October 28

Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? - Psalms 2:1.

WHAT has been the consequence of all the opposition against the cause of God and truth? What? Why, more abundant and zealous efforts in its diffusion; for inquiry is always friendly to truth, as darkness and concealment are friendly to error. And so also has it proved with regard to the sufferings of its followers by persecution. Here we have the testimony of an apostle who suffered as an evil-doer unto bonds, but he says, “The word of God is not bound.” And says he to the Philippians, “I would ye should understand, that the things which have happened unto me have fallen out rather unto the furtherance of the gospel, so that my bonds in Christ are manifest in all the palace.”

The periods of suffering have always been the most glorious for Christianity: the brethren have been united and endeared the more to each other; the spirit of glory and of God has rested upon them; their sufferings have arrested attention and induced sympathy; the witnesses of their sufferings have been found to be impressed, and they have been led to inquire concerning the principles that could produce such effects. Therefore the blood of the martyrs has always been considered the seed of the church, and the more they were oppressed the more they multiplied and grew.

Dr. Watts, all poet as he was, said, (and who would not wish to join with him in the choice?) “I would rather have been the author of Alleine’s Alarm to the Unconverted, than the writer of Milton’s Paradise Lost;” but that was a prison production. What did the enemies of religion get by confining Bunyan so many years in the jail at Bedford? There, almost inspired, he wrote those works which will continue to incommode the powers of darkness to the end of the world. The divisions and parties that have sprung up among professors have amazingly alarmed some good men; and in their lamentations they have added terror to grief; they have talked of danger, not remembering that in a thousand cases variety is compatible with unity.

The differences which subsist among all those who hold the Head do not affect the oneness of the church. They are only so many branches which form one tree; so many members which form one body. By these they have always proved stimulative to each other. They have awakened and increased emulation and zeal, and religion has always been, upon the whole, a gainer by them. It has been found far more important for Christians to love one another, and exclaim, “Grace be with all them who love our Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity,” than to peep together through the same keyhole of opinion.

And then the different parts of Scripture have also, in consequence of these divisions, been peculiarly attended to. One party has argued for the doctrinal part, another for the practical, another the disciplinary; and, in consequence of these, no part has remained unemployed or unheeded. If we thus view these things, and if we consider their consequences as they affect Christianity itself, it is obvious that even these have been over ruled for good; that even these, as they have given rise to parties and divisions, have caused each to have a salutary check upon the other; and that each has prevented the possibility of interpolation and alteration of the Scriptures.

Thus the cause of true religion lives through all; and the very things which seemed likely to destroy or injure it have proved the means of its benefit.