"E" Feathers

EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT—the Pledge of Heaven In the early times when land was sold, the owner cut a turf from the greensward and cast it into the cap of the purchaser as a token that it was his; or he tore off the branch of a tree and put it into the new owner's hand to show that he was entitled to all the products of the soil; and when the purchaser of a house received seizin or possession, the key of the door, or a bundle of thatch plucked from the roof, signified that the building was yielded up to him. The God of all grace has given to his people all the perfections of heaven to be their heritage for ever, and the earnest of his Spirit is to them the blessed token that all things are theirs. The Spirit's work of comfort and sanctification is a part of heaven's covenant blessings, a turf from the soil of Canaan, a twig from the tree of life, the key to mansions in the skies. Possessing the earnest of the Spirit we have received seizin of heaven.

EDIFICATION—the Aim of Christian Speech When Handel's oratorio of the "Messiah" had won the admiration of many of the great, Lord Kinnoul took occasion to pay him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. "My lord," said Handel, "I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wish to make them better." It is to be feared that many speech-makers at public meetings could not say as much; and yet how dare any of us waste the time of our fellow immortals in mere amusing talk! If we have nothing to speak to edification, how much better to hold our tongue!

ELECTION

Andrew Fuller remarks, in a letter to two relatives:—"I used to think that the doctrine of election was a reason why we need not pray, and I fear there are many who split upon this rock, who think it is to no purpose to pray, as things will be as they will be. But I now see that the doctrine of election is the greatest encouragement instead of a discouragement to prayer. He that decreed that any one should be finally saved, decreed that it should be in the way of prayer; as much as he that has decreed what we shall possess of the things of this life, has decreed that it shall be in the way of industry; and as we never think of being idle in common business, because God has decreed what we shall possess of this world's good, so neither should we be slothful in the business of our souls, because our final state is decreed."

ENQUIRERS—not to be Discouraged At the Synod of Moscow, held by King Goutran, a.d. 585, bishops were forbidden to keep dogs in their houses, or birds of prey, lest the poor should be bit by these animals instead of being fed. Should not all ministers be equally concerned to chase away all morose habits, angry tempers and repulsive manners, which might discourage the approach of enquiring souls who desire to know of us the way of salvation? Sunday-school teachers may also take the hint.

ETERNAL THINGS AND FLEETING

Afar off one can hardly tell which is mountain and which is cloud. The clouds rise with peaks and summits, all apparently as solid, and certainly as glistening, as the snow-clad Alps, so that the clearest eye might readily be deceived. Yet the mountain is unsubstantial as the cloud, and the cloud is never permanent as the mountain. So do the things of time appear to be all-important, far-reaching and enduring, and eternal things are not always of equal weight to the soul with those nearer at hand. Yet, despite all our instinctive judgments may suggest to the contrary, nothing earthly can ever be lasting, nothing in time can be worth considering compared with eternity. The cloudy philosophies of men may assume the shape of eternal truth, but the wind shall scatter them, while the great mountains of the divine word shall stand fast for ever and ever.

EVIDENCE—Experimental

I have been informed that not long ago a certain infidel lecturer gave an opportunity to persons to reply to him after his oration, and he was of course expecting that one or two rashly zealous young men would rise to advance the common arguments for Christianity, which he was quite prepared, by hook or crook, to battle with or laugh down. Instead of reasoners, an old lady, carrying a basket, wearing an ancient bonnet, and altogether dressed in an antique fashion, which marked both her age and her poverty, came upon the platform. Putting down her basket and umbrella, she began and said, "I paid threepence to hear of something better than Jesus Christ, and I have not heard it. Now, let me tell you what religion has done for me, and then tell me something better, or else you've cheated me out of the threepence which I paid to come in. Now," she said, "I have been a widow thirty years, and I was left with ten children, and I trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ in the depth of poverty, and he appeared for me and comforted me, and helped me to bring up my children so that they have grown up and turned out respectable. None of you can tell what the troubles of a poor lone woman are, but the Lord has made his grace all-sufficient. I was often very sore pressed, but my prayers were heard by my Father in heaven, and I was always delivered. Now, you are going to tell me something better than that—better for a poor woman like me! I have been to the Lord sometimes when I've been very low indeed, and there's been scarcely anything for us to eat, and I've always found his providence has been good and kind to me. And when I lay very sick, I thought I was dying, and my heart was ready to break at leaving my poor fatherless boys and girls, and there was nothing kept me up but the thought of Jesus and his faithful love to my poor soul; and you tell me that it was all nonsense. Those who are young and foolish may believe you, but after what I have gone through I know there is a reality in religion and it is no fancy. Tell me something better than what God has done for me, or else, I tell you, you have cheated me out of my threepence. Tell me something better." The lecturer was a good hand at an argument, but such a mode of controversy was novel, and therefore he gave up the contest, and merely said, "Really, the dear old woman was so happy in her delusion he should not like to undeceive her." "No," she said, "that won't do. Truth is truth, and your laughing can't alter it. Jesus Christ has been all this to me, and I could not sit down in the hall and hear you talk against him without speaking up for him, and asking you whether you could tell me something better than what he has done for me. I've tried and proved him, and that's more than you have."

Herein is power, logic invincible, reasoning not to be gainsayed. The testing, and proving of God; getting his love really shed abroad in the heart, this is the great internal evidence of the gospel.

EVILS (Little)—Making Way for Greater The carpenter's gimblet makes but a small hole, but it enables him to drive a great nail. May we not here see a representation of those minor departures from the truth which prepare the minds of men for grievous errors, and of those thoughts of sin which open a way for the worst of crimes! Beware, then, of Satan's gimblet.

EXAGGERATION In certain ancient Italian frescoes Mary Magdalene is drawn as a woman completely enveloped in her own hair, which reaches to her feet and entirely wraps up her body as in a seamless garment. These queer draughtsmen must needs exaggerate; granted that the woman had long hair, they must enfold her in it like a silkworm in its own silk. The practice survives among the tribe of talkers, everything with them is on the enlarged scale; a man with ordinary abilities is a prodigy, another with very pardonable faults is a monster, a third with a few failings is a disgrace to humanity. Truth is as comely and beautiful as a woman with flowing hair, but exaggeration is as grotesque and ugly as the Magdalene, all hair from head to foot.

EXCUSES

Bishop W------, we are told, was one day rebuking one of his clergy for fox-hunting. "My lord," was the clergyman's answer, "every man must have some relaxation. I assure you I never go to balls." "Oh," said the bishop, "I perceive you allude to my having been to the Duchess of S------'s party, but I give you my word that I was never in the same room with the dancers!" "My lord," responded the clergyman, "my horse and I are getting old, and we are never in the same field with the hounds." Thus each had satisfied his conscience, because of some point beyond which he had not gone. What he had done was to be overlooked on account of what he had not done. The habit of making precisely similar excuses is all but universal; though we see the absurdity of it in others we continue to practise it ourselves.

EXPERIENCE A Christian's experience is like a rainbow, made up of drops of the grief of earth, and beams of the bliss of heaven.

EXPERIENCE—Boasting of its Depth In my house there is a well of extraordinary depth which reminds me of something better than the boasted deep experience of certain censorious professors, who teach that to feel sin within is the main thing, but to be delivered from it of small consequence. When this well was commenced, the owner of the place resolved to have water, cost what it might. The well-sinkers dug through mud, and clay, and stone, but found no water; here was the deep experience of the corruptionist, all earth and no living spring, the filth revealed but not removed, the leper discovered but not healed. Another hundred feet of hard digging deep in the dark, but no water—still deeper experience. Then a third hundred feet, and still dirt, but no crystal—the very finest grade of your deeply experimental professor, who ridicules the joys of faith, as being of the flesh and presumptuous. Still on, on, on went the workers, till one day leaving their tools to go to dinner, upon their return they found that the water was rising fast, and their tools were drowned. Be this last my experience—to go so deep as to reach the springs of everlasting love, and find all my poor doings and efforts totally submerged, because the blessed fountains of grace have broken in upon me, covering all the mire, and rock, and earth of my poor, naturally evil heart.

EXPERIENCE—Necessary to a Minister

Büchsel says:—"Orthodoxy can be learnt from others; living faith must be a matter of personal experience. The Lord sent out his disciples, saying, 'Ye shall testify of me, because ye have been with me from the beginning.' He only is a witness who speaks of what he has seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears, and handled with his own hands. Orthodoxy is merely another form of rationalism, if it be learnt from without."

EXPERIENCE—Teaching the Value of Grace In the olden time when the government of England had resolved to build a wooden bridge over the Thames at Westminster, after they had driven a hundred and forty piles into the river, there occurred one of the most severe frosts in the memory of man, by means of which the piles were torn away from their strong fastenings, and many of them snapped in two. The apparent evil in this case was a great good; it led the commissioners to reconsider their purpose, and a substantial bridge of stone was erected.

How well it is when the fleshly reformations of unregenerate men are broken to pieces, if thus they are led to fly to the Lord Jesus, and in the strength of his Spirit are brought to build solidly for eternity. Lord, if thou sufferest my resolves and hopes to be carried away by temptations and the force of my corruptions, grant that this blessed calamity may drive me to depend wholly on thy grace, which cannot fail me.

EXPERIENCE—Variety of

Ruskin, that most accurate observer, says:—"Break off an elm-bough three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in the whole bough (provided you do not twist it about as you work) you find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even have one complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why it does so, since there is not one line of it like another."

If such infinite variety prevails in creation, we may reasonably expect to find the same in the experience of the saints. Uniformity is no rule of spiritual life. Let us not judge others because their feelings have not been precisely similar to ours. All the saints are led in a right way, but no two of them precisely in the same way. Far be it from us to set up a standard and expect all to be conformed to it; if we reject all believers who labour under infirmities, or are marred with faults, our fellowship will be scant indeed.

"E" Feathers

EARNEST OF THE SPIRIT—the Pledge of Heaven In the early times when land was sold, the owner cut a turf from the greensward and cast it into the cap of the purchaser as a token that it was his; or he tore off the branch of a tree and put it into the new owner's hand to show that he was entitled to all the products of the soil; and when the purchaser of a house received seizin or possession, the key of the door, or a bundle of thatch plucked from the roof, signified that the building was yielded up to him. The God of all grace has given to his people all the perfections of heaven to be their heritage for ever, and the earnest of his Spirit is to them the blessed token that all things are theirs. The Spirit's work of comfort and sanctification is a part of heaven's covenant blessings, a turf from the soil of Canaan, a twig from the tree of life, the key to mansions in the skies. Possessing the earnest of the Spirit we have received seizin of heaven.

EDIFICATION—the Aim of Christian Speech When Handel's oratorio of the "Messiah" had won the admiration of many of the great, Lord Kinnoul took occasion to pay him some compliments on the noble entertainment which he had lately given the town. "My lord," said Handel, "I should be sorry if I only entertained them; I wish to make them better." It is to be feared that many speech-makers at public meetings could not say as much; and yet how dare any of us waste the time of our fellow immortals in mere amusing talk! If we have nothing to speak to edification, how much better to hold our tongue!

ELECTION

Andrew Fuller remarks, in a letter to two relatives:—"I used to think that the doctrine of election was a reason why we need not pray, and I fear there are many who split upon this rock, who think it is to no purpose to pray, as things will be as they will be. But I now see that the doctrine of election is the greatest encouragement instead of a discouragement to prayer. He that decreed that any one should be finally saved, decreed that it should be in the way of prayer; as much as he that has decreed what we shall possess of the things of this life, has decreed that it shall be in the way of industry; and as we never think of being idle in common business, because God has decreed what we shall possess of this world's good, so neither should we be slothful in the business of our souls, because our final state is decreed."

ENQUIRERS—not to be Discouraged At the Synod of Moscow, held by King Goutran, a.d. 585, bishops were forbidden to keep dogs in their houses, or birds of prey, lest the poor should be bit by these animals instead of being fed. Should not all ministers be equally concerned to chase away all morose habits, angry tempers and repulsive manners, which might discourage the approach of enquiring souls who desire to know of us the way of salvation? Sunday-school teachers may also take the hint.

ETERNAL THINGS AND FLEETING

Afar off one can hardly tell which is mountain and which is cloud. The clouds rise with peaks and summits, all apparently as solid, and certainly as glistening, as the snow-clad Alps, so that the clearest eye might readily be deceived. Yet the mountain is unsubstantial as the cloud, and the cloud is never permanent as the mountain. So do the things of time appear to be all-important, far-reaching and enduring, and eternal things are not always of equal weight to the soul with those nearer at hand. Yet, despite all our instinctive judgments may suggest to the contrary, nothing earthly can ever be lasting, nothing in time can be worth considering compared with eternity. The cloudy philosophies of men may assume the shape of eternal truth, but the wind shall scatter them, while the great mountains of the divine word shall stand fast for ever and ever.

EVIDENCE—Experimental

I have been informed that not long ago a certain infidel lecturer gave an opportunity to persons to reply to him after his oration, and he was of course expecting that one or two rashly zealous young men would rise to advance the common arguments for Christianity, which he was quite prepared, by hook or crook, to battle with or laugh down. Instead of reasoners, an old lady, carrying a basket, wearing an ancient bonnet, and altogether dressed in an antique fashion, which marked both her age and her poverty, came upon the platform. Putting down her basket and umbrella, she began and said, "I paid threepence to hear of something better than Jesus Christ, and I have not heard it. Now, let me tell you what religion has done for me, and then tell me something better, or else you've cheated me out of the threepence which I paid to come in. Now," she said, "I have been a widow thirty years, and I was left with ten children, and I trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ in the depth of poverty, and he appeared for me and comforted me, and helped me to bring up my children so that they have grown up and turned out respectable. None of you can tell what the troubles of a poor lone woman are, but the Lord has made his grace all-sufficient. I was often very sore pressed, but my prayers were heard by my Father in heaven, and I was always delivered. Now, you are going to tell me something better than that—better for a poor woman like me! I have been to the Lord sometimes when I've been very low indeed, and there's been scarcely anything for us to eat, and I've always found his providence has been good and kind to me. And when I lay very sick, I thought I was dying, and my heart was ready to break at leaving my poor fatherless boys and girls, and there was nothing kept me up but the thought of Jesus and his faithful love to my poor soul; and you tell me that it was all nonsense. Those who are young and foolish may believe you, but after what I have gone through I know there is a reality in religion and it is no fancy. Tell me something better than what God has done for me, or else, I tell you, you have cheated me out of my threepence. Tell me something better." The lecturer was a good hand at an argument, but such a mode of controversy was novel, and therefore he gave up the contest, and merely said, "Really, the dear old woman was so happy in her delusion he should not like to undeceive her." "No," she said, "that won't do. Truth is truth, and your laughing can't alter it. Jesus Christ has been all this to me, and I could not sit down in the hall and hear you talk against him without speaking up for him, and asking you whether you could tell me something better than what he has done for me. I've tried and proved him, and that's more than you have."

Herein is power, logic invincible, reasoning not to be gainsayed. The testing, and proving of God; getting his love really shed abroad in the heart, this is the great internal evidence of the gospel.

EVILS (Little)—Making Way for Greater The carpenter's gimblet makes but a small hole, but it enables him to drive a great nail. May we not here see a representation of those minor departures from the truth which prepare the minds of men for grievous errors, and of those thoughts of sin which open a way for the worst of crimes! Beware, then, of Satan's gimblet.

EXAGGERATION In certain ancient Italian frescoes Mary Magdalene is drawn as a woman completely enveloped in her own hair, which reaches to her feet and entirely wraps up her body as in a seamless garment. These queer draughtsmen must needs exaggerate; granted that the woman had long hair, they must enfold her in it like a silkworm in its own silk. The practice survives among the tribe of talkers, everything with them is on the enlarged scale; a man with ordinary abilities is a prodigy, another with very pardonable faults is a monster, a third with a few failings is a disgrace to humanity. Truth is as comely and beautiful as a woman with flowing hair, but exaggeration is as grotesque and ugly as the Magdalene, all hair from head to foot.

EXCUSES

Bishop W------, we are told, was one day rebuking one of his clergy for fox-hunting. "My lord," was the clergyman's answer, "every man must have some relaxation. I assure you I never go to balls." "Oh," said the bishop, "I perceive you allude to my having been to the Duchess of S------'s party, but I give you my word that I was never in the same room with the dancers!" "My lord," responded the clergyman, "my horse and I are getting old, and we are never in the same field with the hounds." Thus each had satisfied his conscience, because of some point beyond which he had not gone. What he had done was to be overlooked on account of what he had not done. The habit of making precisely similar excuses is all but universal; though we see the absurdity of it in others we continue to practise it ourselves.

EXPERIENCE A Christian's experience is like a rainbow, made up of drops of the grief of earth, and beams of the bliss of heaven.

EXPERIENCE—Boasting of its Depth In my house there is a well of extraordinary depth which reminds me of something better than the boasted deep experience of certain censorious professors, who teach that to feel sin within is the main thing, but to be delivered from it of small consequence. When this well was commenced, the owner of the place resolved to have water, cost what it might. The well-sinkers dug through mud, and clay, and stone, but found no water; here was the deep experience of the corruptionist, all earth and no living spring, the filth revealed but not removed, the leper discovered but not healed. Another hundred feet of hard digging deep in the dark, but no water—still deeper experience. Then a third hundred feet, and still dirt, but no crystal—the very finest grade of your deeply experimental professor, who ridicules the joys of faith, as being of the flesh and presumptuous. Still on, on, on went the workers, till one day leaving their tools to go to dinner, upon their return they found that the water was rising fast, and their tools were drowned. Be this last my experience—to go so deep as to reach the springs of everlasting love, and find all my poor doings and efforts totally submerged, because the blessed fountains of grace have broken in upon me, covering all the mire, and rock, and earth of my poor, naturally evil heart.

EXPERIENCE—Necessary to a Minister

Büchsel says:—"Orthodoxy can be learnt from others; living faith must be a matter of personal experience. The Lord sent out his disciples, saying, 'Ye shall testify of me, because ye have been with me from the beginning.' He only is a witness who speaks of what he has seen with his own eyes, heard with his own ears, and handled with his own hands. Orthodoxy is merely another form of rationalism, if it be learnt from without."

EXPERIENCE—Teaching the Value of Grace In the olden time when the government of England had resolved to build a wooden bridge over the Thames at Westminster, after they had driven a hundred and forty piles into the river, there occurred one of the most severe frosts in the memory of man, by means of which the piles were torn away from their strong fastenings, and many of them snapped in two. The apparent evil in this case was a great good; it led the commissioners to reconsider their purpose, and a substantial bridge of stone was erected.

How well it is when the fleshly reformations of unregenerate men are broken to pieces, if thus they are led to fly to the Lord Jesus, and in the strength of his Spirit are brought to build solidly for eternity. Lord, if thou sufferest my resolves and hopes to be carried away by temptations and the force of my corruptions, grant that this blessed calamity may drive me to depend wholly on thy grace, which cannot fail me.

EXPERIENCE—Variety of

Ruskin, that most accurate observer, says:—"Break off an elm-bough three feet long, in full leaf, and lay it on the table before you, and try to draw it, leaf for leaf. It is ten to one if in the whole bough (provided you do not twist it about as you work) you find one form of a leaf exactly like another; perhaps you will not even have one complete. Every leaf will be oblique, or foreshortened, or curled, or crossed by another, or shaded by another, or have something or other the matter with it; and though the whole bough will look graceful and symmetrical, you will scarcely be able to tell how or why it does so, since there is not one line of it like another."

If such infinite variety prevails in creation, we may reasonably expect to find the same in the experience of the saints. Uniformity is no rule of spiritual life. Let us not judge others because their feelings have not been precisely similar to ours. All the saints are led in a right way, but no two of them precisely in the same way. Far be it from us to set up a standard and expect all to be conformed to it; if we reject all believers who labour under infirmities, or are marred with faults, our fellowship will be scant indeed.