit upon,\ncrucified--He passed through all the same calm, humble, holy Being.\nThere was no retaliation, no resentment.  There was majesty in His very\nmeekness.  And this is an important element in the Saviour's character\nand conduct, which as Christians we must acquire and exhibit.\n\nUndue elevation in circumstances of prosperity and fame, is as injurious\nto our spiritual progress, as irritation and depression are in\ncircumstances of adversity and trial; and both are to be avoided.  The\nSaviour left us an example--a bright and a beautiful example--O how few\nof us copy it in this respect.  When the voice of flattery and praise is\nheard--when we are raised to posts of influence and honour--when the sun\nshines brightly upon our daily pathway--how few of us keep our meekness\nand humility; how few of us carry all our honours back to Him who gave\nthem; how few of us so improve and sanctify our talents as that He shall\nhave the glory.  And on the other hand when fortune frowns upon us--when\nthe world despises us--when our \"own familiar friend, in whom we trusted,\nlifteth up his heel against us,\" alas! how few of us \"calmly sit on\ntumult's wheel,\" and leave events to God.  It is easier to sing and\npreach about such a disposition than it is to acquire and exhibit it; but\nit is attainable and it is essential--\"Let this mind be in you which was\nalso in Christ Jesus.\"\n\nII.  _Simplicity_ and _unity_ distinguish the character and conduct of\nChrist.  In all His intercourse with friends and foes, His adherence to\ntruth and righteousness is marked and constant.  He was criticised and\ncatechised and calumniated, but His transparency of character was never\ndestroyed.  His enemies opposed and threatened, but He never hesitated in\nthe path of duty, or in His devotion to His Father's will.  However\ncaptious their questions, and whether they related to political or\nspiritual matters, He invariably turned them against His opponents, and\nmade them minister to the cause of truth and righteousness.  Sometimes He\nstood single-handed against a multitude of foes, they were often\nvacillating, cowardly, and inconsistent with themselves; but not so the\nSaviour.  With what authority did He rebuke their selfishness, their\nduplicity, their sin; and yet how confidently could He appeal to His\nbitterest opponents as to the simplicity and purity of His own character\nand life--\"Which of you convinceth _Me_ of sin?\"  The proud and\nsupercilious Pharisees sought \"to entangle Him in His talk;\" they charged\nHim with blasphemy, with disregard for the Sabbath, with breaking the\nlaw, and they disputed His authority to act as He did; but their cunning\ncould not ensnare, their threatening could not intimidate.  Satan sought\nby a threefold temptation to turn Him aside; he desired Him to question,\nin the first place, the providence of God, then to tempt an interposition\nof Providence by exposing Himself to unnecessary danger, and finally to\nfall down and worship him; but our Lord indignantly repelled the tempter,\nand maintained His purity; and \"angels came and ministered unto Him.\"  \"I\nmust work the works of Him that sent me,\" was the motto of His life--the\nsimple purpose of His mind; nor did He shrink from any portion of that\nwork however hazardous and difficult.  \"My meat,\" said He, \"is to do the\nwill of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.\"\n\nIn this simple purpose of the Saviour's mind and conduct we have a\nbeautiful example.  Nothing is so difficult, in days like these, as the\nmaintenance of a pure and simple mind.  Duplicity, deception, and\nselfishness pervade all ranks and conditions of men.  You find them in\nthe shop, in the market-place, in the family, and alas! in the church\nitself; and nothing but a resolute resistance, directed and sustained by\nthe grace of God, can make the Christian proof against these evils.  O\nimitate the Saviour.  Mark out for yourselves a definite line of conduct,\nconsistent with your Christian profession, and adhere to it firmly, in\nspite of custom or contempt, and in the prospect of death itself.\n\nSimplicity produces unity.  There is nothing complex in the character and\nlife of Christ.  Every part is in perfect keeping with the whole.  His\nteaching, His miracles, His conduct, illustrate each other, and combine\nto prove His true Messiahship, and exhibit the perfection of His life.\nIf there were glaring inconsistencies in the history of Jesus--if the\nfour Evangelists had written documents which could not be harmonized--if\nthe moral teaching, and the moral conduct of Christ were at variance--if\nHis pretensions were not justified by His works--then we might deny His\nMessiahship, and disregard Him as our Great Example.  But it is not so.\nWhat He taught He practised; what He promised he performed; the work He\ncame from heaven to accomplish He actually \"finished,\" even to the\nshedding of His blood.  \"The cup which my Father hath given me to drink,\"\nsaid He, \"shall I not drink it?\"  Thus the example of Christ forbids all\nfickleness and falsehood.  It condemns all false appearances; and says to\nall His followers, with an authority and force which even the words\nthemselves do not contain, \"Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay,\nnay: for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil.\"  What a wonderful\nand glorious change would the observance of such a rule effect in the\nchurch, and in the world!  \"Let this mind be in you which was also in\nChrist Jesus.\"\n\nIII.  The mind of Christ is distinguished by its _sympathy_ and\n_ceaseless activity_.  He could _weep_ at the grave of Lazarus, before\ncalling back His friend to life.  He could _stop_ at the gate of Nain, to\ncheer the heart of a bereaved widow, by restoring to life her only son.\nHe could condescend to _touch_ the loathsome leper, and thus make him\nclean.  He could _stoop to hold a conversation_ with a penitent\nadulteress.  He could _work a miracle_ to feed a hungry multitude.  He\ncould _look_ conviction into Peter's heart, and thus send the faithless\nApostle out of His presence weeping bitterly.  O there was nothing cold,\nungenerous, or selfish in the nature of Christ.  He was never too much\noccupied to listen to the tale of sorrow, nor too dignified to afford\nrelief.  He was never unapproachable.  The finest sensibilities, the\npurest affections, the deepest sympathies were exhibited in actions,\nwhich, had there been no ultimate purpose in His mission, would have\nmarked Him as a benefactor of our race, and carried down His name and His\nfame to the latest posterity.  And this, in a humbler degree, we are\ncalled upon to imitate.  How little like the Saviour is the man whose\nheart is hard, whose temper is irritable, and who has no bowels of\ncompassion for the destitute and afflicted.  How little like the Saviour\nis the man who prides himself upon superior extraction or superior\nposition, and looks down with contempt upon the poor and the penniless.\nThe Son of Man came to seek, and to save the lost: and when John's\ndisciples asked Him for evidence that He was Christ, His reply was simply\nthis: Go tell your master the things which ye have seen and heard; \"the\nblind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed,\nand the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the Gospel\npreached unto them.\"  What an outline is this of the Redeemer's daily\ntoil!  How He \"went about doing good!\"  How He wandered among the cities\nand villages of Judaea and Samaria; sharing the rough hospitality of\nfishermen--the barley-bread of the poorest peasant; working miracles of\nhealing; teaching doctrines of profoundest import; contending with His\nenemies, the Pharisees and Scribes; and conducting the minds and the\nhearts of His disciples and the multitudes away from their superstitions\nand their prejudices, to the heart of His Father's love, and the results\nof His own suffering and sacrifice in their behalf: nor did this sublime\nand ceaseless activity terminate until He hung upon the cross--and then\nonly to be renewed in ceaseless intercession at His Father's throne.  And\nagain He left us an example.  This active sympathy is the very genius of\nour holy religion--the spirit which it breathes--the life which it\nlives--the pure and blessed element in which it grows and becomes\nperfect.  Happy is the man who thus imitates the Saviour--whose\n\"weariness of life is gone,\" by the employment of his talents and his\ntime in \"doing and receiving good.\"\n\nIV.  All these elements of character in Christ were directed and\nsustained by the _holiness of His nature_.  This is undeniable His\nenemies being judges.  Even devils testified to this--\"We know Thee, who\nThou art, the holy one of God;\" they could not resist His Divine\nauthority; they could not impeach His human purity; and in order to\nsecure His condemnation at the last, the chief-priests were compelled to\nresort to bribery and falsehood.  And ever since the bitterest opponents\nof His religion have been constrained to reiterate Pilate's verdict with\nregard to Himself--\"We find no fault in this man.\"\n\nIt is difficult to estimate aright the holiness of Christ as an example\nto us.  It is difficult to discover how far, or whether at all, the\nDivinity of Christ acted on the humanity in relation to His holiness.  We\nbelieve, however, that the holiness of His humanity was altogether\ndistinct from His Godhead; and though He \"did no sin; neither was guile\nfound in His mouth,\" He was none the less exposed to temptation; but amid\nthe vanity and vice which everywhere abounded and surrounded Him, He\nwalked, and worked, and lived in the maintenance of that holiness which\nwe may imitate; not a holiness resulting from the union of the Divine\nwith the human, but a holiness belonging only to the latter.  Had He\nyielded to temptation, the whole of His mission would have failed, His\nteaching would have had no force, His example would have perished with\nHis fame, and His death would have had no saving merit whatsoever.  But\nHis holiness remained inviolate; and now it is the ground and the pattern\nof ours.  It is not enough that you be meek and lowly; it is not enough\nthat you be simple and ingenuous; it is not enough that you be\nsympathetic and affectionate; you must be _holy_.  \"Jesu's is a\n_spotless_ mind.\"\n\nBrethren, suffer me to urge the exhortation of the text.  O the dignity,\nthe blessedness of this conformity to Christ!  Will you seek it for\nyourselves.  You and I are only Christians so far as we resemble Christ,\nnot a bit farther.  Jesus is Himself the perfect embodiment of His own\nteaching, the living, acting example of all those elements of character\nand conduct which fit intelligent and immortal spirits for the Paradise\nof God.  Therefore, \"let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ\nJesus.\"  Seek it! exhibit it!!\n\n         WARREN HALL AND CO., PRINTERS, CAMDEN ROAD, LONDON, N.W.","title":"The Wesleyan Methodist Pulpit in Malvern: Sermons Preached at the Opening Services of the Wesleyan Methodist Chapel, in 1866","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":35532}