March 21

Whose faith follow. - Hebrews 13:7.

EVERYBODY feels the force of the common adage, that example is above precept; and the Bible contains examples worthy our imitation. Let us, therefore, ascertain our models. The principal of these examples is indeed the example of the Lord of life and glory. He it is who is the image of the invisible God, the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth. Other examples are occasionally useful. With these the Scripture abounds. We have the example of the servants, as well as of the Master. And we are commanded to set our feet in the foot-prints of the flock. We are to be followers of them “who through faith and patience inherit the promises.” The Apostle here refers in general to the patriarchs and prophets of ancient times. With these holy men we have an intimate connection, remotely as they lived from us, as to time and place. “They that are of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” “Now we, then, as Isaac was, are the children of the promise.” Jacob wrestled with God, and prevailed, and was immediately knighted on the field, and surnamed by the name of Israel; and such honour have all the saints. He has not said to the seed of Jacob, “Seek ye me in vain.” “In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory.” Passing over successive generations, passing by princes, heroes, statesmen, and scholars, the Apostle points us to a small company distinguished chiefly by their communion with God and their obedience to him. And as this distinction is everything in the view of the Supreme Being, so it should also be in our estimation.

Let us, therefore, judge of men by their real worth; by their intellectual, moral, and religious character. The righteous are the excellent of the earth; they are more excellent than their neighbours; it is for them kingdoms are preserved or delivered from judgments; it is for them that God confers and continues blessings; it is for them that the earth itself is in being. These men lived also under a dispensation very inferior to our own. Yet such was their improvement of their means and privileges, that they are deemed worthy to be held forth as examples to us, upon whom the ends of the world are come. We cannot, therefore, judge of men solely by their situation and external advantages. Some plants of righteousness, who are fixed in a very unfavourable soil, bring forth more of the fruits of righteousness than others who are planted in the house of the Lord. Thus, “the first shall be last, and the last first.” We may observe, also, that these men had their faults and their infirmities, and are never represented in the Scriptures as perfect. But their imperfections are not to render us insensible to their excellencies; the evil in them is not to hinder us from following the good that was in them.

In reading the address of our Saviour to the seven churches, we may remark how in each case he seems to labour to find something to eulogize before he is constrained to condemn. May the same mind be in us which was also in him; and let us keep in view our models, that we be followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises.