======================================================================== WRITINGS OF WILLIAM S PLUMER - VOLUME 1 by William S. Plumer ======================================================================== A collection of theological writings, sermons, and essays by William S. Plumer (Volume 1), compiled for study and devotional reading. Chapters: 100 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TABLE OF CONTENTS ------------------------------------------------------------------------ 1. 00.00. Plumer, William S. - Library 2. 01.00. BALM FOR WOUNDED SPIRITS 3. 01.01. THERE ARE MANY WOUNDED SPIRITS 4. 01.02. MANY SOURCES OF SORROW 5. 01.03. EXAMPLES OF GREAT SUFFERERS 6. 01.04. OUR TRIALS ARE FROM GOD 7. 01.05. BEHAVIOR UNDER SORE TRIALS 8. 01.06. TWO DANGEROUS AND OPPOSITE ERRORS 9. 01.07. BORROWING TROUBLE 10. 01.08. THE FOUNTAIN OF CONSOLATION 11. 01.09. TRUE COMFORTS 12. 01.10. BENEFITS OF AFFLICTION 13. 02.00. JEHOVAH-JIREH: A TREATISE ON PROVIDENCE 14. 02.01. PROVIDENCE ASSERTED 15. 02.02. PROVIDENCE DEFINED 16. 02.03. Chapter 03 17. 02.04. GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL 18. 02.05. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE 19. 02.06. GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS RETRIBUTIVE 20. 02.07. Chapter 07 21. 02.08. Chapter 08 22. 02.09. THE MYSTERIES OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE 23. 02.10. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE MYSTERIES OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE 24. 02.11. THE SPECIAL KINDNESS OF PROVIDENCE TOWARDS GODLY MEN 25. 02.12. Practical Remarks on the Special Kindness of Providence Towards Godly Men 26. 02.13. ALTERNATE LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PROVIDENCE 27. 02.14. Chapter 14 28. 02.15. GOD'S PROVIDENCE OVER NATIONS 29. 02.16. PROVIDENCE PUNISHES NATIONS FOR THEIR SINS 30. 03.00. THE CHRISTIAN 31. 03.01. THE CHRISTIAN NAME 32. 03.02. THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION 33. 03.03. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE 34. 03.04. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE 35. 03.05. THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER— AN EXAMPLE 36. 03.06. THE CHRISTIAN'S SIMPLICITY 37. 03.07. THE CHRISTIAN'S WAY 38. 03.08. THE CHRISTIAN'S TEMPTATIONS 39. 03.09. THE CHRISTIAN'S VICTORY OVER TEMPTATIONS 40. 03.10. THE CHRISTIAN'S VIEWS OF SIN 41. 03.11. THE CHRISTIAN'S BESETTING SINS 42. 03.12. THE CHRISTIAN'S SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY 43. 03.13. THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH 44. 03.14. WHY DO I REST CONFIDENTLY IN CHRIST? 45. 03.15. THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE 46. 03.16. THE CHRISTIAN'S TRUST 47. 03.17. A CHRISTIAN'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS 48. 03.18. THE CHRISTIAN LIVES BY RULE 49. 03.19. THE CHRISTIAN'S ENEMIES 50. 03.20. THE CHRISTIAN'S SHEPHERD 51. 03.21. THE CHRISTIAN'S ADVOCATE 52. 03.22. THE CHRISTIAN'S EARNEST 53. 03.23. THE CHRISTIAN'S JOY 54. 03.24. THE CHRISTIANS SORROW 55. 03.25. THE CHRISTIAN'S SORROW—Continued 56. 03.26. THE CHRISTIAN'S HATRED OF ERROR 57. 03.27. THE CHRISTIAN'S GLORIOUS RICHES 58. 03.28. SOME MUSINGS OF AN OLD CHRISTIAN 59. 03.29. WHAT CAN I DO 60. 03.30. POSTHUMOUS USEFULNESS 61. 04.00. The Grace of Christ 62. 04.000. Choice Quotes from the Book 63. 04.01. Introduction 64. 04.02. All Men Are Sinners 65. 04.03. Sin is a Great Evil 66. 04.04. How the Pious Regard Sin in Themselves and in Others 67. 04.05. The Heart of Man is All Wrong 68. 04.06. Wicked Men Are Like Devils 69. 04.07. Man is Utterly Helpless 70. 04.08. Without Diving Grace, Men CanDo Nothing But Sin 71. 04.09. The Corruption of Man is Hereditary 72. 04.10. Men are Guilty. Imputation of Adam's Sin. Actual Sins 73. 04.11. Self-Righteousness is Worthless. Man Needs a Savior 74. 04.12. The True Notion of Grace 75. 04.13. The Properties of Grace - it is Free, Sufficient, Unselfish, Rich in Blessings 76. 04.14. God's Grace is Also of Great Antiquity, Soverign and Distinguishing 77. 04.15. God's Purpose of Grace 78. 04.16. God's Word Teaches the Doctrines of Grace; the Fathers 79. 04.17. What the Martyrs Taught; the Reformers; Other Godley Men 80. 04.18. The Grace of Christ - Like That of the Father and the Spirit 81. 04.19. No Salvation but by a Redeemer, and No Redeemer but Christ 82. 04.20. The Constitution of Christ's Person; His Grace Therein 83. 04.21. The Work and Sufferings of Christ; His Active and Passive Obedience 84. 04.22. The Death of Christ; the Atonement 85. 04.23. Justification Before God 86. 04.24. Justification - the Pardon of Sin by Christ's Blood 87. 04.25. Justification - Acceptance in Christ 88. 04.26. Justification - Christ's Righteousness is Imputed to Believers 89. 04.27. Justification - Imputed Righteousness; Additional Testimonies 90. 04.28. The Office of Faith in Justification 91. 04.29. Why Good Works are Necessary 92. 04.30. Regeneration 93. 04.31. Sancification 94. 04.32. Sanctification, continued 95. 04.33. Relative Duties 96. 04.34. Temptation 97. 04.35. The Power of Divine Grace to Console 98. 04.36. Afflictions of the Righteous; Sayings; Promises 99. 04.37. The Righteous Shall Hold on His Say 100. 04.38. The Brevity of Human Life ======================================================================== CHAPTER 1: 00.00. PLUMER, WILLIAM S. - LIBRARY ======================================================================== Plumer, William S. Library Plumer, William S. - Balm for the Wounded Spirit Plumer, William S. - Jehovah-Jirah: A Treatise on Providence Plumer, William S. - The Christian Plumer, William S. - The Grace of Christ Plumer, William S. - The Law of God, as Contained in the Ten Commandments, Explained and Enforced Plumer, William S. - The Rock of Our Salvation Plumer, William S. - Theology for the People Plumer, William S. - Vital Godliness: A Treatise on Experimental and Practical Piety S. Assurance of Grace and Salvation S. Choice Quotes S. False Doctrines and False Teachers: How to Know Them and How to Treat Them ======================================================================== CHAPTER 2: 01.00. BALM FOR WOUNDED SPIRITS ======================================================================== BALM FOR WOUNDED SPIRITS By William S. Plumer CONTENTS 1. There Are Many Wounded Spirits 2. Many Sources of Sorrow 3. Examples of Great Sufferers 4. Our Trials Are from God 5. Behavior under Sore Trials 6. Two Dangerous and Opposite Errors 7. Borrowing Trouble 8. The Fountain of Consolation 9. True Comforts 10. Benefits of Affliction ======================================================================== CHAPTER 3: 01.01. THERE ARE MANY WOUNDED SPIRITS ======================================================================== 1. THERE ARE MANY WOUNDED SPIRITS "It is better to go to a house of mourning than to go to a house of feasting, since that is the end of all mankind, and the living should take it to heart. Grief is better than laughter, for when a face is sad, a heart may be glad. The heart of the wise is in a house of mourning, but the heart of fools is in a house of pleasure." Ecclesiastes 7:2-4 I freely confess to a growing sympathy with my suffering fellow men. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning. Often is the heart made better by sorrow and sadness. On earth are always many stricken hearts. The children of sorrow are numbered by the million. The family of the afflicted, for multitude, stands next to the family of man. It never dies out. It is constantly receiving new accessions. We come into the world with a cry, we pass through it in tears, and we leave it with a groan. At the age of one hundred and thirty, Jacob exclaims: "Few and evil have been the days of the years of my life." That the wicked should have many sorrows, should surprise no one. God’s Word says it shall be so. Their course of life naturally brings about that result. Destruction and misery are in their ways. A mirthful exterior often conceals a rankling wound. Even in laughter their heart is sorrowful. How can it be otherwise? For Jehovah curses their blessings (Malachi 2:2). But the righteous are not exempt. "God had one Son on earth without sin—but never one without affliction." "In this wide world, the fondest and the best Are the most tried, most troubled and distressed." Well, be it so. Night makes the stars shine, and sorrow gives luster to many a character. The Lord deals faithfully with His people. He never promised them ease or exemption from affliction. Jesus said: "In the world you shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer: I have overcome the world." "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrows are unknown; No traveler ever reached that blessed abode, Who found not thorns and briers in the road." Genuine sonship with God never exists where men are not brought under the rod of correction (Hebrews 12:8). Even where gaunt poverty never knocks at the door, nor persecution plies her implements of torture, nor sickness consumes the flesh, yet in some form affliction invades every dwelling of the saints. It greatly perplexes some to see the apparent confusion which seems to reign on earth. The wisest of mere men said: "All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not. As it is with the good man, so with the sinner; as it is with those who take oaths, so with those who are afraid to take them. This is the evil in everything that happens under the sun: The same destiny overtakes all. The hearts of men, moreover, are full of evil and there is madness in their hearts while they live, and afterward they join the dead" (Ecclesiastes 9:2-3). Sometimes things are even more perplexing, for a wicked man may for a long time seem to have uninterrupted prosperity, while his godly neighbor experiences sad reverses. Asaph had sore travail of soul on this very matter. He became envious at the foolish when he saw the prosperity of the wicked. They were not troubled as other men, neither were they plagued like other men. But when he saw the doom that awaited them, he ceased to envy them (Psalms 73:1-28). Waters of bitterness have always been given to the righteous (2 Timothy 3:11-12). See how Paul fared: "When we were come unto Macedonia our flesh had no rest, but we were troubled on every side; without were fightings, within were fears." Indeed such has been the common lot of God’s people. Read history. Nor do afflictions commonly diminish with age. In fact, some of them are usually much increased as we go on in life. So said the Preacher (Ecclesiastes 12:1-5). In Psalms 90:1-17, Moses teaches the same thing. Our outward man perishes, and so we should faint if our inward man were not renewed day by day (2 Corinthians 4:16). Owen says: "If it be so that in the daily decays of the outward man, in all the approaches of its dissolution, we have inward spiritual revivals and renovations, we shall not faint in what we undergo. And without such continual renovations we shall faint in our distresses, whatever other things we may have, or whatever we pretend to the contrary." Blessed is the man that behaves well in affliction. Rough seas and stress of weather make good seamen. Long wars and hard battles make good soldiers. Hall says: "Every man looks fair in a time of prosperity, but the main trial of the Christian is in suffering." Let us cultivate the spirit of those lines now so famous: "I ask not that my course be calm and still; No, here too, Lord be done your holy will; I ask but for a quiet, child-like heart; Though thronging cares and restless toil be mine, Yet may my heart remain. forever thine—Draw it from earth and fix it where you art. "I ask you not to finish soon the strife, The toil, the trouble of this earthly life; No, be my peace amid its grief and pain. I pray not, grant me now your realm on high; No, before I die, let me to evil die, And through your Cross my sins be wholly slain." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 4: 01.02. MANY SOURCES OF SORROW ======================================================================== 2. MANY SOURCES OF SORROW All languages abound in words expressive of different kinds or degrees of affliction. In English we have adversity, agony, anguish, anxiety, bereavement, burden, calamity, discomfort, discouragement, disease, distress, disturbance, grief, infirmity, losses, misfortunes, misery, pain, perplexity, sadness, sickness, sorrow, suffering, torment, trial, tribulation, trouble, vanity, vexation and wretchedness. Men often differ in their estimates of the strength of these words. Their use is much governed by individual preference, or by local practice. In some communities the word trouble is commonly used to express bodily ailment, yet by all correct usage some of these words are stronger than others. Adversity describes a general condition—the opposite of prosperity. We speak of a calamity as great, of a trial as sore, of an affliction as severe, of anguish as acute, of agony as intense, of a loss as heavy, of a burden as grievous. A calamity may be averted, sorrows soothed, losses repaired, discomforts removed, disturbances settled, pains relieved, sufferings ended; grief subsides, agony is over, distress passes away, trials cease. These are samples of the use of words. But the present aim is not to define words, but rather to indicate the number and variety of terms used on the subject of affliction. This is a world of sorrows. This is a valley of tears. "There is no flock, however watched and tended, But one dead lamb is there! There is no fireside, howso’er defended, But has one vacant chair. "The air is full of farewells to the dying, And mournings for the dead; The heart of Rachel, for her children crying, Will not be comforted!" Sometimes our afflictions respect the state of our own minds. One says: "Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me?" Our blessed Redeemer said; "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death." In fact, "the sufferings of His soul, were the soul of His sufferings." Sometimes our afflictions respect our bodies. All have many weaknesses, many sicknesses. The weeping prophet says: "He has made my skin and flesh grow old. He has broken my bones." "Our skin is hot as an oven, feverish from hunger." A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. It is like precious ointment. The most virtuous put the highest estimate upon it; yet often is it put in jeopardy. It was a godly man, typically representing the Redeemer, who said, "Reproach has broken my heart." "There is one who speaks like the piercings of a sword." "Slander is the revenge of a coward"—and there are many cowards. I once saw a boy with a beautiful bird, which he had caught in his trap. It was tethered with a ribbon. Its captor was delighted with his prisoner. Presently, when he was not thinking, away went the red bird and nice ribbon. The boy wept. So riches take to themselves wings and fly away towards heaven. They are not forever. The sudden loss of property is a great affliction, and probably tries one’s virtues as sorely as the sudden acquisition of wealth. Our lives themselves are often in peril. We are crushed before the moth. No man knows what moment he may die by the assassin or the mob, for "the wicked plots against the just, and gnashes upon him with his teeth." In all its stages our life is but a vapor. We do all fade as a leaf. We are like grass. The wind passes over it, and it is gone. Many are dying every day. "You carry them away as with a flood." Often our friends are the sources of our grief. Sometimes they die, and we lament for them, as David for Jonathan. Sometimes they are sick, and then we are grieved, as was Paul for Epaphroditus. Sometimes we see them going down into the depths of poverty, and we cannot help them. They will heed no advice until it is too late. Sometimes they become cold, and are even turned into strangers or enemies, and we say: "Yes, my own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, who ate of my bread, has lifted up his heel against me." Many a time our enemies are lively and numerous and strong. They command much influence, they are fierce and cunning and unscrupulous. They are God’s sword. David was not the only man who has cried out: "My eye waxes old because of all my enemies. Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness, because of my enemies." Then, too, our labors seem unproductive of any very great or good results. We labor in vain and spend our strength for naught. We often in bitterness cry like Moses: "May the favor of the Lord our God rest upon us; establish the work of our hands for us—yes, establish the work of our hands." But still all seems to be passing away like water spilled upon the ground. Our studies are often perplexing. Many, like the sorrowful Asaph, say they cannot see through providence. When they think to understand some hard question, it is too painful for them, and involves them in perplexity. Or perhaps our families are broken up, or unpromising, or ungodly, or great sufferers. Then let us say, like David: "Although my house be not so with God [as I could wish], yet He has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things, and sure." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 5: 01.03. EXAMPLES OF GREAT SUFFERERS ======================================================================== 3. EXAMPLES OF GREAT SUFFERERS Someone has said that the lives of very bad men and of very godly men are the most instructive—the former warning us and putting us on our guard, and the latter encouraging us to imitate their example. Inspired men seem to have thought the same thing—at least, the Scriptures seldom delineate an average person—but they speak freely of Cain and Abel, of Moses and Pharaoh, of David and Saul, of Apollos and Simon Magus. In like manner, they give us striking examples of great sufferings. We might dwell at length on the afflictions of Christ, for He was the greatest sufferer—preeminently "the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief." But His cup contained in it the wine of the wrath of God for our sins imputed to Him. The sword of Jehovah awaked against His fellow and smote Him. He bore the sin of many, and "our sufferings do not deserve to be spoken of on the same day on which we speak of His sorrows." A lengthened account of the afflictions of Job, of David, of Jeremiah, and of Paul might very pertinently here be given; but the reader is probably quite familiar with their history—at least, he can soon read it in the Scriptures. These men were illustrious examples of what divine grace can do in sustaining God’s chosen, and in giving them a blessed victory. No chapter of human history is more instructive and inspiriting than the history of the glorious martyrs who have suffered cruel deaths for their unswerving adherence to the cause of Christ. When Paul would sum up the grand achievements of holy confidence in God through Christ, he speaks of those "who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again. Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated-- the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground." Hebrews 11:33-38 Glory be to God for giving us such examples of heroic and triumphant sufferings. No trial is likely to come on any child of God in our day except such as the saints have already triumphed over. I think it is Henry Kirke White who says that "there are sorrows and there are misfortunes which bow down the spirit beyond the aid of all human comforts. . . . There are afflictions, there are privations, where death and hopes irrecoverably blasted leave no prospect of retrieval." In such cases, dry sorrow drinks up the blood and spirits, and would utterly consume us but for the amazing interpositions of divine mercy. But God is the God of all comfort, and He can make all grace abound to us. I once heard an eloquent discourse on the power of divine grace to sustain and comfort in great affliction. The preacher has been for years very favorably known on both sides of the Atlantic. He still lives to love and be loved by thousands. He illustrated his subject by the recital of some incidents in the life of one whom he had personally known. His statement was substantially as follows: While I was a student at Hampden Sidney College, there was a young man in the county of Prince Edward who was afflicted with one of the most painful of all the diseases to which the human frame is liable. It was a spinal infection of the most aggravated character. Being entirely dependent on others for support, it became necessary to make some permanent arrangement which would secure for him the constant attention he required. Through the intervention of some benevolent people connected with the institution, he was transferred to one of the rooms of Union Theological Seminary, and an arrangement was made by which the students of the Seminary, in turn, waited on him, day and night. After he was transferred to their care, I often visited him, and had abundant opportunity of knowing what he suffered and how he bore the painful visitation to which he was subjected. So contorted was he by his malady that he could not lie in a horizontal position, but was propped up by pillows placed under his head and shoulders; and he was so bent that usually his chin rested on his bosom. At times, it gave him acute pain to partake of his necessary food. In some way the optic nerve was implicated, and so keenly sensitive did he become to the light that it was necessary to exclude it, as far as possible, from his room. A close curtain was drawn across the single window behind his bed, and by night a shaded lamp was all that was permitted in his room. As an additional precaution, he often wore a bandage over his eyes, lest an accidental ray should pierce him with new anguish. And yet, amidst all these complicated and bodily distresses, such was his patience and serenity of spirit, so hopeful and even cheerful was he in the tone of his conversation, so quick was his sympathy in all that concerned others, that his room, so far from being a place of gloom or in any way repellent, was an attractive resort to the students of the Seminary and to his friends in the neighboring college. He never murmured, but he often gave thanks. Though it gave him pain to partake of his daily food, yet heavenly manna brought strength and refreshment to his trustful spirit. For long years no sight of green fields or blue sky greeted his shaded eyes, but visions of beauty, infinitely transcending the fairest of earthly prospects, were disclosed to the eye of faith. Thus racked and consumed with bodily pains, and thus replenished and comforted by divine grace, he lingered on, until at a late hour one night, while absorbed in study, I was stopped by hearing the tolling of the bell, which announced that his weary, worn and emaciated body was at rest, and that his patient, unmurmuring spirit was among the just made perfect. The preacher added: "We hear of those who say they would dispense with religion during life, if they could be sure of its supports in a dying hour; but I ask, What would have been the condition of this man, during these long years of pain and destitution, but for the supports and consolations of the gospel of Christ?" Now, dear reader, when you are inclined to think yourself the greatest of sufferers remember this young man, or one of old who cried: "Is there any sorrow like unto my sorrow?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 6: 01.04. OUR TRIALS ARE FROM GOD ======================================================================== 4. OUR TRIALS ARE FROM GOD "Affliction comes not forth of the dust, neither does trouble spring out of the ground." Job 5:6 To a godly man, such doctrine is a great comfort. It is for a joy that God’s government over evil is as perfect and constant as it is over good. "When disaster comes to a city—has not the Lord caused it?" (Amos 3:6). Thanks be to God for so clear a revelation on this point. The rebellion had broken out. Ahithophel was among the insurgents. Absalom had many friends. David was a fugitive from his own house. He is fleeing for his life, and a man of the house of Saul comes forth and rails at him. At this, one of David’s friends is highly incensed, and says: "Why should this dead dog curse my lord, the king? Let me go over and cut off his head!" But David was of quite another mind. He knew that when Israel left Egypt, not a dog wagged his tongue (Exodus 11:7). He knew that Shimei had been let loose upon him as a part of his humiliation, and he said to Abishai, "Let him curse, because the Lord has said unto him—Curse David. If the Lord has told him to curse me, who am I to stop him?" (2 Samuel 16:9-10). Surely, we should never forget that all our trials are by the appointment of God, who numbers the very hairs of our heads. Without Him, not a sparrow falls to the ground. He controls even chance itself. He cuts short the life of the guilty Ahab by a bow drawn at a venture, just as certainly as if it had been aimed at his person. "We may throw the dice—but the Lord determines how they fall." (Proverbs 16:33). Satan could do nothing against Job until he obtained permission from God. He is the god of this world—but only so far as Jehovah chooses to lengthen his chain. The Most High says to His Church, "I have refined you but not with silver; I have chosen you in the furnace of affliction" (Isaiah 48:10); and, "I will leave in the midst of you an afflicted, poor people, and they shall trust in the name of the Lord" (Zephaniah 3:12). "Though He brings grief, He will show compassion, so great is His unfailing love. For He does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men" (Lamentations 3:33). This truth was a great comfort to dear Dr. Nevins in his sore bereavements. It may well encourage every humble soul. Owen says, "God never afflicts nor grieves men, but it is for some other reason and cause than merely His own will." God no more rejoices in misery, than He does in iniquity. There is a cause for all the sorrows He sends. His justice or His love requires every stroke of His rod or His sword. He never acts inconsistently with His wisdom, His holiness, or His goodness. He never acts capriciously, but has good cause for all His decisions and actions. The fact that He is over and above all, acting with sovereign authority, shows how fit it is that He give no account of His matters to us, who are but worms, and vile worms at that. Sin is the cause of all our misery. To cure this, and rescue us from its power, God mercifully and lovingly chastens us—yes, chastens us severely. It impairs not the quality of the gold to put it in the fire. It only takes away its dross, and at the same time shows the genuineness of the metal tried. This is the very form of thought in the mind of the man of Uz, when he said, "When He has tried me, I shall come forth as gold." Let us therefore promptly admit that we deserve all our afflictions, and say, "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail" (Lamentations 3:22) Yes, after our sharpest trials, let us freely say, as the Jews when returned from Babylon, "You our God have punished us less than our iniquities deserve" (Ezra 9:13); or as the Church in all ages has said, "He has not dealt with us after our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities" (Psalms 103:10). Let us also submit entirely to the sovereign will of God, saying, "Why does a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" (Lamentations 3:39). The child that falls into the arms of fatherly correction does by that act diminish the force of the stroke. Let us never forget that rebellious thoughts are sinful, and that the least sin is a greater evil than all our sorrows. Let us constantly plead God’s tender mercies and hide ourselves under the shadow of His wings. Like as a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear Him. I believe it is Paul Gerhardt who sings of the sufferings of Christ, and then adds: "And if the pure and sinless One Could thus to sorrow know, Shall I, who so much ill have done, Resist the cross? O Thou In whom does perfect patience shine, Whoever would fain be counted thine Must wear your likeness now. "Yet, Father, each fresh aching heart Will question, in its woe, If you can send such bitter smart And yet no anger know. How long the hours beneath the cross! How hard to learn that love and loss From one sole Fountain flow!" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 7: 01.05. BEHAVIOR UNDER SORE TRIALS ======================================================================== 5. BEHAVIOR UNDER SORE TRIALS It pleases God sometimes to remove our loved ones very suddenly. If they are fully prepared for the change—it is ignoble in us to wish that they had suffered long or severely, merely to prepare us for the separation. But sometimes God calls into eternity those in whom we much love—but in whose piety we had little or no confidence. Sometimes those who make no profession of faith in Christ are taken out of the world with little or no warning. If we know their lives to have been wicked—such cases produce anguish. The Scriptures provide sufficiently for all such cases. They tell us of Aaron’s sons who for great wickedness were by God’s just judgment taken out of the world in an awful manner. And yet they tell us how well that godly man behaved. The record is not long, but it is very much to the point: "And Aaron held his peace." He loved his sons. His heart yearned over them. He saw their wickedness. He knew that God was righteous. He could not understand the dark providence. But grace was given him not to say a word. David, too, lost a son in mature years, and in an awful manner, fighting against his father’s lawful authority. He had been a petted and spoiled child. Early in life he had committed fratricide and fled to Arabia, where he was sheltered by his heathen grandfather. After some time through the influence of that bloody intriguer, Joab—David consented to his return. Absalom was a very lovely person, and resorted to all the arts of an unprincipled demagogue. At length he headed an open rebellion, and died by the manifest judgment of God. When the news reached the ears of his royal father, "the king was much moved, and went up to the chamber over the gate and wept; and as he wept, thus he said—O my son Absalom, my son, my son Absalom! would God I had died for you. O Absalom, my son, my son!" It is a question of the most serious character, how shall we behave in these sore, sudden afflictions? The question ought to be answered fairly and fully. Whatever be the cause of our sorrow, we should ever guard against excessive and inordinate grief. There is not a word in the Bible going to favor a settled dejection of mind. There is no emotion, however lawful in itself, that does not become sinful when indulged to an inordinate degree. When cheerfulness runs into levity, when industry becomes greediness, when sobriety degenerates into sourness, or sadness into a voluntary melancholy—we always commit sin. No lawful degree of sorrow works death. It seems strange that good people can allow themselves to afflict all around them. If we cannot rejoice in our circumstances, let us at least delight ourselves in the Lord our God. Where we have fears, even strong fears, respecting the eternal happiness of our deceased friends, we should still behave ourselves wisely in a perfect way. Take these hints for your guidance: 1. When Samuel bore the sad message to the venerable Eli respecting the doom of his guilty sons, the godly man said: "It is the Lord; let Him do what seems Him good." Job was involved in great uncertainty about the salvation of his children, and yet in all that matter "he sinned not, nor charged God foolishly." 2. God has a right to do what He will with His own. He never takes any except those He gave. He is the rightful and righteous proprietor and sovereign of us and of our lives, of our children and of their lives. His kingdom rules over all. 3. God is the best, purest, kindest, most loving Being in the universe. His counsels are of old faithfulness and truth. If HE is not to be trusted at all times and in all cases, confidence is at an end forever. 4. The judge of all the earth will do right. He never errs, is never unkind. He is merciful and gracious, abundant in goodness and truth. 5. Beware that you sin not by rebellious thoughts and murmurings. One unworthy thought concerning God is more to be dreaded than any loss we can sustain in the death of our loved ones. 6. Your case is not peculiar. Other good people of every generation have had like trials. Scott, the commentator, tells of a noble lady whose wicked son went from bad to worse, until he was sentenced to death on the scaffold. He stubbornly refused to have a spiritual adviser, or even to listen to prayer, until he was swung off on the gallows. Then, the rope breaking, he fell to the ground, and before he was again suspended, he asked a little season for prayer. This was the only symptom he ever gave of a disposition to repent. Yet his pious mother was never heard to complain of the hardness of her lot. If God supports others, He can bear you up in like circumstances. Cast your burden upon Him. 7. We know not what change may take place, even in the dying hour. The thief converted on the cross is a wonderful instance of the amazing grace of God. Respecting your departed friends, you may cherish every hope that is justified by the largest promises and provisions of God’s Word. Whatever may be the case, let every soul hear and obey the command, "Be still, and know that I am God." Quietness of soul in trying circumstances is a binding duty and a good sign of a gracious state. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 8: 01.06. TWO DANGEROUS AND OPPOSITE ERRORS ======================================================================== 6. TWO DANGEROUS AND OPPOSITE ERRORS "I have refined you but not in the way silver is refined. Rather, I have refined you in the furnace of suffering." Isaiah 48:10 The rays of the sun soften wax, but harden clay. Very different effects are produced on men by the same event. The gospel is preached. Some believe; others despise and wonder and perish. To some, the glad tidings are a savor of life unto life; to others a savor of death unto death. It is just so with afflictions. To some, sadness is sanctified, and their moral character is thereby improved. As Daniel expresses it, they are purified and tried and made white. This effect always follows where afflictions are received with meekness, reverence, submission and true humility. Though the conduct of such is not exactly all it should be, yet it is in the main right, and God declares His approval of it in many parts of Scripture. "Because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. I say to myself—The Lord is my portion; therefore I will wait for him." The Lord is good to those whose hope is in him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man to bear the yoke while he is young. Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope. Let him offer his cheek to one who would strike him, and let him be filled with disgrace. For men are not cast off by the Lord forever. Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men." Lamentations 3:22-33 It was when the church said, "I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me," that she was able to rise higher, and say, "Do not gloat over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will rise. Though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against him, I will bear the Lord’s wrath, until he pleads my case and establishes my right. He will bring me out into the light; I will see his righteousness" (Micah 7:8-9). The pious Mr. Jay somewhere speaks of losing both our comforts and our afflictions. We lose our comforts by the providence of God removing them; but we lose our afflictions when we do not view them aright, nor act wisely under them. Errors respecting a time of trial are of two kinds that seem quite diverse from each other, but really are based in the same principle of unbelief. Against them both we are warned in the Old Testament, and also in the New. "My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of His correction." "My son, do not take the Lord’s discipline lightly, or faint when you are reproved by Him; for the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and punishes every son whom He receives" (Proverbs 3:11; Hebrews 12:5). To despise God’s chastisements is to be hard and unfeeling under them, to indulge the spirit of contempt. God complains of such, "Why should you be stricken any more? You will revolt more and more" (Isaiah 1:5). This is both a very wicked and a very dangerous line of conduct. While there is hope, a good father chastens his child; but when all hope is lost and he discards him, he chastens him no more. The other error consists in being weary, in fainting, or in impatience under the rod of divine correction. One says there is no hope, when every good ground of expectation is left to him. The former hardens his heart in pride, and says, "I don’t care for it; I will make my heart as hard as adamant." The latter says, "My punishment is greater than I can bear;" and he melts away and dies. One is stiff-necked and defiant; the other is broken-hearted, encourages a puling sensibility and is pleased with nothing. It was Pharaoh who said, "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey Him?" It was Belshazzar who said, "I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God." Such desperation often cries out in its agony, but when relieved from pressing distress, repeats its former follies. Such conduct is considered very daring. Its seeming submission is feigned or deceptive, as when Agag said, "The bitterness of death is past!" (1 Samuel 15:32). But the disposition to pining and impatience is perhaps much more common, and by man more readily exercised. Jonah was a godly man, but at one time had much need of severe discipline. Even in his attempted flight to Tarshish, where he suffered so much, he was not cured of his disposition to prescribe to the Almighty. How foolishly he behaved about that gourd. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live." And God said to Jonah, "Do you well to be angry for the gourd?" And he said "I do well to be angry, even unto death" (Jonah 4:8-9). Let us see to it that we avoid both these errors: that we yield ourselves to God. What can be more reasonable? "Is resignation’s lesson hard? Examine, you shall find That duty calls for little more Than anguish of the mind." Who has hardened himself against God and prospered? Or who has unbelievingly pined away in affliction and been the better for it? Some have destroyed health so as lead to insanity and then to death. Let us never forget that the judge of all the earth will do right, and that all opposition to His will, whatever form it may assume, is criminal, and leads to misery and shame. "When the sky is dark and lowering, When your path in life is drear, Upward lift your steadfast glances, ’Mid the maze of sorrow here. "From the beaming fount of gladness Shall descend a radiance bright; And the grave shall be a garden, And the hours of darkness, light. "For the Lord will hear and answer, When in faith His people pray; Whatever He has appointed Shall but work you good always. "E’en your very hairs are numbered, God commands when one shall fall; And the Lord is with His people, Helping each and blessing all." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 9: 01.07. BORROWING TROUBLE ======================================================================== 7. BORROWING TROUBLE Many have a sinful desire to see into the future. Rather than not know what was coming, men have resorted to astrology, palm reading, witchcraft, spiritualism and the wildest conjectures. This disposition is still common. Some spend much time in these wild imaginations, none of which will ever be realized. But in sad moods, men’s minds go to the other extreme, and take gloomy views of all the future. Then they anticipate many calamities. It is in mercy that God has hid from our view coming events. We often misunderstand things that have already occurred. Still more frequently do we make a frightful thing of what is now passing before us. But could we, with our narrow capacities, look into the future so as to tell the general course of providence towards us in years to come—we would be very wretched. It was a peculiar bitter ingredient of the sufferings of our blessed Lord, that He foresaw all His trials (Luke 12:50). But we know not what shall be on the morrow, and on many accounts it is best for us not to indulge in idle anticipations. 1. We have something else to do. Our duties are pressing, solemn, numerous. If we can meet the responsibilities of the present hour, that will be as much as we can reasonably expect. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. 2. When great trials come to true Christians, they have a promise of assistance according to their necessities. "As your days, so shall your strength be." Dying grace is seldom given except to dying believers. To them it is never denied. 3. By idle anticipations, we greatly enhance our sufferings. Porteus says: "He who foresees calamities, suffers them twice over!" 4. We are positively forbidden to pry curiously into the future. "The secret things belong unto the Lord our God, but those things which are revealed belong unto us and to our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law" (Deuteronomy 29:29). Our great wisdom is found in entire submission to the sovereign will of God in all coming events. 5. There is no end to the torment we may thus inflict upon ourselves. Seneca was right when he said: "The state of that man’s mind who feels so intense an interest as to future events, must be most deplorable." Johnson says: "Many philosophers imagine that the elements themselves may be in time exhausted; that the sun, by shining long, will effuse all its light; and that, by the continual waste of aqueous particles, the whole earth will at last become a sandy desert. I would not advise my readers to disturb themselves by contriving how they shall live without light and water." Sometimes folly seems to know no bounds. 6. A good writer says: "You may live through tomorrow. Then be prepared for it, prosecute your plans, pursue your business, be industrious and enterprising. But be not unmindful that there is another branch of the alternative. You may not live through tomorrow. Be prepared equally for that. Tomorrow may introduce you into the presence of God, may close the account of life, may withdraw the offer of mercy, may cut short the opportunity of salvation. What if it shall? Are you ready for that interview and that reckoning?" A similar error is committed by those who spend their time in trying to discover how they shall be delivered from distresses now pressing upon them. Mordecai was a godly man. He greatly feared God and trusted Him also. He was persuaded that enlargement and deliverance would come. He thought the queen might be the instrument of rescue to God’s chosen people. But he was not sure. He told his cousin that at present the finger of providence seemed to point to her. At the same time he freely told her that if she entirely declined, ruin would overtake her and her house, while it should be seen that God would not forsake His ancient people. One very proper way of disposing of such temptations respecting the future, is to dwell much on the eternity which is before us. What is all time? What are all the trials of time? It will not be long until every living man will look back on the worldly things which made him glad or sorrowful—and see and say that they are things of nothing. The wicked and the righteous in a future state will alike wonder that such vanities could ever have engrossed their attention. Let any thoughtful man even here say, "What importance will I attach to this or that event—to this or that possession a thousand years from this time?" and he will at once see how idle are his intense feelings. "Eternity! you pleasing dreadful thought! Through what variety of untried being, Through what new scenes and changes must we pass? The wide, the unbounded prospect lies before me; But shadows, clouds and darkness rest upon it." Then let us gird up the loins of our minds, stand in our lot, cheerfully committing everything to the God of all grace and mercy. We see not, but He sees what is coming, and has made full provision for it. Let us sing: "I see not a step before, As I tread the days of the year; But the past is still in God’s keeping, The future His mercy will clear; And what seems dark in the distance May brighten as I draw near. "So I go on, not knowing—I would not if I might; I would rather walk with God in the dark Than walk alone in the light; I would rather walk with Him by faith Than walk alone by sight. "My heart shrinks back from trials Which the future may disclose; Yet I never had a sorrow But what my dear Lord chose; So I send the coming tears back With the whispered words, ’He knows.’" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 10: 01.08. THE FOUNTAIN OF CONSOLATION ======================================================================== 8. THE FOUNTAIN OF CONSOLATION The Scripture abounds in passages which exactly suit the people of God in all their afflictions. He who knows and believes them is thoroughly furnished for every trial. Many have thought it well to make a collection of these precious things for their own use. It is right to do so. In the hope of inciting Zion’s pilgrims to such a work, the following list is given, not as the best that could be made, but as an encouraging sample of what can be done in this way: "The Rock—His work is perfect; all His ways are entirely just. A faithful God, without prejudice, He is righteous and true." Deuteronomy 32:4 "The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and full of faithful love. He will not always accuse [us] or be angry forever. He has not dealt with us as our sins deserve or repaid us according to our offenses. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His faithful love toward those who fear Him. As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear Him. For He knows what we are made of, remembering that we are dust." Psalms 103:8-14 "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life" (John 3:16). "Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift" (2 Corinthians 9:15). "Come unto Me, all you that labor and are heavy laden, and I Will give you rest" (Matthew 11:28). "Him who comes to Me, I will never cast out" (John 6:37). "Peace I leave with you, My peace I give unto you: not as the world gives, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid" (John 14:27). "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 14:19). "More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. Because of Him I have suffered the loss of all things and consider them filth, so that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own from the law, but one that is through faith in Christ—the righteousness from God based on faith." Php 3:8-9 "Of Him are you in Christ Jesus, who of God is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption" (1 Corinthians 1:30). "The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin" (1 John 1:7). "By one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified" (Hebrews 10:14). "I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul" (Jeremiah 31:25). "You shall be sorrowful—but your sorrow shall be turned into joy" (John 16:20). "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose" (Romans 8:28). "To me to live is Christ, and to die is gain" (Php 1:21). "We know that we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren" (1 John 3:14). "But I know my living Redeemer, and He will stand on the dust at last. Even after my skin has been destroyed, yet I will see God in my flesh. I will see Him myself; my eyes will look at [Him], and not as a stranger. My heart longs within me." Job 19:25-27 "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me" (Psalms 138:8). "I am sure of this, that He who started a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Php 1:6). "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in Him" (Job 13:15). "Let all who put their trust in You rejoice; let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them" (Psalms 5:11). "My beloved is mine, and I am His" (Song of Solomon 2:16). "Sing, O heavens, and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for the Lord has comforted His people, and will have mercy upon His afflicted" (Isaiah 49:13). "For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time has come for my departure. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day--and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing" (2 Timothy 4:6-8). "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for You are with me; Your rod and Your staff they comfort me" (Psalms 23:4.) "Into Your hand I commit my spirit; You have redeemed me, O Lord God of truth" (Psalms 31:5). "O death, where is your sting? O grave, where is your victory? The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). "We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him" (1 Thessalonians 4:14). "I am the resurrection and the life" (John 11:25). "Blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection: on such the second death has no power" (Revelation 20:6). "I was senseless and ignorant; I was a brute beast before you. Yet I am always with you; you hold me by my right hand. You guide me with your counsel, and afterward you will take me into glory. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." Psalms 73:22-26 "There remains a rest for the people of God" (Hebrews 4:9). "He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he shall be My son" (Revelation 21:7). "We know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens" (2 Corinthians 5:1). "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow nor crying: neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away" (Revelation 21:4). "He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you" (Hebrews 13:5). "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all. Amen" (Revelation 22:21). ======================================================================== CHAPTER 11: 01.09. TRUE COMFORTS ======================================================================== 9. TRUE COMFORTS Are you afflicted? Beware of bad comforts and comforters. It is always dangerous to betake ourselves to broken cisterns, which can hold no water. This is a common error. To this course many will tempt you. When by their sins Israel brought on themselves the divine judgments in the shape of wars and public enemies, instead of humbling themselves under the mighty hand of God, and asking Jehovah, their King, to deliver them, they were much inclined to go to Assyria or Egypt for horsemen. There are always weak or bad men who officiously offer advice which it is dangerous to follow. They may not give as wicked counsel as did Job’s wife; but perhaps it is not much better. Whatever leads us to light thoughts of sin, or to hard thoughts of God; whatever inclines us to lean to our own understanding, or to make light of God’s heavy strokes—is sinful. We cannot safely lean on any arm but that of the Almighty. What, then shall the afflicted do? The answers are many; such as— 1. If your affliction is such that human sympathy can either soothe or alleviate it, ask the aid and kindness of true Christian friends. It is both lawful and natural to do so. Job, though a great man and a great believer, said: "Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O you my friends, for the hand of God has touched me." He had before said: "To him who is afflicted, pity should be shown from his friends." Paul, the great apostle, tells us how the visits and sympathy of his friends refreshed him. Even our blessed Master called on His disciples for sympathy in His great agony. Christian love is often a great healer. 2. But we need divine sympathy also—even the compassions of God Himself. This is manifest in many ways, but preeminently in and by Jesus Christ. On this matter, both Testaments speak the same language. By the evangelical prophet, the Lord says: "In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His presence saved them; in His love and in His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them, and carried them all the days of old" (Isaiah 63:9). In the New Testament we are assured of the same blessed sympathy: "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin" (Hebrews 4:15). 3. It is always wise to roll our burden over on the arm of the Almighty. He is stronger than man. He is mighty to save and strong to deliver. "Cast your burden upon the Lord, and He shall sustain you. He shall never allow the righteous to be moved" (Psalms 55:22). 4. Then the more of sanctified suffering we have, the more real comfort are we sure to possess, even in this life. Paul expressly says: "As the sufferings of Christ abound in us, so our consolation also abounds by Christ" (2 Corinthians 1:5). The blessed apostle was so in love with Christ that one of his strong desires was "to know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being made conformable unto His death" (Php 3:10). 5. Not only does God increase our blessed experiences by calling us to trial, but He thus prepares us to help others. For He "comforts us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God" (2 Corinthians 1:4). Think of that, and give thanks. 6. Paul presents a very striking view of the trials of God’s people, when he speaks of himself (and so of others) as "filling up that which is behind of the afflictions of Christ" (Colossians 1:24). That is very remarkable language. It cannot mean that Christ did not suffer all that was necessary for atonement, for the Scripture expressly says that He did. It probably presents Christ to us as a mystical person, of which He, the head, had already suffered His part, and now His members, as joined with Him, should suffer their part. 7. All these afflictions are designed to prepare the way for great, very great and unspeakable joys at the time that eternal mercy has selected for glorious manifestations. This doctrine was known in the Church a thousand years before Christ: "You caused me to experience many troubles and misfortunes, but You will revive me again. You will bring me up again, even from the depths of the earth. You will increase my honor and comfort me once again" (Psalms 71:20-21). 8. Nor is there a saint in heaven, even though he may have died a martyr, who now wishes that his sufferings on earth had been less. Indeed the martyrs wear a very glorious crown. See Revelation 7:9-17. Then, let each of us humbly say: "I dare not choose my lot; I would not, if I might; O choose for me, my God; So shall I walk aright. "O take my cup, and it With joy or sorrow fill, As best to You may seem; Choose You my good and ill." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 12: 01.10. BENEFITS OF AFFLICTION ======================================================================== 10. BENEFITS OF AFFLICTION If the trials of God’s people were without any benefits, their case would indeed be sad. But all their experience unites with God’s Word in declaring that from all their sorrows comes much of the "peaceable fruit of righteousness." One apostle is very bold and says, "My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into divers trials, knowing that the trying of your faith works patience" (James 1:2-3). And Paul says, "We glory in tribulations also, knowing that tribulation works patience; and patience, experience; and experience, hope; and hope makes not ashamed" (Romans 5:3-5). Let us look at some particulars: 1. We are naturally giddy and thoughtless about the most weighty concerns. Folly is bound up in the natural heart, and our trials make us sober and thoughtful (Lamentations 3:28). It is only fools that put away serious thoughts. The power of reflection chiefly distinguishes a man from a brute. The habit of reflection eminently distinguishes a wise man from a fool. 2. Affliction enables us to keep in view our latter end, by presenting to us distinctly eternity. Anything is good for us that reminds us that time is short, that life must soon close—and that all beyond is boundless, shoreless eternity. Cecil says that mankind are divided into two great sects—Timists and Eternists. Reader, to which of these do you belong? 3. I am not sure that anyone can state the mental process by which the effect is produced; but in some way trouble is almost certain to remind us of our sins. It was so in the case of Joseph’s brethren. "We are verily guilty," they cried. Trouble made David say, "Remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions." 4. One of the great ingredients of true piety is humility—deep and sincere humility. Both Testaments greatly commend this grace. Affliction is suited to humble us, and, if we are truly pious, it will thus do us good. Jeremiah says affliction has this effect (Lamentations 3:20). 5. Affliction puts us to praying. It so affected Jonah. He was asleep in the ship, but at prayer in the whale’s belly. An apostle says, "Is any afflicted, let him pray" (James 5:13). By Asaph, God says, "Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me" (Psalms 50:15). 6. Affliction teaches us the vanity of this world, and weans us from it. How effectually it does this, daily experience teaches. It writes vanity of vanities on all things below the skies. It made even a great statesman exclaim, "What shadows we are, and what shadows we pursue." 7. Affliction is a great expounder of Scripture. Luther said, "Three things make a good theologian—meditation, temptation, and prayer." And more than twenty-five hundred years before Luther, David said, "It is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn Your statutes. The law of Your mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver" (Psalms 119:71-72). 8. The great object of affliction is to promote purity of heart. Paul expressly says that the Lord chastens us that "we might be partakers of His holiness" (Hebrews 12:10). 9. Of course, affliction has a reclaiming effect on wanderers. "Sufferings are the only relics of the true cross, and when divine grace turns them to our good, they almost perform the miracles which blind superstition ascribes to the false one." David says, "Before I was afflicted I went astray; but now have I kept Your word." God says, "I will go and return unto My place until they acknowledge their offence, and seek My face: in their affliction they will seek Me early" (Hosea 5:15). 10. Affliction teaches us quietness and submission. It gives us the blessed temper of a weaned child. It hushes our perturbations. It teaches us that God will have His way. O yes,— "These weary hours will not be lost, These days of misery, These nights of darkness, tempest tossed— Can I but turn to Thee; With secret labor to sustain In patience every blow, To gather fortitude from pain, And holiness from woe." 11. Sanctified affliction leads us to trust in God. It strengthens our faith, and faith is a great grace. "As gold answers all things, so faith gives the soul propriety in all the rich consolations of the gospel, in all the promises of life and salvation, in all needful blessings; it draws virtue from Christ to strengthen itself, and all other graces." It sings: "My times are in Your hand! Many or few my days, I leave with Thee—this only pray, That by Your grace I, every day Devoting to Your praise, May ready be To welcome You, Whene’er You come to set my spirit free." 12. In like manner, affliction improves all our holy principles. Leighton says, "Those graces that would possibly grow heavy and unwieldy by too much ease, are held in breath, and increase their activity and strength by conflict. Divine grace, even in the heart of weak and sinful men, is an invincible thing. Drown it in the waters of adversity, it rises more beautiful, as not being drowned indeed, but only washed; throw it into the furnace of fiery trials, it comes out purer, and loses nothing but the dross, which our corrupt nature mixes with it." O, it is a great thing to be a Christian, tried and taught and trained for war and glory—for war on earth and for glory beyond the skies. "There the saints like suns are radiant, Like the sun at dawn they glow; Crowned victors after conflict, All their joys together flow; And secure they count the battles Where they fought the prostrate foe." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 13: 02.00. JEHOVAH-JIREH: A TREATISE ON PROVIDENCE ======================================================================== JEHOVAH-JIREH: A TREATISE ON PROVIDENCE William S. Plumer, 1865 Abraham named the place "Jehovah-jireh." (The Lord Will Provide) This name has now become a proverb: "On the mountain of the Lord it will be provided." Genesis 22:14 I would assert eternal Providence, And justify the ways of God to men. "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases!" Psalms 115:3 "For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths!" Psalms 135:5-6 "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" Revelation 19:6 CHAPTER CONTENT Providence Asserted Providence Defined God’s Providence Results from His Nature. It is Holy, Just, Benevolent, Wise, Supreme and Sovereign, Sure and Stable, Powerful and Irresistible God’s Providence is Universal Practical Remarks on the Nature of Providence God’s Providence is Retributive Some Explanation of the Delays of Providence in Punishing the Wicked How Divine Forbearance Should Be Regarded—and How it May Be Abused Several Principles of the Doctrine of Providence over Wicked Men Illustrated in the Life and End of Judas Iscariot The Mysteries of God’s Providence Practical Remarks on the Mysteries of God’s Providence The Special Kindness of Providence Towards Godly Men Practical Remarks on the Special Kindness of Providence Towards Godly Men Alternate Light and Darkness in Providence, Illustrated in the Case of Job God’s Providence Towards His Church Renders Unnecessary All Tormenting Fears Respecting Her Safety and Final Triumph God’s Providence over Nations Providence Punishes Nations for Their Sins Providences are long chains with many links in them. If one link were missing, the event would fail. But it is God’s chain and God’s plan. The thing is fixed. The outcome is not doubtful. "I know that You can do all things; no plan of Yours can be thwarted." Job 42:2 "My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please. What I have said, that will I bring about; what I have planned, that will I do." Isaiah 46:10-11 "The plan of Him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of His will." Ephesians 1:11 "This is the plan determined for the whole world." Isaiah 14:26 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 14: 02.01. PROVIDENCE ASSERTED ======================================================================== PROVIDENCE ASSERTED Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? (Jesus) The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind. (Job) God sent me ahead of you to establish you as a remnant within the land and to keep you alive by a great deliverance. Therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God. (Joseph) As your days, so shall your strength be. (Moses) The Lord is King forever and ever. (David) O Lord Almighty, God of Israel—you are the God, even you alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth. (Hezekiah) Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. (Isaiah) But the Lord is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath. . . . O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself. (Jeremiah.) In him we live and move and have our being. (Paul) Now listen, you who say, "Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money." Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. Instead, you ought to say, "If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that." (James) The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, and to reserve the unjust unto the day of judgment to be punished. (Peter) Then I heard again what sounded like the shout of a huge crowd, or the roar of mighty ocean waves, or the crash of loud thunder: "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" He who rules the raging of the sea, knows also how to check the designs of the ungodly. I submit myself with reverence to his Holy will. (Racine) God’s power as well as his wisdom gives him a right to govern the world—nothing can equal him, therefore nothing can share the command with him. . . . He holds all things in the world together, and preserves them in those functions wherein he settled them, and conducts them to those ends, for which he designed them. (Charnock) A sense of the divine care and favor has been in all ages the support of the church and the consolation of godly men. No thought can enter into the mind of man, better adapted to promote its piety and peace than this—that the world is under the government of God, and all the events of our lives under the direction of his providence. (Orton) The belief in providence is the necessary supplement to the belief in inspiration. (Westcott) From all the acts of God as recorded in the Scriptures, we are taught that he alone is God; that he is present everywhere to sustain and govern all things; that his wisdom is infinite, his counsel settled, and his power irresistible; that he is holy, just, and good; the Lord and the Judge—but the Father and the Friend of man. (Watson’s Institutes) I adore and kiss the providence of my Lord, who knows well what is most expedient for me, and for you, and your children. (Rutherford) A God without dominion, without providence and final causes—is nothing but fate and ’nature’. (Sir Isaac Newton) To infer from that passage of holy Scripture, wherein God is said to have rested from his works, that there is no longer a continual production of them, would be to make a very ill use of that text. (Leibnitz) There is an immediate and constant superintendence exercised over the whole creation, and what we term laws of nature are but the operations of divine power in a regular and uniform manner. (Dr. Godwin) The philosopher, who overlooks the traces of an all-governing Deity in nature, contenting himself with the appearances of the material universe only, and the mechanical laws of motion, neglects what is most excellent; and prefers what is imperfect to what is supremely perfect, finitude to infinity; what is narrow and weak to what is unlimited and almighty; and what is perishing to what endures forever. (Maclaurin) We cannot conceive of any reasons that can influence the Deity to exercise any providence over the world, which are not likewise reasons for extending it to all that happens in the world. (Price) Though troubles assail, And dangers affright, Though friends should all fail, And foes all unite; Yet one thing secures us, Whatever betide, The Scripture assures us— The Lord will provide! (Newton) Yes, You are ever present, Power Supreme! Not circumscribed by Time, nor fixed to Space, Confined to altars, nor to temples bound, In Wealth, in Want, in Freedom or in Chains, In Dungeons or on Thrones, the faithful find you! (Hannah More) We believe that all things, both in heaven and in earth, and in all creatures—are sustained and governed by the providence of this wise, eternal, and omnipotent God. (Confession of Helvetia) We believe that this most gracious and mighty God, after he had made all things left them not to be ruled by chance or fortune—but he himself does so continually rule and govern them, according to the prescript rule of his holy will, that nothing can happen in this world without his decree or ordinance. (Confession of Belgia) We believe, that God made all things by his everlasting Word, that is, by his only begotten Son; and that he upholds and works all things by his Spirit, that is by his own power—and therefore that God as he has created, so he foresees and governs all things. (Confession of Basle) When men bring themselves to think that Jehovah is too great a being to interfere in the affairs of this lower world, they are prepared, by this infidel sentiment, to adopt any evil course which may suggest itself to the depraved inclinations of the human heart. (Morison) God reigns is a logical conclusion from God is. To deny God’s providence is as atheistic as to deny his existence. A God, who neither sees, nor hears, nor knows, nor cares, nor helps, nor saves—is a vanity, and can never claim homage from intelligent men. Such a God should be derided, not worshiped. He might suit the mythology of Paganism, or meet the demands of an infidel heart—but could never command the allegiance, or win the confidence of an enlightened and pious man! Yet there have been and still are, those who deny Providence. "They encourage each other in evil plans, they talk about hiding their snares; they say—Who will see them?" Psalms 64:5 Some say outright, "The wicked say to themselves--’God isn’t watching! He will never notice!’ Arise, O Lord! Punish the wicked, O God!" Psalms 10:11-12. Nothing more derogatory to the character of God can possibly be said, than that he does not rule the world. To bring into existence and then forsake a race of beings, and care no more for them would argue a total lack of the moral attributes of divinity. Such conduct may well comport with the character of false gods—but is wholly abhorrent to the nature of Jehovah. The world may as well be without a God, as have one who is incompetent to rule it, or, who, wrapping himself in a mantle of careless indifference, abandons creation to the governance of puny mortals, to the rule of devils, or to the sway of a blind chance! "The ostrich lays her eggs on top of the earth, letting them be warmed in the dust. She doesn’t worry that a foot might crush them or that wild animals might destroy them. She is harsh toward her young, as if they were not her own. She is unconcerned though they die." Job 39:14-16. Thus this bird fulfils the instincts of her nature. Yet in so doing she proves that she is one of the lowest orders of irrational animals. But God’s tender mercies are over all his works. His kingdom rules over all. "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" Revelation 19:6 "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases!" Psalms 115:3 "For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths!" Psalms 135:5-6 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 15: 02.02. PROVIDENCE DEFINED ======================================================================== PROVIDENCE DEFINED Providence is the care of God over created being; divine superintendence. (Johnson) Providence is the care and superintendence which God exercises over his creatures. (Webster) Providence is the divine superintendence over all created beings; the care of God over his creatures. (Worcester) The doctrine of divine Providence is that all things are sustained, directed, and controlled by God. (Leonard Woods) By the law of providence, I mean God’s sovereign disposal of all the concerns of men in this world—in the variety, order, and manner, which he pleases—according to the rule and infinite reason of his own goodness, wisdom, righteousness, and truth. (John Owen) The word providence is taken from the Latin, and by its etymology means foresight, not merely in the sense of seeing before—but in the sense of taking care for the future, or rather an ordering of things and events after a pre-determined and intelligent plan. It supposes wisdom to devise, and power to execute. (Bethune) Providence is the superintendence and care which God exercises over creation. (Buck) Providence is the care which God takes of all things, to uphold them in being and to direct them to the ends which he has determined to accomplish by them, so that nothing takes place in which he is not concerned in a manner worthy of his infinite perfections, and which is not in unison with the counsels of his will. (Dick) God’s conserving all things means his actual operation and government in preserving and continuing the being, powers, dispositions, and motions of all things. (Clarke) The providence of God is his almighty and everywhere present power, whereby as it were by hand, he upholds and governs heaven, earth, and all creatures; so that herbs and grass, rain and drought, fruitful and barren years, food and drink, health and sickness, riches and poverty, yes, and all things come, not by chance—but by his fatherly hand. (Heidelberg Catechism) God’s works of providence are his most holy, wise, and powerful preserving and governing all his creatures and all their actions. (Westminster Assembly) According to preceding views and to the Scriptures, God’s providence consists— 1. In his preserving all that he has made. He upholds all things by the word of his power. Hebrews 1:3. "All eyes look to You, and You give them their food in due time. You open Your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing." Psalms 145:15-16. This dependence of creatures is universal and perpetual. Could one link in the chain thereof be broken, the least evil that would follow would be annihilation. 2. In governing all that he has made. First, he restrains the creature. By the law of gravitation he keeps solid worlds in their places. By the power of his hand he withholds free agents from both natural and moral evil. Secondly, he guides his creatures. It is his voice that rolls the stars along, and marshals all the stars of heaven, and works wonders among the inhabitants of the earth. Without him atoms and planets, angels and devils, saints and sinners can do nothing. "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases!" Psalms 115:3 "For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths!" Psalms 135:5-6 "Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns!" Revelation 19:6 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 16: 02.03. CHAPTER 03 ======================================================================== God’s providence results from his nature. It is holy, just, benevolent, wise, supreme and sovereign, sure and stable, powerful and irresistible. The unrenewed heart is atheistic in its inclinations. It does not like to retain God in its thoughts. The Epicurean doctrine, that God is too exalted to notice the affairs of men, naturally flows from the ignorance and enmity of the carnal mind. But "shall I not do as I please with my own?" is the challenge of the Almighty. To manage the affairs of the universe cannot disturb God’s divine tranquility. To him who made all things by the word of his power, the care of them cannot be burdensome. God is not like man. He never grows weary. That he has a right to establish an all-pervading government over his creatures is as certain as that he has any rights at all. Were our hearts not wrong—we would glory in his providence; and were our minds not feeble and our faculties not limited—we would see that all objection to God’s providential care of the world was worse than frivolous. In this age it is commonly admitted that the Lord lives and rules in the kingdoms of men. This is the avowed theory. The practical belief of many is quite diverse. There are not a few whose prevailing plans and fears and hopes, would hardly be more practically atheistic if they should avow disbelief of God’s existence and of the divine government over human affairs. Were God, in open day, before their eyes, miraculously to suspend the laws of nature, they might for a time, perhaps, be impressed and confess that here was the finger of God. It is probable, however, that this impression would not be lasting. For in his ceaseless support and maintenance of the course of nature—such men perceive nothing to admire, nothing to adore. Were the hand which moves all worlds to arrest the sun in the heavens and cause it to stand still for even an hour, they might say, This is the Lord. But the sun may rise, and run his course, and duly set three hundred and sixty-five times in the year—and nothing is said or thought of him, at whose rebuke the pillars of heaven tremble, and by whose ordinance the everlasting mountains and the order of universal nature have their stability. "A brutish man knows not, neither does a fool understand." Psalms 92:6. Such men virtually or actually say—The Lord doesn’t see it. The God of Jacob doesn’t pay attention." Psalms 94:7. "The wicked say to themselves--’God isn’t watching! He will never notice!’ Arise, O Lord! Punish the wicked, O God!" Psalms 10:11-12. To correct such errors is one object of revelation. Scripture puts the stamp of wickedness on all such thoughts as allow men to believe that they may act independently of God. God is above all law, being himself absolutely independent and supreme. His own infinitely excellent nature is the law of his being and of his action. This very nature fits him in all respects to be the ruler of the world. God’s providence is HOLY. Because God is holy, his providence is holy in all its works. He plots no mischief, works no evil, favors no sin; but in the winding up of human affairs, he will bring a terrible overthrow on all the workers of iniquity. He hates sin with a perfect hatred. To him it is a horrible thing. Jeremiah 5:30. It cannot be proven that God hates anything but sin. Nor has any mortal an adequate conception of the intensity of the aversion of the divine mind to every form and species of iniquity. "Who shall not fear you, O Lord, and glorify your name? for you alone are holy." Revelation 15:4. Indeed, the bliss of the heavenly world depends upon the absolute and unqualified confidence of saints and angels in the infinite rectitude of God’s nature. Isaiah 6:3. "The Lord is righteous in all his ways, and holy in all his works." Psalms 145:17. God’s providence is JUST. From God’s holiness necessarily results his justice. Dr. Woods, "The plan of providence is such that sin will be stigmatized and sinners punished, while holiness will be honored, and those who are holy rewarded." Justice is certainly an amiable attribute in any person or government. By a fiction of law under the British Constitution, "The king can do no wrong." The reason is that his ministers are responsible. But it is no fiction of law or theology that the Judge of all the earth can only do right. Genesis 18:25. In the worship of the temple not made with hands, they sing, "Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are your ways, O King of saints." Revelation 15:3. God’s providence is BENEVOLENT. Indeed, God’s tender mercies are over all his works. Psalms 145:9. "The same benevolence, which prompted him to create the world, must prompt him to preserve and govern it." "When we consider the care of providence over people, as it is manifested either in the works of nature or of grace, we naturally fall into the reflection, ’What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man, that you visit him?’ and we wonder to see so much done for men, who seem to have no merit or desert equal to the concern showed for them." God’s providence is WISE. In it are no gaps, no failures, no mistakes, no oversights. "The same wisdom which contrived such a wonderful and glorious a system—can and will direct and control it." God’s plans embrace all causes and all effects, all facts and all contingencies, all actions and all words. Therefore it is impossible that he should be thwarted. It is infinitely easy for him to take the wise in their own craftiness. Pharaoh, the greatest monarch of his time, one whose kingdom embraced much of the wealth, learning, and civilization of the world, and who was surrounded by able men—said to his council of state, "Come on, let us deal wisely with them." Exodus 1:10. They formed their plans. Yet, from first to last they were encompassed with difficulties. And they were followed by terrific judgments. Go now and stand with Moses and Aaron and Miriam on the banks of the Red Sea, and behold the end of all their ’wise plans.’ Pharaoh’s army and his chosen captains have perished. The depths have covered them—they sank to the bottom as a stone—they sank as lead in the mighty waters. All the amazing operations of vegetation are by inspired men ascribed to the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working. Isaiah 28:29. "O Lord, how manifold are your works! in wisdom have you made them all; the earth is full of your riches. So is this great and wide sea, wherein are things creeping innumerable, both small and great beasts." Psalms 104:24-25. God’s providence is SUPREME, and therefore SOVEREIGN. It is over all and above all. He has no divided dominion. He is sole arbiter of events and destinies. He says, "See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no God with me—I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal—neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand." Deuteronomy 32:39. "I am the first, and I am the last; and besides me there is no God." Isaiah 44:6. "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me, . . . there is no God else beside me—a just God and a Savior; there is none beside me." Isaiah 45:5, Isaiah 45:21. So that it is as clear that God rules alone—as that he rules at all; that he rules everywhere—as that he rules anywhere; that he governs all agents, all causes, and all events—as that he governs any of them! To surrender in whole or in part, his control of the universe would be to admit that he was not God—that another was as strong, as wise, or as good as himself. Isaiah 41:23. It would argue some defect in him, who has all perfection. An angel would be burdened with the sole charge of one man; because an angel is a finite creature, and has none but derived attributes. But the care of the universe is no burden to the Almighty—because he is God! His will is the law of all worlds. He stretched out the earth above the waters. "For I know that the Lord is great; our Lord is greater than all gods. The Lord does whatever He pleases in heaven and on earth, in the seas and all the depths!" Psalms 135:5-6. "All the inhabitants of the earth are reputed as nothing—and he does according to his will in the army of heaven, and among the inhabitants of the earth—and none can stay his hand, or say unto him, What do you?" Daniel 4:35. "The Lord is high above all nations, and his glory above the heavens." Psalms 113:4. "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases!" Psalms 115:3. God’s providence is SURE and STABLE. Whoever wishes to walk securely, needs but to conform himself to its settled provisions and principles. Proverbs 10:9. Never did his Word fail. Greatly was the Psalmist comforted with this view of the stability of God’s government, "Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven. Your faithfulness is unto all generations—you have established the earth, and it abides. They continue this day according to your ordinances; for all are your servants." Psalms 119:89-91; compare Proverbs 19:21 and Joshua 23:14. God’s providence is POWERFUL and IRRESISTIBLE. His providence not only consults—it also executes. It not only devises—it also puts into operation. It not only sees how evil may be prevented—it also prevents evil. It is so powerful that it even brings good out of evil—making wicked men and fallen angels to serve God’s designs, while they intend no such thing. It is so powerful that it gives the greatest efficiency to causes apparently the most contemptible; and infallibly secures the accomplishment of the very best ends. The author of Providence is "the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come—the Almighty." Revelation 1:8. All the other attributes of God would not avail us—if he had not omnipotence, whereby to enforce and execute his will. All other properties of his providence would fail to give effectual consolation—if it lacked divine power. No marvel therefore that the Scriptures so frequently celebrate the triumphs of Omnipotence. Otherwise the wicked would say—Where is their rock in whom they have trusted? As to the Assyrian, so to every foe, Jehovah says, "Because your raging against Me and your arrogance have reached My ears, I will put My hook in your nose and My bit in your mouth; I will make you go back the way you came." 2 Kings 19:28. It will be for an everlasting rejoicing to all the righteous that when God makes a covenant of peace with his people, he is able to cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land—so that his people may dwell safely in the wilderness, and sleep in the woods. By his almighty power he brings mariners out of their distresses. He makes the storm a calm, so that the waves are still. All conspiracies and combinations against God’s providence are vain! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 17: 02.04. GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL ======================================================================== GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS UNIVERSAL God’s providence is over all creatures; over fixed and planetary stars; over angels and devils; over saints and sinners; over animals, and birds, and fish; over globes and atoms; over heat and cold; over war, famine and pestilence; over heaven, earth, and hell. Having enumerated the living creatures that God has made, the psalmist says, "All of them wait for You to give them their food at the right time. When You give it to them, they gather it; when You open Your hand, they are satisfied with good things. When You hide Your face, they are terrified; when You take away their breath, they die and return to the dust. When You send Your breath, they are created, and You renew the face of the earth." Psalms 104:27-30. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights." James 1:17. "For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive?" 1 Corinthians 4:7. It is because of this universal providence of God that his people cry, "Be not far from me, O Lord—O my strength, hasten to help me." Psalms 22:19. And every pious man cries, "My cup runs over," and "He loads me daily with benefits." Psalms 23:5; Psalms 68:19. Where is the man that can number up either his sins; or what are still more numerous, God’s mercies to him? Compare Daniel 4:35. God’s providence is also over all the actions of all creatures. If any one could act independently, he would be a God. If Jehovah does not govern a man for a day, that day the man is a God. Independence is one of the essential attributes of Jehovah. Whoever has it is God. To put a single act of any creature beyond divine control would be an admission that besides the Most High there is some other God. Satan could do nothing against the holy man of Uz until the Almighty granted him permission. Job 1:12. The Bible adopts two methods of teaching the universality of God’s providence. In one it asserts it as a great truth. "He is a great King over all the earth." Psalms 47:2. "His kingdom rules over all." Psalms 103:19. "By him all things are held together." Colossians 1:17. "He upholds all things by the word of his power." Hebrews 1:3. "He has on his vesture and on his thigh a name written, King of kings and Lord of lords." Revelation 19:16. To him death and hell have no covering. Job 26:6. Again the Scripture descends to particulars, and declares that over each being and event, God exercises sovereign control. "Can the One who shaped the ear not hear; the One who formed the eye not see? The One who instructs nations, the One who teaches man knowledge—does He not discipline?" Psalms 94:9-10. He never slumbers, nor sleeps, nor goes on a journey. He is ever awake. His ear is ever open to the cry of his people. He is never sick, never weary. He faints not. His eyes are in every place, beholding the evil and the good. He numbers the very hairs of our heads. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without his notice. He looks to the ends of the earth, and sees under the whole heaven. "He looks to the ends of the earth and sees everything under the heavens. When God fixed the weight of the wind and limited the water by measure, when He established a limit for the rain and a path for the lightning." Job 28:24-26. He directs journeys and makes them prosperous. 1 Thessalonians 3:11; Romans 1:10. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man. Psalms 104:14. He does not cattle to decrease. Psalms 107:38. He "covers the sky with clouds, prepares rain for the earth, and causes grass to grow on the hills. He provides the animals with their food, and the young ravens, what they cry for." Psalms 147:8-9 He calls the stars by their names. He marshaled all the host of heaven. He spreads the clouds in the heaven. He is the father of the rain. He clothes the grass. He gives snow like wool. He scatters the hoarfrost like ashes. Who can stand before his cold? He hunts the prey for the lion. He sends out the wild donkey free. He gives the beautiful feathers to the peacock and plumes every fowl of heaven. He gives the horse his strength, and clothes his neck with thunder. He shuts up the sea with doors that it breaks not forth. He enters into the springs of the sea. He knows the place and the bounds of light and of darkness. Angels, men, sun, moon, stars, fiery meteors, the heavens, the waters beneath us, dragons, fire, hail, snow, vapor, stormy winds, mountains, hills, trees, beasts, cattle, creeping things, flying fowl, kings, counselors, senators, all people, young men and maidens, old men and children, lightning and earthquakes—all, all obey his voice and do his will. Nothing ever goes beyond his grasp. Under his control the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, nor bread to the wise, nor riches to the prudent, nor favor to men of skill. Promotion comes neither from the east, nor from the west, nor from the south—but God is judge of all. Whom he will, he exalts; whom he will, he abases; whom he will, he kills; whom he will, he makes alive. As a partridge sits upon eggs and hatches them not, so is man in all his cares and toils without God’s blessing. Under his government a horse is a vain thing for safety, nor shall he deliver any by his great strength. He delights not in the power of a man. Without him nothing is holy, without him nothing is wise, without him nothing is strong. He is a rock. To us many things happen by chance. We neither foresee nor design them. We neither expect nor desire them. To us much is accident. The Scriptures so admit. Deuteronomy 22:6; 1 Samuel 6:9; 2 Samuel 1:6; Luke 10:31. Indeed, the Bible says in so many words that time and chance happen to all. Ecclesiastes 9:11. But to God, everything is part of a universal plan. "The lot is cast into the lap—but the whole disposing thereof is of the Lord." Proverbs 16:33. When the cup of Ahab’s iniquity was full, and God determined to call him to judgment, a man "drew a bow at a venture, and smote him between the joints of the armor;" and he died. God can kill without instruments, or with instruments which seem to us despicable. So also he can save by many, by few, or by none. Under the shadow of his wings the darkest conspiracies can do us no harm. The belief of this made David say, "The Lord is my light and my salvation—whom should I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life—of whom should I be afraid? When evildoers came against me to devour my flesh, my foes and my enemies stumbled and fell. Though an army deploy against me, my heart is not afraid; though war breaks out against me, still I am confident." Psalms 27:1-3. And when he was old he said, "You have covered my head in the day of battle." "By you have I run through a troop—by my God have I leaped over a wall." 2 Samuel 22:30. David always ascribed his victory over the bear and the lion to the wonderful providence of God; and well he should, for he was but a lad when he slew them. Beza somewhere mentions no less than six hundred wonderful acts of providence towards himself in the troublous times, in which he lived. In that terrible battle, when by his folly and obstinacy Braddock was both defeated and mortally wounded, a savage deliberately aimed his deadly rifle seventeen times against Washington, yet not a ball hit him. Even the Indian was struck with amazement and said, "The great Spirit will not let that man be hurt." Compare 1 Chron. 18:31, and Proverbs 16:7. Man is immortal until his work is done. Cyrus was king of Persia and captor of Babylon. Two centuries before his birth God thus spoke concerning him, "I call you by your name, because of Jacob My servant and Israel My chosen one. I give a name to you, though you do not know Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other; there is no God but Me. I will strengthen you, though you do not know Me, so that all may know from the rising of the sun to its setting that there is no one but Me. I am the Lord, and there is no other. I form light and create darkness, I make success and create disaster; I, the Lord, do all these things" Isaiah 45:4-7. Again says God by Amos (Amos 3:6) "If a disaster occurs in a city, hasn’t the Lord done it?" Death is God’s servant. The pestilence is his rod. The wicked are his sword. Famine is his scourge. If the earth becomes iron and the heavens brass, and glow like a furnace, it is at the bidding of God. If blight and mildew, the caterpillar and the palmer-worm cut off the hope of the farmer, they are the messengers of the Lord Almighty. Death and hell have no power but from him. He carries the keys of them both. He opens and none can shut. He shuts and none can open. His wisdom is unsearchable. There is none like him. His providence is felt everywhere. He rules all men good and bad, great and small. "The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases." Proverbs 21:1. The reference in this text is to the custom of irrigating gardens by conducting the water in little canals, which can easily be closed, so that the gardener makes the water run in any direction he pleases. In like manner God controls the heart of the king and of every man, as the gardener checks and controls these little rivers of water. Php 2:13. God could not surely defend and protect his people—if their enemies were not within his grasp. It does not impair free agency for God to present an irresistible motive either to a godly man or to a wicked man. With the former the fear of God has power sufficient to restrain him from sin. With the wicked, regard to health, honor, or wealth, have restraining power. In neither case is there a suspension of free agency. If God does not sway the hearts of the wicked so as to secure their doing that which He has determined to effect or permit, are they not independent beings? But the Scripture leaves no room for doubt on this point. Acts 2:23; Acts 4:28; 2 Samuel 17:14. If any man were independent of God, then the promise of Satan to our first parents would be fulfilled, and men would become as gods. But the Scriptures are explicit, "The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord; he directs it like a watercourse wherever he pleases." "A man’s heart devises his way—but the Lord directs his steps." "Man’s goings are of the Lord, how then can a man understand his way?" Proverbs 21:1; Proverbs 16:9; Proverbs 20:24. It was the Lord that "turned the heart of the Egyptians to deal harshly with his servants." Psalms 105:25. It is also said of the Jews that the Lord "caused them to be pitied by all who held them captive." Psalms 106:46. Because God controls the free acts of wicked men, it came to pass that the vacillating Pilate, who pronounced Jesus Christ innocent, was yet prevailed on to deliver him to death—but was as firm as a rock in refusing to alter the inscription on his cross, saying, "What I have written, I have written." When Shimei cursed David, that holy man said, "Let him alone, and let him curse; for the Lord has bidden him." 2 Samuel 16:11. God took away restraint from the evil heart of that vile dog, and let him loose to bark at the royal fugitive. So the pious Jeremiah devoutly said, "O Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man, who walks, to direct his steps." Therefore, if men hate and vex us, it is because the Lord removes restraints and lets them loose upon us. When God planted the Jews in Canaan, he told them that all, who were able, must go up to the holy city three times every year to worship him. They had wicked enemies all around them, who cordially hated them, and desired their extermination. But God said, "Neither shall any man desire your land, when you shall go up to appear before the Lord your God thrice in the year." Exodus 34:24. This promise was well kept in all their generations. But this could only be by Jehovah putting his almighty hand on the hearts of the nations, and softening for the time their animosities against his people. God can make even the worst of men not to wish us any harm, and yet they may all the time be perfectly conscious of free agency. God led Absalom and his coconspirators to choose foolish rather than wise counsel, whereby their wicked plot was utterly defeated. 2 Samuel 17:14. Whenever the Lord wills, "he turns wise men backward." Isaiah 44:25. He causes bad men to punish themselves. Thus sang David, "The nations have fallen into the pit they have dug; their feet are caught in the net they have hidden. The Lord is known by his justice; the wicked are ensnared by the work of their hands" Psalms 9:15-16. The punishment of the wicked is thus terribly portrayed, "The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him; the cords of his sin hold him fast. He will die for lack of discipline, led astray by his own great folly." Proverbs 5:22-23. "They that sow to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption." Galatians 6:8. So also God uses the wicked to punish each other, and then for their own wickedness he punishes them. Thus when the Jews apostatized and became sadly degenerate, decreeing unrighteousness and writing grievousness, to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor, that widows might be their prey, and that they might rob the fatherless, God sent a mighty heathen prince to punish them. This is his prophetic address to that haughty and terrible monarch, "Woe to the Assyrian, the rod of my anger, in whose hand is the club of my wrath! I send him against a godless nation, I dispatch him against a people who anger me, to seize loot and snatch plunder, and to trample them down like mud in the streets. But this is not what he intends, this is not what he has in mind; his purpose is to destroy, to put an end to many nations. When the Lord has finished all his work against Mount Zion and Jerusalem, he will say—I will punish the king of Assyria for the willful pride of his heart and the haughty look in his eyes. Does the ax raise itself above him who swings it, or the saw boast against him who uses it? As if a rod were to wield him who lifts it up, or a club brandish him who is not wood!" Isaiah 10:5-7, Isaiah 10:12, Isaiah 10:15. Thus God "makes the wrath of man to praise him, and the remainder of wrath he will restrain." He permitted men and devils to combine for the death of Jesus Christ, yet out of that event he has brought eternal redemption to countless millions, and eternal glory to the Godhead. But when they combined to keep him in the tomb, it was not possible that he should be held of death. Their malice and machinations were impotent. He burst the bars of the grave, arose by his own power and ascended up on high, leading captivity captive. Nor should this doctrine offend any one. When Pilate said to Jesus, "Know you not that I have power to crucify you, and have power to release you?" Jesus answered, "You could have no power at all against me, except it were given you from above." John 19:10-11. Nor does this doctrine destroy a just accountability—but rather establishes it. The very next words of Jesus are, "Therefore he who delivered me unto you has the greater sin;" thus clearly declaring that though the sin might seem to him small, yet it was sin. Indeed if God does not hold the hearts of the wicked in his hands, and entirely control them, how can the pious pray for deliverance from wicked men with any hope that they will be heard and answered? But believing this doctrine, they may well ask God to save them, knowing that if he chooses, he can make their enemies to be their friends, and their persecutors to be their deliverers. This he has often done. This he still does, sending his people’s foes bowing unto them. He, who made the raven feed Elijah, can never be at a loss for instruments of good to his chosen people, or of wrath to his enemies. If it was not beneath him to make an insect or a world, it is not beneath him to govern them to wise and holy ends. If he should resign his control over anything even for an hour, no mortal can trace the consequences. And if he were utterly to forsake any work of his hands, no creature can calculate the mischief that would ensue; for in him we live and move and have our being. So that he alone is "Lord of all." Demons, as tempters, have mighty influence; but the feeblest child of God, clad in innocence, upheld by grace, and guided by Providence—need not fear a million demons. Satan is bound with a chain. He is the proprietor of nothing. Though he is called the God of this world and the spirit that works in the children of disobedience; yet the meaning of such language is that the desires and motives and aims and hearts of the men of this world are pleasing to Satan, who is at the head of the kingdom of darkness, and who sways a scepter of malignant power over the ungodly. Blessed be God, he has not abandoned the world, bad as it is, to the reign of demons. Nor has God resigned any part of his government to fate or chance, both of which are blind, and have no intelligence, and of course no wisdom. He governs by a plan, which is never altered—simply because it is his plan, and therefore can never be improved. Both fate and chance as agents are nothing, and know nothing, and can do nothing. Over all the earth presides one who has all and infinite perfections. Just such a supreme ruler as the pious mind would desire for all the world, just such a ruler it now has and ever shall have. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit—as it was in the beginning, is now, and shall be evermore. Amen. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 18: 02.05. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE ======================================================================== PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE NATURE OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE Truth is in order to godliness. The truth respecting providence is of great practical utility and calls for devout and reverent use and consideration. Sound doctrine on this subject may be as wickedly perverted as on any other matter of revelation. Let all men beware that they do not hold the truth in unrighteousness. Some of the practical considerations arising from the whole subject will be more appropriately presented hereafter. A few points urge themselves upon our attention at this time. I. Let us firmly believe that God reigns. He is the Judge of all the earth. This is a great truth. It cannot be too boldly asserted, or too firmly believed. It is at the foundation of all true religion, of all solid peace, and of all holy living. We may not deny it. We may not even doubt it. Hosea 14:9. There is an absolute necessity for God’s government over the world, and for our believing that he does control it. We begin life without wisdom, or experience. We take many of the most important steps in life when maturity has not chastened our minds into sobriety. False notions of things, and strong passions, and subtle enemies beset us on every side, especially until after the period, when the elements of character have been pretty firmly united. If God does not preserve at such times, it is clear we must fall. And what a comfort it is to believe this doctrine. If we are poor, or sick, or bereaved, or defamed, how delightful it is to know that it is the Lord, and not man; the Lord and not Satan; a friend and not an enemy; a most tender father and not a capricious master—who thus ordains. David was wise when he said, "Let me fall into the hand of the Lord, and not into the hand of man." Luther said, "Smite, Lord, for you love me." Every child of God may say as much. God himself says, "As many as I love I rebuke and chasten." This doctrine of providence is a great pillar of hope to all godly men. The three young Hebrews believed it when they said, "Nebuchadnezzar, we don’t need to give you an answer to this question. If the God we serve exists, then He can rescue us from the furnace of blazing fire, and He can rescue us from the power of you, the king. But even if He does not rescue us, we want you as king to know that we will not serve your gods or worship the gold statue you set up." Daniel 3:16-18. This is the proper fruit of this doctrine. It emboldens the timid. It confirms the wavering. It converts cowards into heroes. It makes the simple wise. It represses rashness. It keeps alive a solemn sense of responsibility. It is a rock of strength. But it must be steadfastly believed. Dr. Dick, "As the doctrine of a particular providence is agreeable both to Scripture and to reason, so it is recommended by its obvious tendency to promote the piety and the consolation of mankind . . . The thought, that he ’compasses our paths, and is acquainted with all our ways;’ that he watches our steps, orders all the events in our lot, guides and protects us, and supplies our needs, as it were with his own hand; this thought awakens a train of sentiments and feelings, highly favorable to devotion, and sheds a cheering light upon the path of life. We consider him as our guardian and our Father; and reposing upon his care, we are assured that, if we trust in him, no evil shall befall us, and no real blessing shall be withheld." Price, "Where can be the difficulty of believing an invisible hand—a universal and ever attentive Providence, which guides all things agreeably to perfect rectitude and wisdom, at the same time that the general laws of the world are left unviolated, and the liberty of moral agents is preserved?" "The Lord will reign forever. O Jerusalem, your God is King in every generation! Praise the Lord!" Psalms 146:10. II. Let us not be curious in prying into inscrutable secrets connected with providence. We know but little of the little which may be known. Humbly to study providence is a duty. Boldly to pry into it is a sin. He, who cannot swim, ought not to venture into deep waters. God’s ruling the world is a deep matter. Many both prejudge and misjudge all that he does. Judge nothing before the time. Remember "it is the glory of God to conceal a thing." Proverbs 25:2. But "vain man would be wise, though he be born like a wild donkey’s colt." Job 11:12. The thirty-eighth, thirty-ninth, fortieth, and forty-first chapters of Job contain terrible reproofs even to godly men, who had indulged in daring speculations on divine providence. Oh, for the sublime wisdom of Paul, who stood and adoringly said, "O, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! how unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out." Why will men become cavillers and subject themselves to the alarming reproof, "Nay, but, O man, who are you that replies against God? Shall the thing formed say to him that formed it—Why have you made me thus?" The ignorance of a wise man is better than the knowledge of a fool. III. Consider how great is the danger of resisting providence. Whenever God’s will is known, submit to it, not grudgingly—but of a cheerful mind. For their sins the Jews had a hard bondage in Babylon. What made their case worse was that among them were prophets and diviners, who fomented rebellion against their masters. They were quite opposed to the reigning powers, and, in fact, were in favor of sullen rebellion against God and man. These false teachers vexed the people and kept their tempers chafed. But by God’s direction, good Jeremiah wrote them a letter, saying, "The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, sends this message to all the captives he has exiled to Babylon from Jerusalem: ’Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food you produce. Marry, and have children. Then find spouses for them, and have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon. Pray to the Lord for that city where you are held captive, for if Babylon has peace, so will you.’ The Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says, ’Do not let the prophets and mediums who are there in Babylon trick you. Do not listen to their dreams because they prophesy lies in my name. I have not sent them,’ says the Lord." Jeremiah 29:4-9 How much better it is thus cheerfully to submit to Providence than to quarrel with it, and fret, and lose our good tempers, and, with our tempers, our good consciences! For "who has hardened himself against God and prospered?" Job 9:4. Let the potsherd strive with the potsherds of the earth—but woe to him that strives with his Maker. Isaiah 45:9. We are not fit to choose for ourselves. We are blind and cannot see afar off. But God sees and declares the end from the beginning. He is all-wise. He knows all the possible relations of things. "The meek will he guide in judgment." "Be not as the horse and the mule, which have no understanding, whose mouth must be held in with bit and bridle." Do not barely submit—but heartily acquiesce. If it seems hard to say, ’Not my will—but your will be done, O God’—still say it and hold your conscience firmly bound to approve it. "Commit your works unto the Lord, and your thoughts shall be established." Proverbs 16:3. Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for his grace; Behind a frowning providence, He hides a smiling face. His purposes will ripen fast, Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And He will make it plain. "If I can have my God to go before me in the pillar and the cloud," said Simeon to Haldane, "I long exceedingly to visit you once more; but if I cannot see my way clear, I am better where I am." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 19: 02.06. GOD'S PROVIDENCE IS RETRIBUTIVE ======================================================================== GOD’S PROVIDENCE IS RETRIBUTIVE "Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows." Galatians 6:7. Johnson defines retribution to be a return suitable to the action. Its general import is requital or recompense. Foster says, "Retribution is one of the grand principles in the divine administration of human affairs; a requital is imperceptible only to the willfully unobservant. There is everywhere the working of the everlasting law of requital—man always gets as he gives." Although God’s government is perfect in principle and in conduct, yet the work of requital, because unfinished, is not perfect in time. Augustine, "If no sin were punished here, no providence would be believed; if every sin were punished here, no judgment would be expected." Retribution results from all the principles of the divine government already considered. There is no flaw in it. There is no injustice in it. God will not clear the guilty. He will not condemn the innocent. He will not slay the righteous with the wicked. He never confounds things that are different. He will not permit the righteous to be punished as the wicked. For a season his procedure may be inexplicable—but in the end God will abase the proud and exalt the humble; rebuke the sinner and encourage the saint. To a remarkable degree men are made to reap what they have sown, to gather what they have strewed, and to eat the fruit of their own doings. Like for like is an all-pervading principle of God’s government. Retribution in kind is seen in all his finished dispensations. In its operation this principle extends to both good and bad acts. They who sow to the Spirit, shall from the Spirit reap life everlasting. They who sow to the flesh, shall from the flesh reap corruption. Covetousness heaps treasure together as fire and fuel against the last day. Christian charity transports it to Paradise to be enjoyed after death. Requital extends to the actions of both saints and sinners. God does not overlook wrong in any of his children. In their case wastefulness brings poverty, even as with the wicked. On the other hand, industry and frugality in worldly men are commonly followed by thrift and plenty, even as with the righteous. The doctrine of retribution is essentially connected with that of accountability. It is often stated in the word of God. In the law of Moses it is laid down as the rule by which magistrates shall award punishments to wrong-doers in Israel. This proves that the thing is in itself right. "Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe." "Breach for breach, eye for eye, tooth for tooth—as he has caused an injury in a man, so shall it be done to him again." "Life shall go for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot." Exodus 21:24-25; Leviticus 24:20; Deuteronomy 19:21. Our Lord warned against two abuses of this principle. The first was that men applied it to matters of private revenge. The other was that some cruelly insisted upon the literal application of the principle in judicature when it would have been more benevolent to waive the right to demand a punishment, which, if insisted on, the magistrate was bound to inflict. The same law of Moses ordained that a false witness should be punished by being made to suffer the ill which he sought to bring on his brother. Deuteronomy 19:19. The same law says that God "repays those who hate him to their face." Deuteronomy 7:10. This very phrase probably implies the great principle here contended for. It is repeated, "The Lord will not be slack to him who hates him, he will repay him to his face." Deuteronomy 7:10. Retribution in kind is often categorically taught in Scripture. "With the faithful You prove Yourself faithful; with the blameless man You prove Yourself blameless; with the pure You prove Yourself pure, but with the crooked You prove Yourself shrewd." 2 Samuel 22:26-27. In Psalms 18:25-26, we have almost the same words repeated. In both cases God teaches, says Clarke, that "he will deal with men as they deal with each other. . . . The merciful, the upright, the pure will ever have the God of mercy, uprightness and purity to defend them. And he will follow the wicked through all his windings, trace him through all his crooked ways, untwist him in all his cunning wiles, and defeat all his schemes of stubbornness, fraud and deceit. . . . If you perversely oppose your Maker, he will oppose you. No work or project shall prosper, which is not begun in his name and conducted in his fear." Poole, "Man’s perverseness is moral and sinful—but God’s shrewdness is judicial and penal." At the dedication of the temple Solomon prayed that in coming generations the Lord would "condemn the wicked to bring his way upon his head, and justify the righteous to give him according to his righteousness." 1 Kings 8:22. So that this very principle is inwoven with the devotions of the true Israel. In the sermon on the mount, our Lord twice asserts the same doctrine, "Blessed are the merciful—for they shall obtain mercy;" and "For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you." Matthew 5:7; Matthew 7:2. So in Psalms 7:15-16, of the wicked it is said, "He who digs a hole and scoops it out falls into the pit he has made. The trouble he causes recoils on himself; his violence comes down on his own head." Compare Psalms 109:17. No less clearly does Solomon assert the same thing, "Surely the Lord scorns the scorners," Proverbs 3:34; and one of the Apostles says, "He shall have judgment without mercy that has showed no mercy." James 2:13. The same law of requital prevails respecting the good deeds of men. "Blessed is he who has regard for the weak; the Lord delivers him in times of trouble. The Lord will protect him and preserve his life; he will bless him in the land and not surrender him to the desire of his foes. The Lord will sustain him on his sickbed and restore him from his bed of illness." Psalms 41:1-3. Thus frequently does the Scripture assert this principle in express terms. It also gives us many examples. Jehovah has often "written the cause of the judgment in the forehead of the judgment itself." The builders of Babel form a league, binding themselves together forever. The Lord dissolves the league by confounding their language, and making them a torment to each other. The Egyptians destroy the infants of the Israelites by drowning them in the Nile. In God’s anger the waters of their great river are turned into blood, and finally their king and his army are drowned in the Red Sea. They delighted in drowning, so God let them have their fill of it. They delighted in overtasking the Hebrews, and exposing them to the intense heat of the brickyards. So the dust from the furnaces, where the bricks had been burned, being scattered in the air, the Egyptians were covered with boils and with blisters. Thus they were made to smart as they had made others to smart. By fraud and deception Jacob supplants his brother. Time rolls on. Jacob leaves his native land. Far from home he often finds his wages changed. Worse than all, in the matter of marriage he is miserably deceived. He loves Rachel and cheerfully serves seven years for her; and in the hour of his rejoicing finds that Leah has been palmed off on him. Thus he is made to feel in the tenderest possible manner the nature of his own wickedness to his brother. "If men deal treacherously with others, by and by others will deal treacherously with them." When the Israelites took Bezek, its cruel prince, "Adoni-Bezek fled, but they chased him and caught him, and cut off his thumbs and big toes." Then this guilty man began to reason on the moral government that is executed in this world, "Seventy kings with their thumbs and big toes cut off have picked up scraps under my table. Now God has paid me back for what I did to them." Judges 1:5-6. The ninth chapter of Judges contains fifty-seven verses, and gives the history of the crimes and end of Abimelech, the son of Jerubbaal, who conspired with the men of Shechem for the destruction of all the children of his father, being seventy people, one only, Jotham, escaping. The awful deed was done. The rivals for power were put out of the way. For a season things seemed to prosper. Still there were difficulties. By the Spirit of God Jotham had uttered a fearful prediction respecting his bloody brother and his accomplices. Before long Abimelech himself in a cruel manner destroyed the men of Shechem. Not long after "a woman on the roof threw down a millstone that landed on Abimelech’s head and crushed his skull." The conclusion of the inspired record is solemn, "Thus, God punished Abimelech for the evil he had done against his father by murdering his seventy brothers. God also punished the men of Shechem for all their evil. So the curse of Jotham son of Gideon came true." Judges 9:56-57. Fuller, "If our backslidings have consisted in unfaithfulness towards one another, God will oftentimes punish this sin by so ordering it that others shall be unfaithful to us in return." Dreadful was the course of divine judgment towards Agag, the king of the Amalekites. By God’s direction Samuel said to him, "As your sword has made women childless, so shall your mother be made childless among women. And Samuel hewed Agag in pieces before the Lord in Gilgal." 1 Samuel 15:33. In like manner for lying to Naaman the leper of Assyria, and for lying to his master, the leprosy of Naaman cleaved unto Gehazi and unto his seed forever, and he went out from the presence of Elisha, as a leper. 2 Kings 5:20-27. Dreadful was the sin, and dreadful the punishment. Shame and misery follow a man and all his posterity through all their generations for this willful, deliberate falsehood. History tells of horrible sufferings coming on those who delighted in inflicting horrible sufferings on others. Nero, who loved to shed blood, the blood of his best subjects, and especially of Christians—was condemned to be punished according to the custom of the ancient Romans. He turned executioner of their sentence, slew himself; and left the world exclaiming, "I have lived shamefully, I die more shamefully." Domitian first trained himself and then his minions to acts of tormenting cruelty. He was in the end murdered by his own servants. Dogs licked up the blood of Ahab, where he had caused them to lick up the blood of the conscientious Naboth. The same cruel prince had trained a set of men addicted to bloody deeds. So soon as he was gone, these very men rid the land of his posterity. In Cilicia A. D. 117 died Trajan, the persecutor. His joints were loosed. His life was drowned out by the waters of dropsy, while thirst was burning him up. His successor, Adrian, departed this life A. D. 139 by a disease, which took most of the blood from his body. He, who had shed innocent blood, now reluctantly and in agony shed his own blood. Maximin and his little son were both put to death by the servants and soldiers, whom he had educated to deeds of carnage. As they slew his child, they said, "Not a whelp of so cursed a stock shall be left." Diocletian became a madman. His palace was consumed by fire from heaven. His end was fearful. Lucian derided the Christians by barking at them like a dog. His death was in this way. He was torn to pieces by the dogs. A modern tyrant and murderer prepared two cups of wine, one for himself and one for his guest. He gave special direction to his servant as to the disposition of the cups. Yet in carelessness his servant gave him the cup of poison. He drank it all, and expired in convulsions. Charles IX of France caused the shedding of the blood of the Huguenots on St. Bartholomew’s day. Voltaire tells us that the blood of that cruel prince burst through the pores of his skin. His nature was at war with itself. Several writers tell us of the old man, whose son dragged him by his gray locks to the threshold of his door, when looking up he said, "Stop, my son; this is as far as I dragged my father by his hair." For a while cruel and bloody men may seem to have it all their own way; but before long God’s hand will lay hold on vengeance. They may mock and afflict the innocent. But among such, who ever lived and died happily? Sooner or later a pitiless storm beats them down. This arrangement of Providence enables us to see and feel the justice of many things in the orderings of the Lord. Were our sufferings something foreign from our own conduct, we might often be perplexed with occurrences that happen to us. But when sorrow comes to us in the Spirit of the wrong we have committed, we say, Righteous are you, Lord God Almighty. In the same way we learn to study the book of Providence. Its lessons are made easy and forcible. Thus also we see how just is God in his dealings. He who gets what he gives, cannot complain of wrong. It is right the murderer should feel in his own person, the pangs of the death he has inflicted on another. In like manner God teaches us that it is an evil and a bitter thing to sin against the Lord. There is no evil so great as sin. By this arrangement of his providence, he makes us feel that sin is horrible. So also we learn the folly of sin. O what shame and confusion, running perhaps through life, come on us for one wicked deed. Before long no doubt every sin will appear as foolish as the most silly conduct is sometimes made now to appear. Let every man honestly and earnestly inquire in the day of adversity, Why, O Lord, do you contend with me? It is a rational and proper inquiry. He, who will not make it, must expect to be hardened under judgments. In applying this principle of God’s government to ourselves, we may be strict and even severe. Our self-love will hold us back from excess. If we are innocent, conscience will shield us. Few men are harsh in their judgments of themselves. It is far otherwise in judging of our fellow-men. We must give them the benefit of any doubt in their case. In passing the conduct of others under review we must be lenient. A charitable judgment of godly men is more apt to be true than one that is harsh. Whenever our sin is brought to view, let us repent of it, abhor it, ask forgiveness for it and forsake it. Newton says, "If a man will make his nest below, God will put a thorn in it; and if that will not do, he will set it on fire." Beware, O man, how you behave towards God in the day of chastisement for your sins. "Get up, go away! For this is not your resting place, because it is defiled, it is ruined, beyond all remedy." Micah 2:10 Let every man be warned and deterred from courses of conduct, which by this great law of requital must yet involve him in trouble, perhaps even down to old age. Some sixty years ago there lived on the borders of civilization a man who had an aged, infirm, and blind father. The old man frequently broke the plate on which his food was served. His son’s wife complained of it, and the son at last determined to take a block of wood and hew out a tray on which to feed his father. Accordingly he took his axe and went to the forest, followed by his little son. He found a poplar, that looked as if it would suit his purpose, and began to cut out a block of the desired size. Having swung his axe a few moments, he became weary, and his son said, "Father, what are you going to make?" The father replied, "I am going to make a tray for your grandfather, to eat out of." The little boy loved his grandfather very much, and supposed it all very kind, and said, "I am so glad; won’t it be nice? Father, when you get to be old and blind, I will make a tray for you." The father, conscience-stricken, and fearing sorrow for himself, took up his axe, returned home, and ever after seemed to treat his aged parent kindly. God’s people are safe though his enemies are not. "For the moth shall eat them up like a garment, and the worm shall eat them like wool—but my righteousness," says God, "shall be forever, and my salvation from generation to generation." Isaiah 51:8. Temptations may assail them; enemies may revile them, and persecute them. But God says, "Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have my law in your hearts: Do not fear the reproach of men or be terrified by their insults." Isaiah 51:7. Let us, however, beware of the error into which Job’s friends fell. "They maintained that God governed the world upon the principle of minute retribution, rendering to every man in the present life according to his works;" and that this requital was perfect in this world. Against this theory Job argued irrefragably, and God himself condemned them and approved Job, saying unto Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends—for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has." Job 42:7. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 20: 02.07. CHAPTER 07 ======================================================================== SOME EXPLANATION OF THE DELAYS OF PROVIDENCE IN PUNISHING THE WICKED. HOW DIVINE PATIENCE SHOULD BE REGARDED; AND HOW IT MAY BE ABUSED. The Almighty does not settle his accounts with creatures every thirty days. He is long-suffering. He is patient under affronts. He forbears to execute deserved wrath upon offenders. This is one of the striking displays of the goodness of God designed to lead us to repentance. He bears long with us. He is slow to anger. He is the God of patience. Long-suffering is of his very essence. Man may exist without being kind, and gentle, and forbearing. God cannot. He can no more cease to be pitiful than he can cease to be. He warns; he entreats; he follows with mercy the very men, who flee from his gracious presence and kind offers. Often for a long time he delays his judgments. It is very important that we should not misunderstand God’s dealings in this matter. Let us not misinterpret providence, nor fall into the errors of the wicked. A few remarks made in order may help to set the matter in a clear light. I. let us notice some things which do not cause God to delay deserved punishment. 1. God does not defer the punishment of any sinner, because it would be unrighteous instantly to cut him down, and bring him to judgment. The sentence, "The soul that sins, it shall die"—is as just as it is alarming. Every sin deserves God’s wrath and curse now and hereafter. It deserves punishment the moment it is committed. What evil there is in iniquity, is in it at the instant of perpetration. A murder does not become less or more a murder by the lapse of time. Whatever guilt there is in any sin, is in it from the first. A repetition of an offence is an additional sin. But it would be just and right in God to punish deservedly and terribly, as soon as he is insulted and offended. He did so in the case of the rebel angels. 2. Nor does God withhold his wrath, because we have not often offended him. Of each of us it is true that our sins are more than the hairs of our heads. They are innumerable. We cannot answer for one of a thousand of them. And each one of them calls for vengeance. 3. Nor does God exercise forbearance, because he has not at all times a distinct view of the number and aggravation of our offences. In no sense does God ever forget any sin. He always sees it, knows it, hates it. His soul abhors it. He is angry with the wicked every day. No being is so far removed from everything like insensibility to sin, as God is. 4. Nor does God delay the punishment of the wicked because they escape his notice, or elude his search; nor because he cannot prove them guilty, nor because he is not as competent to decide upon their case as he ever will be. Human governments sometimes cannot detect, arrest, or convict. Evidence may be lacking. Witnesses may be absent. The law in the case may be doubtful. But these things never cause a moment’s delay in the divine government. 5. Nor are sinners allowed to go unpunished for a season, because God regards with indifference the false impressions, which some receive from his long-suffering. On the contrary, he "is a jealous God." He is most jealous of his honor, and carefully guards the glory of his government. He would forever part with all the creatures he has made, rather than allow one truthful charge to be brought against his justice. When the rebellion broke out in heaven—in a moment he emptied the shining seats above, rather than let one sinning angel remain in his estate, a standing reproach to God, a monument of God’s tolerance of sin. 6. Nor does God refrain to punish the wicked for a time, because he has not full power to execute any sentence, which his justice might decree. Omnipotence can do anything—at any time! Human governments are sometimes afraid to punish, lest they should arouse popular indignation, or dangerous commotions. But God is not for one moment restrained from executing the fierceness of his anger by any such fear. Were the world in arms against him, He who sits in the heavens would laugh at their impotent rage. One breath, one word from Jehovah would sweep them down to hell in a moment! 7. Nor is there in the divine mind any weakness, any irresolution, any lack of determination to award to every man according as his case shall demand. Many offences among men go entirely unpunished because of the vacillation of mind or feebleness of spirit in parents, masters or rulers. But it is far otherwise with God. He proceeds to the work of judgment and of punishment with an inflexible purpose, whenever his holiness and wisdom determine that the right time has come. Let us then II. Consider positively—why God bears long with men. Perhaps the discussion of this point is no more important than that of the preceding. But surely there are some things involved in it, which ought to make it to us lost sinners a welcome and a delightful theme. 1. God delays to punish sinners, because in his nature are found infinite love and mercy. This thought is full of weight and of interest. Let us dwell upon it. God is "long-suffering to us," because he has a loving, pitying, compassionate nature. A modern writer [William Nevins] has collected and compared many of the forms of expression used on this subject. He says, "There is something very special in the manner in which this doctrine is taught. Observe, first, several words, nearly synonymous, are used to teach us the doctrine, such as merciful, gracious, long-suffering, pitiful, slow to anger. And not satisfied with the positive the inspired writers use the superlative—very pitiful and very gracious also. Observe, secondly, that not content with the singular, mercy, they adopt and employ the plural form, mercies. They speak of the mercies of God; nor are they content with a simple plural; but they speak of these mercies as manifold, yes, they speak of the multitude of his mercies. This is strange language. It expresses a conception not of human origin. And to denote that there is nothing uncertain about these mercies, they speak of them as sure mercies; and they speak of them not only as many but great! yes, and great above the heavens! And they speak of the greatness of his mercies, in magnitude equal to what they are in multitude—many and great and sure mercies. Think of that! But they are not mere mercies—but tender mercies, and these mercies they speak of not as derived—but as original with God. They speak of him as the Father of mercies; and they take care to tell us that mercy is not accidental to God—but essential; they speak of it as belonging to him. Daniel goes further still; he says—’To the Lord our God belong mercies’ and forgiveness? No; but ’forgivenesses.’ You may say that is not proper grammar—but it is glorious doctrine! Thirdly, there is another set of phrases they use; they speak of God as rich in mercy, plenteous in mercy, and full of compassion. They speak of his abundant mercy, of the earth as full of his mercy, to denote its amplitude. And in respect of its continuance, they say his compassions fail not, and in Psalms 136:1-26, twenty-six times it is said, His mercy endures forever. There is still another phraseology used by the sacred writers. They speak of God’s kindness, his great kindness, his marvelous kindness, his everlasting kindness. But they are not satisfied to speak of it as simple kindness; they call it merciful kindness, and speak of it as great towards us. They call it loving-kindness, also, and we read of God’s marvelous and excellent loving-kindness, with which it is said also that he crowns us! Here, too, they use the plural form, loving-kindnesses; and they speak of the multitude of his loving-kindnesses. What more could they say? Fourthly, we find the mercy of God compared to certain human exercises; for example, to a father’s pity, which it is said to be like, and to a brother’s friendship, than which it is closer, and to a mother’s love, which it is said to exceed." Truly, it is astonishing that such sinners as we are should be spared; but surely it is not astonishing that if spared at all, it should be under the government of such a God. "The Lord is long-suffering, not willing that any should perish." God never punishes with delight. He does not will, or plan, or seek the ruin of his bitterest and most inveterate enemies. In the esteem of God the death of a sinner is a dreadful thing. "Many a time he turns his anger away" (Psalms 78:38) before he strikes a blow or crushes a sinful worm. The reason is, "God is love." None else would bear so long—would so long avert deserved and terrible punishments from the heads of the rebellious. Truly, the prophet told us of the glorious nature of God, when he said, "The Lord does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." So far as we know, there is but one thing upon which the pure and benevolent mind of God looks with more aversion than upon the misery of his creatures. That one thing is worse than all misery, more horrible than the torments of hell. It is SIN, the parent of all misery, all disorder, all confusion. Every sigh from hell and every groan from earth is wrought out by sin, man’s most cruel tyrant, God’s greatest enemy. Benevolent, indeed, must be the nature of Jehovah to show pity and long-suffering to sinners. 2. God delays deserved punishment, because if he did not, the race of man would immediately be extinct, and horrible desolation would seize upon all the habitable parts of the earth. In the days of Noah the long-suffering of God, after waiting a hundred and twenty years, was exhausted, and but eight souls escaped the dreadful overthrow. God has great ends to answer by the creation of the world. To sweep away all its inhabitants would defeat those glorious purposes. 3. One great purpose of God is to continue and enlarge the church of Christ upon earth. The flock of God has ever been composed of those, who, in God’s esteem and in their own esteem, had once been great sinners, and so deserved dreadful judgments. Had not God patiently borne with their evil manners, there is not one member of the visible church, who would not long since have perished. So says the conscience of every renewed man. "But I will not destroy them all," says the Lord. "For just as good grapes are found among a cluster of bad ones (and someone will say, ’Don’t throw them all away—there are some good grapes there!’), so I will not destroy all Israel. For I still have true servants there." Isaiah 65:8. 4. For the sake of his people, and in answer to their prayers, many a wicked man is spared for a long time. So Jesus taught, "Except those days be shortened, there should no flesh be saved—but for the elect’s sake those days shall be shortened." Ten righteous men would have saved the cities of the plain from the vengeance of eternal fire. Many a time God permits the wicked to outlive their godly parents and friends, that the pious may escape the anguish of weeping over them, when they die in their sins, in their unbelief, and in their impenitency. 5. God long spares sinners, that by his goodness they may be led to repentance. He is "not willing that any should perish—but that all should come to repentance." In subduing the hearts of sinners, God’s great argument is his kindness. If God instantly punished every man according to his transgressions, we could no more be exhorted to "count the long-suffering of God salvation." Thus God teaches. So also is his practice. A right view of the divine forbearance and mercy breaks every heart that ever is broken, bows every will that ever submits. "They shall look on him whom they have pierced—and mourn." 6. God long spares sinful men that he may entirely cut off all pleas from his incorrigible foes, and make his justice glorious, when he shall at last visit them for their sins. Every murmur against God, and every suspicion of the divine equity must be banished forever, if it shall at last appear that "God endured with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction," and that not until it was evident that longer forbearance would give plausibility to the charge of weakness or irresolution, did God "show his wrath and make his power known." The truth must be kept alive that "there is a God that judges in the earth." But in impressing even this truth on men Jehovah adopts a course of great long-suffering. Let us notice— III. The proper USES of this doctrine. 1. If God is so long-suffering to us, we ought to be long-suffering to one another. No man has ever treated any of us as badly as each of us has treated God. If God spares us, let us spare one another. "Beloved, if God so loved us—we ought also to love one another." "Be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you." The true spirit of the Gospel never calls down fire from heaven even on the bitterest foes. He, to whom ten thousand talents have been forgiven, is surely not the man to take his brother by the throat, and say—Pay me the fifty pence you owe! 2. When we see God sparing the lives of our wicked friends and neighbors, we ought to labor and pray for their salvation. Not only should we desire it. We should also expect it. Perhaps the church often abandons sinners before God’s Spirit forsakes them. Pray and toil for their conversion while there is breath—for while there is life, there is hope. Look at the miracles of grace around you, yes, look at yourself, and be encouraged to hope and pray for others! 3. Let a due consideration of God’s long-suffering increase our abhorrence of sin. All sin is an offence against the most gentle, loving, patient, forbearing Being in the universe. To maltreat any man is wrong. But to pursue with causeless insults, and abuse a person who shows a loving disposition, even after he has been treated amiss, is justly regarded as very despicable. Such is the real character of all the sin we commit against God. And sin in the regenerate is against more love, more light and more mercy than are granted to the unregenerate. O Christian, hate sin in all—but most of all, hate it in yourself. 4. Let the long-suffering of God lead you carefully to study, admire and imitate the character of God. Be like him. Think upon his name. Acquaint yourself with God and be at peace. His nature is love. Hell for depth, heaven for height, the ocean for vastness, the sun for brilliancy are all wonderful objects. But God’s character is a combination of all that is vast, sublime, majestic, kind, just, excellent and every way glorious. O study the character of God. 5. Learn to be patient and even thankful amidst trials and afflictions. It does not befit us to make so much of a light affliction—when we deserve a heavy curse! Think of the kindness still shown you. "Were there but a single mercy apportioned to each moment of our lives, the sum would rise very high; but how is our arithmetic confounded when every minute has more than we can distinctly number." "Be patient, therefore, brethren, until the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." Your sorrows may be great—but the promises and the grace secured by covenant are far greater. Therefore, "strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees." Any sinner, on whom the sentence of fiery condemnation has not been executed, has great cause of joy and gratitude to God for sparing mercy. Surely he, whose hope is set in God, ought never to be much cast down—but ought to remember that he shall yet sing the song of Moses and Miriam, yes of Moses and the Lamb! IV. Several ways in which the long-suffering of God is perverted and abused. 1. Some, finding the wicked spared so long, infer that there is no God at all. They become atheists. There have been such monsters on earth. Reasoning more false than that—which from God’s goodness infers his non-existence—can hardly be imagined! 2. A kindred error is that, when from God’s patience, men infer that he is not just, and holy, and determined to deal with the wicked according to their sins. This is the great pillar, on which rest many false notions or systems of belief. He, who from God’s long-suffering argues that he will clear the guilty and justify the wicked, perverts the most precious things. To the rebellious God never says, "It shall be well with you." But he does say, "Will you steal, and murder, and commit adultery, and swear falsely, and burn incense unto Baal, and walk after other gods, which you know not; and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations?" That is, they inferred that their conduct was not displeasing to God, because awful judgments had not swept them away. Elsewhere God says, "Because I kept silence," that is did not instantly and terribly reprove your wickedness, "because I kept silence you thought I was altogether such a one as yourself." Thus men deny God’s attributes. "The wicked live, become old, yes, are mighty in power," not because there is not a just God—but because that just God is patient and merciful. 3. Some abuse the long-suffering of God, not only to continuing in sin—but to making themselves more vile than ever. Often did the Lord lift the curse from off the head of Pharaoh, and as often did he sin the more. He was very gracious when the pangs were upon him—but as soon as the suffering was over, his relentings were over also. "Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil." What sad perverseness is here! The sinner says, Because God is good I will be bad; because he is slow to anger, I will walk in the evil of my own ways, and pursue the wicked desires of my heart. These thoughts may not be framed into words—but are they not carried out in the lives of many? Does not the increasing wickedness of men of uncircumcised hearts declare this as plainly as God’s word itself? To all such, the following solemn thoughts are presented. a. A final perdition wrought out under circumstances of such amazing mercy as surround you, will be far more intolerable than if your life had been shorter and your blessings fewer. That divine clemency, which you now abuse and pervert, may, for anything you know, be nearly exhausted! When it shall be all gone, and your lamp put out in obscure darkness, how can you bear reflection on the course of life you are now pursuing? c. If any shall be so wicked as to persist in sin and finally perish, the imputation of folly and madness will fall upon their own head. "You have destroyed yourself!" "You have procured this unto yourself!" What dreadful sentences are these! d. The Scripture calls on all the wicked to turn and live. Will you repent? Will you now repent? That you will repent is as certain as that there is a holy and just God. But whether your repentance shall be that sorrow, which works death; or that godly sorrow which works repentance not to be repented of—is the great question. Shall your repentance be unto life and salvation? or shall it be but the fruitless relenting of a soul in an undone eternity? O accept the mercy offered to you now. Embrace the Savior, while he waits to be gracious. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 21: 02.08. CHAPTER 08 ======================================================================== SEVERAL PRINCIPLES OF THE DOCTRINE OF PROVIDENCE OVER UNGODLY MEN, ILLUSTRATED IN THE LIFE AND END OF JUDAS ISCARIOT "While they were eating, He said, ’I assure you: One of you will betray Me.’" Matthew 26:21 "For Jesus knew from the beginning those who would not believe, and the one who would betray Him." John 6:64 "For He knew who would betray Him." John 13:11 Christ’s ministers are often deceived; Christ, never. He knows all things. He is never outsmarted. His eyes are as flaming fire. He easily detects the most sophisticated pretenses. He knows all men, all hearts, all destinies. In many ways he proved all this when on earth. In the case of the son of perdition he fully showed that he was not for a moment mistaken in his character. It is proposed to show how the course of providence ran towards this wicked man. In order to effect that object, it is best to begin with— I. The history of Judas. His name was Judas, and his surname was Iscariot. Judas, Juda, Judah, Jehudah, and Jude are all the same word, varied only in unimportant particulars. The word Judas literally signifies, the praise of the Lord. The name was common among the Israelites. One of Jacob’s sons was called Judah. From him descended the tribe, within whose territory was Jerusalem, and from which arose the name of Jews. After the ten tribes broke off, Judah designated the tribes of Judah and Benjamin, while the rest were called Israel. One of the Maccabees, very renowned in history, was called Judas. Another of them, who bore the same name, suffered martyrdom under Antiochus Epiphanes. Besides these, there are several other people of the same name, more or less noticed in Jewish history before the coming of Christ. After that we have an account of four men called Judas. One was Paul’s host at Damascus. Acts 9:11. Another was surnamed Barsabas. He was sent with Paul and Barnabas and Silas to carry to Antioch the decrees of the Council of Jerusalem. This was itself a high honor. Luke calls him one of the "chief men among the brethren." Acts 15:22. Another was surnamed Thaddeus, or Lebbeus, or Zelotes. In Matthew 13:55, he is called the brother (or kinsman) of our Lord. He is thought to have been the son of Mary, the sister of the blessed virgin, and the brother of James the Less. If so, he was, according to the flesh, cousin to Jesus. His father’s name was Alpheus. The last epistle in the Bible bears the name of Jude, and was written by this man. The other Judas, mentioned as living in the first century of the Christian era, is the betrayer of our Lord, surnamed Iscariot. The word Iscariot is variously derived. Some say it is an abbreviation of Issachariothes, and simply declares that he was of the tribe of Issachar. Others derive it from two Hebrew words that unitedly signify, a man of murder. Others suppose that his surname simply shows that he was of the place called Carioth or Kerioth. This is probably the true explanation. Ish-Carioth or Iscariot is literally, a man of Carioth. Before entering into the particulars of his history, observe 1. There is no evidence that Judas Iscariot was a man of bad countenance. Most men are much influenced by looks, and many think they can tell a man’s character by the physiognomy. This may often be true; but there are many exceptions. The case of Judas was probably one. In paintings intended to represent him, he is commonly distinguished by a sly, base, cunning, malicious countenance. There is nothing in Scripture to warrant artists in so painting him, beyond the simple fact of his wickedness. For anything that appears to the contrary, he was a man of calm, free, open, placid, benignant countenance. 2. There is no evidence that, up to his betrayal of his Lord, his conduct was the subject of censure, complaint, jealousy—or of the slightest suspicion. Until the night when he committed the traitorous deed, his reputation seems to have been fair, and without the shadow of a blemish. He was not ambitious, as James and John on one occasion were. He was free from the characteristic rashness of Peter. His sins were all concealed from the eyes of mortals. He was a thief; but that was known only to Omniscience. 3. There is no evidence that, during his continuance with Christ, he regarded himself as a hypocrite. Doubtless he thought himself honest. He knew no other kind of sincerity than that which he possessed. He may have had solemn and joyful feelings under the preaching of Christ. He may have had very awful and tender thoughts when he himself was preaching. Such is man’s self-ignorance, that it is probable not one in ten thousand who are hypocrites firmly believe that such is their character. Nay, it commonly happens, that the worse men are, the better they think themselves to be. 4. Let it not be supposed that Judas ought not to have known his character. He shut his eyes to the truth respecting himself. He voluntarily rejected evidence that would have convicted him at the bar of his own conscience. Self-ignorance is a great sin. It is fostered by pride and unbelief and impenitence. The first mention made of this man is entirely creditable to him. He is introduced to us as one of the twelve, whom Christ chose as disciples and confidential friends, to be with him and hear his instructions, both public and private. We are not told that Christ ever availed himself, in the absence of Judas, to make any communications to the eleven, until the night of his betrayal. Peter, James and John were more with Christ than the others. But between Judas and the other eight there does not appear to have been any marked difference in the treatment which they received at the hands of the Savior. Having for some time been a disciple, the Lord ordained him with the other eleven to the office and work of an apostle. Matthew 10:2-4; Mark 3:13-19; Luke 6:13-16. Since the birth of Christ this is the highest office to which any mortal could attain. The gifts requisite for the performance of its duties were extraordinary and miraculous. They belong to no man now living. The proofs of an apostle were in signs, and wonders, and miracles. 2 Corinthians 12:12. Every apostle must have seen the Lord. 1 Corinthians 9:1. There were in early times, as there are still, vain pretenders to this office; but it is the duty and honor of the churches to expose their idle claims. Revelation 2:2. But Judas was an apostle, and performed the duties of his office as did his fellows. He preached, he healed the sick, he cleansed the lepers, he raised the dead, he cast out devils. One part of the apostolic commission required the shaking off of the dust from the feet as a testimony against those who would not receive them nor hear their words. It may be that Judas did this very thing—but there is no evidence that he was more denunciatory than others. After the return of the apostles from their first mission, and after they had given an account of their success, there is nothing said of Judas, until James and John, at the instigation and through the instrumentality of their mother, applied for the superiority over their brethren. On this occasion, it is said, "The ten were moved with indignation against the two brethren." Matthew 20:24. Mark says, "When the ten heard it, they began to be much displeased with James and John." 10:41. The record shows no difference between the behavior of Judas and that of the nine others. They all may have spoken of the wickedness of such ambition, and their remarks may have been very just. Judas may have been as temperate as the rest. There is no evidence that he possessed a bitter or intolerant spirit beyond others, nor that he was often guilty of censoriousness. It is not at all improbable that Peter was more liable to reproof in this matter than Judas. Soon after this, we find Christ warning his disciples against "the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy." Luke 12:1. Judas may have improved this hint so far as to attack these arch deceivers, and to preach some very searching, alarming sermons. But as a matter of personal application to his own heart and conscience, the warning seems to have been wholly neglected. Like many modern hypocrites, he probably gloried in his sincerity. Even bold transgressors, who break all God’s laws, often boast of their truth, candor and honesty. Not very long after this, Christ made a more pointed declaration, which must have excited considerable attention. It was this, "Have I not chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?" John 6:70. We are not left to conjecture who was intended, for the Evangelist adds, "He spoke of Judas Iscariot, the son of Simon—for he it was who would betray him, being one of the twelve." John 6:71. Some time after Jesus said, "You are clean—but not all. For he knew who should betray him—therefore said he, You are not all clean." John 13:10-11. What effect these sayings may have had, we are not informed. But they do not seem to have provoked any uncharitable remarks. Even Judas seems to have remembered that Christ had said, "Judge not, that you be not judged." Matthew 7:1. But we do not learn that these warnings of Christ caused Judas to search his own heart. It is certain that they had no permanent, beneficial effect; though it is almost inconceivable that they should have been wholly powerless. The next account we have of Judas respects his apparent regard for the poor. When the affectionate Mary anointed the feet of the blessed Jesus, Judas was there. Being treasurer of Christ’s family, and acting without auditors, he had dishonestly used some of the funds for his own private purposes. Hence he is called "a thief." It is nowhere hinted, however, that he esteemed himself a rogue. He may have thought that he ought to have more than any other, as he had all the care of the finances. He may also have deceived himself with idle plans of future restitution. There is no evidence that he fully condemned himself for a moment, though he may have had qualms and misgivings. When Mary anointed the Lord, Judas objected to such an expenditure, and on grounds quite plausible to some minds, "Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?" John 12:5. This reasoning seems to have struck others, who were godly men. Matthew says—"The disciples had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?" And Mark says—Some of those at the table were indignant. "Why was this expensive perfume wasted?" they asked. "She could have sold it for a small fortune and given the money to the poor!" And they scolded her harshly." Mark 14:4-5. How often are godly men led astray by the specious pretenses of bad men. Judas cared not for the poor—but he coveted that money. He did not see what good it could do to anoint the Lord with so very precious ointment. It was not necessary for purposes of health. And Mary might have honored Christ in some other way. Besides, by giving the price of that ointment to the Lord, who regarded the poor as his friends, and who always gave alms when he could, there would have been no waste. We have much Iscariot charity in our day. No doubt some said of Judas, "What a kind heart he has to the poor. He never forgets them." We have modern economists, who love Christ no more than Judas, and who extol everything that looks like saving money in efforts that are merely to honor Christ. It is strange that the enemies of our Lord seem never to have thought of winning over any of his disciples. This is strong proof of the entire absence of suspicion respecting their fidelity. Accordingly they did not apply to any of the apostles to turn traitor; but "one of the twelve, called Judas Iscariot, went unto the chief priests, and said unto them, What will you give me, and I will deliver him unto you? And they covenanted with him for thirty pieces of silver. And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him." Matthew 26:14-16. This is the account given by one Evangelist. That of Luke is much like it, "Then Satan entered Judas, called Iscariot, who was numbered among the Twelve. He went away and discussed with the chief priests and temple police how he could hand Him over to them. They were glad and agreed to give him silver. So he accepted [the offer] and started looking for a good opportunity to betray Him to them when the crowd was not present." Luke 22:3-6. It is probable these enemies of Christ were much surprised when they saw Judas, and still more when they learned his errand. This was the moment of exultation to wicked men and apostate angels. They seem to have thought that at last they would ease themselves of him whose sermons and miracles had made such an impression. When Judas went to the chief priests, he probably expected to obtain several thousand pieces of silver, and thought thus to make his fortune. Possibly he intended to get his money, fulfill his bargain, and put his Master into their hands; and perhaps expected Christ immediately to deliver himself out of their power. Thus the traitor would have become a swindler. Whatever were his thoughts, he made the offer to betray him. The chief priests loved money, and understood bargaining. They probably saw in Judas an anxiety to hasten the matter. This would make them appear less careful in the business, until at length he sold to them the Lord of life and glory for thirty pieces of silver. The bargain being made, the difficulty with Judas now was to fulfill his part of it. "And from that time he sought opportunity to betray him." Wickedness is troublesome. Probably Judas gave frequent assurances of fidelity in his covenant with the Jews, and would have pretended to be grossly insulted if any had charged him with a design of fraud. Sin fearfully blinds the mind, and hardens the heart. The devil seems now to have had full possession of Judas. He took no time—he had no heart for reflection. He may have kept up some form of prayer—but there was no sincerity in him or his devotions. "At the celebration of the Passover, Jesus said, "While they were eating, He said, "I assure you: One of you will betray Me." Deeply distressed, each one began to say to Him, "Surely not I, Lord?" He replied, "The one who dipped his hand with Me in the bowl—he will betray Me. The Son of Man will go just as it is written about Him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Then Judas, His betrayer, replied, "Surely not I, Rabbi?" "You have said it," He told him." Matthew 26:21-25. When it is said they were "deeply distressed," the reference is doubtless to the others beside Judas. It almost broke their hearts to think it possible that they should prove traitors. But although Judas, last of all, asked, "Surely not I?" yet there is no evidence that he had any right feelings—but the contrary. As soon as Christ told him what he should do, Judas withdrew and sought his accomplices in wickedness. This exposure before the whole family of Christ seems to have stirred up the deepest malice, and Judas felt no longer any restraint from the decencies of the case. The traitor having withdrawn, Jesus said, "Are you still sleeping and resting? Look, the time is near. The Son of Man is being betrayed into the hands of sinners. Get up; let’s go! See—My betrayer is near. While He was still speaking, Judas, one of the Twelve, suddenly arrived. A large mob, with swords and clubs, was with him from the chief priests and elders of the people. His betrayer had given them a sign—The One I kiss, He’s the One; arrest Him!" Matthew 26:45-49; compare Luke 22:47-49. What a band was this! What a betrayal was here! How cold and impudent the malignity of the traitor! How enormous his guilt! One would have expected that at this moment, hell would feel such mighty raven for her prey, as to open wide her mouth and swallow him alive. But his cup was not yet full. He who was ready to sell his Master, would soon be ready to throw himself away. The deed was now done. The bargain was fulfilled on both sides. Judas had put his Master into the hands of his murderers, and he had obtained his promised reward. But presently the silver began to lose its luster, and the money its value. The price of blood began to torment its possessor. The inspired record is brief but striking, "Then Judas, His betrayer, seeing that He had been condemned, was full of remorse and returned the 30 pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders. "I have sinned by betraying innocent blood," he said. "What’s that to us?" they said. "See to it yourself!" So he threw the silver into the sanctuary and departed. Then he went and hanged himself." Matthew 27:3-5. He could not endure the vicious gnaw of the undying worm. That silver filled his soul with intolerable horrors. Of late he had greatly desired it—but now he throws it down in the temple, and calls upon the priests, the ministers of religion, for some alleviation of his distress; but they are cold, and pay him no regard. They were not willing to receive back the price of his treason. Not believing in the value and efficacy of that blood which cleanses from all sin, not beholding in Jesus the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, not finding any sympathy from his accomplices, conscience wielding over his guilty spirit the terrible sword of eternal and inflexible justice, and a hell burning within him, he hanged himself, jumped the awful gulf of death, and plunged into an undone eternity! "He went to his own place." The aggravations of the sin of betraying Christ were many and great. The traitor was eminent in place, in gifts, in office, in profession; a guide to others, and one whose example was likely to influence many, and if evil, to give great occasion to the enemy to speak reproachfully. His sin had for its object the Lord Jesus Christ. It was an attack on God himself. This sin admitted of no reparation, no restitution. It was against mercies, against convictions of conscience, against frequent and recent admonitions, against his ordination vows, against his own preaching, against all the rules of friendship, against all the bonds of discipleship. It was committed deliberately, willfully, knowingly, presumptuously, impudently, maliciously. It was perpetrated just after the most solemn and tender interview on record, just after being engaged in the most solemn rites of religion. It was of a scarlet dye and of a crimson hue. Taking his own life was but adding iniquity to iniquity. He may have justified himself in his suicide, and thought that he had a right to do as he pleased with his earthly existence. Perhaps he thought also that hell itself could not be more intolerable than his present anguish. Miserable man! why will you place the seal of immutability on your own perdition, making your doom irreversible, and putting your soul beyond the reach of even the mercy of God? Oh! what a fiend is man without the grace of God! No natural amiability, no faithful instructions, no power of working miracles, no solemn sacraments, no tears and warnings can hold back any man from the vilest sins and the hottest hell. God’s free, sovereign, eternal love can alone save any soul. II. Let us note some of the principles which mark the providence of God towards this man. 1. All God does is just. In due time and manner, the Lord will show that he is righteous. His mercy may long be trampled on—but never with impunity. He is a jealous God, even when he seems for a season to let the wicked have their own way. God’s character is safe in God’s keeping. No man now dares to call in question the righteousness of the course of providence towards the son of perdition. The Judge of all the earth will do right; and he will make all the earth see it. 2. God often influences men by causes that seem to us very trivial. It is never safe to despise the day of small things, be they good or evil. Because God is almighty and all-wise, and man feeble and ignorant, mortals cannot tell whether an event or a cause is great or small. Little rills form the greatest rivers. The ocean itself is made up of drops of rain, or particles of mist. A man is what his daily habits make him. He who cannot resist a slight temptation is ill prepared to war with giants. "If racing against mere men makes you tired, how will you race against horses? If you stumble and fall on open ground, what will you do in the thickets near the Jordan?" Jeremiah 12:5. 3. Providence so arranges human affairs that everything in life is a test of character. If one is rich, his wealth will try his humility. If one is poor, he will soon show whether he is contented. If a bribe is held out, it will evince how far covetousness prevails. If one is put into office like Judas, he himself may soon see whether his integrity is unspotted. If God leads the Israelites forty years through the wilderness, it is to humble them and to prove them. Deuteronomy 8:2. If he feeds them with manna, it is for the same purpose. Deuteronomy 8:16. If ambassadors are sent to Hezekiah, it is "to try him, that he might know all that was in his heart." 2 Chronicles 32:31. 4. Such being the arrangements of providence it is impossible but that offences will come, as long as there are wicked men in the world. Luke 17:1. The wicked will do wickedly. Daniel 12:10. "There must also be heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you." 1 Corinthians 11:19. Open defections from truth and righteousness are to be expected in this wicked world. It has been so from the beginning. Jesus had his Judas; Peter, his Ananias; and Paul, his Demas. Those that are not of us, will go out from us. If they were of us, they would no doubt continue with us. The carnal and confident generally apostatize as soon as the heat of temptation is felt. 5. Providence so arranges affairs in this world, that even the wicked who hate him, shall certainly glorify him, even by their misdeeds. The treason of Judas was by the Lord overruled to bring about the most important event leading to man’s salvation. Let the wicked never forget that their unbelief, impenitence, profaneness, and persecution of the godly, all their sins of heart, of life, and of tongue, shall in spite of themselves bring honor to God, though it be at the fearful loss of their own souls. The wicked now hate God but they cannot defeat him. If they will not be vessels to honor, they shall be vessels to dishonor. If they refuse to be useful in a cheerful service, they shall be useful in their own destruction. Ezekiel 15:1-8; compare Psalms 76:10. 6. God will bring good out of evil, however atrocious it may be. This does not abate the guilt of those who work iniquity. There never was greater wickedness in any one act than in the treachery of Judas. Yet see what God has wrought thereby. His sin was foretold, and of course it was predetermined. Yet his accountability for his wickedness was unimpaired; for he acted freely in all he did. Men may clamorously assert—but they never can prove that the divine purpose infracts human agency, or impairs human obligation. Judas could not have had more liberty; therefore his guilt remained. That which was true of the betrayer was also true of the murderers of our Lord. The same reasoning applies to both. Acts 2:23; Acts 4:27-28. "It is astonishing that men do not see that the whole system of prophecy is a direct and full confutation of all objections, against the doctrine of predestination. The predicted events cannot possibly fail of accomplishment; they must either therefore be absolutely decreed by the all-wise God, or there must be some necessity which cannot be overcome even by the Deity himself. The first is Christian predestination, the latter is heathen fatalism; but neither interferes with man’s free agency or accountableness; for he still acts voluntarily, according to the prevailing inclinations of his heart." 7. So perfect is the providence of God over the hearts of all men that nothing is beyond his control. "The king’s heart is in the hand of the Lord, as the rivers of water—he turns it wherever he will." Proverbs 21:1. Man cannot even have a thought that is not foolish and futile, unless as the Lord strengthens him. 2 Corinthians 3:5. 8. Providence has so left things that the purest churches may have wicked members. The Lord has not granted the power of discerning spirits. Infallible evidence of love to Christ in our brethren is not attainable. A profession of piety accompanied by such evidence as an apparently consistent Christian life affords, is as much as we may demand. Our Lord knew Judas to be "a devil;" but his omniscience taught him this. Neither the profession nor outward life declared the baseness of the false disciple. So the Savior received him into the church, leaving us an example that we should follow his steps. Our Lord judged of the members of his church, not by what he as God knew of their hearts—but by their credible profession. He would not reject professors, who, in the judgment of charity, were honest. He practiced on the true rule. Let us seek no other. However painful our fears concerning the real characters of men, we must respect a credible profession of piety, not contradicted by a wicked life. 9. God has so arranged things that we ought to distinguish between personal and official character. If we do not, we will deceive, and be deceived. All official characters may be sustained without any real grace in the heart. Balaam’s prophecies were as true and as sublime as those of Moses or of Isaiah. So far as we know, Judas’ performance of the duties of his apostolic mission was as acceptable and as useful as that of a majority of his brethren. Even success in preaching is not proof of piety. It is the message, not the messenger; the truth preached, and not the man who utters it—which converts the soul. Piety is of infinite importance to every soul of man; but one who has no piety may yet do good. Neither the validity nor efficacy of ordinances depends upon the personal worthiness of the administrator. It would be very dangerous to teach that our acceptance in approaching God is rendered less certain by the hypocrisy of him who comes to us in Jehovah’s name. The Apostles expressly denied that it was by their own power or holiness that they wrought miracles. The efficacy and saving power of ordinances are from the Lord alone. As worthy partakers of the Lord’s Supper cannot be hindered by the insincerity of the administrator, so neither can the unworthy receiver secure the blessing by the piety of his minister. 10. The history of the world abounds with illustrations of this great principle in Providence—that however secret iniquity may be, it will ultimately find its way to the light. "Be sure your sin will find you out." Numbers 32:23; compare 2 Samuel 12:12; Matthew 10:26; Mark 4:22; Luke 8:17; Luke 12:2. 11. Sin kills the soul, and this according to the great laws of retribution. We see in Judas a fearful example of the terrible judgment of God against the wicked. As he loved cursing, so it came unto him—as he delighted not in blessing, so it was far from him. As he clothed himself with cursing like as with his garment, so it came into him like oil into his bones. Psalms 109:17-18. 12. Every society of ungodly men has in it the elements of dissolution and of self-torment. There is no love between the wicked which can stand the test of severe trial. As sin is weakness, so, in his providence, God continually proves its hollowness and insufficiency to bind men together in concord and usefulness. As soon as the traitor’s troubles came, his allies in sin cried, "What is that to us? See to that yourself." They never had any sympathy for him. They cruelly cast him off. Every sinner will at last esteem every other sinner and himself also a fool. III. Such a history and such a course of providence teach us many things important for us all to learn. Let us not suppose that we are naturally better than Judas. Let us ponder the paths of our feet. Let us take heed to our ways, lest we also come to a bad end. The lessons we may learn are such as these— When a man is once fairly started in a career of wickedness, it is impossible to tell where he will stop. God’s grace may arrest one in the maddest career, as it did Saul of Tarsus. But left to himself, man will dig into hell. The good providence of God mercifully restrains even the wicked, else existence on earth would not be desirable. Scenes of violence and blood, deeds of outrage and atrocity, words of hatred and blasphemy, and looks of fierceness and terror would appall us every hour—but that God lays his almighty hand upon the hearts of men and commands them to be still. Unrestrained, every heart would show its possessor, to be a monster of wickedness. Passions, which now he smothered, would, if let loose, rage and sweep everything before them. Natural affection, the voice of conscience, public opinion, regard to reputation, and fear of the law, are happily employed by providence to hold men back. Even in this life many a poor sinner has been affrighted at the lengths which he had gone in crime and debasement, and has cried out in sore amazement, "And have I come to this?" In the next world astonishment awaits all the impenitent. "When they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction comes upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape!" 1 Thessalonians 5:3. All men should especially beware of covetousness. "The love of money is the root of all evil—which while some coveted after, they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." 1 Timothy 6:10. Of the truth of this teaching Judas was a fearful witness. No tongue, no pen can describe the sorrows which rolled over his soul. When men are eagerly heaping up riches, they are doing work for bitter repentance in this world—or in that which is to come. Even on earth "the covetous man heaps up riches, not to enjoy them—but to have them; and starves himself in the midst of plenty; and most unnaturally cheats and robs himself of that which is his own; and is as poor and miserable with a great estate, as any man can be without it." Nor can he know who shall be the gainer by all his toils. "He heaps up riches, and knows not who shall gather them." Psalms 39:6. God has specially set himself to punish covetousness. It is idolatry. It is as true of this sin as of drunkenness, that in the end it bites like the serpent, and stings like the adder. Did men but know how bitter would be the end of transgression, they would at least pause before they plunge into all evil. Seneca said, "Malice drinks half its own poison." The same is true of all evil passions. The madness of men in rebelling against God is beyond belief. They delight in iniquity, they roll it as a sweet morsel under their tongue, they risk all for it, and they lose all by it. Their hearts are fully set in them to do evil. Oh! that men would hear the warning words of Richard Baxter, "Use sin as it will use you; spare it not, for it will not spare you; it is your murderer and the murderer of the world. Use it, therefore, as a murderer should be used. Kill it before it kills you; and though it kills your bodies, it shall not be able to kill your souls; and though it brings you to the grave, as it did your Head, it shall not be able to keep you there." James says, "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." James 1:15. Yet no man, without the grace of God, sees the evil of sin until it is too late. Folly is bound up in the soul of man, until God drives it away by the beams of the Sun of Righteousness. In Judas’ pretended regard for the poor, we see what foul wickedness may be covered with the most plausible pretenses. The same thing is seen in every age. By false names every virtue is depressed, and every vice exalted. Pascal says, "One of the greatest artifices the devil uses to engage men in vice and debauchery, is to fasten the names of contempt on certain virtues, and thus to fill weak souls with a foolish fear of passing for scrupulous should they desire to put them in practice." The man who beggars widows and orphans, and holds back the wages of the hireling, and lives by the distresses he brings on others, would gladly persuade himself and his neighbors that he is prudent. Indeed, any pretext will satisfy a blind, stupid conscience. The great concern of the masses is to justify themselves before men. They little regard the tribunal of God. Yet the investigations of the last day will tear off all false pretenses, and sweep away every refuge of lies. Nor should we forget that character may as well be learned from small things, as from great things. Judas’ petty larceny was as good an index to his character as his treason. A straw will show which way the wind blows. Human character is not made up of a few great acts—but of a multitude of little things. Every-day conduct shows the man. Great events, in which we are actors, will fearfully expose us, if in small affairs we are unable to behave well. The failure of our virtue on great occasions is but an announcement to the world that we have been habitually coming short in our more private behavior. It is also manifest that wicked men may for a long time appear well. To do so may cost them trouble—but may still be attainable. Through life they may have such a fear of exposure, and be so studious of appearances, as to deceive all around them. Suspicion may not even soil their fair name, and yet they may be in the gall of bitterness. Eschewing the vices of the debauched, they may practice the sins of devils. It is true that this class of transgressors have a hard task. They are always like one who has a rent in his garment, which he finds difficult to conceal. Truth is one and simple. Falsehood is multiform and complex. An honest blunderer is to be preferred before the most cunning knave on earth. A life of deception is full of hardship and uncertainty; and at its close, when amendment is impossible, the truth comes out, and in a moment damnation flashes in the face, and the poor soul enters on an existence full of misery. When God tears away the mask, disguise is no longer possible! And yet bad men might know the truth concerning themselves if they did not hate it. Judas well knew his own theft, yet he refused to consider it a sin to be repented of. He had before his mind the clear evidence of his own hypocrisy—but he was not disposed to give it its just weight. He hated the light, and did not come to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. When will men learn that concealment is not innocence? We may hide our sins from our own eyes—but until God casts them all behind his back they may rise up at any moment and overwhelm us. If men were not as unwise as they are wicked, they would not go to the bar of God with a lie in their right hand. How small a temptation to sin will at last prevail over a wicked mind. For less than twenty dollars, Judas sold his Lord and Master. Those temptations commonly esteemed great, are not the most sure to prevail. The ribaldry of the Philistines did not move Samson from his fidelity; but the blandishments of Delilah overcame him. Esau sold his birthright for a bowl of soup. Many a man consents to lose his soul for a quibble. Men may sin until the mere force of habit, without any apparent inducement, seems sufficient to impel them to great enormities. Nothing prepares a man for destruction faster than hypocrisy or formality, in actions of a religious nature. The three years which Judas spent in the family of our Lord probably exceeded all the rest of his life in ripening him for destruction. So many, so solemn, so impressive truths were presented to his mind, that he must have become very rapidly hardened. "I have peace-offerings with me; this day have I paid my vows," Proverbs 7:14, said one who was now ready for the worst deeds. The reason why, other things being equal, apostates are so much more wicked than others, is that they have learned how to resist all good influences. They have tried the remedy—but first learned to render it ineffectual. It is a small matter to be judged of man’s judgment. The judgment of God, it shall stand—it is righteous, it is always according to truth. Man judges of the heart by appearances. God judges of appearances by the heart, and he judges of the heart by itself. The tribunal, from which there lies no appeal, will reverse a vast number of the decisions made by the tribunals of earth. Public opinion often errs. Individual judgments are as often erroneous. If men condemn and God approves—all is well. But if men acquit and God condemns—all is lost. He who judges us is the Lord. The history of Judas shows us how man will cling to false hopes. Hypocrites hold fast their delusive expectations with the utmost tenacity. There is no evidence that during years of hypocrisy Judas ever seriously doubted his own piety. There were many sure marks, indeed, against him; but what does any hypocrite care for such evidence? His own blind confidence is to him more powerful than all the truths of God’s word. Because he is determined to believe his state to be good, nothing will convince him to the contrary. We have a full refutation of the objection made to a connection with the visible church, because there are wicked men in her communion. The apostles certainly knew that among them was one wicked man; but they did not therefore renounce their portion among Christ’s confessed friends. And Christ himself held fellowship with Judas just as if he were all he professed to be. So that if one certainly knew another to be an enemy of God, and yet could not prove it to the satisfaction of impartial church authorities, this should not debar him from the Lord’s table. If dogs will sometimes get the children’s bread, that is no reason why a table should not be spread for the children. In all our dealings with men, it is better to be sometimes imposed on, than to be of a suspicious temper. "With what judgment you judge, you shall be judged." Sometimes we must put ourselves in the power of others. To suspect every man will make us unhappy, and commonly prove us to be unworthy of confidence ourselves. Even a wise man of the world once said, "Always to think the worst, I have ever found to be the mark of a base spirit." How difficult it is to bring home truth to the deceitful heart of man. Hypocrites are slow to improve close, discriminating preaching. They desire not to look into their real characters. It was not until all the rest had inquired whether Christ referred to them in foretelling his betrayal, that Judas said, "Lord, is it I?" Thorough, impartial, frequent self-examination is not the characteristic of any who are at heart unsound. In fact, the reluctance of some to this duty is sad evidence against them. It costs them too much. Aversion to close, searching sermons is a bad mark in any man’s character. Such preaching often afflicts the righteous more than the wicked, though the latter are the most apt to be offended. When Christ had exposed the miserable hypocrisy of many who followed him, it is said, "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." John 6:66. They could not endure the truth. Yet Judas smothered up his feelings, and bore it all. He cared not so much for his feelings. He went after his covetousness. Nor could one do a wiser thing than to inquire whether he has better evidence of piety than the great traitor had during his apostleship. Judas could heal the sick, raise the dead, and cast out demons. He was first a disciple, and then an apostle of our Lord. He often heard Christ preach. He held the only office of trust among the apostles—the treasurer. His reputation for piety stood as fair as any man’s. His persuasion of his good state seems to have been so firm, that he hardly felt inclined to look into the grounds of his hopes. He was not a drunkard, nor a swearer. He was not a faultfinding hearer of the Gospel. Without a murmur he bore all the fatigue of his apostolic mission. He was not an envious man beyond others. He was not a slanderer, a reviler, a backbiter, a whisperer. He displayed no inordinate ambition. He was not a brawler, nor a violent and outrageous man. And yet he was not a child of God. Mere negative goodness, mere freedom from open vice—proves no man an heir of glory. It is true there was sufficient evidence against Judas—but he willingly overlooked that. If many men had as good evidence against their enemies or their neighbors, as they have against themselves, they would speedily pronounce them hypocrites. The case of Judas discloses the uselessness of that sorrow of the world which works death, has no hope in it, and drives the soul to madness. It is not desperation—but penitence, that God requires. Regrets without hatred of sin are useless, both on earth and in hell. They avail nothing in time, nothing in eternity. When it is said Judas repented, the word translated, repented, is not the word used by inspired writers to express godly sorrow, or saving repentance. There is much sorrow that does but prepare men for other and more dreadful deeds. God’s judgments are still abroad in the earth. Of all judgments, those which are spiritual should most alarm us. To have eyes and not see, to have ears and not hear, to have hearts and not understand, to hold the truth in unrighteousness, to be forsaken of God, to be given over to believe a lie—these are among the direst curses that fall on men in this world and they are sure forerunners of God’s sorest plagues in the world to come. And how fearful must it be to fall into the hands of the living God, when on earth a drop of his wrath will make men choose hanging rather than life. And how dismal must be the prospects of all who die in their sins, when they shall have for their companions Judas and all evil-minded men, the devil and his angels. The society of the damned, is great incentive for earnestly fleeing from the wrath to come. The doctrine of universal salvation has no warrant in Scripture. It is disproven by many express declarations, and by many fair and necessary inferences. It is disproven by the case of Judas. If, after many thousand years of suffering, he shall rise to everlasting happiness in the skies, it will be good for him that he was born. Eternal happiness far outweighs all temporal suffering, however protracted. Any existence which terminates in eternal glory will prove a blessing beyond all computation. All temporal suffering can be gauged. But who can fathom the sea of love, the ocean of bliss, made sure to all believers? And eternal misery is as dreadful—as eternal glory is delightful. Oh! how fearful must be the doom of the incorrigibly wicked, when in their case existence itself ceases to be desirable, or even tolerable! It is true of everyone who dies without repentance toward God, and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, that it had been good for that man if he had not been born. "Woe to that man by whom the Son of Man is betrayed! It would have been better for that man if he had not been born." Matthew 26:24 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 22: 02.09. THE MYSTERIES OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE ======================================================================== THE MYSTERIES OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE "When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me." Psalms 73:16 Providence is a greater mystery than revelation. The state of the world is more humiliating to our reason than the doctrines of the gospel. A reflecting Christian sees more to excite his astonishment, and to exercise his faith, in the state of things in this world—than in what he reads from Genesis to Revelation. (Cecil.) God act according to rules of wisdom and justice, which it may be quite impossible by our faculties to apprehend, or understand. (Barrow.) There is, and ever was somewhat, very much, in God’s providential administration of the things of this world, which the most improved reason of men cannot reach unto, and which is contrary to all that is in us, as merely men. (John Owen.) The book of Providence is inextricable and unintelligible to the wisest of men, who are not governed by the word of God. But when the principles of Scripture are admitted and understood, they throw a pleasing light upon the study of Divine Providence, and at the same time are confirmed and illustrated by it. (John Newton.) As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Jehovah.) No subject has more perplexed godly men, than the dark aspects of Providence. Jeremiah was humble and very tender-hearted, yet he says, "Why are the wicked so prosperous? Why are evil people so happy?" This pious, humble servant of God was sore perplexed. Indeed the Scriptures everywhere admit that God’s ways are unsearchable. "Your judgments are a great deep." Psalms 36:6. "Your way is in the sea, and your path in the great waters, and your footsteps are not known." Psalms 77:19. "Marvelous are your works." Psalms 139:14. Even in heaven itself; glorified ones sing, "Great and marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty." Revelation 15:3. So that inspiration itself everywhere covers the eternal throne with clouds and darkness, and admits that acts of providence are veiled in mystery. Wonders will never cease. Heaven is full of mysteries, though none of them are painful—but all of them glorious. Let us look at several things which must ever make the providence of God mysterious to pious men in this world. 1. God’s ways of working are infinitely diversified, even in the midst of a general uniformity. He saves or he destroys in any way he pleases, by the strong, or by the weak; by friend or by foe; when danger is seen, and when it is unseen. He sends an army of men, or an army of caterpillars to punish a guilty nation. In either case the work is done. He shakes a leaf, or sends an earthquake, and each does its errand. God is confined to no routine. He knows and commands all causes, all agents, all truths, all errors, all influences, and all oppositions. At a nod he makes the great, small; or the small, great. No mortal can tell which of two causes is the greater, until he sees what God will make of them. Men and causes are considerable or contemptible according to the fiat of Jehovah. That which to us sometimes seems like confusion, is in fact all order. In the seventy-third Psalm, Asaph tells us at length of his deep and terrible perplexity when looking at the ways of God. Coming to a knowledge of his own ignorance, and of the infinite glory of God, his troubles vanish; and he concludes his sorrowful meditations with the exultant assurance, "Whom have I in heaven but you? and there is none upon earth that I desire beside you. My flesh and my heart fails—but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever." 2. For many things in providence we can give no account, except that so it seemed good to the Judge of all the earth. Who can tell why bloody Nero was left to ruin by his passions, and Saul of Tarsus, no less bloody, was saved? Why was repentance granted to one thief on the cross, while the other died a blasphemer? The mercies received by any man are wholly undeserved. No man merits any good thing at the hand of his Maker. Yet all receive many mercies, and some are blessed with all spiritual blessings in Christ Jesus. On the other hand, why is one man more afflicted than another? All our afflictions are deserved, yes, they are always fewer than we deserve. Indeed the wonder is we suffer so little. But the whole doctrine of divine judgments is of difficult interpretation, when we come to individual cases. McCosh says, "It is comparatively seldom that we have such a minute acquaintance with every event in the past life of a neighbor, as to be able to determine the precise end contemplated in any visitation of God towards him. In some cases, indeed, the connection is manifest to the man’s intimate friend, or to the world at large, as when intemperance and excess lead to poverty and disease, and cunning leads to distrust, and is caught in the net which it laid for others. In other cases, the connection is only visible to the individual himself, or his most intimate friends. In all cases, it is easier to determine the meaning of the judgments of God in reference to ourselves, than in their reference to others, when they are exposed to them. Being ourselves acquainted with all the incidents of our past life, we may trace a connection between deeds which we have done, and trials sent upon us—a connection which no other is intended to perceive, or so much as to suspect. While affliction can in no case prove the existence of sin not otherwise established, yet it may be the means of leading the person afflicted to inquire; whether he may not in his past life have committed some sin, of which this is the punishment or cure. Here, as in many other cases, the rule is to be strict in judging ourselves and slow in judging others." 3. The absence of pomp and parade in God’s providence, has struck many. How noiseless are most of his doings. When in spring Jehovah would reanimate all nature, bring into activity myriads of insects, give growth to millions of seeds, and clothe mountains and valleys in living green—it is all a silent work. When he would subvert a universal monarchy, long before the time set for that purpose, he puts it into the heart of a great ruler to build a bridge, and for that purpose to change the channel of a river for a season. This is all done without signs in heaven, or war in the elements. In the fullness of time the same river is, by means the simplest, diverted from its channel. Belshazzar is slain, Babylon is a prey to the invader, and a universal empire is dissolved. Commonly when God depopulates cities and kingdoms, his messengers pass silently along, and do their work before men are aware. There was no noise of preparation for the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. The morning of their eternal overthrow was as calm as any on which the sun had risen upon them. The destroying angel, who slew the first-born of Egypt, spread his mighty wings over the land, and from them dropped down death on every habitation of man and beast. Yet all was quiet as the grave, until the wail of bereavement filled the land with terror. God makes a world with less noise than that produced by man when he makes a coffin. When Jehovah spread out the heavens and set up their unshaken pillars, there was not so much as the sound of a hammer. When on our best railroads we travel at the rate of sixty miles an hour, the rumbling noise is heard afar, the sight of our speed is startling to every spectator, and we cannot divest ourselves of apprehension. But ever since we were born we have been riding on a world moved by God at the rate of more than sixty-two thousand miles every hour. And yet who has been afraid? Who has heard any startling sound? This is the more wonderful because the motion of the earth is not simple, but complex. Yet in the midst of all this speed we can hear the chirping of a bird, or the dropping of a pin. But when God chooses, he can make our ears to tingle. By the shaking of a leaf he can startle us, or make us rise up with alarming sounds. "The thunder of his power who can understand?" When he shall destroy the world it shall be with sounds that shall awake the dead. "The heavens shall pass away with a great noise." When God chooses to be heard, even the mountains give ear and obey his voice. At his rebuke he dries up the sea, and makes the river a wilderness. Yet, ordinarily, his footsteps are not heard, and his voice is but the silent going forth of his almighty energy. 4. In his mysterious providence God also hides his works and ways from man by commonly removing results far from human view. In autumn the farmer scatters his wheat and buries it under the ground. It dies. Search and you shall find it rotten. The rigors of a long winter are approaching. The unskilled would say this sowing of seed was madness. It was casting bread upon the waters. But wait until summer, and that farmer shall shout his harvest home. What thus occurs in the natural world is a type of spiritual things. "They who sow in tears shall reap in joy. He who goes forth and weeps, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." Much as the blessed result is hoped for, it is not perceived by any mortal. None but God sees the end from the beginning. Whom he would bless, he first puts to the test of patient waiting. If the righteous should see the happy outcome of all that befalls them—as it lies open before God—their afflictions would be no trials. Had Abraham known that all God would require of him would be to bind Isaac and lay him on the altar, we never would have heard of the illustrious faith of the father of believers. Jacob once cried out, "Joseph is not, and Simeon is not, and you will take Benjamin away. All these things are against me!" He lived to see that all these things were for him. But at the time of his bereavement he saw not the blessed end, and so his virtue was severely tested. If on the day of crucifixion, as on the day of Pentecost, the disciples had clearly perceived the results of that scene of terror, the Shepherd might have been smitten—but the sheep would hardly have been scattered. And it is as true of the wicked as of the righteous—that they cannot foresee results; they cannot tell what God is about to do. None are more surprised than the wicked at the conclusion of things under God’s control. The sinner intends—but God superintends. The creature appoints—but God disappoints. Man proposes—but God disposes. Lazarus was filled with wonder to find himself in Abraham’s bosom—but Dives was sorely amazed to find himself in hell. Neither Pharaoh, nor Belshazzar, nor Herod, nor Pilate, expected such results to themselves as their wickedness wrought out. "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." The wicked have the hope of heaven, in the midst of all iniquity and unbelief. How sorely will their souls be vexed when they find themselves eternally, hopelessly disappointed. 5. God’s ways respecting means are very remarkable. So far as we can see, he often works without means. Perceiving no causes in operation, we expect no effects. Seeing no disease, we expect no death. Not perceiving any cause for a certain trial—it finds us unprovided with remedies, and we are ready to be swallowed up. As we begin to give up all hope, God steps in and relieves us. When he chooses, he dispenses with all means. He did so when he made the world. He has often done so since. "I will have mercy upon the house of Judah, and will save them by the Lord their God, and will not save them by bow nor by sword, nor by battle, nor by horses, nor by horsemen." Hosea 1:7. Again, God often works by means, which seem to us INSIGNIFICANT. Burke, "The death of a man at a critical juncture, his disgust, his retreat, his disgrace—have brought innumerable evils on a whole nation. A common soldier, a child, a girl at the door of an inn—have changed the face of fortune, and almost the face of nature." Wellington, "The stumbling of a horse may decide the outcome of a battle—and so the destinies of an empire!" Will God save Rome from pillage? It shall be done by the cackling of geese. Has a man’s appointed time upon earth expired? The sting of a bee, the scratch of a pin, a crumb of bread, or a spring zephyr—shall be the means of his death! Will God prolong the life of Hezekiah? A lump of figs shall have healing efficacy. Will he raise up a wonderful nation? It shall be from a man, whose body was dead, he being about a hundred years old, and the womb of his wife dead also. Romans 4:19. Moreover God often works CONTRARY to means. How much bad practice in medicine does he provide against, and thus restore the patient! How many blunders in his ministers does he overrule for good! Christ would give sight to a blind man. He makes clay, puts it on his eyes as if to make him more blind—but he is healed. A terrible fall dislocates a joint. The bone is not put rightly back into its place. Years of lameness and suffering follow. A second fall, worse than the first, jars the frame, jeopardizes life—but restores the bone to its socket, and soon the man walks and leaps and praises God. By death, God destroyed him that had the power of death. God often works contrary to the natural tendency of means. 5. God also employs such instruments as greatly confound us. Our ignorance and unbelief would choose those instruments which God rejects; and reject those instruments which he selects. Will he cure Naaman’s leprosy? A little captive maid shall tell him of the prophet of the Lord. Will he lead forth Israel from Egyptian bondage? That little infant in a basket among the reeds, by edict doomed to death as soon as born, shall be the deliverer. Will he make Joseph prime minister of Egypt? His brethren envy and sell him, the Ishmaelites carry him far from all loved ones, Potiphar imprisons him, the iron enters into his flesh; yet in God’s providence every step is ordained to the destined result. How often are those whom we never befriended made to minister to our aid and comfort! Must God’s people be brought out of Babylon? Cyrus shall send forth the binding decree. This worshiper of the sun deals as tenderly with God’s people as a nurse with her child. It would not have been more wonderful to see the wolf nourishing and protecting a lamb. Who would have supposed that God would choose a raven to feed Elijah, the boy Samuel to bear heavy tidings to Eli, or the youth Jeremiah to pull down, destroy and build up kingdoms? God would exalt his Son and give him a name, which is above every name. He is made flesh, born in a manger, is subject to his parents, is tempted, mocked, spit upon, betrayed, denied, condemned, crucified, dead and buried—yet all ends in his exaltation. He, who made swaddling bands for the sea, was laid in swaddling clothes, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. By falling he arose above all his enemies, above all the creatures of God. Will God bring the gospel to the ends of the world? It shall not be done by the ministry of angels—but to the poor, condemned, and dying—the riches of his mercy shall be borne in earthen vessels. Will God subdue the world to knowledge, to peace and righteousness? Humble men shall be his ambassadors. Will he make of his people a glorious church? "Brothers, consider your calling: not many are wise from a human perspective, not many powerful, not many of noble birth. Instead, God has chosen the world’s foolish things to shame the wise, and God has chosen the world’s weak things to shame the strong. God has chosen the world’s insignificant and despised things—the things viewed as nothing—so He might bring to nothing the things that are viewed as something, so that no one can boast in His presence." 1 Corinthians 1:26-29 Look at that godly man surrounded by an infuriated throng. Each one gnashes with his teeth and is intense for his prey. At the giving of the signal, stone follows stone. Gash after gash is made on the body of the pious sufferer. The blood streams from his head and body. Near by him stands a small young man, drinking in with malignant joy the groans that fall from the martyr’s lips. Like a young tiger, hitherto fed on milk—but now tasting blood, he becomes furious against all who call on the name of Jesus. He breathes out threatenings and slaughter. He sheds innocent blood without remorse and without cessation. Who would believe that this persecutor was the chosen of God, and should yet, with unparalleled zeal and incredible success, preach Jesus, call sinners to repentance, and give joy and courage to the trembling disciples? Yet such was God’s plan—and it was all executed. God is a sovereign. His counsel shall stand. He will do all his pleasure. He rejected all the seven elder sons of Jesse, and chose the little boy, David, who had been left with the sheep, and made him king of his people, and the sweet singer of Israel. "Man looks on the outward appearance—but the Lord looks on the heart." Most of the great, useful, and honored men of the next generation are now poor boys, unnoticed by the proud, buffeting difficulties, and forming vigorous characters under the influence of neglect and adversity. Matthew Henry says, "The most splendid women the world ever saw, have been those who were most familiar with toil and care." 7. We often tremble to see God pursuing a course which, to our short sight, seems quite contrary to the end to be gained. This is for two purposes. The first is to humble us and thus prepare us for the reception of his great blessings. The other is to prove that "besides him there is no Savior." When mountains and waters and cruel Egyptians hedged in the Israelites on every side, and it was manifest that "in vain was the help of man!" Then came the word, "Stand still and see the salvation of God," and the sea was cleft in two, and its waves became walls. "In the mount it shall be seen" is for a saying in Israel. Even the gospel was not sent until men had racked their inventions, and were at their wit’s end. "For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not know him, God was pleased through the foolishness of what was preached to save those who believe." Everything in its order. When wit has shown its weakness—then God’s word comes in, and speaks wisdom. When human powers fall prostrate, divine energy produces the desired results. The mysteries of providence are very vast. No created mind can fathom them. Let us dwell on the subject a little further, in the order already observed. 8. Men are so ignorant of their own hearts that they are incapable of determining what is best for them. Even regenerate men are but partially sanctified and enlightened. But God searches the heart. He understands our whole case. He knows what is most for our good. He sees our strong corruptions and sad deficiencies. When, in mercy to His child, he comes to heal his spiritual maladies, he does not take counsel with human reasoning or desires. It is right, it is best that he should act according to the wisdom which is infallible. He employs the requisite remedies. Often they are distasteful to flesh and blood. Sometimes they are frightful to contemplate and terrible to endure. Then man, in his ignorance, too often says, "If God loved me, he would not give me so bitter a cup to drink!" But this is man’s folly. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Shall human weakness control divine power? Shall finite knowledge prescribe to omniscience? It is the height of wickedness for a worm of the dust to revise the decisions, or pre-judge the justice of the Almighty. We should expect that God would deal with us, in an incomprehensible way—if we did but remember how base, sordid, and narrow are our views and plans; and how holy, glorious, and eternal are his purposes and designs. We are quite prone to magnify both the good and evil things of time, to the disparagement of those of eternity. But when God thwarts, afflicts, and mortifies us—he makes us look at the things which are unseen and eternal. If he racks this body with pain, it is that we may think of our house, not made with hands, eternal, and in the heavens. The shaking of this clay tabernacle forces upon us the recollection that this is not our rest, and that we ought to be seeking a heavenly country. If the godliest man on earth had his own way without divine guidance—he would soon be in full march towards destruction! How kind is God in wisely and mercifully deciding so many things for us! The man who fears God and loves his little daughter, would esteem it a greater affliction to be called on to say when his child should be sick—than he now finds it to nurse her through weeks of disease, close her eyes in death, and then carry her to the grave. God very mercifully bears the heaviest part of all our trials, by marking out our course for us. God is governor. We are servants. To us belong obedience, submission, acquiescence. It is not ours to guide, to decide what is best, to rule the world, to shape the course of events. 9. It is very remarkable that God so strangely upholds his people, and keeps them from falling into sin. How often are their feet ready to slip—and yet how commonly are they upheld. The wonder is that they do not fall every day. But the promise even concerning the weak among them is that they shall be held up, for God is able to make them stand. True, his grace is secretly supplied, and that is their support. But his providence often hedges them about, surrounds them with motives to right conduct, sends seasonable hints and warnings, points out the wretchedness of transgression, and so holds them up. "The deliverances of God’s people," says Flavel, "are often as remote from their expectations, as from the designs of their enemies." "Hold me up, and I shall be safe!" Psalms 119:117 10. To some God’s providence is full of mystery, because at times he works so slowly, and at other times he works so rapidly. Sometimes he takes scores and even hundreds of years to effect a purpose. Again he cuts short the work in righteousness. From the day that Joseph is sold to the Ishmaelites until he and his brethren are reconciled are four and twenty long years, while in less than twenty-four hours, Daniel is delivered from the lions’ den and from the fearful conspiracy against him. The Babylonish captivity lasts seventy years, and yet probably in less than seventy minutes, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego are brought out of the burning fiery furnace unhurt. "My times are with you, O God." God takes his own time and is never in a hurry, and is never slack as some men account these things. One day is with the Lord as a thousand years and a thousand years as one day. 11. Hardly anything in Providence is more incomprehensible than the lengths to which God often permits men to go in the way of transgression before he brings them to a saving knowledge of Christ Jesus. Yonder goes a funeral procession. A large and respectable church is burying one of its most valued members. He has lately departed this life in the triumphs of faith. His death was preceded by months of painful sickness, which was borne with sweet submission to God’s will. This sickness was preceded by more than a dozen years of close, humble walking with God, as the fruit of a clear conversion. But that conversion was preceded by more than a dozen years of shocking intemperance and profaneness, during which promises were made, pledges given, and oaths taken that the cup of poison should be laid aside—but all in vain. A voyage to sea was alike ineffectual. So desperate was that man’s state of mind that he often said, "If I could see the world wrapped in flames, I would clap my hands for joy." At length he determined on self-destruction. The deadly poison is procured. The vial is emptied—but the stomach refuses to retain it. Life is prolonged. At last he resolves to pray for strength to overcome his dreadful sin. His prayer is heard. This leads him to pray for other things. The result is his salvation. Nor was this a solitary case. Some of the converted members of the church at Corinth had been sexually immoral people, idolaters, adulterers, male prostitutes, homosexuals, thieves, greedy people, drunkards, revilers, or swindlers. Nor were they the only ones, whose state was debased before their conversion. The whole church at Ephesus was made up of those who had been "once darkness," but by their happy change were now "light in the Lord." In countries but recently enlightened by the Gospel are found in the churches many, who once sacrificed their children to devils. 12. Four things in God’s providential dealings which we are not able to grapple with. (From John Owen) 1. Visible confusion. The oppression of tyrants, wasting of nations, destruction of men and animals, fury and desolations—make up the things of the past and present ages. Also, the greatest and choicest parts of the earth, in the meantime are inhabited by those who know not God, who hate him, who fill and replenish the world with habitations of cruelty, sporting themselves in mischief, like the leviathan in the sea, etc. 2. Unspeakable variety. Instance the case of the saints. In what unspeakable variety are they dealt with! Some under persecution always, some always at peace, some in dungeons and prisons, some at liberty in their own houses; the saints of one nation under great oppression for many ages, of another in quietness; in the same places some poor, in great distress, and put hard to it to gain their bread all their lives; others abounding in all things; some full of various afflictions, going softly and mourning all their days; others spared and scarce touched with the rod at all; and yet commonly the advantage of holiness, and close walking with God, lying on the distressed side, etc. 3. Sudden alterations. As in the case of Job, God takes a man who was blessed with choice blessings, in the midst of a course of obedience and close walking with himself, when he expected to die in his nest, and to see good all his days—ruins him in a moment; blasts his name, that he who was esteemed a choice saint, shall not be able to deliver himself from the common esteem of the hypocrite; slays his children; takes away his rest, health, and everything that is desirable to him. This amazes the soul, it knows not what God is doing, nor why he pleads with it in so much bitterness, etc. 4. Great, deep, and abiding distresses have the same effects, etc. 13. Nothing in providence is more inscrutable than the ever new discoveries and evolutions of the grace and wisdom of God towards his people. "He who spared not his own Son—but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32. In one of his epistles (Titus 3:4) Paul speaks of the philanthropy of God, in the English properly rendered, love toward man. "After that the kindness and love of God toward man appeared," etc. The same word occurs in the New Testament but in one other place, Acts 28:2, where it is said, "The barbarous people showed us no little kindness." Their philanthropy consisted in kindling a fire and in hospitably receiving each of the sufferers from the rain and cold. If such philanthropy as this is worthy of mention in the Book of God, surely the philanthropy of Jehovah in rescuing sinners from everlasting misery by the gift of his Son should never be forgotten while eternity endures. The Bible tells us that God’s love is from everlasting to everlasting, that it is vastly productive of glory to God and salvation to man, that it is wholly gracious—but it never claims to do the subject justice. Jesus himself says, "God so loved the world," John 3:16, and the beloved disciple exclaims, "Behold what manner of love." 1 John 3:1. But neither the Master nor the beloved disciple can tell us the full meaning of the word, so, or of the phrase, what manner. The love of no mother is equal to the love of the Savior, Isaiah 49:15, and its developments and evolutions will be more and more glorious forever and ever. 14. Nor is all this strange if we duly consider that—God’s providence is the acting out of his infinite perfections. Neither man nor angel comprehends the infinitude of his resources, the infallibility of his truth, the glory of his holiness, the power of his wrath, the fearfulness of his praises. He works like a God. His whole plans are on a scale so entirely above the comprehension of creatures, that angels no less than pious men, wonder and worship. 15. Nor can any creature ever make straight that which is crooked, nor smooth that which is rough, nor light that which is dark. Who can comprehend the inequality of the circumstances of mortals? Why are some men poor—while others no more virtuous are rich? Why are some feeble—while others are strong? Why are some unfortunate in almost every enterprise—while others hardly touch anything that does not seem to enhance their earthly comfort? Job saw these things, "The tents of robbers are safe, and those who provoke God are secure. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? The life of every living thing is in His hand, as well as the breath of all mankind." 16. Another thing that must invest the providence of God with perpetual mystery to mortals is the fact that all the mightiest agencies in the universe are invisible. No man has seen God at any time. No man can see his face and live. "When he passes me, I cannot see him; when he goes by, I cannot perceive him." "But if I go to the east, he is not there; if I go to the west, I do not find him. 9 When he is at work in the north, I do not see him; when he turns to the south, I catch no glimpse of him." Job 9:11; Job 23:8-9. So likewise the agency of angels has almost always been beyond our perception, except by its effects. They excel in strength. One of them destroyed an army of one hundred and eighty-five thousand men in one night. Yet no one perceived him. In like manner, the evil influence of fallen angels is not observed. Thus the whole power of thrones, dominions and principalities pertaining to the invisible world eludes the grasp of our senses; yet nothing to an equal extent operates on this world. "Wisdom and strength belong to God; counsel and understanding are His. Whatever He tears down cannot be rebuilt; whoever He imprisons cannot be released. When He withholds the waters, everything dries up, and when He releases them, they destroy the land. True wisdom and power belong to Him. The deceived and the deceiver are His. He leads counselors away barefoot and makes judges go mad. He releases the bonds put on by kings and ties a cloth around their waists. He leads priests away barefoot and overthrows established leaders. He deprives trusted advisers of speech and takes away the elders’ good judgment. He pours out contempt on nobles and disarms the strong. He reveals mysteries from the darkness and brings the deepest darkness into the light. He makes nations great, then destroys them; He enlarges nations, then leads them away. He deprives the world’s leaders of reason, and makes them wander in a trackless wasteland. They grope around in darkness without light—He makes them stagger like drunken men." Job 12:13-25 These are but a few of the just and sublime statements of the man of Uz, respecting the undeniable mysteries connected with the invisible agency of the Lord Almighty. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 23: 02.10. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE MYSTERIES OF GOD'S PROVIDENCE ======================================================================== PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE MYSTERIES OF GOD’S PROVIDENCE I. Let not the wicked infer that a change will never come. Among some of the ancients, the emblem of justice was an old man, strong but lame, with a sharp sword, proceeding slowly to his work. "May the Lord bring their flattery to an end and silence their proud tongues. They say, "We will lie to our hearts’ content. Our lips are our own—who can stop us?" The Lord replies, "I have seen violence done to the helpless, and I have heard the groans of the poor. Now I will rise up to rescue them, as they have longed for me to do." Psalms 12:3-5. The Lord will not always chide his people, neither will he always let the wicked go unpunished. He sees that their day is coming. The wonder is that they do not see it also. II. Let us not judge the Lord at all, but let us judge this—that we are very ignorant and foolish, and that if we would be wise, we must listen, and study, and learn our lessons from the infallible Teacher. If we will not be candid and diligent students of God’s word and providence, we must live and die without wisdom. Oh that every man knew that he himself is a fool—and that Jehovah alone is God. We are indeed poor judges of what is best. We cannot see afar off. Not a single event of Providence is completed. We know but in part. How can we competently decide upon the whole by the little fragments we possess? An axe by itself, and the saw by itself, are alike useless to the woodman; but properly unite them, and the monarch of the forest soon bows his majestic head before him who wields this little instrument. Man’s glory is not the ultimate end of any of the divine proceedings. All things are made for the pleasure and the glory of him who has called us into being, and governs us with his almighty hand. III. Let us possess our souls in patience. Were we required to govern the world with our present darkness of mind, we might well despair. But as our duty is not to rule but to submit. What we need is a quiet mind to stand and adoringly view the majesty and government of him who works all things after the counsel of his own will. Promises do you need? Here they are— "As your days, so shall your strength be." "Trust in the Lord, and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed." "Delight yourself also in the Lord, and he shall give you the desires of your heart." "Commit your way unto the Lord; trust also in him, and he shall bring it to pass." "Rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him." "I will make you my wife forever, showing you righteousness and justice, unfailing love and compassion. I will be faithful to you and make you mine." "I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her." "I will be as the dew unto Israel." "The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Lean on these promises—and hope to the end. IV. Let us rejoice in hope of God’s glory. It is coming. It is surely coming. All the combinations of the wicked cannot hinder it. We shall see it, only let us believe. We may shout the victor’s song, even here. God shall be glorified, and we shall see him honored. If we are truly his, we shall be honored with him. Come, O long-expected Deliverer, come to be admired in all your saints. Pious soul, do you need encouragement to hope? You have it, "Fear not those things, which you shall suffer." "He who endures to the end—shall be saved." "Father, I will that they whom you have given me, be with me that they may behold my glory." O pilgrim of the narrow way! Rejoice, for your redemption draws near. V. Let us never arrogantly claim to understand the counsels of the Most High God. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are God’s ways higher than our ways, and God’s thoughts than our thoughts." "The secret things belong to the Lord our God." Clearly the finite can never comprehend the infinite. Yet, VI. Let us study and observe the ways of the Almighty. "Who is wise? He will realize these things. Who is discerning? He will understand them. The ways of the Lord are right; the righteous walk in them, but the rebellious stumble in them." Hosea 14:9. Though we cannot grasp the heavens, yet we may look up to them, and see some of the wonders they reveal, and learn at least our own nothingness. "The fainter our light is, the more intent we should be in looking; the knottier the subject, the more earnest should be our study on it." Yet as a jury, in a criminal cause, may receive impressions in the progress of the trial—but should feel bound to suspend judgment until the whole facts of the case are submitted; so nothing can warrant us in pronouncing upon the ways of God until we either see them finished, or understand their import by a revelation from himself. VII. Let us be very careful to guard both against presumption and despair; against presumption, in venturing to make our calculations on things not revealed; against despair, into which we may be led by supposing that we already see the end from the beginning. The darkest hour is just before day. VIII. Meditation on God’s providence "should prevent our taking offence, or being discontented at any events rising up before us; for to be displeased at that, which a superior wisdom, unsearchable to us, does order—is to be displeased at we know not what, or why—which is childish weakness. To fret and wail at that which, for all we can see, proceeded from good intention, and tends to a good outcome, is pitiful frowardness." IX. Let us embrace that mystery of mysteries—the Cross of Christ. He that will reject all mysteries must reject salvation. Let us not cavil—but believe. Wisely did Sir Humphrey Davy say, "If I would choose what would be most delightful, and I believe most useful to me—I would prefer a firm Christian belief to every other blessing." And the great Teacher, who shall also be our final judge, said, "Whoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall never enter therein." Will you humbly believe the Gospel? Will you renounce your self-will, your self-sufficiency and your self-righteousness? Well does Mr. Locke say, "Pride of opinion, and arrogance of spirit, are entirely opposed to the humility of true science." Surely then they are opposed to true religion, which has for its basis the sublimest of all knowledge. Will you bow down your haughty spirit and be saved from wrath—by the blood and righteousness of the humblest, meekest and most mysterious sufferer the world ever saw? Oh that you would now be wise! You have but one lifetime, and that will soon be gone. Time flies—Heaven invites—Jesus calls—the Spirit strives—conscience warns—angels wait for your conversion—devils seek your ruin—hell threatens—death approaches—eternity is at the door—the judgment is coming. O humble yourself and believe the Gospel. Believe it Now, Now, NOW. "A point of time, a moment’s space, Removes you to yon heavenly place, Or shuts you up in hell." He who rejects the mystery of providence must ever be in perplexity. But he, who rejects the mystery of the cross—must lie down in eternal sorrow. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 24: 02.11. THE SPECIAL KINDNESS OF PROVIDENCE TOWARDS GODLY MEN ======================================================================== THE SPECIAL KINDNESS OF PROVIDENCE TOWARDS GODLY MEN God is unrighteous to none. Yes, he is good to all men—but he shows distinguishing kindness to his people. His sun shines upon both the just and upon the unjust; and he sends rain and fruitful seasons on both the godly and the unthankful. Yet the secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. He governs the incorrigibly wicked, though not in covenant love. Their preservations are reservations for damnation. 2 Peter 2:9-17. But the life of the righteous is by the Lord mercifully controlled. It is ordered in a manner as kind as it is wise. It is so directed that he and all men shall at last see and say that God is glorified and the eternal good of the believer promoted. We should expect no less. Surely God will not treat friends and foes alike. He never confounds moral distinctions. He is the preserver of all men, "especially of those who believe." "The Lord loves the righteous . . . but the way of the wicked he turns upside down." Psalms 146:8-9. "All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep his covenant and his testimonies." Psalms 25:10. It does not impair the doctrine of a kind and special providence towards the righteous, that they are often involved in the same troubling events with the wicked. This often occurs, as inspired writers admit. "The same destiny ultimately awaits everyone, whether they are righteous or wicked, good or bad, ceremonially clean or unclean, religious or irreligious. Good people receive the same treatment as sinners, and people who take oaths are treated like people who don’t." Ecclesiastes 9:2. A pious wife shares with her wicked husband the poverty and misery which his vices bring on them. An invading army overwhelms saints and sinners, with evils which are common to all. The event is the same; but the design, uses and effects are quite different. The purpose of God in afflicting his real people is to make them more useful, more humble, and in the end more glorious. His design in afflicting incorrigible foes is to punish them for their sins, show his wrath, and make them examples of his fearsome justice, as they have been the thankless receivers of countless mercies. So also prosperity awakens the gratitude and refines the feelings of the pious man—but hardens the heart of his wicked neighbor. Thus the prosperity of fools destroys them. Nor is it a valid objection to the doctrine of a special kind providence over godly men—that they are often more afflicted than the wicked. First, though "many are the afflictions of the righteous, yet the Lord delivers him out of them all." They do not perish in their affliction. Secondly, When godly men are "chastened of the Lord, it is that they may not be condemned with the world." Thirdly, A wise father gives far higher proof of strong and continued love to his child by correcting him than by indulging him, or giving him over to his own follies. Our Father "scourges every son whom he receives." Fourthly, All the godly confess that to them, even in this life, nothing is more pleasant than the effects of sanctified afflictions; while it is to be lamented that those who lie soft and warm in a rich estate, seldom care to heat themselves at the altar. "No creature can be a substitute for God—but God can be a substitute for every creature." "When we see the peaceable fruits of righteousness, as they hang from the bough of chastisement—we thank God that he ever planted that bitter root in our garden." Fifthly, By the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. "Those the Lord means to make the most resplendent, he has oftenest his tools upon." Sixthly, If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him, and all our sorrows shall be found unto praise, and honor, and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ. So that nothing is more to the advancement of the solid good of the saints in time and eternity than those things which grieve them most. On the other hand the triumph of the wicked is short, their mirth is vain, and it will soon be followed by damnation—a destruction worse than annihilation. Job 20:5; Ecclesiastes 7:6; Psalms 37:35-37; 2 Thessalonians 1:9. Even in this world the judgments, which overtake the wicked are very dreadful. Genesis 4:13; 1 Samuel 31:4; 2 Chronicles 26:19-20; Acts 1:18; Acts 12:23. But we should be very careful not to misinterpret the leadings of Providence. No doubt Lot thought that God’s providence pointed him to Sodom; but he was sadly mistaken. It was the well watered land of the plain that misled him. David knew that God’s putting Saul into his power was no opening for murder. It should be stated, however, that it is not the mere event—but the act of Providence explained by the word of God, which is so beneficial to Christians. Scripture and Providence, like the cherubim over the mercy seat, look toward each other and reflect light upon each other. "The word without Providence is sublime writing," but it is a dead letter; with Providence it is life and spirit. Providence without the word is a dark enigma. None can solve it. The best commentary on Providence is the Bible. The best commentary on the Bible is Providence. The events of a godly man’s life are to him the fulfillings of the Scriptures. In a thousand ways they teach him the true sense of promises and threatenings, predictions and narratives, precepts and doctrines. They mightily confirm his belief of the truth. And let us not forget that neither the word of God, nor the Providence of God, without the influences of divine grace on the heart—have a sanctifying power over even godly men. The most striking events and the most precious doctrines will not profit without the promised aid of the Holy Spirit. He can bless any truth or any event to our growth in grace, our comfort and our eternal glory. He is the sanctifier. Of course, all the benefit derived from the dealings of God with his people is gracious. Whatever a Christian is, he is by the grace of God, not by nature. No man deplores his own short-comings more than he. He abhors himself; he glories in the Cross of Christ; he is clothed with humility; he is full of kindness; he seeks a heavenly country; his affections are set on things above. To such a man the providence of God is special and kind. Who can doubt it? The Bible often declares it. "My help comes from the Lord, who made the heavens and the earth! He will not let you stumble and fall; the one who watches over you will not sleep. Indeed, he who watches over Israel never tires and never sleeps. The Lord himself watches over you! The Lord stands beside you as your protective shade. The sun will not hurt you by day, nor the moon at night. The Lord keeps you from all evil and preserves your life. The Lord keeps watch over you as you come and go, both now and forever." Psalms 121:2-8. "He will keep the feet of his saints." 1 Samuel 2:9. Accordingly inspired men have taught us to pray, "Hold up my goings in your paths, that my footsteps slip not." Psalms 17:5. "Order my steps in your word; and let not any iniquity have dominion over me." Psalms 119:133. The Scripture fully warrants the pious in bringing all their troubles and sorrows before the Lord. They ask and obtain divine guidance and divine support in whatever concerns them. Thus they universally believe with the saints of all ages. Very joyfully therefore do they cast their care upon the Lord, knowing that he cares for them. Some things in God’s providence towards his people are truly surprising. None but the wilfully blind can fail to see them. None but the desperately hardened can fail to be affected by them. Let us notice a few of them. I. The interpositions of Providence for his people are very seasonable. They come at the very nick of time. Just as Abram is about to make his son a sacrifice—behold a ram caught in the thicket! Just as Hagar lays down her son to die—God leads her to discover a well of water to save his life! Just as Saul is ready to seize David, and there seems to be no escape to the hunted partridge—that guilty persecutor is called home by an invasion of the Philistines. The very night fixed by a felon to murder a pious widow in a retired neighborhood, and rob her house—God sends a stranger to lodge there and protect her. The very day of his trial for felony, God brings a stranger from a distance to prove the perfect innocence of William Tennent. Many times in the life of every child of God does he receive the very mercy he needs at a time, when longer delay would be fatal to him. Perhaps for days or weeks he would have fainted unless he had believed that he should see the goodness of God. At last the crisis comes, and his faith must now fail or triumph. To sense all is dark. To mere natural reason nothing is clear. Yet he has hope toward God. Nor is he disappointed. Enlargement and deliverance came just in time to show that none ever trusted in God and was disappointed. A seasonable mercy is a double mercy. The man in health and without weariness passes by the cooling fountain and cares not for it; but the poor wounded soldier would give anything for one draught of the refreshing beverage which nature has provided. It is a time of persecution. Malice and rage possess the wicked. A city is besieged. The food is exhausted. God’s people begin to suffer. To go forth is death by the sword. To remain is death by famine. The city is girt by the sea on one side, and by the merciless foe on all other sides. What shall God’s people do? If they could hold out a month, succor would come. But in less than thirty days, they will perish of hunger. Just then an unheard of thing occurs. A shoal of fishes come into that harbor, and all are supplied. The persecutors lose their prey and their hopes. The city is safe. To God give all the people praise. II. God’s interpositions in Providence are just such as the Scriptures have led his people to expect. His word pronounces a blessing on dutiful children. A child gives up all the means of present personal advancement, perhaps even of comfort, to serve a parent; yet who, in the end, was thereby a loser, even in this world? On the other hand, who can find one, who has failed to show piety at home, and whose life has not been rendered unhappy, possibly despicable by such conduct? Again, never did even a wicked man show kindness to a saint of God—but he had his reward. Not only the prophecies—but all the principles of Scripture are wonderfully carried out by the events occurring around us every day, especially in relation to godly men. III. There is an intimate connection between the providence of God and the prayers of godly men. Where is the experienced saint who has not had answers to prayer so striking and so merciful as greatly to confirm his faith in the promises? And no marvel. For "the eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth, to show himself strong in behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards him." When lived there a child of God on the earth, who did not have occasion to record what David wrote of himself? "This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him out of all his troubles." The time would fail to tell of Jacob, and Moses, and Joshua, and Samson, and Jeremiah, and scores of others, whose prayers secured wonderful acts of providence in their behalf. Nor are prayer and providences separated now. Whichever way the humble cries of godly men travel, there travel also the providences of God. "Let Israel hope in the Lord forever and ever." Alexander Pedan, a Scotch Covenanter, with some others, had been at one time pursued, both by horse and foot, for a considerable way. At last, getting some little distance between them and their pursuers, he stood still and said, "Let us pray here, for if the Lord hear not our prayer and save us, we are all dead men." He then prayed, saying, "O Lord, this is the hour and the power of your enemies; they may not be idle. But have you no other work for them than to send them after us? Send them after them to whom you will give strength to flee, for our strength is gone. Twine them about the hill, O Lord, save us this one time, and we will keep it in remembrance, and tell to the commendation of your goodness, your pity and compassion, what you did for us at such a time." And in this he was heard, for a cloud of mist immediately intervened between them and their persecutors; and in the mean time orders came to go in quest of another. See 2 Chronicles 18:31. IV. Nor is God slack in saving his people even if in doing it, many wicked perish. What terrible monuments of his displeasure against his people’s enemies did he make of Cain, and Pharaoh, and Haman, and Herod, yes, of Babylon, and Sodom and Gomorrah, and the old world! Nor has he ceased to do like things now. Show me a man of this century, who has spent his breath in curses on God’s people, and I will show you one whose history even in this world has commonly marked him out as one forsaken, terribly forsaken of God! It is still true that "he shall have judgment without mercy, who has showed no mercy." It is still true that "bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days." When their malice is turned against the righteous, their history is brief; their triumph short, and their doom terrible. As this world is not the scene of full retribution, all we may expect here is not ample justice—but mere tokens of what God can and will do, when his hand lays hold on vengeance. Compare 2 Chronicles 18:31-34. V. In some cases we are able to trace a long series of causes and events all conspiring to the same result. The wise men of the East are led to bring from a great distance the most costly presents—articles easily transported—and lay them at the feet of the infant Savior—so that he and Joseph and Mary in their flight to Egypt might have the means of subsistence. Even sometimes to the vision of mortals, perhaps always in the sight of God, providences are long chains with many links in them. If one link were lacking, the event would fail. But it is God’s chain and God’s plan. The thing is fixed. The outcome is not doubtful. VI. So perfect is God’s defense of his people that when appearances all look as if their destruction was imminent, they are still safe. They have fears within and fightings without. They have the world, the flesh and the devil leagued against them. Perhaps there is not a government on earth which has not some anti-Christian legislation, that might become a trap and a snare to a godly man’s conscience. The thousandth part of all the wars waged, or the conspiracies formed, and of the blood and treasure expended against Christ’s cause—would have rooted out from the earth any institution ever established among men, other than the kingdom of Christ. Still it lives, yes, it flourishes. How is this? The sole answer is, That in Providence, God fulfills his promises, "No weapon formed against you shall prosper," Isaiah 54:17; and, "Though I make a full end of all nations, yet will I not make a full end of you—but I will correct you in measure." Jeremiah 30:11. Beziers is besieged. The Protestant cause depends on its safety. The besieged are secure. The bell begins to ring at midnight. Every man is at his post just in time to repel the assault with dismay to the foe. Who rang that alarm bell? Not some faithful sentinel—but a drunken man in a frolic, not knowing what he was doing. Surely God’s hand was strikingly in this matter. Paris is drenched in the gore of Christians. For three days and nights the blood-hounds of regal and papal persecution devour the flock of Christ. His people, who are slain, are gathered home to the Redeemer’s bosom. But some of them God would still keep alive for important purposes. One man takes refuge in an oven. His pursuers search diligently for him. They are within a yard of him—but they find him not. Why do they not look into the oven? Just as he entered it, God sent a spider quickly to weave a thick web over its mouth; he then sent a flow of wind to fill the web with dust; and so the bloody men said—Our victim is not here. Thus God saved the life of Du Moulin. Must he not have been an atheist if he could have denied God’s hand in this affair? Here is the finger of God. A thief, who had a few moments before stolen a bottle of warm milk hears a noise, and leaves his bottle in the forest. By this means a persecuted minister and his wife, as they sit sadly down on a rock and find it, are able to give food to their little child, ready to die for lack of nourishment. Marvelous are your works, Lord God Almighty. VII. God often saves his people by leading them to go where they never intended to go, and where they are sorry to find they have gone, and to do what they never desired to do. The life of Augustine in the 5th century, the life of Dr. John Rodgers of the 18th century, and the life of Rev. William Calhoun of the 19th century were all preserved from destruction from deadly enemies, who hated their doctrine, and lay in wait to put them to death on roads, which these servants of God intended to travel—but from which they unaccountably wandered. "Living and dying do not go by probabilities." God has one end—man another. Joseph had no design of becoming prime minister of Egypt, temporal savior of the world, and so a type of the great Redeemer, when he told his dreams to his brethren, or when he went to Shechem. Yet had he failed to do either, he had not stood in his lot and fulfilled his course. God’s ways are unsearchable and his judgments past finding out. VIII. Because God is omnipotent and controls all causes, he can rescue as well without miracle, as with it. For three successive days does a copious shower put out the fire kindled by savages to burn alive a prisoner who was a child of prayer. Yet the clouds which dropped down these rains may have arisen entirely under the influence of natural causes. Indeed preservation and other blessings secured to God’s people in his ordinary providence are no less safe and certain, and no less fit to be matters of grateful meditation, than if secured by suspending the laws of nature. To a considerate mind they are perhaps even more so. By an act of his will, God could create and send down to each man’s door the baked loaves from heaven. Instead of that he waters the earth so that it can be plowed and broken to pieces. He then directs men to sow the wheat, and he sends dew and showers to make it sprout and grow. He then alternately sends the frost and the sun. Perhaps he covers it with a thick, moist mantle of snow. In the spring he sends the melting sun, and plentiful showers. He keeps away harmful insects, and destructive vegetable diseases, and brings the grain to maturity. It is cut; it is dried by the heat he sends; it soon appears in baked loaves on the table. The devout farmer sees God’s hand in all the process. When Merlin, the Chaplain of Admiral Coligny, found his distinguished patron murdered on the melancholy St. Bartholomew’s day, he concealed himself in a hay-loft. In the Acts of the next Synod, over which he presided, it is recorded that though many died of hunger, he was supported by a hen regularly laying an egg near his place of refuge. A similar record is made of another French minister, M. de Luce, and a Swabian minister, John Breng, both of whom were kept alive in the same way. To a thoughtful mind ordinary providence is more marvelous than a miracle. The latter is but one act of God, while the former is a series of divine acts working slowly but most surely. A noble is suspected of treason. He is arrested and imprisoned. In the yard to his dungeon between the paving stones springs up a little flower. He watches it. He waters it. He cares for it. It grows. He writes the history of its development and growth. This narrative is God’s appointed means of effecting his release. See a little book called ’Picciola’. IX. God’s providence towards his people dates not at the time of their being called to a knowledge of himself—but long before. In the formation of their bodies, what goodness appears. No man has ever been able to suggest how the form or figure of the human frame could be improved. In this indeed the wicked share the same bounty of God. In their early infancy how amazing was God’s care over them. Think too of the early and deep impressions which God often makes on the minds and hearts of his chosen, even years before their conversion. In a solitary forest among huge rocks, or hoary mountains, or by some gentle stream, or noble river, or vast expanse of waters, what conceptions of God has many a child had! In an escape from danger—what a sense of God’s goodness has stolen over the hearts of his people, even before their conversion. John Brown of Haddington tells us of his deep pious impressions at a sacramental meeting, when he was under ten years of age. The late Archibald Alexander, when only four years and a half old, was greatly interested in a sermon on 1 Corinthians 16:22. Even where such impressions do not end in a speedy conversion, they are often very beneficial in preserving the young from the worst forms of evil. Nor is anything more wonderful than the means God uses for the conversion of his people. A sermon, in which the preacher had no knowledge and no design respecting the spiritual good of any particular person—a sermon by a weak man addressed to those who had often heard much better discourses on the same topics—a text of Scripture learned twenty years before—a little portion of truth found on a piece of wrapping-paper—a sudden death of some wicked man—the death of some godly man—a pious book—a kind word—a look of tenderness—the consistent piety of a pious wife, husband or friend—and even the profaneness of wicked men—have been the means of bringing sinners to repentance. Many a man has been led to the Savior by truths, which the preacher did not intend to utter when he began his discourse. Augustine tells us of a celebrated Manachee who was thus converted under the labors of the bishop of Hippo. Paul and Silas were not the only prisoners who were honored by God as the means of converting their hardened jailors. Had the persecution not arisen at Jerusalem, Philip would not have fallen in with the Ethiopian returning to his own country and reading Isaiah. So that great man might have died in ignorance of the true meaning of the prophet. Many a man has gone for no good end to hear a sermon, and before the discourse was ended has forgotten what he came for and has begun to cry for mercy. X. God’s providence in raising up good ministers of various gifts to edify his church is truly striking. It is the time of the American Revolution. A company is drilling and firing by platoons. In the ranks is a malicious man, who wishes to have his spite on a particular family. He loads that man’s gun so heavily, that he knows firing it off will burst the barrel of his gun. Just before firing, he unsuspectingly calls a lad in the crowd to take his place. The impulsive boy, suspecting no harm, consents, fires the gun, and his left hand is shattered. Amputation is necessary. This cruel act gives a new direction to his whole life. His parents send him to a classical school taught by a pious man. The youth learns well, in due time becomes a Christian, is finally ordained to the Gospel ministry, bears the name of the preacher with the silver fist and the silver voice, with great power addresses thousands in the open air, and dies greatly lamented leaving a noble posterity behind him. Such was the history of Drury Lacy. Some boys are pursuing a rabbit. It takes refuge in a hollow log. While one boy is attempting to cut it out, another puts in his arm, trying to reach his prey. The axe cripples his hand for life. He is educated, becomes a herald of salvation and leaves a precious memory in all the land. When Patrick Henry heard him discourse on the creation, he said it seemed to him as if that man could almost make a world. His name was James Waddell. Many a time by the feebleness of their bodies, parental plans respecting the temporal conduct of their children are defeated, and parental pity at last consents to their commencing studies which may give them the learning so useful to preachers of the Gospel. In due time God calls them to a knowledge of himself and of his Son. Then by his Spirit he calls them to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ. To others, whom God designs for great hardships in the ministry, he gives great vigor of constitution, so that they can bear almost any amount of labor and weariness. How marvelous also is God’s providence in the mental and social character naturally possessed by his people, so as to fit them to act their several parts in life. In illustration look at the ministers of Christ. One is timid, and God makes him especially useful to the diffident in encouraging them, and to the self-confident in awakening beneficial fears. Another is bold, and he alarms the guilty and encourages the wavering. One is full of love and so wins the skeptic and melts the hardened. Another is borne down by an awful sense of the danger of the wicked, and so he cries aloud and spares not. One is a son of thunder. Another is a son of consolation. One excels in logic, another in rhetoric. One is best at explaining the doctrines, another is excellent at exhortation. One does most good by his pen, another by private conversation, and another in the pulpit. Yet all these men are giving expression to their respective natural and social dispositions, now sanctified by divine grace, and turned to a holy work. Like acts of providence may be noticed in the variety of character displayed by all his people. XI. When means have been blessed to the conversion of his people, how strange the providences of God which lead to their growth in grace! They are ready to lean on one minister; and God takes him away and sends another. They think affliction would do them good, and God makes his mercies overflow. Or they think prosperity best for them, and God crosses all their plans and spoils their pleasant things. They are self-confident and fear not falling into sin, and soon a sad lapse fills their hearts with anguish. They are much afraid of bringing dishonor on their profession, and their fears are blessed to their preservation from sin. John Newton, who has often edified the church of God, has well described this matter, when he says— "I asked the Lord, that I might grow In faith, and love and every grace; Might more of his salvation know, And seek more earnestly his face. "Twas He who taught me thus to pray, And He, I trust has answered prayer; But it has been in such a way As almost drove me to despair. "I hoped that in some favored hour, At once he’d answer my request; And by His love’s constraining power, Subdue my sins and give me rest. "Instead of this He made me feel The hidden evils of my heart, And let the angry powers of hell Assault my soul in every part. "Yes, more; with His own hand He seemed Intent to aggravate my woe; Crossed all the fair designs I schemed, Blasted my gourds, and laid me low. "’Lord, why is this?’ I trembling cried, ’Will you pursue your worm to death?’ ’This is this way,’ the Lord replied, ’I answer prayer for grace and faith.’ "’These inward trials I employ From self and pride to set you free, And break your schemes of earthly joy, That you would seek your all in me." XII. Go among God’s people and learn how goodly in many ways their lot has been. What pious parents most of them have had. How wonderfully God has led them in many important steps in life. How pleasant have been their friends and their children. Even the little ones, whom Jesus has early called to himself, seem still to warm and nestle in the bosom of parental love. How many good books they have had to read. What kind and skillful physicians have attended them in sickness. When disease has come upon them, what good places they have had to be sick in. How infrequent and short their bodily infirmities commonly are. How seldom have they suffered for the lack of suitable food, or clothing, or shelter, or any necessary thing. How marked the hand of God in ordering the general tenor of their lives. Often have their feet well near slipped—but God has held them up. They have been in the midst of almost all evil—but it has not been allowed to sweep them away. How often has God "hedged up their way with thorns, and made a wall that they could not find their paths." Hosea 2:6. Often they could not perform their enterprises—which would have proved their ruin. Job 5:12. The unseen dangers from men and devils, from friends and foes, from darkness and pestilence surrounding us—are far more numerous than those which are visible. Could we have seen them all as God saw them, our lives would probably have been full of misery. How kind his providence in giving us a heart and temper to enjoy life and its mercies. XIII. Toward his people, God’s providence is exceedingly rich in spiritual blessings. It embraces a plan reaching from eternity to eternity. It is set forth in a covenant ordered in all things and sure, an everlasting covenant, having the Lord Jesus Christ for a Surety and Mediator. God’s loving-kindness laid the foundation of the whole scheme of redemption. It shall lay the top-stone in glory. It orders everything aright forever. Thus far the history of redemption has no parallel. It is God’s chief work—the wonder of angels—the joy of saints. The whole subject seems to abash the faculties of all right-minded creatures. The sea of Jehovah’s compassion and wisdom has never been fathomed by men or angels. Under the conduct of providence it will be widening its shores and deepening its abysses forever. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 25: 02.12. PRACTICAL REMARKS ON THE SPECIAL KINDNESS OF PROVIDENCE TOWARDS GODLY MEN ======================================================================== Practical Remarks on the Special Kindness of Providence Towards Godly Men I. What a theme for humble, devout and joyous meditation have we in this doctrine of providence! The pious Flavel says, "It will doubtless be a part of our entertainment in heaven to view with transporting delight, how the designs and methods were laid to bring us there—and what will be a part of our blessedness in heaven may be well allowed to have a prime ingrediency into our heaven upon earth. To search for pleasure among the due observations of Providence is to search for water in the ocean." In a like strain the amiable John Howe says, "When the records of eternity shall be exposed to view, all the counsels and results of the profound wisdom looked into—how will it transport, when it shall be discovered! Lo, thus were the designs laid; here were the apt junctures and admirable dependencies of things, which, when acted upon the stage of time, seemed so perplexed and intricate." Let God’s "loving-kindness" be continually before your eyes. Think on his judgments. "He who will observe the wonderful providences of God—shall have wonderful providences of God to observe." "Whoever is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the loving-kindness of the Lord." Charnock says, "It is a part of atheism to think the acts of God in the world are not worth our serious thoughts. God is highly angry with those that mind him not. ’Because they regard not the operation of his hands, he shall destroy them, and not build them up.’" Psalms 28:5. It is a divine art, to view the hand of God in everything. It is an ennobling employment to meditate on all the wonders he has wrought. "The works of the Lord are great, sought out by all those who have pleasure therein." Psalms 111:2. That was a good resolution of Asaph, "I will remember the works of the Lord; surely I will remember your wonders of old—I will meditate also of all your work, and talk of your doings." Psalms 77:11-12. II. There is excellent wisdom in our Savior’s saying, "What I do you know not now—but hereafter you shall know it." In this world nothing in providence is fully finished. Judge artists or artisans by appearances when their work is but half done—and not one of them could stand so unfair a test. Peter was greatly opposed to Christ’s dying at all. The disciples were overwhelmed when he did die. But out of his death sprang the life of the world. There would have been no gospel to believe or to preach, had Jesus not died. God’s "way is in the sea, and his path in the great waters, and his footsteps are not known." Psalms 77:19. A carpenter’s rule is too short to measure the heavens with. The waters of the sea can never be cotained in a bottle. Neither can we ever fully know any act of providence as God knows it. But to judge of an event before the final issue is great folly. It is also sin. It is both arrogant and presumptuous. It also brings much misery with it. Who is more wretched than the man, who sees nothing but desolating storms in every cloud, nothing but disaster in every undertaking, nothing but sorrow in the very means used for his joy, nothing but overthrow in the steps which lead to his exaltation? Oh for a stronger faith. Oh for more patience. Could we but calmly wait and let the God of all the earth do as he pleases, all would be well. We are so wrapped up in selfishness that we flagrantly over-estimate the importance of our own affairs. A splendid steamer is swiftly passing up the Mississippi. She has more than five hundred passengers, pressing home to soothe sorrow, or scatter joy, to give life to commerce, and to carry messages of government. Vast interests depend on her safety and her speed. A little boy darts into the cafeteria, crying for the captain. At length he finds him, and says, "O captain, stop the boat, do stop the boat!" "Why, my son?" said the veteran officer. The boy replied, "I have dropped my orange overboard, do stop the boat." He was told it could not be done. His solicitude settled into sadness, which left him only after sleep. Think of that boy and his orange. There was some proportion between the value of that orange—and the other interests involved, yet it was exceedingly small. But there is no proportion between our comfort for a day—and the glory of God to eternity; or between our afflictions here—and the glory that shall be revealed in us hereafter. "Be patient, brethren, unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ." We know not what is best for us. Foolish children eat green apples—but prudent people first let them mature. Let us trust God joyfully. Psalms 27:6. III. How entirely do just views of God’s word and providence change the aspects of everything. He, who has any right views, would rather be with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego in the furnace, or with Daniel in the lions’ den—than with Nebuchadnezzar on the throne. Paul bound with a chain was far more to be envied than Nero wearing the imperial purple. Paul and Silas were far from being the most unhappy men in Philippi the night their feet were in the stocks. There are two sides to every providence, as there were to the pillar of cloud and of fire. The bright side is towards the children of God. It ever will be so. God has ordained it. He will make good all his promises. "Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright." Therefore, you heroes of the cross of Christ—gird on your armor. Fight the good fight of faith. Never yield to fear. Endure hardness. Live to please him who has called you to be soldiers. Jesus reigns! Hear him proclaiming, "All power in heaven and earth is given unto me." He is King of kings. He rules in the kingdoms of men. He is God in Zion. He loves the church more than you do. He died for it. He loves his people as the apple of his eye. Nothing shall harm those who are the followers of his cross. O shout and give thanks. Robert Southwell, awaiting martyrdom in prison, wrote to his friend, "We have sung the canticles of the Lord in a strange land, and in this desert we have sucked honey from the rock, and oil from the hard flint." Learn this heavenly art! IV. Sinners, will not you give your hearts to God, and secure the blessings of his kindness, the care of his special providence? Do you not need a Father in heaven? Do you not wish for a shield and buckler and horn of salvation? Persisting in sin and folly—the stars will fight against you in their courses. Yielding to the claims of divine love and authority—all nature will at Jehovah’s bidding fight for you. Will you bow your neck? Will you take Christ’s yoke upon you? Will you be saved? V. The right observance of providence is a great duty. The particulars of this duty are well stated by Thomas Boston— 1. We should watch for them until they come. Hebrews 2:1-3; Psalms 130:1, Psalms 130:5-6; Lamentations 3:49-50. 2. We should take heed to them, and mark them when they come. Isaiah 25:9; Ezekiel 1:15; Zechariah 6:1-15:Luke 19:44. 3. We should seriously review them, ponder and closely consider them. Psalms 111:2; Ezekiel 10:13; Psalms 73:16; Job 10:2; Psalms 77:6. 4. We should lay them up, and keep them in record. Luke 1:66; 1 Samuel 17:37; Psalms 37:25. 5. We should observe them for practical purposes, that they may have a sanctifying power over our hearts and lives. Psalms 64:7, Psalms 64:9; Deuteronomy 29:2-4; 2 Kings 6:33; Ecclesiastes 7:14. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 26: 02.13. ALTERNATE LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PROVIDENCE ======================================================================== ALTERNATE LIGHT AND DARKNESS IN PROVIDENCE, ILLUSTRATED IN THE CASE OF THE GREAT MAN OF UZ The book of Job is the oldest and the best epic poem in the world. The people prominently before us are Jehovah, Satan, Job, Job’s wife, his three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and that remarkable person, Elihu. Much of the book is a discussion of the principles, on which the speakers suppose God’s providence to be conducted. Some have surmised that Job was a fictitious character; but this is surely a mistake. The prophet Ezekiel clearly proves that he was a historic personage—as much so as Noah or Daniel. Ezekiel 14:14, Ezekiel 14:20. He was a man, and a very godly man. The course of providence towards him is full of instruction. In his life we find lessons of much value. Instruction by example clearly points out the duty to be performed, shows that it is practical, and awakens in the virtuous the desire of imitation. Among mere men we seldom find a striking example of more than one striking feature. Abraham was distinguished for his faith; Moses, for his meekness; Daniel, for his dauntlessness; John, for the tenderness of his love; and Job, for his patience. If we would find perfect symmetry of character in any portion of history, we must go to the man Christ Jesus. It may aid us to pursue a method in our reflections. I. Let us consider the course of providence towards Job, and his character and circumstances before his great afflictions. Job was a man of great piety. The Scriptures say that he was upright and perfect. He was not double-tongued, nor double-minded—but sincere, free from hypocrisy, and had respect to all God’s commandments. "He feared God and eschewed evil." This character is given by God himself. His reputation among men was both fair and high. "Those were the days when I went to the city gate and took my place among the honored leaders. The young stepped aside when they saw me, and even the aged rose in respect at my coming. The princes stood in silence and put their hands over their mouths. The highest officials of the city stood quietly, holding their tongues in respect. All who heard of me praised me. All who saw me spoke well of me." Job 29:8-10. Probably no man ever received more marked attention from great and small than did Job. "Everyone listened to me and valued my advice. They were silent as they waited for me to speak. And after I spoke, they had nothing to add, for my counsel satisfied them. They longed for me to speak as they longed for rain. They waited eagerly, for my words were as refreshing as the spring rain. When they were discouraged, I smiled at them. My look of approval was precious to them." Job 29:21-24 He was also esteemed wise, and possessed great influence by his eloquence. He was a sound adviser. Speaking of his influence over men, it is said, "I told them what they should do and presided over them as their chief." Job 29:25. Job was also a great captain. His military skill and prowess were such that he dwelt as king in the army. Job 29:25. "He broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth." Job 29:17. He was also a philanthropist. He was not indeed ostentatious in his charity, yet such a city set on a hill cannot be hid. "All who heard of me praised me. All who saw me spoke well of me. For I helped the poor in their need and the orphans who had no one to help them. I helped those who had lost hope, and they blessed me. And I caused the widows’ hearts to sing for joy. All I did was just and honest. Righteousness covered me like a robe, and I wore justice like a turban. I served as eyes for the blind and feet for the lame. I was a father to the poor and made sure that even strangers received a fair trial." Job 29:11-16. In his labors of love, he was both diligent and unselfish. Before his afflictions Job was a man of great wealth. "He owned seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred teams of oxen, and five hundred female donkeys, and he employed many servants. He was, in fact, the richest person in that entire area." Job 1:3. In wealth he excelled all the rich men of the East. So abundant were his possessions that "my path was drenched with cream and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil." In his own family, Job enjoyed domestic comfort. Although he had his fears about his children, yet it does not appear that they were either profane or licentious. He loved them tenderly and they were respectful to him. His wife seems not to have shown her grievous lack of piety during his prosperity. To crown all his enjoyments, the candle of the Lord shined upon his head, and by the light of the divine countenance he walked through darkness. The secret of God was upon his tabernacle, and the Almighty was yet with him. Job 29:3-5. It is in God’s light that we see light. When he smiles we are blessed. When he gives comfort, who can afflict? All this prosperity begat confidence in its own continuance, and led Job to say, "I shall die in my nest and I shall multiply my days as the sand. My root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon my branch. My glory was fresh in me, and my bow was renewed in my hand." Job 29:18-20. II. Let us consider Job’s afflictions themselves, and his patience under them. One day when Job’s sons and daughters were dining at the oldest brother’s house, a messenger arrived at Job’s home with this news: "Your oxen were plowing, with the donkeys feeding beside them, when the Sabeans raided us. They stole all the animals and killed all the farmhands. I am the only one who escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: "The fire of God has fallen from heaven and burned up your sheep and all the shepherds. I am the only one who escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, a third messenger arrived with this news: "Three bands of Chaldean raiders have stolen your camels and killed your servants. I am the only one who escaped to tell you." While he was still speaking, another messenger arrived with this news: "Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the desert and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you!" Job 1:13-19 A descent from such extraordinary prosperity awakens very different sentiments from those entertained by men, who have long lived in poor circumstances and been unexpectedly raised to greatness. Let this thought be remembered. Job’s afflictions commenced with the loss of his wealth, consisting of oxen, and donkeys, and sheep, and camels, and servants. The news of these losses came upon him by surprise. Poverty is no sin—if it comes upon us without any fault of ours. Yet everyone knows that it brings sore trials on all, especially on those who are not accustomed to it. All this is heightened by the suddenness of its approach. This often produces a shock which few hearts are sufficiently stout to resist. Many who have stood calm while thrones were falling around them, who have fearlessly stormed the deadly breach, and who have manfully suffered community slander, have sunk under intolerable anguish, when their earthly possessions have taken flight and left them destitute and dependent. Whatever bitterness is necessarily connected with such loss, was the portion of Job. No sooner had the messengers closed their respective narratives of his losses of property, than another with all the promptness attending the announcement of calamities thus spoke, "Your sons and daughters were feasting in their oldest brother’s home. Suddenly, a powerful wind swept in from the desert and hit the house on all sides. The house collapsed, and all your children are dead. I am the only one who escaped to tell you!" Thus his children were carried into eternity on the same day on which he lost all his property! Not a child was left him. His Reuben and his Benjamin, his daughter that was to him as a pet lamb, and she that was in deportment as a matron, all died. And then they died so suddenly. No previous sickness gave warning of approaching death. In the morning he had parted with them, not dreaming that he would nevermore see their faces in the land of the living. Nor had he satisfactory evidence that they were prepared for this solemn exchange of worlds. Indeed he had fears to the contrary. As priest of his own house, he had been in the habit of offering sacrifices for them on occasion of their feasts, thinking that they might have sinned and cursed God in their hearts. Job 1:5. But on this occasion Job had not time to offer sacrifice or prayer after the close of the feast. How must this saint of God have followed in imagination the departed spirits of his children. And how must his heart have swollen with anguish when in vain he sought for assurance of their salvation. Yet at the end of all this, Job reverently "fell down upon the ground, and worshiped, and said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb and naked shall I return there—the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." Job 1:20-21. But neither the malignity of Satan, nor the mysterious love of God, would permit Job’s sufferings to end here. Satan obtained permission to afflict him with bodily disease, so that he was covered from the sole of his foot unto his crown with sore boils. This affliction makes a standing posture a rack of torture, a chair a seat of misery, and a couch a "bed of unrest." In the midst of his wretchedness, he "took a potsherd to scrape himself and he sat down in the ashes." In our suffering it is seldom that we cannot find some posture that will not give some relief. But this was not Job’s case. Pain followed pain, and suffering followed suffering—until his agony was complete. Hear his dolorous complaint, "I, too, have been assigned months of futility, long and weary nights of misery. When I go to bed, I think, ’When will it be morning?’ But the night drags on, and I toss till dawn. My skin is filled with worms and scabs. My flesh breaks open, full of pus." Job 7:3-5 From all this weight of suffering Job might have found some relief, had his wife possessed a right spirit. But when she saw him thus afflicted, her heart rose in rebellion against God, and instead of exhorting her husband to faith and patience, she bade him "curse God and die." During his prosperity Job’s wife may have given some evidence of piety. If so, how must such an avowal have pierced his soul; and if not, how afflicting it must have been to behold her, whom he loved so tenderly, venting her wickedness against God? She not only manifested hatred to him whom Job adored; but she became cold and cruel to her husband. He says, "My breath is repulsive to my wife. I am loathsome to my own family." Job 19:17. The appeal to marital affection was fruitless. Pointing to the pledges of their love in their offspring had no effect. Her marriage vows and all the kindness she had received, were forgotten. Her heart was unfeeling. Another source of distress to Job was the conduct of his friends, his servants and his neighbors. To him who is afflicted, pity should be shown. But when those in whom we have trusted hide as it were their faces from us, it is sad indeed. At first Job’s friends seemed disposed to sympathize with him—but they soon began to accuse him wrongfully. They aggravated his sufferings by referring to his former prosperity. Job 4:2. They dealt deceitfully with him. Job 6:15. They scorned him. Job 16:20. They vexed his soul. Job 19:2. He says, "They whom I loved, have turned against me." Job 19:19. They charged him with hypocrisy, Job 20:5; they told him God was punishing him for his injustice and cruelty, Job 22:6-9; they perverted his language, and upon his speech put a construction which he had never thought of, and a meaning which he abhorred. Job 34:9; Job 35:2. The great difficulty was that without evidence they believed him guilty of great sins; and such people cannot be convinced by evidence. Under these circumstances Job poured forth his complaints. Hear him—"My relatives stay far away, and my friends have turned against me. My neighbors and my close friends are all gone. The members of my household have forgotten me. The servant girls consider me a stranger. I am like a foreigner to them. I call my servant, but he doesn’t come; I even plead with him!" Job 19:13-16. So full was the conviction of those around Job that he was a wicked man, and so helpless was he, that he was held in the utmost contempt. "Even young children despise me. When I stand to speak, they turn their backs on me. My close friends abhor me. Those I loved have turned against me." Job 19:18-19. The children of the vilest men, mocked him and spit in his fave. "But now I am mocked by those who are younger than I, by young men whose fathers are not worthy to run with my sheepdogs. And now their sons mock me with their vulgar song! They taunt me! They despise me and won’t come near me, except to spit in my face." Job 30:1-31. If we feel great pain at even suspicion thrown on our characters, what must Job’s anguish have been when old and young, rich and poor, vile and honorable, pious and ungodly united in suspecting, condemning or despising him as a wicked man! Nor had Job any means of proving himself innocent. The charges brought against him were general and vague. It was impossible for him to prove a negative. Yet he felt, as all godly men do, that a good name is better than great riches and precious ointment. His other trials would have been comparatively light, had his friends been true and kind. But they were unstable and greatly misjudged him. Another source of sorrow was that Job had no sensible pious comfort. He cries out, "Oh that I were as in months past." Job 29:2. At no period of his sufferings does he seem to have had those transporting views of divine things, which many of the martyrs had, and which quenched the violence of fire, and bore the soul away from the consideration of personal pains—to rapturous thoughts on Jesus, and heaven, and the crown of imperishable glory. Yes, not only was he tossed with tempest and not comforted—but his soul was filled with great distress. He cries out, "For the Almighty has struck me down with his arrows. He has sent his poisoned arrows deep within my spirit. All God’s terrors are arrayed against me!" Job 6:4. The spirit of a man sustains his infirmity—but a wounded spirit who can bear? Even when alone, the terrors of God may be insupportable; but when joined to so many other evils, where is the heart strong enough to bear the dreadful weight? It heightened Job’s misery that he had not sweet access to God by prayer. He says, "If only I knew where to find God, I would go to his throne and talk with him there. I would lay out my case and present my arguments. Then I would listen to his reply and understand what he says to me. I go east, but he is not there. I go west, but I cannot find him. I do not see him in the north, for he is hidden. I turn to the south, but I cannot find him." Job 23:1-17. The privilege of prayer in all its sweetness remaining to God’s people, they have inexpressible comfort; but when that is gone, what can the soul do? Another aggravation of Job’s affliction was, that although better instructed than his friends, he yet but imperfectly understood the doctrine of providence. This difficulty has been felt in every age. In the patriarchal and Mosaic dispensations it terribly afflicted the righteous. Even under the clear light of the gospel, godly men have perplexities from this source. Job had no such clear Scriptures as these, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." "If you be without chastisement, you are not sons." "We must through much tribulation enter the kingdom of God." "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God." Instead of this clear light Job himself saw God’s ways involved in inscrutable mystery. Job 31:3. Hope of better days on earth seems quite to have departed from him. He says, "I shall no more see good." Job 7:7. As far forward as his vision extended, all was dark and dreary. No star of promise, no ray of joyous expectation illumined the gloom. Former greatness and happiness but showed him how low he had fallen. They gave no pledge of return. All seemed to be irretrievably gone to the great man of Uz. "So I looked for good, but evil came instead. I waited for the light, but darkness fell. My heart is troubled and restless. Days of affliction have come upon me. I walk in gloom, without sunlight. I stand in the public square and cry for help. But instead, I am considered a brother to jackals and a companion to ostriches. My skin has turned dark, and my bones burn with fever. My harp plays sad music, and my flute accompanies those who weep." Job 30:26-31 Under this enormous load of suffering Job set a bright example of patience. Not a word of sinful murmur escaped his lips. Job 1:22. He exhibited not the proud severity of the stoic in refusing to acknowledge himself afflicted. He had not the iron hardihood of atheism, denying God’s hand in his troubles. Nor did he exhibit the sinful sinking of unbelief. He submissively acquiesced in what God ordained. He brought no foolish charge against his Maker. He meekly says, "What? shall we receive good at the hand of God—and shall we not receive evil?" Job 2:10. He sought solace in worship and especially in praise. It is not claimed that in all things Job was spotlessly pure—but only that he was in the main and persistently upright. Near the close of the book God himself says, "My servant Job has spoken of me that which is right." Job 42:7. Job did indeed undertake to reason on matters beyond his knowledge. Job 38:2. But the general tenor of his feelings was pleasing to God. For a long time he bore the most trying events with a spirit of submission probably never equaled in a mere man. For this cause he is fitly held up to us as one whose example is worthy of imitation. III. Let us consider Job’s history after the heavy hand of God was no longer upon him. On this point the record is brief but highly satisfactory. "When Job prayed for his friends, the Lord restored his fortunes. In fact, the Lord gave him twice as much as before! Then all his brothers, sisters, and former friends came and feasted with him in his home. And they consoled him and comforted him because of all the trials the Lord had brought against him. And each of them brought him a gift of money and a gold ring. So the Lord blessed Job in the second half of his life even more than in the beginning. For now he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, one thousand teams of oxen, and one thousand female donkeys. He also gave Job seven more sons and three more daughters. He named his first daughter Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. In all the land there were no other women as lovely as the daughters of Job. And their father put them into his will along with their brothers. Job lived 140 years after that, living to see four generations of his children and grandchildren. Then he died, an old man who had lived a long, good life." Job 42:10-17. Every foul imputation on his character was wiped away. Every slanderous tongue was silenced. The terrible storm was passed. Only the peaceable fruits of righteousness remained. Sobered and chastened he indeed was—but richly laden with the experience of God’s goodness. He saw the end of the Lord, that the Lord is full of pity and of tender mercy. CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 1. How vain are all merely earthly possessions! How unstable is popular favor! How uncertain are riches! How soon our pleasures may be followed by pains! When parents rejoice at the birth of a child, they know not how soon they may weep over his dead body without an assurance that his soul is saved. Solomon thoroughly tried the world. His sober inspired judgment was that all was vanity. The sooner we reach that conclusion ourselves—the wiser shall we be! "Meaningless! Meaningless! Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!" Ecclesiastes 1:2. Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil." Ecclesiastes 12:13-14. 2. Let us always be more afraid of sinning against God than of offending our nearest earthly friends. Job instantly repulsed the wicked assaults of his wife, saying, "You speak as one of the foolish women speaks." Job 2:10. To his own disciple, Peter, Jesus was compelled to say, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men." Matthew 16:23. No human friendship may for a moment interfere with our fidelity to God. 3. Although God generally chooses the poor as his children, yet he offers mercy to the rich, and receives all such as humbly seek his grace. Job’s riches did not debar him from the kingdom of heaven. By reason of depravity, riches tend to alienate the heart from God; yet sovereign grace can remedy that evil. He, who is rich in this world’s goods, and also rich in faith and good works, is loudly called to sing the praises of Jehovah. Nothing but almighty power could thus make the camel go through the eye of the needle, or preserve the soul from the burning flames of insatiable covetousness. 4. Weight of character and a high order of talents are by no means confined to the enemies of God. Why should they be? Piety is wisdom. Who ever stood higher for wisdom in council, for soundness of judgment and for prowess in war than did the man of Uz? There cannot be found any number of men who surpass God’s people for calmness of inquiry, soberness of mind and practical wisdom. True religion is worthy of the most earnest and solemn attention. 5. Christian men are not always pious, in proportion to the degree of light which they enjoy. Job is supposed to have lived before the time of Moses, under the obscurity of the patriarchal dispensation; yet he was a burning and a shining light. He neither saw nor heard many wondrous things well known to us. Yet how far did he and Abraham and Enoch and other ancient worthies excel the great mass of even godly men of these latter days. Truly we ought to blush for our short-comings. Guilt is in proportion to light. Surely then we must be very guilty for our sad deficiencies. 6. When malice, or envy, or suspicion, or evil surmising exists—no established reputation, no lack of evidence of guilt can "tie the gall up in the slanderous tongue." By a long and holy life Job had given incontestable evidence of the purity of his character. His friends could bring no proof of his criminality in anything. Yet they charged him with cruelty, wickedness and hypocrisy! Such vileness has not yet left the earth. It is no new or rare thing for the best men to be charged with the vilest plans, principles or practices. It will be so until grace shall reign through Jesus Christ over all hearts. A propensity to evil thoughts and evil speeches, is among the last faults of character, from which even godly men are delivered. 7. If friends accuse us falsely and act as enemies, let us not forget to pray for them. Job set us the example—Job 42:8. Enmities arising between old friends are generally more violent than others. "A brother offended is harder to be won than a strong city—and their contentions are like the bars of a castle." Proverbs 18:19. But we must not yield to evil passion. We must forgive and seek blessings on those who falsely accuse us and cruelly entreat us. It was not until Job prayed for his accusers that God turned his captivity. Let us never carry a load of malice in our hearts. It is worse than any evil we can suffer at the hand of man. 8. When our characters are assailed, we are at liberty to use Christian measures to remove an evil report. It is then best to leave the whole matter in the hands of God. Lawsuits for character may be lawful and sometimes expedient. But when bad passions are excited, no character is so unspotted that malice will not spew out its venom against it. We may deny our guilt; we may call for evidence against us; we may bring evidence of innocence; but with men of heated imaginations and strong prejudices, evidence never has its just weight. 9. It is very dangerous to become involved in a labyrinth of reasoning concerning God, his character and providence. Things which are revealed belong to us and our children. We may safely follow wherever revelation leads; but we are no judges of what is proper to be done under the government of God. The attempt to criticize the divine proceedings is always a failure and iniquity. "The secret things belong to the Lord our God, but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever, that we may follow all the words of this law." Deuteronomy 29:29. "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," declares the LORD. "As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts." Isaiah 55:8-9. 10. It is important to study the Scriptures and learn all we can concerning the plans and providence of God. Had Job clearly known what we by patient study may learn, it would have removed much of the pungency of his grief. God’s word is a light and a lamp. Let us walk by it. 11. What is the grief of each one? Is it poverty, poor health, loss of reputation, loss of pious comfort? Whatever it is, take for an example of suffering affliction Job—the narrative of whose trials was written for our comfort. Like him, let each one say of the Almighty, "Though he slays me, yet will I trust in him." Job 13:15. Never was pious confidence in the Lord misplaced. Never did any trust in him and was confounded. 12. The secret of the Lord is with those who fear him. The greatest secret God ever reveals to his people is the mystery of redemption. Of this Job was not ignorant. By this he triumphed. His own language is explicit, "But as for me—I know that my Redeemer lives, and that he will stand upon the earth at last. And after my body has decayed, yet in my body I will see God! I will see him for myself! Yes, I will see him with my own eyes! I am overwhelmed at the thought!" Job 19:25-27. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 27: 02.14. CHAPTER 14 ======================================================================== GOD’S PROVIDENCE TOWARDS HIS CHURCH RENDERS UNNECESSARY, ALL TORMENTING FEARS RESPECTING HER SAFETY AND FINAL TRIUMPH The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom—of this kind of fear, we cannot have too much. There is also a beneficial fear, based in self-distrust, and opposed to pride and carelessness. That is a good quality. Blessed is the man who thus always fears. But there is also a fear which torments. It disheartens, multiplies difficulties, magnifies obstacles, and refuses available resources. Such fear brings a snare. It begets doubts and despondency. It cries—There is a lion in the way. It weeps when it should rejoice. It sings dirges when paeans of praise are called for. It is in many ways an enemy to our peace and usefulness. It is a grief to our fellows. It is an offence to God. Sometimes such fear possesses the church. She trembles for her own safety. Let us consider the matter in order. I. THE OCCASIONS OF THIS FEAR are such as these— 1. When the church looks to herself for resources and encouragement. She is "a little flock." "Jacob is small." The people of God are "a remnant." The house of God cannot boast of great numbers. Much as Zion has lengthened her cords beyond her former possessions, she is still but a garden hedged in. Few love her feasts, or delight in her solemnities. Her outward state is humble. Most of her friends are poor. In gathering his family, the Lord refuses none who sincerely apply for admission; yet generally he pours contempt on princes, stains the pride of all glory, takes the beggar from the ash-heap and exalts him to sonship with God. Zion’s friends are an afflicted people. "She is black as the tents of Kedar. The sun has looked upon her." Waters of a full cup are wrung out to her children. Her garments are stained in the blood of her martyrs. She is very feeble. In one text God addresses the church as "you worm Jacob." Her attainments are low. Faith is weak. Love is languid. Joy spreads but few feasts. Self-denial has taught but few of her hard lessons. Humility furnishes but a scant robe. Zeal, where is it? She is also sadly divided. Her unity is marred. "Her children have been angry with her." They have been unnatural. Ephraim has envied Judah, and Judah has vexed Ephraim. 2. Another occasion of fear is the apparent inadequacy of the means of the church’s defense. Ascension gifts have indeed descended on her pastors and teachers. Still they are not angels but men, men of like passions with others, not vessels used in heaven—but vessels of clay. The cherub in glorious knowledge and the seraph in holy fires—appear not in any of our pulpits. When God vouchsafes his presence, divine ordinances are clothed with a blessed efficacy—but if the Spirit offended by our sins, he withdraws. The ’letter the Gospel’ kills—no less than ’the law’. In the hands of the new-creating Spirit it is the power of God; otherwise it is foolishness, a stumbling-block, sounding brass, a tinkling cymbal; and he, who proclaims it, does but beat the air. The weapons of our warfare have no mightiness—but through God. 3. Another occasion of fear to the church is found in the number, haughtiness, cunning, fierceness and cruelty of her foes. Their name is legion. The church dwells like the turtle-dove surrounded by birds of prey. Her enemies present whole empires, and those the most populous, in solid masses of wickedness. Their insolence is diabolical. They shoot out the lip in mocking. They point the finger of scorn. They deride pious grief. They mocked the dying agonies of her Lord. They ridicule her noblest designs, saying, "If a fox goes on it, he shall even break down their stone wall." They exhaust their powers of reproach and ignominy on the saints. They rely on worldly influence. In fury they are like raging waves of the sea, foaming out their thundering menaces. The blood of the faithful they have poured out like water to the dogs of persecution, who have licked it up with greediness. Many a time has persecution "Sat and planned Deliberately and with most careful pains, How to extreme suffering of agony, The flesh, and blood, and souls of holy men, Her victims, might be wrought; and when she saw New tortures, of her laboring fancy born, She leaped for joy, and made great haste to try Their force, well pleased to hear a deeper groan." We may live to see such days. Sober writers on prophecy seem to expect a destructive fury of wicked passions before the blaze of Millenial glory. But whether raging or quiet—the enemies of the church are always cunning. With the venom they have also the deceptiveness of the serpent—that old serpent, who deceives the nations. They lay dark plots. They fill the way to Zion with pits and snares. This is especially true of the teachers of false doctrine. "Insidiousness seems to be a common character of heresy." [Milner.] "Damnable heresies" are always brought in "secretly." If it were possible, false teachers would deceive the very elect! 4. Another occasion for sinful fear in the church is the seeming tardiness of her divine Head in avenging her wrongs and vindicating her cause. Zion forgets that the plans of her King reach from an eternity past to an eternity to come. Forgetting this, the church cries, "O Lord, how long?" "Why then does my suffering continue? Why is my wound so incurable? Your help seems as uncertain as a seasonal brook. It is like a spring that has gone dry." "I look for judgment—but there is none; for salvation—but it is far from me." For ages the church has cried, "How long, O Lord, holy and true, do you not judge and avenge our blood on those who dwell on the earth?" How often is the heart made sick by the deferring of hope. Jonathan Edwards ventured to conjecture that he had seen the dawn of the latter-day glory. Yet he lived to see folly, heresy, fanaticism and persecution mar the glory of that great revival. II. SUCH FEAR IS WITHOUT GOOD CAUSE. The language of God to Zion is clear and unmistakable, "Fear not; be not dismayed." God gives reasons, good reasons for such encouragement, "But now, O Israel, the Lord who created you says: Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Isaiah 43:1-3. These words are full of comfort. They point us to God’s omnipresence. "I am with you." With his church, God goes through the Red sea, through the wilderness, through Jordan; through the wars of Canaan. He goes with Jeremiah into the mire of the dungeon of Malchiah, with Daniel into the lions’ den, with the young Hebrews into the burning fiery furnace, with Stephen through the shower of stones, and with John to the island of Patmos. Nor does he confine his presence to great men, or great occasions. To the whole church in all her states and trials he says, "I will never, no never leave you; I will never, no never, no never forsake you." In this presence of God there is a blessed concord among the persons of the adorable Trinity. The eternal Father says, "I am with you." The eternal Son says, "Lo, I am with you always—even unto the end of the world." The eternal Spirit by the Son assures us that he will abide with us forever. This presence supposes and implies readiness to hear prayers, to extend aid, to protect, support and deliver. It gives us at hand vast storehouses of infinite perfections from which to draw supplies. Let the church stand on this rock and sing, "God is our refuge and strength—a very present help in trouble!" Look, too, at the power of God promised to help, uphold and strengthen us. Pious men of all ages have stayed themselves on that almightiness, severed from which the universe would rush headlong into the bottomless abyss of annihilation—but supported by which all worlds travel, "wheeling unshaken through immensity." The Lord thus chides and cheers us at once, "I, even I, am the one who comforts you. So why are you afraid of mere humans, who wither like the grass and disappear? Yet you have forgotten the Lord, your Creator, the one who put the stars in the sky and established the earth. Will you remain in constant dread of human oppression? Will you continue to fear the anger of your enemies from morning till night? Soon all you captives will be released! Imprisonment, starvation, and death will not be your fate! For I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea, causing its waves to roar. My name is the Lord Almighty." Isaiah 51:12-15 "Do you not know? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood since the earth was founded? He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth, and its people are like grasshoppers. He stretches out the heavens like a canopy, and spreads them out like a tent to live in. He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing. No sooner are they planted, no sooner are they sown, no sooner do they take root in the ground, than he blows on them and they wither, and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff. "To whom will you compare me? Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One. Lift your eyes and look to the heavens: Who created all these? He who brings out the starry host one by one, and calls them each by name. Because of his great power and mighty strength, not one of them is missing. Why do you say, O Jacob, and complain, O Israel, "My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God"? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Isaiah 40:21-29 Who dare affirm that anything is too hard for God? He, who humbly relies on the presence and power of God "is the man whom storms can never make Meanly complain; nor can a flattering gale Make him talk proudly—he has no desire To read his secret fate—yet unconcerned And calm can meet his unborn destiny In all its charming or its frightful shapes." The Bible abounds in exceeding great and precious promises, inwoven into the covenant, which God has made with his chosen, and which has been the joy of the saints in all ages. That covenant is everlasting. Time, change, tumult, can never set it aside. Abraham, David, and all the prophets hold their places in heaven by this tenure. This covenant is also sure. There is no flaw in it. It is well ordered. It is the plan of God himself, the work of eternal wisdom. This covenant is confirmed by renewals, by fulfillments, by ordinances, by signs and seals, and by the solemnities of an oath. "God has given us both his promise and his oath. These two things are unchangeable because it is impossible for God to lie. Therefore, we who have fled to him for refuge can take new courage, for we can hold on to his promise with confidence. This confidence is like a strong and trustworthy anchor for our souls. It leads us through the curtain of heaven into God’s inner sanctuary." Hebrews 6:18-19. "No one sets aside even a human covenant that has been ratified, or makes additions to it." How firm then must be the covenant of God! This covenant is not encumbered with any causal or meritorious conditions. We are to look and live, to take and eat, to receive Christ and his grace, and be saved forever. No money, no merit is required of us. This covenant is ample in its provisions. It secures the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. It secures bread and water, food and clothing, justification and sanctification, faith, repentance, hope, love, joy, meekness, patience, gentleness, peace, experience, victory and an exceeding and eternal weight of glory. It makes death a blessing. It pronounces the believer heir of all things. It converts ills into mercies. This covenant is sealed in the blood of the Son of God. "This is the new testament in my blood," says he. The execution of this covenant is conducted under "the ministry of the Spirit." He gives us the anointing which abides, the unction which teaches all things. This covenant is never to be forgotten. God never forgets it, nor will he let his people forget it. This covenant is in the hands of a Mediator, Jesus, who is "the Messenger of the covenant," "God’s elect, in whom his soul delights," the God-man, the Surety of all his people. The exceeding fitness of our Savior to administer this covenant is often declared in Scripture. First, "He thought it not robbery to be equal with God." His eternal power and Godhead are never questioned in heaven. As a mediator, he is able to lay his hand upon God. Secondly, finding those to be redeemed in human nature, he took part of the same. He became bone of our bone, and flesh of our flesh. He assumed our whole nature, its sinfulness excepted. He was tempted in all points like as we are. He carried our sorrows. He shook hands with grief and made affliction his bosom companion. With tastes exquisitely refined and with sensibilities the keenest—he lived and died poor, subsisting chiefly on the charities of a few humble women—he hungered, he thirsted, he toiled, he wept, he prayed, he died. And even in his mysterious agony, he showed his power and grace by saving a thief; and his filial piety and natural affection—by making the most fitting provision for his aged mother. Even after his resurrection he gave many infallible proofs that he was still truly a man. Thirdly, Christ was pre-eminently prepared for his work by being gloriously anointed by the Holy Spirit. "He received the Spirit without measure." All fullness of grace, and truth, and wisdom dwelt in him. Fourthly, in consequence of what he was and did and suffered—he is highly exalted. His name is above every name. The universe is held together by him. He summons the stars to fight his battles, and they obey him. His angels at his command confound his foes and save his people. "By him kings reign, and princes decree justice. By him princes rule, and nobles, even all the judges of the earth." Over good and bad angels and men—he sways his scepter. It was he, who struck the oracles dumb. Even his birth sent confusion into the heathen temples. The most famous seat of such worship was at Delphos. When the oracle there was asked why he so seldom gave responses now, the answer was, "There is a Hebrew boy, who is king of the gods, who has commanded me to leave this house, and be gone to hell, and therefore you are to expect no more answers." O yes, the Hebrew boy is the Father of eternity—the Wonderful, Counselor, the mighty God! Devils were subject unto him. Pharaoh, Cyrus, Sennacherib, Herod, Nero—every tyrant and every persecutor did but "accomplish his whole work on Mount Zion." If convulsions shake heaven and earth, if thrones and empires crumble to dust, if rivers of blood are poured out, if famine and pestilence devastate the land, if "on the earth, nations will be in anguish and perplexity at the roaring and tossing of the sea; if men will faint from terror, apprehensive of what is coming on the world, for the heavenly bodies will be shaken;" still we sing, "O Zion, your God reigns!" "Stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near!" On the other hand, to his people he is the Prince of peace. To them he is as "the light of the morning, when the sun rises, even a morning without clouds; as the tender grass springing out of the earth by clear shining after rain." You worm Jacob, he helps you, he upholds you, he strengthens you. He makes "the feeble among his saints to be as David, and the house of David to be as God, as the angel of the Lord." "When the poor and needy seek water and there is none, and their tongue fails for thirst—he opens rivers in high places and fountains in the midst of the valleys. He makes the wilderness a pool of water and the dry land springs of water." His compassions are infinite, his power almighty, his wisdom unerring. Before his incarnation he was afflicted in all their affliction, and since his ascension he has once come down within the hearing of men to assure us that he and his people are one, saying to the enraged blasphemer, "Why do you persecute ME?" His church is engraved on the palms of his hands. In the midst of cares and business, the husband may forget the wife of his youth. But the bridegroom of the church has "betrothed her unto him forever, yes he has betrothed her unto him in righteousness, and in judgment and in loving-kindness, and in mercies. He has even betrothed her unto him in faithfulness." And all this provision of mercy, of a covenant with a Surety—was made in mere love and pity—and not by any of our merits. So we may fearlessly reason, If "God spared not his own Son—but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him freely give us all things?" Such reasoning is conclusive—unanswerable. It shuts us up to hope. It forbids all harassing fears. It brands dismay with guilt and infamy. If these things are so, then every pious man ought to be far more concerned to derive benefit from afflictions, than to get rid of them. We are always guilty when we do not gather the peaceable fruit of righteousness from our chastisements. From adversity, the church should derive the following benefits— 1. She should learn the meaning of many portions of Scripture. The Psalms and many of the sacred writings are best studied in the day of darkness, trial, and bereavement. Whatever leads us correctly to understand God’s word is useful to us. 2. Trials lead to prayer. How seldom has strong crying with tears ascended to God, except from the hearts of believers borne down with an awful weight of sorrow. At prayer in the whale’s belly, Jonah is safer and nearer deliverance than asleep on the ship. 3. In sanctified affliction we acquire increased confidence in God. We find that we are as safe and can be. We should be as quiet when hauled before judges, when loaded with chains and reproaches, when stripped of earthly stays and props—as when abounding in plenty, and having outward peace and prosperity. 4. "The path of duty is the path of safety." Daniel in the lion’s den, Paul in carrying his cause to Rome, and Luther in burning the pope’s edict—were perfectly safe because they were following the leadings of Providence. God will defend all who work righteousness and trust in Him. A man is not hurt, until his soul is hurt; and his soul is not hurt, until his conscience is defiled; and his conscience is not defiled, until it is polluted with sin. Nothing can harm us, as long as we are followers of that which is good. 5. The triumph of the wicked is short, and all carnal boasting is vain. The greatest of all victories is that which one obtains over his own evil heart. "Rejoice not when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles—lest the Lord see it, and it displease him, and he turns away his wrath from him." At all times beware of carnal exultation. 6. God will take care of his interests on earth. He will promote the purity and protect the innocence of his church. "All is not lost—which is brought into danger." "In the mount it shall be seen." "Man’s extremity—is God’s opportunity." "When things get to the worst—they begin to grow better." "When the bricks are doubled—then comes Moses." 7. Whoever risks anything for the truth, and cause, and people of God, shall ultimately suffer damage in nothing. "He that loses his life shall find it." He who piously leads a life of self-denial—has a continual feast. 8. Let us judge nothing before the time. We are of yesterday and know nothing. Though the Lord causes grief, he will have compassion according to the multitude of his mercies—for he does not afflict willingly nor grieve the children of men. 9. If we see the oppression of the poor, and the violent perverting of judgment and justice in the earth, we should not marvel at the matter. "If you see a poor person being oppressed by the powerful and justice being miscarried throughout the land, don’t be surprised!" Ecclesiastes 5:8 . Nor let us be greedy of the things that perish. "He who makes a fortune unjustly is like a partridge that hatches eggs it didn’t lay. In the middle of his days his riches will abandon him, so in the end he will be a fool." Jeremiah 17:11 10. All the trials the church undergoes are tests, and show God’s people what is in their hearts. So we read of Hezekiah. "When the ambassadors of Babylon’s rulers were sent to him to inquire about the miraculous sign that happened in the land, God left him to test him and discover what was in his heart." 2 Chronicles 32:31 11. God so arranges and blesses the trials of his people, as commonly to make them the means of strengthening their love to the church. He, who does not love Zion, does not love her King. He, who does not prefer Jerusalem above his chief joy, is not prepared for glory. Whatever leads us to "walk about Zion, go round about her, tell the towers thereof, mark well her bulwarks, and consider her palaces," is good for us, and refreshes us. 12. Some trials in each age of the church are necessary to keep alive the principles of personal and religious liberty. The world is always cruel and tyrannizing. Every generation of Christians has to fight the battle of freedom of thought, and freedom of worship. The world is always encroaching. 13. Let us often inquire—Why, O Lord, do you contend with us? There is always a cause—a need be—for our afflictions. Blessed is he who knows his calling, his business, his opportunity, and the end God has in view in dealing with him. 14. By the review and remembrance of past trials, let the church gather strength for future conflicts. Often do saints sing— "When we review our dismal fears, ’Tis hard to think they’ve vanished so; With God we left our flowing tears, He makes our joys like rivers flow." "Zion enjoys her monarch’s love, Secure against a threatening hour; Nor can her firm foundation move, Built on his truth, and armed with power." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 28: 02.15. GOD'S PROVIDENCE OVER NATIONS ======================================================================== GOD’S PROVIDENCE OVER NATIONS "All the peoples of the earth are regarded as nothing. He does as he pleases with the powers of heaven and the peoples of the earth. No one can hold back his hand or say to him—What have you done?" Daniel 4:35 In general men think far too little of God’s providence over nations. In great perplexity, when evidently the power of man is wholly inadequate to remove or avert evils—then indeed the godly say—In God alone is our help. If divine interposition is required in anything, surely it is essential in the government of nations. The interests at stake are vast and momentous. Property, liberty, reputation and life, with all the rights and blessings connected with them—are powerfully protected or ruinously destroyed—by political institutions. An invasion of rights respecting any of these, has often called forth the greatest powers of argument and eloquence, even when but one man had committed or suffered an injustice. But in the government of nations the rights of thousands, generally of millions, are at stake. If conscious integrity under slander, violence or chains may, from its dark cells—lift up its supplicating eye to the Father of spirits, and hope that he will make bare his arm, and plead its cause, though the person of but one, and he a humble member of society, be involved; can we believe that the destinies of a mighty people associated in a whole country are forgotten before God? If the gentle shepherd, the distressed mariner, the dying prisoner, the orphan boy, or the defenseless widow—may venture to repose confidence in Jehovah; surely may a nation expect that their common and unspeakable interests will not be forgotten before God. These thoughts derive great force, from the absolute incapacity of nations to protect themselves, or to preserve their own existence. There are but few men in the world possessed of any considerable wisdom in the management of political affairs. The eloquent, the brave, the learned are often wholly unfit for times of trial in the regulation of states and empires. We have the highest authority for saying, "Great men are not always wise." The affairs of nations are so complicated, the interests involved are so conflicting, the passions of men are so turbulent, and a proper passage through difficulties is often so narrow and so intricate, that learning gives no safe precedents, eloquence is powerless in the presence of fierce opposition, courage is as useless as it would be in attacking a tornado, and faithfulness and public services are forgotten, despised or envied. In such times there is need of wisdom in all the departments of government—a wisdom too that has seldom been attained by mortals. The shrewdest men the world has ever seen, have often felt themselves stymied and sometimes confounded. Moreover, the really wise men in any nation, being a very small minority in fact, are often so in the adoption of measures. They see one after another of the only safe plans, which they recommend, rejected until they despair of success. Their foresight is called fancy; their prudence is esteemed timidity; their moderation is set down to the account of lukewarmness; and their timely courage is called rashness. Every people on earth, at least every free people, have at times been like a vessel dismasted, her rudder bands broken, herself driven before the winds, and at the mercy of the waves. No pilot but One that has omniscience is adequate to stand at the helm and guide her safely through the storm. A pure despotism is the simplest form of government in the world. In it the will of one man decides everything. The moment men depart one step towards constitutional freedom, the government becomes complex. The more freedom, the more difficult it is to understand and adjust the balances of the Constitution and the laws under it. Hence the necessity of transcendent wisdom in rulers. But if great men are not always wise—neither are wise men always honest, unselfish or loyal to their country. Ahithophel was a traitor. Richelieu was bold, intriguing and fond of war. He destroyed Savoy, Pignerol and Casal. He sent Mary de Medicis, his great benefactress, to end her days in exile. He agitated all surrounding kingdoms with dissensions and insurrections. He had great abilities—but great selfish ambition—and very few virtues. Talleyrand’s wisdom was the scourge of the nation which he ruled. Pitt was a great statesman—but his wars cost England millions, besides innumerable precious lives, and the loss of more private virtue than the glory of all the kingdoms of the world is worth. Men who might understand what ought to be done for a nation’s good are often vain, cruel and sordidly selfish. When wisdom degenerates into cunning, and political acts are cautiously constructed to secure the elevation of their authors—their very gifts are a curse. Their long and loud professions of love of country deceive none but the unwary. When anyone dares to oppose their nefarious schemes, they cry out, "Are you he that troubles Israel?" They often pander to the sins of the nation. Their appeals are to the worst passions of the human bosom. Their practice is never better than their principles. Sometimes they are drunkards; sometimes they are lewd and profane; sometimes, gamblers or violent. They deride God’s name; they despise his Sabbaths; they scorn his worship; they reject his word. Some have thought that, because in the United States, Christianity has outlived the ten thousand malignant blows aimed at her sacred standard and her standard bearers, by the army of infidels that arose just after the French Revolution, therefore pure religion is here in no danger. But is this not a mistake? In the eyes of a majority of this nation, it is no longer a reproach to be a professed Christian. For years some great men have been courting various religious denominations in order to secure their votes. Hence new dangers threaten both the country and the church of God. Already hypocrisy and phariseeism are by some deemed advantageous in political contests. The world is not without a solemn lesson on this subject. It may not be resolved by any legislature, as once it was by Parliament, that "no person shall be employed but such as the House is satisfied of his real godliness." Yet oftentimes public opinion is more powerful than any statute. Let ambitious men be once persuaded that an assumption of the Christian’s name and garb will advance their interests, and we shall find them flattering the vanity of the silly or superstitious, and desecrating the high functions of their stations to sectarian fanaticism, and putting their hands upon the holy things of a religion, which hurls its most awful anathemas against a vain show of piety—and says imperatively to each one, "My son, give me your heart." Surely then there is need for the insteppings of Jehovah to guide and govern nations; nations generally—and each nation in particular. Truly God is their only hope. If he withdraws his arm—they sink. If he removes his protecting shield—they fall before their enemies. If he take his strong and quieting hand off the hearts of the people—their passions heated as in a furnace burst forth, and freedom perishes like stubble before the consuming fire! It is therefore no less the part of wisdom than of piety, to acknowledge the absolute dependence of every nation upon the all-wise governance and nurturing care of Jehovah for the perpetuity of its blessings. Sober men in every age and country have publicly and privately confessed how the Lord alone did make, and save, and keep them a people. Many a time does the peace of every land hang by a thread—while faction, or violence, or treachery stand ready with their weapons to cut it! Without God’s good providence also—nations would soon perish from famine or pestilence. Very easily can God arm even a feeble folk to set at defiance for years together—the skill of the most powerful governments. At one time in this century four of the mightiest nations on earth for years found their arms and prowess held at bay by comparatively contemptible tribes; Russia by the Circassians; England by the Afghans; France by the Algerines; and America by the Seminoles. Each of these powerful states expended millions of money and wasted many precious lives, while God was teaching them that "fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle. The wise are often poor, and the skillful are not necessarily wealthy. And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives strong." God is Judge of all. These views are fully sustained by Scripture. If the weakness and wickedness of men show that nations cannot be preserved by human power and wisdom—Scriptural revelation teaches the same. It is not convenient to present all the passages of Holy Writ which establish this truth. The following are some of them. God claims to be the Father and Founder of nations. To Ishmael he said, "I will make of you a nation." To Abraham he said, "I will make of you a strong nation." Very often in the Scriptures does he claim to have founded and preserved the Jewish nation. Again it is said, "He shall judge among the nations," and "The Lord is governor among the nations." God is often said himself—to have scattered nations, to have cast out nations, to have divided to the nations their inheritance, to increase nations, to enlarge them, and to subdue them. Nor is Jehovah burdened with this mighty charge; for all nations are before him as nothing and vanity, a drop of the bucket and the dust of the balance. "When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble? and when he hides his face, who then can behold it? whether it be done against a nation, or against a man only." God has often threatened to punish nations, to be avenged on them, yes, to cast into hell the nations which forget God. These are but a small part of the solemn texts of Scripture on this subject. They are enough to show that God’s providence over nations is universal and particular! They also show that there is cause of fear for every nation on earth. The Lord is their governor and they have rebelled against him. They have been exceedingly ungrateful. What prosperous nation has not waxed fat and kicked against the Lord? How do pride, and vanity, and covetousness, and evil speaking, and profaneness, and drunkenness, and hatred, and contempt of authority, and violence, and blood shedding stain the escutcheon of every nation! How is the permanency of every good government endangered by office seekers! "Unnumbered suppliants crowd preferment’s gate, Athirst for wealth, and burning to be great; Delusive fortune hears the incessant call, They mount, they shine, evaporate and fall. On every stage the foes of peace attend, Hate dogs their flight, and insult marks their end." When God afflicts any nation let its inhabitants reverently bow before him and humbly submit to his chastisements. Let godly men pray and trust in the providence of God. He can deliver them and their nation out of all their troubles. It is his memorial in every generation, that he hears prayer. Let men praise Jehovah for all his wonderful acts towards their respective nations in days that are past. We have many model Psalms on this subject. It is the Lord who gives salvation unto kings and delivers his servants from the hurtful sword. It is he who makes our sons as plants, grown up in their youth, and our daughters as corner-stones, polished after the similitude of a palace. It is he who makes our garners to be full, affording all manner of store. It is he who makes our sheep bring forth thousands, and ten thousands in our streets. It is he who makes our oxen strong to labor, that gives peace which none can disturb, so that there is no breaking in, nor going out, and no complaining in our streets. We should guard against becoming violent partisans in political causes. Where the real interests of a country are at stake let godly men risk all except a good conscience in their defense. But let not godly men associate with lewd fellows of the baser sort in their howlings against law and order. "Beware of dogs." Let God’s people be very careful how they participate in a revolution. This may not be done when grievances are few or light, or when there is any milder method of redress, or when it is the favorite measure merely of the lawless and profligate portion of society, or when the good to be gained bears no proportion to the evil to be removed. In such cases it seems to be the duty of the suffering—patiently to submit, humbly using such remonstrance, memorial or petition as is generally permitted. Should these be forbidden, let the pious man carry his case to God. Thus did God’s people in Babylon. Daniel, once in great authority there, although a captive, was, under Belshazzar, driven from court. The most venerable man in the kingdom, he was still slighted and forgotten. Wickedness reigned and raged over all the land. The sorrows of the faithful were multiplied. By the prophecies Daniel knew that this state of things could not last long. Yet for the time cruelty triumphed, and he gave himself to fasting and prayer. He and his countrymen seem to have been denied even the right of worship, until the iniquity of the government was full. Then the arm of Omnipotence was made bare. In one night Belshazzar was slain; Cyrus became master of Babylon; the revolution was completed; God’s people were bidden to rebuild their city; and Israel were as those who dreamed—so marvelous was their deliverance. The character of the political agitator is anti-christian. A citizen seeking by just means the general welfare and the public good—is eminently commendable. Let not godly men be overmuch distressed by the false charge of being seditious and disturbers of the public peace. This slander is old and has often been repeated. Ahab brought the charge against Elijah, 1 Kings 18:17. Haman repeated it against all the Jews, whose only offence was that one man among them, venerable for age, piety and patriotism, would not truckle to a tyrant. Good Jeremiah too, the weeping prophet, the lover of Israel, was charged with treason. One high in authority said, "You are deserting to the Babylonians!" Jeremiah 37:13. The humble, godly prophet Amos was foully charged with a conspiracy against the king. Amos 7:10. In the days of our Lord, the Jews greatly hated Caesar. Yet when our Savior reproved their abominable secret sins, they said to Pilate, "If you let this man go, you are not Caesar’s friend—whoever makes himself a king speaks against Caesar." Of the apostles it was said, "those who have turned the world upside down have come hither also." "These all do contrary to the decrees of Caesar, saying that there is another king, one Jesus." All these charges were grossly calumnious; but they are repeated against godly people from age to age. The world never understands Christian character. With it gospel humility is baseness, faith in the word of God is fanaticism, firmness is dogged stubborness. When Pliny the younger, as governor of a distant province, wrote to the Emperor Trajan an account of the Christians, he said, "I asked them if they were Christians; if they confessed, I asked them again, threatening punishment. If they persisted, I commanded them to be executed—for I did not at all doubt but, whatever their confession was, their stubbornness and inflexible obstinacy ought to be punished." Many refuse to draw any distinction between the ravings of fanaticism, and the purest and most humble piety. There is a great difference between the enlightened, humble, unswerving piety of a true Christian—and the wild, lawless radicalism, which sometimes rises up—not from true piety—but from the bottomless pit, and assumes the garb of piety to screen or to sanctify its abominations! The natural enmity of the human heart against holiness, the envy of wicked men against the righteous, whose brighter lives and higher hopes cast a pall of sadness over their character and destiny, and the solemn testimony which godly men in every age feel compelled to bear against the reigning vices and darling sins of men—sufficiently account for the uniformity and bitterness with which the charge of sedition, conspiracy and disloyalty are made against the best men of every age. Indeed it is astonishing how true piety has always secured good conduct in subjects and citizens, and made them blessings to the land they inhabited. It was so in Babylon, where the church of God was in cruel bondage. It was so in the Roman empire during those three hundred years when Persecution walked The earth, from age to age, and drank the blood Of saints, with horrid relish drank the blood Of God’s peculiar children—and was drunk; And in her drunkenness dreamed of doing good. The supplicating hand of innocence, That made the tiger mild, and in his wrath The lion pause—the groans of suffering most Severe, were taught to her—she laughed at groans— No music pleased her more; and no repast So sweet to her as blood of men redeemed By blood of Christ. For centuries, had the Christians chosen to retire from the empire, their very absence, as Tertullian says, would have been terrible vengeance to their persecutors. How long and patiently too did the Vaudois and their pious neighbors bless the very lands that persecuted them! So too in England and Scotland the voice of railing and slander poured its utmost cruelty on the heads of the pious Puritans and Covenanters, men of whom the world was not worthy. The greatest historian of England and the greatest novelist of Scotland have laid out their strength to bring into disrepute these godly men, whose memory is blessed. Hume is obliged to confess that these men were preeminent in the cardinal virtues, and that the principles of liberty inwoven in the British Constitution were mainly through their agency and sufferings. And after all Sir Walter Scott’s sneers, one cannot but feel that those whom he ridicules will by God be adjudged to have filled their place in church and state far better than the men who caricature their conduct. An eminent writer, a zealous minister of the church of England, says, "Many, no doubt, who obtained an undue ascendancy among the Puritans in the turbulent days of Charles the First, and even before that time, were factious, ambitious hypocrites. But I must think that the tree of liberty, sober and legitimate liberty, civil and religious, under the shadow of which, we, in the establishment as well as others, repose in peace, and the fruit of which we gather—was planted by the Puritans, and watered, if not by their blood, at least by their tears and sorrows. Yet it is the modern fashion to feed delightfully on the fruit, and then revile, if not curse, those who planted and watered it!" How often have the the godliest men been cast out of church establishments, and then charged with the sin of schism. How often have they been fined, imprisoned, hunted like partridges on the mountains, or pursued like beasts in the wilderness, and yet have been complained of as troublesome. They have been driven from home to dwell in caves, they have suffered hunger, and shame, and nakedness, and perils by wild beasts and savage men; and yet when their patience has been worn out, and they have availed themselves of the power given them by providence for their protection and defense; they have been accused and condemned for not loving a government, which gave them no protection, secured to them no immunities—but poured the vials of its wrath with a terrible indiscriminateness on the gray head of ninety years, and on the infant of days; yes, even butchered the unborn babe and crushed existence in embryo! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 29: 02.16. PROVIDENCE PUNISHES NATIONS FOR THEIR SINS ======================================================================== PROVIDENCE PUNISHES NATIONS FOR THEIR SINS God’s providence is over both persons and nations. In this world retribution to persons is imperfect, for they will be dealt with hereafter. But nations exist here only. Whatever rewards or punishments they receive must be temporal. In thrift, and peace, and honor—they have their reward in this world for their justice, temperance and industry. Here too they are punished for their iniquities. Sins are national—either by their prevalence among a people, or by being sanctioned by national authority. When the law-making power of a country decrees unrighteousness and frames wickedness by a law; when its executive power is wielded for cruelty, or favoritism; when the judges of a land are corrupt, and justify the guilty and condemn the innocent—then a fearful reckoning is not far off. Likewise, when iniquity abounds in the members of a nation, its punishment is near. The offences, which bring ruin on nations, are pride, luxury, idleness, oppression, extortion, cruelty, covetousness, profaneness, hardness of heart, ingratitude—or any of the sins forbidden in God’s word. But the Scriptures make it very clear that nothing is more offensive to God than the rejection of his Gospel by a people. The 60th chapter of Isaiah contains a prophecy respecting the peaceful and powerful triumph of righteousness, concluding with the declaration that casting off the authority of Christ shall be followed by awful woes, "The nation and kingdom, that will not serve you, shall perish." "The character of nations and men," says Dr. Spring, "is decided by the Gospel. As they fall in with it, or fall out with it—they are saved or lost." This is a weighty matter. Let us consider it well. These remarks are obviously just— 1. It is of God’s mere sovereign kindness that ever the Gospel has been preached, or mercy offered to any people. The glad tidings of salvation are the more gladsome, because we had no title to such a blessing. 2. The sending of the gospel to one nation and not to another is not owing to the superior merit of the favored people over others. "Not for your sakes do I this, says the Lord, be it known unto you—be you ashamed and confounded for your ways, O house of Israel." Ezekiel 36:32. Where is the nation who when they first heard of salvation were not sunk down in many and great sins? 3. The continuance of the gospel among any people is an act of prolonged sovereign goodness. He, who kindly gave, may justly take away. All people have sinned enough to warrant God in withdrawing all his mercies. 4. Great favors impose great obligations. The greater the mercy, the greater the responsibility. The Gospel is the greatest blessing ever bestowed on man. Therefore nothing equally obliges a people to receive the gift with gratitude and to make a right use of it. Nations reject the Gospel by an avowed and general renunciation of its claims and authority, after being made acquainted with them. In every land some refuse the yoke of Christ. Sometimes many do it secretly. But when the hostility is bold and aversion rises to the point of malignity, and opposition builds up adverse systems, and all this with the clear light shining—that nation has reached an appalling crisis! So it was with the Jews. Paul and Barnabas said to them, "Seeing you put it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of eternal life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles." Acts 13:46. Let us carefully look at this matter— I. Sometimes this rejection is accompanied by anti-christian legislation. Such was one law of the Jewish rulers, that if any should confess Christ he should be put out of the synagogue. Such was much of the legislation of revolutionary France, incorporating into its edicts the very spirit of Voltaire’s infidelity. Sometimes a people go further and cruelly persecute all who oppose their wicked course. Ignorantly yet rashly to shed innocent blood—is a blemish on a human government, or a stigma on a benevolent man. Popular violence roused by some atrocity may rashly and wickedly mete out a too terrible doom. Or a cowardly judge, overawed by popular clamor, may perjure himself, and deliver to death one who hardly deserves scourging. But when in the spirit of Cain or of Nero, a people hunt down, imprison and murder the friends of God’s truth, their case becomes fearful beyond expression. In his History of Redemption, Edwards says, "We read in Scripture of scarcely any destruction of nations but that one main reason given for it is, their enmity and injuries against God’s church, and doubtless this was one main reason of the destruction of all nations by the flood." The case is, if possible, yet more alarming when the rancorous zeal of persecutors makes them seek to hinder the spread of saving truth among those who are not joined with them by social or political ties. Thus the cry of the infidels of the last century was, "We must set fire to the four corners of Europe," intending the destruction of all religion. So the Jews not only killed the Lord Jesus and their own prophets, and persecuted the Christians—but they became "contrary to all men," says Paul, "forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sin always—for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost." 1 Thessalonians 2:16. This was the drop that filled their cup of trembling to the full. II. Men sometimes reject the Gospel by making a hypocritical profession of it. Which of the prophets has not lifted up his voice like a trumpet to warn men against this sin? Jesus Christ, in whose lips the law of kindness sat, yet uttered the most fearful denunciations against hypocrites. For false professions, Ananias and Sapphira fell dead by the awful judgment of God. A hypocritical profession of the Gospel is more offensive than a hypocritical profession under any preceding dispensation, because it is committed against clearer light. The real cause of a hypocritical profession of religion is found in the desperate wickedness and deceitfulness of the human heart. But the occasions to it are principally two— First—the legislation of a country, holding out to professors of some peculiar form of religion baits in the way of profit, trust or honor. Carnal men in large numbers will submit to the drudgery of religious rites—rather than forego political preferment. Shaftesbury, Collins and Gibbon, bold infidels as they were, were willing to receive the Lord’s Supper in the church of England, rather than be shut out of Parliament. Secondly—sometimes public sentiment becomes powerful in favor of a religious profession, and in some way makes temporal prosperity dependent on a connection with the church. There is hardly a state where some one sect is not a kind of pet with ungodly men in power. The sect most favored is commonly the one that commands the most votes, or one whose public ministrations are but seldom honored by pungent convictions of sin, or clear conversions to God. Those who preach "Peace! Peace!" are the teachers for the men of this world. "If a liar and deceiver comes and says, ’I will prophesy for you plenty of wine and beer,’ he would be just the prophet for this people!" Micah 2:11. This public opinion, perverted, is potent for mischief. It knows no limits. It has no checks as every written law has. It can make hypocrites faster than the apostles made converts. Nor will any true-hearted professor of religion feel the less abhorrence to the adulation offered by cunning men, because it may be directed to his own denomination. III. A general formality without any practical embracing of Christianity, a readiness to rest upon forms, and rites, and ceremonies—is a great rejection of the Gospel. Outward privilege cannot take the place of inward grace. With formalists, profession is everything, principle is nothing. "A pale cast of thought sicklies over all their religious enterprises and turns all their good purposes awry." Ceremony takes the place of holy living. Fruitfulness gives way to a denominational zeal. The receptacles in the temples of religion are full of anise, mint, rue and cummin; but justice, faith and mercy are stricken from the roll of necessary morals. A staid sobriety and a studied formality take the place of genuine solemnity and Christian kindness. A whimpering sentimentality is substituted for a warm-hearted charity. The Gospel is professed but its genius is not understood. Some of its doctrines are taught—but it is never dreamed that they require holiness. Baptismal regeneration supplants the renewal of the Holy Spirit. Men reach the fearful conclusion that religion consists in forms. Such a community, destitute of fervent love—may soon be filled with fanatics, contemplative and philosophical, or vulgar and boisterous, or fierce and lawless—holding to the bloodiest codes and worst maxims of devils, doing evil that good may come, offended at nothing so much as hesitancy in receiving their wicked dogmas, or resisting their sovereign sway. You might as soon find figs on thistles—as meekness, gentleness, goodness, charity, pity or patience in them. They have the Gospel, without the humility it requires. They hear God’s word—but they do it not. They are like the "earth, which drinks in the rain that comes oft upon it, which yet brings forth thorns and briars, and which is rejected, and near unto cursing, whose end is to be burned." Hebrews 6:7, 8. To such a people Jesus said, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you and given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof." Matthew 21:43. Those who thus treat the Gospel bring on themselves incalculable evils. The Scriptures say "they shall perish." This perdition is spiritual and temporal. Their souls perish, and with them their dignity, their good institutions, their outward prosperity. Left to themselves, men "grope for the wall at noon-day." "They sit in darkness, yes, in the region and shadow of death." "Their understanding is darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them." "Where no vision is, the people perish." No principle of moral conduct is sufficiently clear to the natural mind, nor invested with adequate authority—to control the heart and life—if one is left without a revelation from God. And if one rejects the Gospel, nothing can establish its claim to a divine original. Without God’s word, reason herself is benighted. The very light that is in men is darkness. They know not God. They know not Jesus Christ. They have not so much as heard whether there is a Holy Spirit. "He who has not Christ—has neither beginning of good, nor shall have end of misery. O blessed Jesus, how much better were it not to be—than to be without you." A soul which has no God, is worse than the new-born babe without a caretaker. The worst spiritual calamities for time and eternity await those, who for their sins are deprived of the Gospel. But there is a temporal perdition, awaiting a people, who, to their other sins have added the rejection of the Gospel. The language of Scripture is dreadful, "Who has hardened himself against God and prospered?" "The nation and kingdom that will not serve you shall perish." A most heavy vengeance will fall on those who having heard the Gospel, count themselves unworthy of eternal life. So said God to the ancient Jews, "You only of all the families of the earth have I known, therefore will I visit upon you all your iniquities." Amos 3:2. With them the long-suffering of God waited many years—but it did not wait always. The calamities which finally overtook them might be weighed against the miseries of the world for any ten centuries of its existence. Any adequate description of the destruction of their temple and city would be too long for this work. First came Titus with his Roman legions, themselves heathen, proud and fierce, with the Roman eagle, the chosen emblem of prophecy for desolation. A trench was cast about their Jerusalem. Then seditions arose in the city itself, compared by Josephus to wild beasts grown mad, and for lack of food eating their own flesh. Thus the city had fierce heathen foes without, and fiercer domestic foes within. Famine with all its horrors wasted the unhappy people until the human mind can hardly bear the recital. Heaps of slaughtered men and streams of human gore were found around the altar of God. A dreadful pestilence was the natural offspring of these things. In short, every outward calamity with which man is commonly visited fell upon this people from without; while all the intolerable fires of frenzy, envy and malice raged within. This state of things was only diversified by new and deeper scenes of horror, mingled with occasional and delusive hopes, springing up only to be disappointed, until at last the city fell, and the ploughshare of ruin was driven over its walls and through its streets by a soldiery fierce and brutalized by the nature of the long-continued contest between the besiegers and the besieged. Tacitus says 600,000 souls thus miserably perished. Josephus puts the number at 1,100,000. In that day was fulfilled the prophecy of our Savior, "Then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be." Matthew 24:21. No man can read Josephus’ account of those awful scenes without saying this prophecy was fulfilled. Following the overthrow of the holy city came a saddening series of calamities to Jews everywhere. Long had they spoken of ’Gentile dogs’; but for centuries, he who killed his neighbor’s dog committed as grave an offence as he who killed a Jew. That favored people became a by-word and a hissing. God also cast off the body of the nation from his saving mercies and left them in their sins, hardened in unbelief. "Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God—on them, which fell, severity; but toward us, goodness, if we continue in his goodness; otherwise we also shall be cut off." Let us not think we may treat the Gospel as we please and yet be safe. The admonition of God to us is, "Be not high-minded but fear—for if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not you." If this reasoning teaches anything, it is that God may abandon and forsake a Gentile people having the Gospel, for far less provocation than led him to deliver the Jews over to destruction. For long generations God showed and expressed peculiar tenderness to the seed of Abraham. Even in their deep revolt from him, God said, "Oh, how can I give you up, Israel? How can I let you go? How can I destroy you like Admah and Zeboiim? My heart is torn within me, and my compassion overflows." Hosea 11:8. Let Gentile churches and nations take timely warning from the awful fall of the Jews. How instructive too is the history of the seven churches of Asia, addressed in Revelation and warned to beware lest their candle-stick be removed. Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia and Laodicea stand like seven dreadful beacons having inscribed on them—BEWARE!!! Beware how you slight the Gospel! Beware how you leave your first love! Beware how you embrace the doctrine of Balaam! Beware of that woman Jezebel and her adulteries! Beware how you defile your garments! Beware how you let any man take your crown! Beware how you become neither cold nor hot! The worst judgments are spiritual judgments. The sorest plagues are plagues of the heart. War, famine and pestilence are God’s scourges for the nations generally. But the withholding of the influences of the Spirit, the closing of the day of grace, and the withdrawal of a pure gospel are the plagues reserved for sinners of the deepest dye. They are fearful tokens of God’s fiercest displeasure. REMARKS. 1. Let the people of every land study their national history. Its pages are full of interest. God is in history. Let the people of America be no exception to this call. 2. Let us not trust in man to preserve us. The diviners are often mad, and the seers are blind. God alone knows enough, and loves enough, and is strong enough to protect any people. 3. Let us all beware of a morbid excitability of temper. The mock tragedies and violence of our theaters and books, will create a thirst for wickedness, until at last our people will gloat over scenes of carnage. 4. What shall be the future character of the busy millions of America, who already begin to compass sea and land? is one of the questions properly called sublime. Shall they be crude? The sternest virtue may be clad in camel’s hair. Shall they be refined? The most debasing vices and the most atrocious crimes have often been arrayed in purple and fine linen. Shall they have but little wealth? God has chosen the poor of this world rich in faith. Shall they be free? Freedom is a blessing worth all it ever cost. Still Joseph in chains was a man, whose presence made others feel "how solemn, goodness is." Daniel in Babylon was as sublime a character, as if he had never left the hills of Judea, and the waters of Siloah. Paul dates several of his epistles from under the throne of Nero. But when we ask, Shall this nation be virtuous? shall its people know and do the will of God? shall they meekly wear the yoke of Immanuel and welcome the offers of redeeming mercy? we ask the gravest questions. "Blessed is that people, whose God is the Lord." All nations shall call such a land blessed, God himself shall smile upon it, and in every evening and morning hymn shall be sung "The tabernacle of God is with men." When every land shall truly receive Messiah, it shall be said— "One song employs all nations, and all day— Worthy the Lamb for he was slain for us. The dwellers in the vales and on the rocks Shout to each other, and the mountain tops, From distant mountains, catch the flying joy, Until nation after nation taught the strain Earth rolls the rapturous Hosanna round." But if any people learn habitually to slight offered mercy, their future course will open an Iliad of calamities, appalling to the stoutest heart. The prophetic roll of such a country’s history is written within and without with lamentations, and mourning, and woe. 5. Let each man remember his own awful responsibility to God. The way that nations rise in worth, or sink in ruin, is by the individuals, who compose them—walking humbly with God, or renouncing their portion in Jacob. Aggregated masses are the sum of the good or ill inwoven into the character of their component parts. The union of godly men is right, and it is strength. Let every man rule his own heart. He is the best citizen—who walks most according to the moral law and the example of Christ, and who most fervently implores the blessing of heaven on his people and country. "Blessed is the nation, whose God is the Lord." "Righteousness exalts a nation—but sin is a reproach to any people." 6. People of America! Beware how you trifle with sin, how you make light of God’s authority, and revel in iniquity. In ages long gone by, there flourished on this continent a powerful race of men. In the ruins of their cities and fortifications, we see monuments of their prodigious energy and resources. But they are all passed away. No living man has any knowledge of their rise and fall. After them, came the red man, commonly called the Indian. Two centuries ago there were millions of these people, where now are but thousands. Many powerful tribes have wholly disappeared. Others are rapidly melting away. It looks as if God would make a full end of them. Their nationality has generally perished. And shall the myriads, that now swarm on these shores, follow in the footsteps of these old transgressors, and alike fade away under the desolating power of evil, by the curse of Jehovah, or in deadly strife? O Lord, you know. O Lord, have mercy, and grant to us all unfeigned repentance. But some are hopeless cases. Nothing moves them. God chastises them—but they make their hearts harder than adamant. He invites them by mingled words of entreaty and of authority—but they pass heedlessly along. A word enters more into a wise man—than seven stripes into them. Though they should be pounded with a pestle in a mortar, their foolishness will not depart from them. In their case we fear the worst. "When they cry, Peace and safety—then lo, sudden destruction comes upon them!" Yet no signs of devouring wrath now strike their or our senses. Earthquakes, it is said, are preceded by an unusual stillness in nature. Hell follows close on uninterrupted carnal security. God calls the whole nation to repentance. The voice of mercy is loud and tender and persuasive. Will not all, individually, turn and live? Will you renounce every evil way, and believe in Christ? This year you may die. How can you appear at God’s tribunal without a saving interest in Christ? Be persuaded to lay hold on eternal life. If the nation repents, it will be by each man bewailing his sins, believing in Christ, and so fleeing from the wrath to come. "God now commands all men everywhere to repent." Obey, and live. Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: "The whole world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever." And the twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped him. And they said, "We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign! The nations were angry with you, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants. You will reward your prophets and your holy people, all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. And you will destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth." Revelation 11:15-18 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 30: 03.00. THE CHRISTIAN ======================================================================== THE CHRISTIAN By William S. Plumer, 1878 "The Christian is a delightful and encouraging work, describing twenty-seven facets of the Christian experience. Altogether, it is an excellent, succinct presentation on what it means to be a Christian. This treatise could serve the believer well as a daily devotional as well as an evangelistic tool to explain the experiential life of a Christian to the inquiring unbeliever." Joel Beeke. Part One 1. The Christian Name 2. The Christian Profession 3. The Christian Life 4. The Christian Doctrine 5. The Christian Character—an Example 6. The Christian Simplicity 7. The Christian’s Way 8. The Christian’s Temptations 9. The Christian’s Victory over Temptations 10. The Christian’s Views of Sin 11. The Christian’s Besetting Sins 12. The Christian’s Sense of Responsibility 13. The Christian’s Faith 14. Why Do I Rest Confidently in Christ? 15. The Christian’s Hope Part two 16. The Christian’s Trust 17. A Christian’s Good Resolutions 18. The Christian Lives by Rule 19. The Christian’s Enemies 20. The Christian’s Shepherd 21. The Christian’s Advocate 22. The Christian’s Earnest 23. The Christian’s Joy 24. The Christian’s Sorrow 25. The Christian’s Sorrow—more about it 26. The Christian’s Hatred of Error 27. The Christian’s Glorious Riches 28. Some Musings of an Old Christian 29. What Can I Do? 30. Posthumous Usefulness ======================================================================== CHAPTER 31: 03.01. THE CHRISTIAN NAME ======================================================================== THE CHRISTIAN (chapters 1 to 15) By William S. Plumer, 1878 1. THE CHRISTIAN NAME The word ’Christian’ is found but three times in all the Scriptures. The places where it occurs are Acts 11:26; Acts 26:28; and 1 Peter 4:16. These read as follows: "And the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch." "Then Agrippa said unto Paul—you almost persuade me to be a Christian." "Yet if any man suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God on this behalf." The chronology of some of the events recorded in the Acts is not entirely certain, but it seems pretty clear that the followers of our Lord were not called Christians until ten or twelve years after our Savior’s ascension to heaven. I once heard a sermon on Acts 11:26, in which it was assumed that the name Christian, like that of Puritan or Methodist, was first given in reproach, and by enemies; and was afterward adopted by the disciples of our Lord, as a name which they were willing to bear. And it cannot be denied that in every age odious epithets have been heaped upon the godly. It is also certain from the history of the trial and martyrdom of Polycarp, that for a long time the enemies of the Cross employed the term to revile and accuse. But this does not prove that bad men first gave the name. These things seem to be clear: 1. Christian is a very fit name for all the followers of Christ. They are in Christ. They love and adore Christ. They are ready to die for Christ. He is their Savior and Redeemer. They are not ashamed of Him, and He is not ashamed of them. They are the friends, followers, and redeemed of Jesus Christ. He is all in all to them. They are precious to Him. He says so (Isaiah 43:4). 2. Christian is a very appropriate name. It well designates God’s people, and in itself sums up the whole matter. Other names are given to God’s people, and some of them are very appropriate, but none is more fitting than this. 3. It was foretold by the evangelical prophet that in the latter days the Church should receive a new appellation: "The Gentiles shall see your righteousness, and all kings your glory: and you shall be called by a new name, which the mouth of the Lord shall name" (Isaiah 62:2). This passage no doubt indicates the great blessing arising from the altered state and prospects of the Gospel Church. But may it not also be interpreted as having been literally fulfilled in the bestowment of the name Christian? Many have so thought. 4. Nor were there lacking in the primitive Church, people by whom the Lord could fitly change the name of His people; for in immediate connection with the historic statement that "the disciples were called Christians first at Antioch," it is added, "prophets came down from Jerusalem to Antioch. Then one of them, named Agabus, stood up and predicted by the Spirit that there would be a severe famine throughout the Roman world. This took place during the time of Claudius" (Acts 11:26-28). There were inspired men who were able to make known the mind of God and to speak by His authority. 5. The people of God have ever since, and without hesitation, borne the name of Christians. The inspired historian, Luke, says nothing against it. Peter speaks of it approvingly. Evidently godly men have long accepted it as if it were from the Lord. Someone may ask, WHAT IS IN A NAME? The answer is, that there is a great deal in a name; and in giving a name, one exercises high authority. It is recorded as one of the acts of the intelligence and authority of Adam that he gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field (Genesis 2:20). Jehovah Himself asserts His prerogative in giving and changing names as He pleases. Thus He changed the names of Abraham, Jacob, and Sarah. Thus He directed that the name of His incarnate Son should be called Jesus. Names are things when properly applied. They are indeed often borne unworthily, often misapplied. But it would shock our pious feelings if the ancient Church had received her names from Cain, or Canaan, or Korah, or any notoriously bad man, instead of being called Jacob, Israel, Joseph, Abraham’s seed, and spoken of in other like terms indicative of glory and virtue. In the Christian name is so much that is precious, that nothing could persuade godly men to give it up. Even bad men love to have the epithet ’Christian’ bestowed upon their loved ones who have left this world. Reader, are you a Christian; a real, living, firm, consistent Christian? You have the name, but are you worthy of it? Is your union with Christ close and vital? Do you live in Him? Do you live for Him? Do you live to Him? Do you wish to live and reign with Him? Have you duly considered the import of the name you bear? It means much more than being born in a Christian land. Worthily to bear the name of a Christian, is the greatest honor and the greatest happiness ever attained on earth. A Christian is the highest style of man. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 32: 03.02. THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION ======================================================================== 2. THE CHRISTIAN PROFESSION In the New Testament the same Greek verb is rendered both confess and profess. In these places it is rendered confess, namely, Matthew 10:32; Luke 12:8; John 1:20; John 9:22; John 12:42; Acts 23:8; Acts 24:14; Romans 10:9; Hebrews 11:13; 1 John 1:9; 1 John 4:2-3, 1 John 4:15; and 2 John 1:7. In the following places the same verb is rendered profess, namely, Matthew 7:23; 1 Timothy 6:12; Titus 1:16. In like manner the noun is sometimes rendered profession, as in 1 Timothy 6:12; and in the very next verse it is rendered confession. If there is any difference between a confession and a profession, it is that the former is made in the face of danger, while the latter is a mere setting forth of our belief and practice. Each is an avowal of one’s convictions or of one’s belief. Each is a declaration of what is supposed to be truth. A Christian profession is called for— 1. By the very nature of the case, Christ’s kingdom is both spiritual and voluntary. If men consent not to serve Him, they are His enemies. If they bow to His yoke, how can they more fitly declare that fact than by avowing their love to Him? If none of Christ’s friends declare for Him, He will soon have no friends in this world. 2. A proper and becoming profession of love to Christ is useful to others. It emboldens timid disciples. It confirms the faltering. It awakes the dull and inattentive. It makes men feel that there is a reality in religion. Very few things are more potent for good, than a solemn profession of Christ’s religion. Many a man has been stout and hardened until he saw his wife, or child, or brother, standing up to take upon them the Christian profession. It was proof of desperate wickedness in the chief priests and elders that when even the publicans and harlots believed John, and these officials saw it, they repented not afterward that they might believe (Matthew 21:32). 3. A Christian profession is commended in the Word of God. It is called "a good profession" (1 Timothy 6:12). It is in itself right, lovely, beautiful, excellent, as the Greek word signifies. 4. A Christian profession is commanded by Him who has all authority in the case. His word and providence unite in saying: Who is on the Lord’s side? Come out from among them. Be separate, says the Lord. Choose you this day whom you will serve. 5. Very glorious promises are annexed to a right Christian profession, and very awful threatenings are uttered against those who refuse to own the Redeemer. Hear the Savior, who shall be our final Judge: "Whoever therefore shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also before My Father who is in heaven. But whoever shall deny Me before men, him will I also deny before My Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 10:32-33). Compare Luke 12:8-9; Mark 8:38; Luke 9:26; Romans 10:9-10. But what is implied in a Christian profession? It is plainly to own the whole truth of God as made known to us. To profess any error or falsehood cannot but be dishonoring to God. A good profession clearly implies an adherence to the truth of God. And no lie is of the truth. It is also a declaration of a purpose to observe all God’s statutes and ordinances. There is no piety where there is no keeping of the Commandments. A good profession is always followed by walking in the ways of the Lord, following His example, and framing our doings to please Him and serve His people. And all this is with humble subjection to Christ in all things. A Christian profession must be— 1. Sincere and hearty. Not only must it not be basely hypocritical, but in it there must not be even self-deception. It must be honestly made. In it must be no reserves, no relentings. A profession of love without love is offensive to every right mind. 2. It must be humble, not vainglorious and ostentatious. Jehu called on men to witness his zeal for the Lord. He was a poor, vain creature. 3. A Christian profession must be open and public. Christ made no secret of His love to us. Why should we make a secret of our love to Him? "Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matthew 5:16). 4. Our profession should also be bold and fearless. We should not seem to be asking pardon for being followers of Jesus Christ. Paul says: "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes" (Romans 1:16). There is an apologetic way of avowing truth which seems to provoke opposition. We must stand up for Jesus, cost what it may. The life of the truth is more important than the life of any man upon earth. We must resist even unto the shedding of blood, if necessary. 5. A Christian profession is permanent—until death. In this war there is no discharge. "If any man draws back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him," says God (Hebrews 10:38). In this work we have great encouragement. "Let us hold fast the profession of our faith without wavering; for He who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23). How faithful He is, the saints of all ages can testify. His faithfulness never fails. It reaches to the heavens. It is unto all generations. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 33: 03.03. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE ======================================================================== 3. THE CHRISTIAN LIFE When we speak of the Christian life, we may refer either to the gracious principle implanted in the heart of the regenerate, or to the ordinary methods of its manifestation. Let us look at both. The life of God in the soul of a believer is a great mystery. In any case life is somewhat unknown to us. But the life of a child of God is very far removed from the cognizance of the careless. Believers themselves are God’s hidden ones. They are fed and nourished by the hidden manna. The secret of the Lord is with them. He shows them His covenant. Their life is hid with Christ in God. True, when Christ, who is their life, shall appear, then shall they also appear with Him in glory. But now they are unknown to the world, except as their light shines in the darkness. The Christian life is supernatural. It is something far above the powers of the carnal man. That the blind should see, the deaf hear, the lame man leap as a deer, and the dead live—can be accounted for only on the ground that it is the work of God. We are all dead in trespasses and sins, until Divine grace makes us new creatures. Over our mind, dense clouds of smoke and thick darkness from the bottomless pit have settled. We have eyes, but we see not. Our imaginations are vain. Our memories are polluted. Our ingenuity devises mischief and foolish evasions and excuses. Our wills are perverse and stubborn. Our daring in sin is frightful. To think of our state might well make one to shudder. Our enmity to God is mortal. If such are changed from hatred to love, from sin to holiness—it must be by God’s power, His mighty power. This Christian life is the gift of the Holy Spirit, and no man knows the way of the Spirit. "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but cannot tell whence it comes nor where it goes; so is everyone who is born of the Spirit." It is but vanity and presumption for us poor worms to claim to comprehend the ways of God. The Christian life is to the soul that experiences it, a new life. Old things have passed away. All things are become new. Like all new life, it is full of wonders. Everything pertaining to it is fresh and suited to rejoice the heart. And so it is a happy life. The joy of the Lord has great strength in it. The buoyancy of the soul that is stayed on God is often amazing, and always mighty. This life is also abiding. It is not always equally strong, but it is fed by new supplies of strength until the last. Of course the Christian life is a great mercy. So says the apostle of the circumcision: "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who, according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a lively hope," etc. So says the apostle of the Gentiles: "God, who is rich in mercy, for His great love wherewith He loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ," etc. The Christian life manifests itself— 1. By healthful and regular pulsations. The child of God has a heart, and its throbbings are not spasmodic and occasional. Because Christ lives in them, the life of Christians is constant. 2. The Christian life manifests itself by cries—cries that enter the ears of the Lord Almighty. As soon as Paul was renewed, it was said of him, "Behold, he prays." No Christian lives without prayer. 3. The Christian life manifests itself by a relish for suitable food. Even the newborn babe desires the sincere milk of the Word that it may grow thereby. After a while, the strong meat of God’s Word is required, and it is relished also. 4. Wondrously, too, does the child of grace enjoy the pure and heavenly atmosphere of the Church and ordinances of God’s house, and the sweet moments of the communion of saints in prayer and praise, in supplication and thanksgiving. 5. Such Christians will grow—will grow up into more and more stability, heavenly-mindedness, constancy, courage, love, faith, and hope. Of some, Paul says their faith grew exceedingly. 6. The Christian life will show itself by activity. There will sooner or later be motion where there is life. In due time the renewed man will walk, and leap, and praise God. When one said to an ancient philosopher, "There is no such thing as motion," the sage said not a word, but arose and walked across the room. That was answer enough. So if any say there is no Christian life in the world, let us, by walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly, prove that they are mistaken. There is a reality, there is a power in heartfelt piety. On this earth nothing is more powerful. But for true piety, the world would soon come to an end—the cries of its wickedness perpetually calling for vengeance. But as ten righteous men would have saved the cities of the plain, so for the elect’s sakes the day of vengeance is shortened and the day of grace prolonged. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 34: 03.04. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE ======================================================================== 4. THE CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE The word doctrine is found more than fifty times in the Scriptures. It has shades of meaning, but it commonly has the idea of knowledge, instruction, teaching. Our present business is with Christian doctrine. The prophets, Christ, and His Apostles did teach something coherent and harmonious. There is a system of truth. It differs from Paganism, Mohammedanism, Deism, Judaism. Christian doctrine embraces the truths of the Gospel. In general it consists in the instruction given us in all God’s Word. In particular it is made up of those great principles urged by Christ and His Apostles as expository of the Old Testament, and as declaring the mind and will of God. There is such a thing as Christian doctrine in opposition to anti-Christian error. Truth is opposed to falsehood. Both Solomon and Paul speak of "good doctrine." Four times does Paul speak of "sound doctrine," which is the same as good doctrine. All true and sound doctrine is good whether it pleases or offends men. In Scripture it is called "the doctrine of God," "the doctrine of the Lord," "the doctrine of God our Savior," "the doctrine of Jesus," "the doctrine of Christ," "the doctrine of the Apostles," "the doctrine which is according to godliness." In Scripture it is synonymous with "truth," "the truth in Christ," "the truth as it is in Jesus," "the truth of God," and "the word of truth." It is elsewhere called the "form of sound words," and "sound speech that cannot be condemned." Christian doctrine is just the opposite of what the Bible calls "strange doctrines," "the doctrines and commandments of men," "philosophy and vain deceit," "the doctrines of devils," "the traditions of men," "damnable heresies." So that it cannot be denied that there is such a thing as sound doctrine, just as there is unsound doctrine; there is good doctrine, and there is evil doctrine; there is doctrine according to godliness, and there is doctrine contrary to piety; there is a word that nourishes men up in faith, and there is a word that eats as a canker. Christian doctrine is always good, safe, edifying. We are bound to discriminate between Christian doctrine and all its opposites. The Word of God requires us to prove all things, and to hold fast that which is good; to try the spirits, and not to believe every spirit; to judge of religious teachers by their doctrines. This can be done. Many have done it. We can know the truth. "The doctrine of the Pharisees" and "the doctrine of the Sadducees" never did accord with the doctrine of Christ. "The doctrine of Balaam" and "the doctrine of the Nicolaitans" always were at war with truth and righteousness, always were abhorred by godly men, and always did subvert those who lent a willing ear to them. Light and darkness are not more opposite than truth and error. Arsenic and flour look very much alike; but one kills while the other nourishes. All are bound to distinguish between Christian doctrine and opposing errors. Christian doctrine is not the product of earth. Man is not its author. All saving truth is heaven-born. Christ so taught: "My doctrine is not Mine, but His that sent Me." The consent of all men cannot transmute a lie or a fable, into the truth. Holy men of God spoke as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. If God says anything, it is true. If He says it not, it is either not true, or it concerns not our salvation. Christian doctrine must be known, loved, and embraced. It is essential to right views of God’s nature, government, and worship. Before one believes that he needs a Savior, he must believe that he is a sinner. Men reject the truth from pride, or prejudice, or the lack of right affections. The Scripture warrants us in saying that men hold false doctrine because they have "not received the love of the truth," and that proves a wicked state of mind. All but ungodly men love the truth. Our salvation depends upon our receiving the Christian verity. "He who believes not is condemned already." "If you believe not that I am He, you shall die in your sins." "Sanctify them through Your truth; Your word is truth." These are a few specimens of what God’s Word says, to teach us how essential a hearty reception of the very doctrines of Scripture is to our securing eternal life. Error may lead to bigotry, blasphemy, or superstition—but never to holiness. False doctrine dishonors God at every step. It defiles the conscience, corrupts the heart, blinds the mind, and makes vain our imaginations. On the other hand, truth leads to godliness. When inspired men would stir up God’s people to courage, constancy, humility, benevolence, adoration, and holiness, they never present old wives’ fables, but the great truths of Scripture. Nor are God’s friends at liberty to hold back any portion of the truth. The rejection of some of the doctrines of God will bring utter ruin on the soul. To believe a lie in religion is a very alarming symptom. "But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned!" (Galatians 1:8). We must not only hold the Christian doctrine, but we must hold it to the rejection of opposite errors. The Pharisees held considerable truth, but they made it all vain by their traditions. And we must hold the Christian doctrine at all cost and at all hazards. "Buy the truth, and sell it not." Myriads have laid down their lives for the testimony of Jesus; and they acted wisely in so doing. By thus losing their lives, they made sure eternal life. It would not be difficult to show that all the truths of religion, and all the civil and religious liberty on earth, are the fruit of the sufferings of men, who hazarded their lives for Christian doctrine. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 35: 03.05. THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER— AN EXAMPLE ======================================================================== 5. THE CHRISTIAN CHARACTER— AN EXAMPLE The word character is often taken in the sense of reputation; but when used more precisely, it refers to the principles and affections which control a man. It is the stamp on the mind, the impress on the heart, the sum of the effects produced on the soul by all the influences brought to bear upon it. There is such a thing as Christian character. Otherwise there is no difference between Christians and unbelievers. Even infidels have confessed the difference between Christian servants and the profane in their employment. The epithets bestowed on men in the Word of God clearly show that there is a radical difference between them. Some are called wise, and others foolish; some are just, and others unjust; some are righteous, and others unrighteous; some are godly, and others ungodly; some are the friends of God, and others are His enemies; some are the servants of God, and others are the servants of sin; some are the children of God, and others are the children of the Devil. Christians are strangers and pilgrims, and others are men of the world. There is a radical difference between men’s characters. The Bible says so. All this is very reasonable, for— 1. God’s grace has done much more for some men than for others. See what a difference it made between Paul and Nero, both bloody persecutors; between Zaccheus and the young ruler whom Jesus loved, both greedy worldlings; between the two thieves on the Cross, both deserving death for their crimes. Every Christian has received of the Lord pardon for all his sins, acceptance in the Beloved, the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation. He has also been renewed in the spirit of his mind by the power of the Holy Spirit. He has received a new heart. The law of God has been written upon his heart. He has been made a new creature. It would be monstrous for such a one to be, to live, and to act like one who had never been thus blessed. 2. The Christian has seen more than the wicked. He has had his eyes opened to behold wondrous things out of God’s law. Christ has been revealed in him, and to him. He has by faith seen Him, who is invisible. He has caught amazing glimpses of the glorious character of the incorruptible God. How can such a one be, live, or behave like the poor, blinded sinner, who cannot see afar off? 3. The Christian has heard more than the wicked. His ears have been circumcised. He has so heard that he has lived. Like Lazarus in the grave, he has heard the Son of God saying, "Come forth," and he has had strength to obey. He has heard the voice of Love. He has heard the tender calls of bleeding mercy. Surely such a man will be different from those who are strangers to such things. 4. The Christian has felt more than the sinner. His heart has been circumcised. His soul has been filled with pleasure at things which the wicked care not for. Many a time his heart has burned within him at things which never moved the wicked. The Lord has opened his heart to attend unto the things which concern salvation. In his heart he thinks far differently from what he ever thought before. 5. The Christian has sincerely and devoutly promised to live unto God, and not unto himself. The vows of God are upon him. He has sworn that he would keep the statutes of the Lord. The man of the world has never heartily made any such engagements. Whatever promises he has made, if not grossly hypocritical, were at least without any gracious purpose to glorify God. Ease soon revokes vows made under terrors of conscience, the pangs of affliction, or the apprehension of death. It would be marvelous if the Christian, with all his good intentions, solemn vows, and settled purposes—had not a character quite decided and vastly different from that of the sinner. He may be slow to engage in some good things, but his hand once put to the plow, he looks not back. 6. The Christian really and earnestly expects more and greater things than all the sinners in the world. They have transient and vain expectations, based on their own self-righteousness, and on mistaken views of the character of God. But the Christian is warranted in every hope he indulges, built upon the Word of God. All his expectations are awakened by truth and the spirit of truth. None of his hopes shall perish. His supports in future conflicts and in the last struggle shall be greater than he had been able to think. The crown of life shall be more glorious than he ever anticipated. It therefore cannot be otherwise than that he shall be a peculiar manner of person in all holy living and godliness, looking for and hastening unto the coming of the day of God. He perfects holiness in the fear of God. He lives soberly, righteously, and godly in this present evil world. His character is different from that of all the enemies of God. The wicked take knowledge of him—that he has been with Jesus. His brethren in the Lord are drawn to him. He lives before God. His very death is precious in the sight of the Lord. AN EXAMPLE IN REV. WM. PRESTON, D.D. About the beginning of this century there was born in Connecticut a child, which grew and waxed strong, and in due time reached a vigorous manhood. After careful preparation he was inducted into the sacred office. His ecclesiastical relations were with the Protestant Episcopal Church. He twice served the Master as pastor of the flock in Columbus, Ohio, and twice, and for a longer period, he labored in Pittsburgh, Pa. In this latter field he spent in all about thirty of the best years of his life. Like many other people of God whom I have known, he left this world on Sabbath morning. It was the 25th of April. When the churches he had served, and the thousands of Israel were assembling in houses built with hands, he was for the first time joining in the hallelujahs of the temple on high. When Christian and Hopeful entered the heavenly city, Bunyan says: "Then I heard in my dream that all the bells in the city rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them, ’Enter into the joy of your Lord.’" The day of his death was the greatest Sabbath ever enjoyed by Dr. Preston. To all such as he the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth. He entered this world with a cry as of distress. He entered heaven with a shout of "Salvation unto God and the Lamb!" Here he had tears and sorrows, known only to his Savior and himself; but in the Church above he shall sorrow no more, for there the Lord God wipes away all tears from off all faces. Dr. Preston was a lovely man. He was naturally amiable, and grace had sweetened all his nature. Who ever heard him say a hard or harsh thing of a fellow creature? He loved God’s people of every name. His soul was warmed with charity that hoped and believed and endured all that godly men are commonly called to hope and believe and endure. Neither by nature, nor in principle, nor in practice was Dr. Preston a bigot. He abhorred those narrow views and feelings which believed moral excellence was found chiefly in his own denomination. Often did he walk to the house of God in company with brethren of other churches, and mingle his voice with theirs in prayer and praise. I have never heard more tender or evangelical extemporaneous prayers in large assemblies than I have heard from him, when he was the only Episcopalian perhaps in all the congregation. Dr. Preston greatly loved the doctrines of grace. He was a firm believer in those doctrines as taught by Paul, by Augustine, by Calvin, and by the best English reformers. On these subjects his trumpet gave no uncertain sound. His faith was grounded and settled. He never attempted nor pretended to make any new discoveries in theology. He took good heed to the Word of the Lord as given by the prophet Jeremiah, "Stand in the ways, and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls." One truly says of him: "The ministers and Christian people of this city, indeed the whole community, mourn the death of a devoted servant of Christ, a pastor of stainless reputation, and a warm-hearted gentleman and Christian friend." This witness is true. The friendship between Dr. Preston and myself was of more than twenty years’ standing. I found him always as kind as a woman, as firm as a rock, as fearless as a lion, and as true as steel. We had often communed together of the things of the kingdom. I never heard from him a doubtful sentiment. I never knew him to quail under clamor. He was valiant for the truth. He hated every false way. The death of such men as Dr. Preston has a real power in making us willing to die. The society of which he is now a member is composed of the elite of the universe. Every choice spirit that has passed away from earth belongs to that blessed company who worship before the throne in a world where the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 36: 03.06. THE CHRISTIAN'S SIMPLICITY ======================================================================== 6. THE CHRISTIAN’S SIMPLICITY In our English Bible and in common parlance, to be simple is often the same as to be stupid, silly, credulous, easily deceived by appearances. In this case it is the opposite of wisdom. Thus: "A prudent man foresees the evil and hides himself: but the simple pass on and are punished" (Proverbs 22:3). "Ephraim is like a silly dove without heart" (Hosea 7:11), describes a like character. It is a bad thing to be a natural fool. It is worse to be made a fool by wicked men and wicked inclinations. Such simplicity is never commended. This is the worst kind of simplicity, because it is both the fruit and the cause of wickedness. Sometimes a simple man is one who is weak, uninstructed, perhaps deceived, but honest, a seeker of truth. Thus to the great feast prepared by wisdom the invitation is sent forth: "Whoever is simple, let him turn in hither" (Proverbs 9:4). One of the words rendered simplicity often denotes health, soundness, freedom from disease. Thus a single eye is a good eye, giving clear vision (Matthew 6:22; Luke 11:34). The noun is rendered singleness of heart in Ephesians 6:5 and Colossians 3:22, where it means soundness or integrity of heart. Again, simplicity is the opposite of penuriousness, stinginess—and so implies goodness, gentleness, liberality. Thus, in Romans 12:8, "He who gives—let him do it with simplicity." In 2 Corinthians 8:2 the same word is rendered liberality, and in 2 Corinthians 9:11, bountifulness. Lastly, to be simple is to be inoffensive, free from bad intention, inexpert in wickedness, harmless—as where Paul says, "I would have you wise unto that which is good, and simple concerning evil" (Romans 16:19). The same word is used by our Lord when He says, "Be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves;" and by Paul, when he says, "Do all things without murmurings and disputings: that you may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God, without rebuke." What is it, then, to be simple concerning evil? It is something wholly consistent with being wise unto that which is good. It is not natural foolishness. Yet to carnal men it often looks like folly, because it readily incurs natural evils rather than run into sinful ways. The arts of wicked men are not known to such. They are "so wise as not to be deceived, and yet so simple as not to be deceivers." In malice they are children, in understanding they are men. It is no credit to any godly man to be an adept in the arts and chicanery of the deceitful world. It was by one of the ancients pronounced a reproach to a king or philosopher to dance well. So it is a shame for a Christian to be expert in the devices of carnal men for gaining influence and promoting selfish or base designs. The simplicity of the Gospel is near of kin to godly sincerity (2 Corinthians 1:12). It abhors duplicity. It carries its heart in its hand. It has no crooked ways. "It is fair, it is candid, it is honest, it is upright in all things." And it is as loving as it is fair. It bears no malice. Its tongue is not defiled with slander, nor its hands with wrong. Its steps are not stained with blood. It curses not, but it blesses largely. It is manly, not cowardly. It is humble, but not servile. It is bold, but not fierce. It devises liberal things, but loves to do good unseen. It is not boastful nor ostentatious, and yet it refuses not to do good for fear it might be found out. Call on one possessed of this excellent quality to deny himself, and nothing seems easier. Present to him the temptations which master most men and they seem powerless. Their chief effect is to drive him nearer to God, closer to the mercy-seat, quite into the bosom of the Good Shepherd. This quality is gracious. It should be cultivated. It may be much strengthened by prayer, by the Word of God, by practice, by hating every false way, by associating with men of pure minds and simple hearts. In nothing is example more potent than in learning lessons of simplicity. Because great attainments in this excellence are not often made, we ought the more earnestly to labor and pray for it. The more we are tempted to any course inconsistent with this simplicity, the more should we resist the devil, that he may flee from us. For a pattern we have One that excels all others—our Lord Jesus Christ. Often He declined to commit Himself to others, for He knew what was in man. But never did any put themselves in His power or under His control, but to be blessed thereby. When He gave, it was with all bountifulness. When He reproved, it was with all gentleness. When He invited, it was with superhuman kindness. His eye was single. His heart was single and sincere and loving. His mind was pure and upright. Oh, be like Jesus Christ! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 37: 03.07. THE CHRISTIAN'S WAY ======================================================================== 7. THE CHRISTIAN’S WAY "For the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked leads to ruin." Psalms 1:6 Every man has his way. Conduct is an index to character. Manners make the man. Behavior before God and man tells where one is going. The way of sinners is evil, is false, is hard, is wicked, is dangerous, is ruinous. It leads to hell. It leads nowhere else. In the end it will cause the bitterest lamentations ever heard. There is no madness equal to that of sinning against God. But the Christian has his way too. Indeed, believers are more than once called men of the way. In Acts 9:2, we translate it "any of this way." But scholars know that it should be any of the way. So also in Acts 19:9, it is said some "spoke evil of that way." It means they spoke evil of the way, that is, the way of God, the way of godly men. In the Old Testament the word way sometimes has the same general import. In an important sense Christ Himself is the way of believers. So He teaches: "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no man comes unto the Father but by Me" (John 14:6). The soul enters on its upward and glorious career through Christ alone (John 10:1, John 10:7). In the same manner it continues its heavenly course. As men have received Christ the Lord, so do they walk in Him. Paul’s great wish was that he might be "found in Christ." The same is true of all who are clearly on their way to glory and honor. The Christian’s way is the way of truth. Inspired men so call it (2 Peter 2:2). It is the true way. There is no mistake in it. It deceives no one. It disappoints no one. It is not built on fables and fictions. It is built on truth, more lasting than the mountains. There is no foolishness in it. It is wise. It is often called the way of understanding. No man acts wisely until he walks in it. No man has any wisdom above this. To forsake this way is to choose death. The Christian’s path is the way of righteousness (2 Peter 2:21). It is the way of justifying righteousness. Only thus is any man pardoned. Only thus is any man accepted as righteous. It is the way of personal righteousness. It is the good and the right way (1 Samuel 12:23). It is the way of holiness. So the evangelical prophet spoke of it: "An highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein" (Isaiah 35:8). No marvel, then, that the course of the Christian is called the way of God (Acts 18:26); and the way of the Lord (Psalms 27:11). It is the way God chooses, appoints, and loves. He honors it with His presence and His smiles. He who walks in it, walks with God. God is his friend, his guide, his shepherd, his father, his exceeding joy. No wonder, then, that Zacharias, when filled with the Holy Spirit, called it the way of peace (Luke 1:79). It brings peace to the heart and the conscience. It secures peace with God, and leads to peace with just men. It inspires pure and friendly sentiments to all. It is also the way of life, and of salvation (Proverbs 6:23; Proverbs 15:24; Jeremiah 21:8; Acts 16:17). All who walk not in this way are dead in trespasses and in sins. They are out of the right way. They are stalking to ruin. But they who are in this way shall, in the highest sense, live. They belong to Christ. Because He lives, they shall live also. They are even here delivered from the curse and displeasure of God. In the best and highest sense of the term, they have salvation. This way is strait, narrow, difficult (Matthew 7:14). Men cannot walk in it carelessly. They cannot carry with them their vices and lusts. They must learn and practice the laws of self-denial. They must not be restive. They must not rebel under powerful restraints. The righteous are scarcely saved. This way is also straight. It is not crooked. Sin is always tortuous. But a godly man hates every false way. He is not double-tongued, nor double-minded. He means what he says, and he says what he means. He speaks the truth in his heart. He walks in uprightness. This is also a living way (Hebrews 10:20). It is not dead and dull; but lively, and full of animation. It inspires the best hopes, on the most solid grounds. Though in a sense it is difficult, requiring the utmost care and sobriety, yet it is pleasant (Proverbs 3:17). By Divine grace it is made easy. It is the way of transgressors that is hard. They are under cruel bondage. But the righteous serve a good Master. He carries the heavy end of every cross. His yoke is easy, and His burden light. The way of the Christian is often hidden. His resources are secret, and his motives are not seen. His heart is the best part of him. If he could have his way, he would be done with sin and temptation forever. Often calumny, prejudice, poverty, or tribulation covers him. Yet his way is not hidden from the Lord, nor his judgment passed over from his God. In due time Jehovah will bring forth His righteousness as the light, and His judgment as the noonday. This way is also plain. An honest heart under Divine teaching never misses it. God reveals its glorious mysteries to babes and sucklings. Simple folk with honest hearts are sure to find the truth. This is no new way. This path has been trodden by the saints of all ages. In it were found Abel, and Enoch, and Job, and Daniel, and Paul, and John, and all the martyrs and confessors. One of the sins and follies of every age, is an attempt to show, or to find some new way. But God reproves such a spirit. Hear Him: "Thus says the Lord, Stand in the ways and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therein, and you shall find rest for your souls" (Jeremiah 6:16). The way of the saints is one, and not many. No one need perplex himself on account of seeming diversities. For there are not many ways of salvation. In the very place where God promises one heart to His people, He also promises them one way (Jeremiah 32:39). The whole way of the Christian is marked out in God’s Word, and is called the way of His precepts, the way of His commandments, the way of His statutes, the way of His judgments (Psalms 119:27, Psalms 119:32-33; Isaiah 26:8). Sad indeed is the case of those whose fear toward God is taught by the precepts of men (Isaiah 29:13). The way of the Christian often seems long, but let him not repine. Life’s toils and sorrows will soon be over—over forever. The way of godly men habitually increases in radiance. It shines more and more unto the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18). The reason is, it is the only perfect way (Psalms 101:2). This is the course which the Psalmist calls the way everlasting. It shall not be broken up. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 38: 03.08. THE CHRISTIAN'S TEMPTATIONS ======================================================================== 8. THE CHRISTIAN’S TEMPTATIONS The words tempt and temptation have in Scripture different meanings according to the connection in which they are found. 1. When it is said God did tempt Abraham (Genesis 22:1), the meaning is that God did test and prove Abraham. He has and He exercises His right thus to evince the real principles of His creatures. He subjected angels to probation. God does not thus seek to inform Himself, for He knows men perfectly; but He thus shows to His people, and even to His foes, the power of holy principles in the heart (Job 1:8; 1 Peter 1:6-7). In Scripture, saints are called upon to count it all joy when they fall into such trials (James 1:2-3). God can and will carry His servants through such trials, and thus strengthen their good habits and principles. They shall come out as gold (Job 23:10). 2. Men are said to tempt, try, or prove God when they unbelievingly call upon Him to manifest His presence, power, or kindness. This is a freak of wicked caprice. In this sense the Israelites tempted, proved, and provoked God in the desert (Exodus 17:2-7; Psalms 95:8-9; Hebrews 3:9). When God is doing for us all we really need, we have no right to call upon Him to do more; nor may we prescribe to Him when or how He shall deliver us. Men also tempt God when they presume on a miraculous preservation, and rush unbidden into dangers (Matthew 4:6-7). They also tempt Him, that is, they unwarrantably prove Him, when, casting His cords asunder, they sin without stint, as if to see whether He will punish them or bring on them threatened evils (Malachi 3:15). 3. Satan tempts men, and men tempt one another, by endeavoring to seduce them from truth, from right, from piety to error, pride, or wickedness. In this sense God tempts no man (James 1:13). God abhors iniquity. He seduces no one, and is seduced by no one. 4. Sometimes temptation means a successful seduction. "Every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed" (James 1:14). Thus men are tempted, when in them there is somewhat congenial to the seduction, and they yield to it. In no sense are godly men compelled to sin. God always provides a way of escape. That way may be through a burning fiery furnace, through a lion’s den, through a shower of stones, through death itself; but it is still a way of escape. It is not wicked to die. In his design to prove Job a hypocrite, Satan was entirely baffled. In his attempt to bring to naught the work of redemption, he wholly failed. The Son of God was more than a match for him. The three great means of preserving us from falling under the power of any temptation are these: 1) A deep sense of our own weakness. No part of the Lord’s Prayer suits our case better than this: "Lead us not into temptation." The meaning is, Let us not be tempted beyond our strength, and when tempted, let us not fall into the snare of the wicked one. Blessed is the man that fears always. Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall. Consider yourself, lest you also be tempted. 2) It is a great thing to have the Word of God ready for every occasion. In sophistry the enemy often exceeds our power of reasoning; but the Word of God is too keen for him. When tempted, our Savior did not moralize or philosophize on the matter. He simply quoted Scripture, saying: "It is written, it is written, it is written." 3) Watchfulness and prayer must be constantly used. I unite them because the Scripture unites them, and because, when genuine and holy, they are never separated. Our Lord said: "Watch and pray, that you enter not into temptation." Compare Matthew 26:41; Mark 13:33; Mark 14:38; Colossians 4:2. The great deliverer from temptation is God Himself (2 Peter 2:9). The apostle says: "The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations." This is as if he had said, God’s resources are infinite. He is never at a loss for wisdom, love, or power. He has often and marvelously rescued His saints. He never fails when He undertakes their cause. To the tempted people of God the sympathy and intercession of our Lord Jesus Christ are held forth for their encouragement. "In that He Himself has suffered, being tempted, He is able to help those who are tempted." "We have not a high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin." "Simon, Simon, behold, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." No wonder the saints triumph. Their Lord triumphed before them. By Him they can do all things. He is mighty to save. Are these things so? Then let us come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Let us be of good courage. Distrust is a great foe to peace and victory. Omnipotence never labors, and is never baffled. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 39: 03.09. THE CHRISTIAN'S VICTORY OVER TEMPTATIONS ======================================================================== 9. THE CHRISTIAN’S VICTORY OVER TEMPTATIONS It almost startles one to hear the apostle James saying, "My brethren, count it all joy [regard it as matter of very great joy] when you fall into divers temptations. . . . Blessed is the man that endures [patiently endures, with constancy bears up under] temptation." But when we search God’s Word, we find the doctrine abundantly supported and illustrated. Take the case of our Blessed Lord. He was long and sorely tempted of the devil—tempted as no man ever was. Yet see the happy consequences immediately following: "Behold, angels came and ministered unto Him." While His temptation lasted, they stood at a distance to let it appear that Christ could conquer by His own power and holiness. But when the battle was fought and the victory won, they rejoiced in such a Lord; they brought Him food; they comforted Him, as they often strengthen and comfort His tempted people. If Satan was allowed to assail Him, angels were sent to adore Him, and serve Him. Thus, He was prepared and encouraged to go boldly on in His great work of destroying the works of the devil and in setting up the kingdom of God. A like result is reached when the saints endure temptation. The trying of their faith works patience, constancy, heavenly heroism; and patience works experience; and experience hope; and hope makes not ashamed: because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit, who is given unto us. So uniformly and so wonderfully does the Lord bless temptation to the edification of His people, that the great and good Luther said: "One Christian well tempted is worth a thousand." Another of his sayings was: "Three things make a good theologian—meditation, temptation, and prayer." Like testimonies have been borne by others. Fenelon said: "Temptations, as a file, rub off much of the rust of our self-confidence." Dr. Samuel Clarke says: "Bearing up against temptations and prevailing over them is the very thing wherein the whole life of piety consists. It is the trial which God puts upon us in this world, by which we are to make evidence of our love and obedience to Him, and of our fitness to be made members of His kingdom." How ill-prepared would David have been for the conflicts of his riper years had he not fought with the lion and the bear and the giant of Gath when young! Oh, it is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. It makes a man of him. "Let him sit alone in silence, for the Lord has laid it on him. Let him bury his face in the dust—there may yet be hope." Lamentations 3:28-29. All great characters are formed more or less in the school of trial—even sharp trial. The difference between Daniel going into Babylon—and Daniel beholding the fall of the Chaldean monarchy—was as great as could well be imagined. Hardly any two pious men were less alike than were the young Israelite—who later became the old prophet pronouncing sentence of death on Lucifer (the son of the morning) when he was about to be cast down to hell. Compare the young Saul of Tarsus, crying, "Lord, what will You have me to do?" with such an one as Paul the aged. How great the contrast! What made the difference? Chiefly his experience in trials and afflictions and temptations. The little child Moses in the rushes—and the old man Moses, with his eye undimmed and his natural force unabated at the age of one hundred and twenty years, were not so unlike in appearance of body as they were in strength and excellence of character. Everlasting bliss will bear a proportion to what men have endured for Christ and His cause on earth. Mordecai once wore a crown of gold; and our Savior once wore a crown of thorns; but in the world to come, the saints shall wear different crowns. "Blessed is the man who endures temptation; for when he is tried, he shall receive the crown of life, which the Lord has prepared for those who love Him." So spoke James. Paul says: "I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight. I have finished my course. I have kept the faith. Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness." Peter says: "When the Chief Shepherd shall appear, you shall receive a crown of glory that fades not away." Oh, what a crowning that will be: life, righteousness, glory all in one day—all for nothing—all by grace—and all for eternity! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 40: 03.10. THE CHRISTIAN'S VIEWS OF SIN ======================================================================== 10. THE CHRISTIAN’S VIEWS OF SIN Moral evil is the worst of all evils. Nothing can compare with it. It is worse than the plague. It is unspeakably hateful. God calls sin, horrible and abominable. Godly men in every age lament it—lament it much in others, most in themselves. The worst thing that can be said of sin is—not that it digs every grave and wrings out every sigh and wail from earth and hell—but that it is "exceeding sinful." A man’s views of sin give a complexion to all his character. If he regards it as a trifle, he will laugh at it, when he should weep over it. He will make a mock of it. He will dally with it. He will take his fill of it. He will have low thoughts of God, and low estimates of salvation. He will despise Jesus Christ. If, on the other hand, he considers sin as very dreadful and very hateful, he will hate every false way. He will long for holiness. He will hunger and thirst after righteousness. He will not walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the way of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful. He will loathe and abhor himself on account of sin. He will be filled with horror because of the wicked, who keep not God’s law. He will have exalted thoughts of the being, perfections, word, and government of God. To him Christ will be most precious, the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. Some ask, How far does a sense of sin enter into a genuine Christian experience? To some extent, and in some minds, this is a difficult question. The difficulty may arise in part from the fact that some make all religious experience to refer to the earlier exercises of a newborn soul. But the truth is, that first religious views and feelings are but a small part of what the child of God practically learns. In all the three accounts of the conversion of Paul in the Acts of the Apostles, not a word is said of his sense of sin at that time in anything but in opposing Christ’s cause. But the work of grace in his heart only then began. In Romans 7:7-9, he tells us of subsequent experiences: "I would not have known sin if it were not for the law. For example, I would not have known what it is to covet if the law had not said, Do not covet. And sin, seizing an opportunity through the commandment, produced in me coveting of every kind. For apart from the law sin is dead. Once I was alive apart from the law, but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died." The meaning of the Apostle seems to be this: "I would never have understood the real nature of sin, the enormity of my guilt, or the number of my transgressions but for the Ten Commandments." If one would know the uncleanness of a neglected apartment, he must let in the light. Dr. Watts notices the growing sense of sin in Paul once saying, "I am not fit to be called an Apostle." Later in life he says, "I am less than the least of all saints." In one of his later epistles, he says, "I am the chief of sinners." Evidently he had to the last a growing sense of sin. Sometimes when we speak of a sense of sin, men think we are speaking of great terror of conscience or horror of mind. These things may indeed accompany a sense of sin; but they are wholly diverse from it, and are in nowise essential to it. Paul never had less terror than when he was near the end of his life, and had a very deep sense of sin. But such a sense of sin as makes the Gospel good news to the sinner, would seem to be required by many things in the Scriptures. Our Lord said, "those who are whole need not a physician, but those who are sick." One of the darkest signs in the state of the Church at Laodicea was that she said she was rich and increased with goods, and had need of nothing—but knew not that she was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked (Revelation 3:17). Job’s sense of sin was vastly increased by the great discoveries he had of God’s majesty and glory: "I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear; but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." Increased views of God’s glory had the same effect on Isaiah, and made him cry out, "Woe is me! for I am undone" (Job 42:5-6; Isaiah 6:5). The deeper one’s sense of sin is, the livelier is his gratitude for pardon and saving mercy. So taught our Lord: "Her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved much: but to whom little is forgiven, the same loves little" (Luke 7:47). In like manner the deeper one’s sense of sin, the profounder will be his humility; and humility is the King’s highway to holiness and happiness and heaven. If these things are so, then he is a good preacher, and that is a good book that increases our just sense of sin. One of the best books John Owen ever wrote was on "Indwelling Sin." It is well suited to show men the fountain of iniquity that is in their hearts. For the same reason we may safely commend Flavel’s "Keeping the Heart," Guthrie’s "Trial of a Saving Interest in Christ," and many of the Puritan writings of the seventeenth century. But above all, "By the law is the knowledge of sin." Luther said that if for a day he failed to compare his heart with the Ten Commandments, he was sensible of a decline in his pious feelings. One of the best manuals of self-examination is the Westminster Assembly’s exposition of the law of God. Let any serious man honestly read the answers there given to the question, What are the sins forbidden? in each of the precepts; and if he is not blind and stupid, his self-abhorrence must be increased. But any view of ourselves that leads us to despair, is injurious. The true and fair inference from a sense of sickness, is that one needs a physician. A proper sense of sin should lead us more and more to look to Jesus, and to pray that He may be made unto us wisdom and righteousness, and sanctification and redemption. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift. It is, therefore, common for Christians to admit that there is no little sin. It is easy for men to perplex themselves, and talk foolishly concerning that which is infinite. But to us all that is illimitable, immeasurable, fathomless, endless, may safely be styled infinite. Is sin, then, an infinite evil? If sin be not an infinite evil, it must be because God’s majesty, glory, and authority are not infinite, for against these is all sin committed. If sin be not an infinite evil, it could not require an infinite atonement; a limited satisfaction is all that could be fairly required for a finite offense; a measurable compensation is all that can be justly demanded for a crime that can be fully estimated. If sin be not an infinite evil, can it be proven to be any evil at all? God has all claims, all rights, all sovereignty, or He has none at all. Our obligations to Him are boundless, interminable, infinite, or they are not real. If He is such a One as we are, He is no God at all. The reason why false gods may and should be treated with contempt, is because they are vanities. They are matters of ridicule. God’s presence is infinite; His power is infinite; His nature is infinite; His existence is infinite; and so to sin against Him must be an infinite insult and wrong. If sin is not an infinite evil, we must yet admit that the punishment threatened against it is, in at least one sense, infinite—it is boundless in duration; yes, it is shoreless, fathomless, and terrible as hell. More than once does God call sin "horrible." It is that abominable thing which He hates. It cannot be shown that God hates toads, serpents, hyenas, or anything that He has made. But He hates sin with infinite loathing. It is bad when one can truly say of an act that it is unprofitable, dangerous, or vile; but sin is the perfection of vileness; it is more perilous than the flights of the aeronaut; it is so unprofitable that when one commits it, he sows the wind to reap the whirlwind; he loves death. God’s Word acknowledges that sin is great, because God is great. "If a man sins against his neighbor, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sin against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" Francis Spira said: "Man knows the beginnings of sin, but who can tell the bounds thereof?" "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." "The wages of sin is death." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 41: 03.11. THE CHRISTIAN'S BESETTING SINS ======================================================================== 11. THE CHRISTIAN’S BESETTING SINS Sins are variously classified. We speak of original sin and of actual sin; of sins of omission and sins of commission; of secret sins and open sins, sins of infirmity, presumptuous sins, unnatural sins, and besetting sins. Sins are besetting from various causes. Some are constitutional. Many people are irritable, contentious, addicted to levity or despondency from their natural temperament. Some sins prevail in the land where men live and so beset everybody. Thus, for hundreds of years—from the days of Epimenides to the time of Paul—the Cretans were terribly fierce, gluttonous, and given to lying. Then sometimes a tidal wave of iniquity rolls over a people, and it seems as if all were beset with the same sins. An old prophet describes such a state of things when he says of his people: "The best of them is a brier—the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge" (Micah 7:4). Other sins are besetting from education. Thus, gossiping is taught by example to whole families. The same is true of many sins of the tongue. Official station leads some to sins to which they were formerly but little inclined. Office is apt to beget imperious tempers. Many fall into sins from prejudices which were strong and unreasonable. I have known a man to commit more folly from a dislike to seeing apple dumplings on a dinner table than from any other cause. Besetting sins are many—as various as human character and occupation. They gain strength by habit, just as do all the vices. Sometimes one person has several of them. Sins live in families. Seldom, if ever, is a sin found alone. How may we put away besetting sins? This is a very weighty question. It deserves the most serious attention. Without exhausting the subject, the following suggestions are offered: 1. Obtain and retain a deep and just sense of sin, as an evil and bitter thing, terribly offensive to God, very hateful in itself, and utterly ruinous to the soul. No man ever excessively hated or dreaded sin. The worst thing ever said of sin was, that it is "exceeding sinful." 2. Learn what your besetting sins are. This will not be easily done. Yet it is possible to gain some clear knowledge of them. Sometimes your friends give you good hints. They say, perhaps very tenderly, that it is a fault in your character that you are harsh, or severe, or vain, or proud, or worldly-minded. Are they not right? Perhaps your enemies speak more plainly, and tell you in unpleasant tones that you are obstinate, self-conceited, covetous, unkind, or ungenerous. Is there any truth in what they say? What does Nathan the prophet (your minister) say in preaching that touches conscience? What is it that comes up in such power when you are melancholy, when you are in affliction? What causes failure in so many of your attempts to do good and get good? 3. Remember that sin, like the serpent, dies hard. This is true of all sin, especially of a besetting sin. Therefore make a business of exterminating sin. It will kill you if you do not kill it. Your eternal well-being is at stake. Use every means in your power. Some sins go out only by fasting and prayer. Try those means. If your besetting sin is love of the world, see what you can do in mastering it by some noble secret act of charity, or of contribution to the spread of the Gospel. If you are inclined to carry grudges, daily pray that the same mercies may descend on those you dislike as on yourself, and early embrace or create an opportunity to do them a service. Never shun the cross. If you find it lying in your way, take it up and bear it with constancy. "Despise not little duties; they have been to many a saved man an excellent discipline of humility. Despise not little trials; rightly met they have often nerved the character for some fiery trial. And despise not little crosses; for when taken up and lovingly accepted at the Lord’s hand, they have made men fit for a great crown, even the crown of righteousness and life, which the Lord has promised to them that love Him." 4. Put a high estimate on holiness. It is moral excellence. It is very beautiful. It makes one to be like God. Nothing unholy will stand the test of perfect holiness in the fear of God. This is the will of God concerning you, even your sanctification. "Be holy, for I am holy, says the Lord." 5. In subduing corruptions, some have found it well to devote special attention for a while to some one besetting sin. In some cases this may be well. But let us not forget that one sin always argues the presence of others sins, and that while we are watching one thief, others may be close behind us. 6. Watch against occasions of indulging in your besetting sin. If in speaking you are likely to exaggerate, or to adorn the story with a fabrication, then do not often or needlessly tell stories. If in trading you are apt to cry up what you have for sale, or to cry down what you buy, then make as few bargains and with as few words as possible. 7. When you gain an advantage against a corruption, follow it up. Sin dies not except under many lusty blows. And when you think it dead, it is perhaps only asleep. Do your work thoroughly. 8. Seek the constant aid of the Holy Spirit. He searches all things. He hates iniquity. He loves all purity. His indwelling will do more than a guard of angels in driving out sin. He is the Spirit of holiness. He is its author. "It is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord." 9. Think much of Christ. Highly prize His honor. Let His name be an ointment poured forth. Walk in Him, walk with Him, live unto Him, die for Him. Draw strength and motives from His teachings, His example, His death, His resurrection, His ascension to heaven, His sitting at God’s right hand, and His everlasting kingdom. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 42: 03.12. THE CHRISTIAN'S SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY ======================================================================== 12. THE CHRISTIAN’S SENSE OF RESPONSIBILITY God is independent and sovereign. Man is dependent and responsible. Every sane man knows he must give account to God. Man’s nature and relations to God make it fit that he should act under moral law, and be judged accordingly. It is not possible for any man to entertain too solemn views of the fact that he must at last stand or fall, according to the deeds done in the body. Every man is every day doing things which will affect his destiny to all eternity. Man has immortal rationality, and of course he will ever be responsible. Suffering will not end it. Happiness will not destroy it. In God’s government there is no statute of limitation. Nor has man or angel the power of returning to non-existence. Some have denied that responsibility will be endless. But if responsibility be not everlasting, then the relations of God and man may cease or change. They cannot cease, because God cannot deny Himself. They cannot cease, because whether man shall be under law is not a question submitted to his choice or decision. Neither can the relations of God and man change. A change must be for the better or for the worse. If they could change for the better, they would not now be perfectly right and holy. If they should change for the worse, they would cease to be perfectly right and holy. If responsibility be not everlasting, then an intelligent creature may sin away his obligations and accountability. If responsibility be not everlasting, then sin works its own cure, at least so far as not to be any longer punishable. It would lose its guilt by its enormity or inveteracy. If responsibility be not everlasting, then there is a world or a state where God may be insulted with impunity. If this is so, retribution in any case is wholly arbitrary, and is not required by righteousness. If retribution be not everlasting, then sin is either an evil which in the long run becomes unmanageable, and God at length connives at it, because He does not know how to deal with old transgressors; or else the evil now declared to belong to unrighteousness is an exaggeration, and who will dare to say that? If responsibility be not everlasting, then it will not be so bad to offer insults to God in some other worlds or states as it is in this world, or in the present state. If responsibility be not everlasting, it must be that God’s moral government shall by and by be impaired or fail in some respects. If responsibility be not everlasting, then by parity of reasoning the fact that one lie is justly punishable does not show that many lies shall be punished. If responsibility be not everlasting, then righteousness may cease to be righteousness, both in the Judge of all the earth and in some of His creatures, especially those who offend atrociously. There is no such thing as a creature being rounded out in good or evil in any sense that renders further growth impossible. Where is there any ground for such belief? It is not found in God’s Word. Give us chapter and verse. They cannot be found. The reverse is taught in the oracles of God: "They proceed from evil to evil;" "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." When the Scriptures speak of our being held accountable for the deeds done in the body, they warn us that our responsibility is begun in this life. We are now acting under law. We are now under moral government. So that it is a solemn thing to live. But God’s Word no where says or hints that our obligations to God, or our accountability to Him, will terminate when we leave this world and pass to another. Is not moral government in its very nature universal and endless, because it is righteous, and because God changes not? His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, and His dominion is without end. Is not this sound speech that cannot be condemned? Let God be glorified; let man be abased. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 43: 03.13. THE CHRISTIAN'S FAITH ======================================================================== 13. THE CHRISTIAN’S FAITH The Word of God says: "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you shall be saved." That seems to be a very simple way—this way of faith in the Redeemer. It well suits my case. I am foolish and ignorant; Christ is the wisdom of God. I am very sinful and guilty; Christ is the Lord our Righteousness. He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone that believes. I am very weak; I am without strength; Christ is the power of God unto salvation. I have no cloak for my sin. But the merits of Christ are the linen white and clean with which my poor soul may be beauteously arrayed. My tears cannot wash away my sins; but the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin. In Him sinners boast the possession of greater blessings than angels have—even redeeming love and redeeming grace! I am not required to bring any price in my hand. By the Gospel, salvation is without money and without price. It is well for me that I am not required to pay for salvation. If I were, I would be forever lost. I am a poor sinner—as poor as my sins can make me. I have nothing to commend me to a just and holy God. I deserve all the eternal punishment He has denounced against me. I am guilty. I am all unworthiness; but Jesus is worthy! I rely on Jesus. I take Jesus for my Savior. He is all my desire and all my salvation. He has borne all my curse. He has died, the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty. He is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. By His stripes we are healed. One said: "I am no scholar, sir; I have taught myself the last fifteen years, and now I can read a good bit of the Bible; but I can’t make out all the big words, you know, sir. Ah! sir, that word ’believe,’ that is a great word with me: it is everything to me; and, as far as I can make out, there is no other way of getting to Jesus. He says: ’Come unto Me;’ and, thank God, I am very happy in coming to Him, by believing on Him." Oh, yes! no one can rely on Christ too much. He bids us do that great work—that work of God—believing on the Lord Jesus. To believe on Him with the heart is always unto righteousness. It is to look unto Him. It is to come unto Him. It is to receive Him to all the ends and purposes of a complete salvation. It is to reject all other plans and accept the Gospel plan. It is to refuse all other physicians and accept the one great Physician. Nor is there any danger of being rejected if we come to Christ. He says so: "Him who comes unto Me, I will never cast out." Ever since men began in faith to call upon Him, He has never spurned any from His presence. The penitent thief, the trembling jailer, and millions on millions have looked to Him and were saved. In all the annals of time can be found no record of a sinner believing with the heart, and then perishing in his sins. Moreover, Christ’s atonement is enough. He has satisfied. He has done enough. He has suffered enough. He has shed enough blood. His undertaking is a glorious undertaking; and it will appear more and more glorious to all eternity. His merits are all-sufficient. "If all the sin that men have done In will, in word, in thought, in deed, Since worlds were made, and time begun, Were laid on one poor sinner’s head; The blood of Jesus Christ alone Could for this mass of sin atone, And sweep it all away!" Who dare say there is any limit to the sufficiency of Christ’s atonement? I have never seen nor heard of any godly man attempting so presumptuous a sin. Then the door is so open: "Behold, I have set before you an open door." And every needed preparation is made: "Behold, all things are ready." And the Lord is so earnest: "As I live, says the Lord, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked; but [I have pleasure] that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn, turn you from your evil ways; for why will you die, O house of Israel?" And I am in such need of help, of just such help as is offered me in Christ Jesus. "Look unto Me, and be saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else." Of God, Jesus is made unto us wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption. He is all and in all. It is only by faith in Christ that we enter into rest—a blessed rest, that shall last forever. "Rest, weary soul; The penalty is borne, the ransom paid, For all your sins full satisfaction made. Strive not yourself to do what Christ has done. Take the free gift, and make the joy your own. No more by pangs of guilt and fear distressed, Rest, sweetly rest." Such is the faith of the weak believer; such is the faith of the strong believer. Its essence is reliance on the person and work of the Redeemer. Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 44: 03.14. WHY DO I REST CONFIDENTLY IN CHRIST? ======================================================================== 14. WHY DO I REST CONFIDENTLY IN CHRIST? This question has been sent me by a friend. I willingly answer it. I begin by saying that if we repose any confidence in Christ at all, the more firmly we do it, the better. Weak faith may be both genuine and saving; but the stronger our faith is, the more is God glorified, and the greater is our peace. Boasting in an arm of flesh, or relying on an arm of flesh, is very foolish. But we never act so wisely as when we make our boast in the Lord. To glory in the Cross of Christ is lawful, yes, praiseworthy. A strong confidence in the Son of God removes mountains of sorrow and difficulty. Faith cannot be too strong. Confidence becomes presumption only when it is not warranted by Scripture. The more fully and unhesitatingly I credit every word that God has spoken, the more do I act in accordance with sound wisdom. Here are some reasons: 1. Jesus Christ is the Son of God. He is God over all—blessed forever. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in Him bodily. He is the true God and eternal life. He has all the perfections of Jehovah. He knows all my wants and weaknesses, all my sin and misery. He knows the malice of my enemies, and the foolishness of my heart. He is of power to subdue my whole nature to Himself, and to defeat the wiles and machinations of my foes. His grace is all-sufficient. His love is infinite. His wisdom cannot be defeated, nor His power resisted. He is God. I cannot trust Him excessively. I rest confidently in Him because He is God, and is fitly adored in heaven and on earth. 2. I rest confidently in Christ because He is man. He has my whole nature, sin only excepted. He has the heart of a brother. He has a feeling of my infirmity. He drank the cup of sorrow to the dregs. He tasted the bitterness of death. He knows what it is to be rejected of men and deserted by God. I have no sorrow to which He is a stranger. He sympathizes with me in all my innocent joys and tastes, as well as in my sufferings and temptations. "For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin." Hebrews 4:15 3. I rest confidently in Christ because God the Father approves Him and trusts Him. He prepared Him a body. He gloriously anointed Him, and set Him apart to His work. Twice by an audible voice He declared: "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." He stood by Him in all His undertaking. He raised Him from the dead. He set Him at His own right hand. He has committed all judgment to His Son. He is the delight of His Father. It cannot but be safe and wise in me to rest in Him, in whom His Father confides. 4. I rest confidently in Christ because He has never failed to save and support any and everyone that has fled to Him for salvation. Of all who have come short of the heavenly rest, not one put his trust in the Lord Jesus Christ. The men who tire and faint and turn away from the holy commandment, never saw the real glory that is in Christ Jesus. To them He never was the chief among ten thousand, and altogether lovely. They may have said that all their desire and all their hope were in Christ, but they were deceived. Hear the beloved disciple on such people: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us; but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us" (1 John 2:19). 5. I rest confidently in Christ because He has given me every assurance that I can desire. By word and by deed, by His painful death, and by His present glorious life, I am persuaded He will do all that is for the good of His believing people. Hear Him: "Because I live, you shall live also" (John 14:19). Hear Paul: "He who spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). The promises are great and precious, and almost countless. I know no man who has ever numbered them. "For every one of God’s promises is "Yes" in Him." Nor are they burdened with impracticable conditions. To every humble soul He says: "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." 6. I rest confidently in Christ because I have had a blessed experience of His grace and compassion. Once I was a poor lost sinner, ready to perish. My guilt was fearful. He passed by and said, "Live, for I have ransomed you!" I found pardon and acceptance in His blood and righteousness. I was all defiled, and had an evil heart of unbelief. He took away the heart of stone, and gave me a heart of flesh. I was blind. I saw no beauty in holiness or in Jesus Christ. He anointed my eyes, and I saw His glory, full of grace and truth. I once was afraid of the Almighty, but Christ has given me His spirit, so that I cry, Abba, Father. I once loved sin, some forms of it very much; but by His grace I hate vain thoughts and every false way. I abhor that which is evil. Left to myself I was weak as water. I had no might to do good. But by His grace I can do all things, because He strengthens me. My experience surprises me and delights me. 7. I rest confidently in Christ Jesus because He could not reject any that came to Him without refusing the only reward ever promised Him for all His work and sufferings. That reward was seeing poor lost sinners returning from their sins and wanderings to the Great Shepherd and Bishop of souls. The Scripture clearly teaches that Christ’s reward should be that "He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hands;" that "the ransomed of the Lord shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads;" and that for all His sufferings God "will divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong." Surely I ought to be ready to rely on a Redeemer who has done and suffered all required of Him for my salvation. Having loved His own, He loved them to the end. Will He now cast away the souls He has bought at so great a price? I think not. 8. I rest confidently in Christ, because He is King on the holy hill of Zion, wields a scepter of righteousness, has many crowns upon His head, is actually subduing all His enemies, and is Lord of all to the glory of God the Father; because He is still the Great Prophet, and the way of life, saying: "Learn of Me, for I am meek and lowly;" and because He is my Great High Priest, who ever lives to make intercession for me. Him the Father hears always. And so He is able to save them to the uttermost, all who come unto God by Him. For these and many similar reasons I rest confidently in Christ. Nor shall I be disappointed. I look to Him alone. Angels cannot save me. My brother cannot pay to God a ransom for me. I cannot save myself. To whom can I go but to Jesus only? He has the words of eternal life. I will rest in Him only. I will rest in Him confidently and forever, and in Him my rest shall be glorious. Of course such a one wholly renounces self-righteousness. I was riding across the State of New Jersey on the old Camden and Amboy Railroad. Just before reaching the eastern terminus we were detained some minutes on a part of the route where the land is very sterile. I had no friend with me. Most of the passengers seemed to be without companions. Various remarks were made as if for the ears of all. At length one gentleman, looking out on the white sands, said, "How is this land like self-righteousness?" Someone replied, "Because the more of it one has, the poorer he is." I thought the riddle good, and the answer excellent. The more self-righteousness one has, the poorer he is. It strikes me as true, that the poorer one is in moral good, the more self-righteousness he has. In other words, the farther one goes in sin, the harder it is to lead him to a right view of his sins. For more than fifty years I have, as I had opportunity, visited prisons, and conversed freely with their inhabitants. I have attended several unhappy men to their public execution. In all this time I have never heard one frank and full confession of crime. One man admitted that he had killed his wife; but he seemed to excuse himself by saying that he was drunk when he did it. I have never seen a convict who admitted the fairness of his trial, the veracity of the witnesses, and the impartiality of the judge. This is an amazing record. I am greatly surprised at it. Like the lawyer mentioned in Luke 10:29, everyone was "willing to justify himself." How is this? It may be safely answered that crimes against both person and property terribly harden the heart. But it is also true that the more men sin—the less sense of sin have they, unless God’s Spirit very much quickens the conscience. The more men sin, the blinder they are. The farther a man goes into a dark cave, the more dim are his perceptions. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 45: 03.15. THE CHRISTIAN'S HOPE ======================================================================== 15 THE CHRISTIAN’S HOPE "Hope in God." Why should I not? I need just such a friend. He has all power and strength, and I am very weak. I cannot even think a good thought of myself. Nor do I know how to pray as I ought. If the Lord does not help my infirmities, I shall do nothing aright. But I can do all things if He will gird me with strength. I will hope in God. He has, too, all the knowledge to understand my whole case, and all the wisdom necessary to direct everything concerning me. He makes no mistakes. He is never deceived. He is never outsmarted. He knows all things. He knows my weaknesses. He knows my sorrows. He knows my heart. And He is so wise that He takes the cunning in their own craftiness. His wisdom never fails. He is never confounded or perplexed. He has as much mercy and kindness as I need. His loving-kindness is so great that human belief has never seen to the top or the bottom, to the length or the breadth of it. The ocean of the Divine love is boundless and inexhaustible. God’s love is strong. It passes the love of women. It is infinite. It produces the most amazing results. It fills all pious hearts with joy. It fills heaven with hallelujahs. Oh, I will hope in God. Nor could I desire more truth and faithfulness than are found in God. They are unchangeable and immeasurable. They reach unto the clouds, yes, above the heavens. They are unto all generations. God is not a man that He should lie, neither the son of man that He should repent. Has He said, and shall He not do it? He has never broken covenant with any of His creatures. His mercies are rich and free. That is a blessed truth, but it would be powerless if we could not also say that His mercies are sure. Oh, I must and will hope in God. If I hope not in God, I will be apt to look to myself—and I am a fool and a sinner, a worm and blind, crushed before the moth, and unworthy of the very least of God’s mercies. Who has at any time trusted in himself that he was righteous, or wise, or strong, and has not come to shame? I dare not lean to my own understanding, nor rely on my own wisdom, nor put any hope in my own righteousness. Lord God Almighty—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, give me grace to hope in You. Nor dare I look to any man for help. All bad men are fools and sinners; all godly men have said that they are not worthy of any weighty trust. The best of them cry, out, "I am undone," "I am a sinful man," "Oh, wretched man that I am." I dare not look to such for any effectual aid. I must hope in God. Nor dare I make angels the objects of my hope. They have no wisdom, goodness, or power, except what they derive from the Lord. Left to themselves, they would utterly fail. They are not clean in God’s sight, and He charges them with folly. As God’s servants they may minister to me, and by His power and at His command help me. But it is of the Lord’s mercies, not of the mercies of angels, that we are saved. I cannot worship angels. I hope in God. I would hope confidently. My heart is in this matter. I would not falter here. I am ashamed that I am so slow to cast my anchor here and nowhere else. I will set my hope in God. Hoping in God—I shall never be disappointed. All will come out right in the end. Mercies may be long delayed, but they will come at the very nick of time, the very best time, the time chosen by infinite wisdom and goodness. Look at the generations of old and see if any did ever trust in the Lord and were disappointed. All the saints in glory are unanimous in saying that God fulfilled to them all the engagements He ever made. I will hope in His truth, His mercy, and His power. Nor is it presumptuous in me to hope in God. He has bidden me to do it. It is always safe and right to obey the will of the Lord and to hearken to His commands. This is in itself a very pleasant duty enjoined on me. If I were bidden to despair of help from God, the very thought of such a thing would freeze my soul with horror. I may lawfully come to God with boldness. I may come even to His mercy seat. I may fill my mouth with arguments. I may call Him my God, my Father, my Shepherd, my Rock, my Friend, my Portion, my exceeding Joy, my everlasting All. Oh, I will hope in God, if He will but help me to do so. HOPE ON, HOPE EVER! "God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform; He plants His footsteps in the sea, And rides upon the storm. "Deep in unfathomable mines Of never-failing skill, He treasures up His bright designs, And works His sovereign will. "You fearful saints, fresh courage take: The clouds you so much dread Are big with mercy, and shall break In blessings on your head. "Judge not the Lord by feeble sense, But trust Him for His grace; Behind a frowning providence He hides a smiling face. "His purposes will ripen fast Unfolding every hour; The bud may have a bitter taste, But sweet will be the flower. "Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan His works in vain; God is His own interpreter, And He will make it plain." "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy, has begotten us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead."—Peter. "Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Spirit."—Paul. "It is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."—Jeremiah. "Remember the word unto Your servant, upon which You have caused me to hope. Lord, what wait I for? My hope is in You. I have hoped for Your salvation and done Your commandments."—David. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 46: 03.16. THE CHRISTIAN'S TRUST ======================================================================== THE CHRISTIAN (chapters 16 to 30) By William S. Plumer, 1878 16. THE CHRISTIAN’S TRUST In his darkest days, Job said: "Though He slays me, yet will I trust in Him." That was a noble purpose, a blessed resolution. 1. It was called for. There was need of it. Job’s circumstances were trying, and demanded that he should take his stand firmly on right ground. It met his case exactly. He knew not what might come; but come what might, He would cleave to the Lord. 2. It was prompt. In it was nothing dilatory. He did not require time and argument to work him up to the good purpose. He uttered it as soon as it was called for. He delayed not, but made haste to flee to God. 3. He had doubtless often said as much before. It is of the very nature of piety to cleave to the Lord with purpose of heart. As one said at a later day, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." There is no piety without hearty confidence in God. 4. It was unfeigned. Job meant what he said; and he said what he meant. He was sincere. No hypocrite under like circumstances would have used such language, but would have given up in despair—would have cursed (or renounced) God and died. 5. It was a wise resolution. We never act so foolishly as when we withdraw our confidence from God. "The fearful" are in Scripture said to have their portion with "the abominable, and murderers, and all liars" (Revelation 21:8). The reason why men do not trust God is because they are wicked. They do not know Him, nor love Him. They hate Him. We never act so wisely as when we cast our burden on the Lord. 6. It is true, the man of Uz acted strangely. God’s people are a peculiar people. They are not of this world. They savor the things that are of God and not of men. They are born from above. They are taught of God. There was something quite unusual in Job’s conduct. Not many of his contemporaries, nor many of any past age, have imitated Job. It is not commonly regarded as wise to risk life and all things on one’s faith—one’s faith in God. 7. So Job’s purpose must have been gracious. By the grace of God he said what he did. In himself Job was as weak as other men. He abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes. But the Lord was with him and enabled him to witness a good confession. He had help from heaven. It was not by might, nor by power, but by God’s Spirit that he chose his ground. 8. His resolution was kept. From it he never swerved. Though he said some things that did not befit him, yet he never drew back from God. The best resolutions, if broken, are good for nothing. To the last Job denied the charge of a base hypocrisy. To the last he stuck to the Lord his God. 9. His purpose and action on it turned out well. The Lord approved in the main Job’s conduct. He said to his three friends: "You have not spoken of Me the thing that is right, as My servant Job has." "The Lord blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning." He did not trust in vain. All ended well. "You have heard of the patience of Job, and have seen the end of the Lord; that the Lord is very pitiful and of tender mercy." 10. The darker our way, the more we should trust. God does sometimes slay His people. He kills and He makes alive. He has the keys of death and of hell. Job thought the Lord would probably cut him off with pining sickness. But yet he could not and would not forsake the Rock of his salvation. Reader, will you follow Job’s example? You cannot do better. To go backward from the Almighty is ruin. To distrust Him is excessive folly. There is not one virtuous feeling involved in departing from the living God. To renounce Jehovah is death. If you trust Him, let no other trust intrude. Renounce all else. Some make gold their confidence; some trust in chariots and some in horses; some in bows and some in some in swords; some in native powers and some in acquirements. But wise and godly men trust only in the Lord their God (Job 31:24; Psalms 20:7; Psalms 44:6; Isaiah 40:30-31). And all should trust in the Lord—even the widow, the fatherless, the friendless, and the man that is ready to perish (Psalms 22:9; Jeremiah 49:11; Psalms 65:5; 1 Timothy 4:10). The benefits of such trust are many. a. This is the only way to great spiritual prosperity. "He who puts his trust in the Lord shall be made fat" (Proverbs 28:25). Compare Psalms 31:19. b. This is the great cure of that fear which brings the soul into bondage. "Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid" (Isaiah 12:2). Compare Isaiah 50:10. c. If we trust not in the Lord, we cannot expect any fixedness of joy or stability of character. "Those who trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abides forever." "The heart of the upright is fixed, trusting in the Lord" (Psalms 125:1; Psalms 112:7). d. Safety is found in no other way than in pious confidence. "He is a shield to all those who trust in Him;" "Whoever puts his trust in the Lord shall be safe" (Psalms 18:30; Proverbs 29:25). Compare Daniel 3:28. e. Our usefulness and comfort depend on our confidence in Jehovah. "Trust in the Lord and do good; so shall you dwell in the land, and verily you shall be fed" (Psalms 37:3). f. Trust in God is the great solace of old age. So the Psalmist found it. "You are my hope, O Lord God; You are my trust from my youth . . . . Now also when I am old and gray-headed, O God, forsake me not" (Psalms 71:5, Psalms 71:18). Oh, "it is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man. It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes." When will men so learn and so practice? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 47: 03.17. A CHRISTIAN'S GOOD RESOLUTIONS ======================================================================== 17. A CHRISTIAN’S GOOD RESOLUTIONS "The road to hell is paved with good resolutions." I know not who first uttered this alarming sentence. But it contains a fearful truth. Vast numbers of men go to an undone eternity, who not only never had any purpose of so doing, but they actually purposed the contrary. Yet their good resolutions failed. Their resolutions were not as solemn as they ought to have been. They were also made in human strength. The poor sinner, who made them, did not know that he had a deceitful heart, a wicked world, and a great adversary to contend with. He did not know that he had in himself no might to do good, that he was not sufficient as of himself to think anything, and that he could not even pray aright, except as the Holy Spirit enabled him. Thus his resolutions were not humble, nor did they make lowly him who made them. On the contrary, they filled his mind and heart with folly and vanity. He foolishly supposed that he was better for having made them. Consequently he broke them. The road to hell is paved with good resolutions that are broken, not kept. The road to heaven is paved with good resolutions, with fixed purposes, and holy determinations of mind, formed under a deep sense of weakness and unworthiness, with a pious confidence in the promised aid of Divine grace, and with a holy fear and jealousy over one’s own heart. I can remember when it was boldly and unwisely proclaimed that regeneration was nothing but a change of the governing purpose. This was a great practical error. It filled many churches with unworthy members. It begat a very superficial class of professors. Very few are found maintaining this position in our day. In opposing this error, some, perhaps, used unguarded expressions, making the impression that piety grew and flourished without any fixed purposes in the heart. This was as dangerous as the error it opposed. Where or when did ever a wise man undertake or accomplish any great or good work without a settled and deliberate purpose to do so? Whoever would become a scholar, make a crop, or build a house, will naturally first form and fix his plan, and then carry it out. Life without a purpose is vague and vain. Aim at something and then do your best to accomplish it. Look at a few things in the Scripture. "And Abram took Sarai, his wife, and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and those they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan—and into the land of Canaan they came." If you do not go forth to do a thing, you will hardly do it. Set a practicable object before you, and by God’s blessing you may accomplish it. Hear the prodigal: "I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before you, and am no more worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired servants." This resolution was the result of sad experience and sound reflection. It was humble. It was honest, for it is added, "And he arose and came to his father." If he had remained much longer in that land of famine, he would have perished. It is not according to wisdom to do anything without purposing to do it. Read the writings of David, and see how often and how solemnly he resolves to love, and pray, and praise, and obey the Lord. Could he have been so eminent a servant of the Lord, if he had not been so fully purposed in his mind? So far as reason and Scripture speak on this subject, they distinctly require— 1. That our good resolutions be not hastily or hurriedly taken, but that they be well weighed. It is foolish for a man to make inquiry, after he vows. God abhors all false pretenses, all hollow professions. Think, think solemnly and deliberately before you set your hand to a promise even with men. But where the transaction is with God, we cannot be too jealous of our own hearts. He has no pleasure in fools. 2. Any purpose to serve God should be sincere, not hypocritical; cheerful, not reluctant; hearty, not formal. God loves a cheerful giver. The prodigal had a great sense of shame, but no reluctance to return. He took blame to himself, but his hope was that he would at least be allowed the place of a hired servant, which was more than he deserved, and far better than his present condition. 3. Beware of limiting your resolutions of consecration to God. Some are ready to engage to give Him lip-service. Others seem ready to serve Him secretly; but they are not ready to witness a good confession before many witnesses. Some would be willing to engage for a time, but they are not ready to serve God all their lives, yes, to all eternity. Others wish such or such a sin spared. They say it is a little matter. That is not the way. Reader, deal not so with God. Give Him all; for after all, it is but little that you can do for Him, who has done so much for you. 4. In all your resolutions, keep your eye on the person, work, grace, example, sufferings, righteousness, power, and intercession of Christ. Without Him you can do nothing. His blood can cleanse, but nothing else can wash away the stain of sin. His priestly offering can avail for remission, but your tears cannot purge away a single sin. He is mighty to save, and you need an Almighty Savior. He is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes. He is Alpha and Omega. Look to Jesus. 5. Never forget your dependence upon the power and indwelling of God’s Spirit. He is the holy anointing oil, with which humble souls are made kings and priests unto God. We are blind, but the Holy Spirit is the eye-salve to open the blind eyes. We are dumb in God’s praises, but under His power the tongue of the stammerers shall speak plainly. We are sad and despondent in good things, but He is the oil of gladness to all the saints. The words in which our resolutions are formed may be very few, but they should be very explicit. Some have recommended a covenant fully drawn up and in express terms. This may be well in many cases. The danger is that the words will not be well chosen, and so in the end will entangle the conscience. But an upright mind will hardly be perplexed with a resolution simple like that of Joshua, or like that in one of our hymns: "Here, Lord, I give myself away, ’Tis all that I can do." As a man thinks in his heart, so is he. What do you purpose in your heart? What are your good resolutions? Are you living up to those you have made? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 48: 03.18. THE CHRISTIAN LIVES BY RULE ======================================================================== 18. THE CHRISTIAN LIVES BY RULE A great man of the last century said, "He who lives not by rule, lives not at all." Perhaps there is more truth in that assertion than some are at first disposed to admit. Life is very short. A very great work is to be done—or we shall be forever undone. Confusion is very bad. It greatly hinders all good things. There is no example of success without a plan. Method is essential to a good habit, and good habit imparts vigor to character. Living by rule does not consist in gathering and remembering many notions, though it does presuppose some acquaintance with good maxims. So men who are renewed in heart are correct in life to some extent, before they know all the rules that should govern human conduct. Still, maxims are good and should be studied. Some of the rules of God’s Word are prudential. Such are many things in the Book of Proverbs. Some are devotional, as in the Sermon on the Mount, and in many epistles; some are practical, as in the twelfth chapter of Romans; some are experimental, as in the Psalms. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable in some way to advance the Divine life in the soul. The following rules would be very helpful to many: 1. Set the Lord always before you. Live as seeing Him, who is invisible. Often say—God, You see me. To God we must give account. In Him we live and move and have our being. From Him is our fruit found. He is our Rock, our Refuge, our High Tower, our Strength. Blessed is he who frames his doings to please his Maker. Some professed Christians live very much as if they thought there was no God. 2. Know, believe, and practice the whole Word of God. Indulge no prejudices against any portion of the Bible. All of it is truth—all of it is precious truth. The part of Scripture which you slight, probably contains the very truth most needful for the correction of some of your faults. The threatenings warn, the precepts guide, the promises encourage, the doctrines instruct, the examples draw, the histories illustrate, the poems delight. "The law of Your mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver." "I have esteemed the words of His mouth more than my necessary food." 3. Adopt the pure Gospel scheme of doctrine. Begin not in the Spirit, and then hope to be made perfect by the flesh. It is very sad to see men turning away from the glorious Gospel of the blessed God to fables, however cunningly they may be devised. Whereunto you have attained in evangelical knowledge, hold fast. Never yield first principles; never be beguiled into any form of unsound words. What is the chaff to the wheat? As long as Christ is all in all to you, you are safe; but when you delight in any other way of life, you are guilty of spiritual harlotry. In no way can we more offend God than by slighting His Son. 4. Put a just estimate on both time and eternity. On time, because it is so short, because its earthly pursuits are so vain, because on the right use of it depend everlasting consequences. On eternity, because it is eternity—it has no bounds, it is more vast than the sea. Eternity gives to hell its most impenetrable gloom; and to heaven the unfailing fixedness of its joys. 5. Do whatever is incumbent each moment as it passes. Gape and gaze not after the duties of a future which may never arrive. Waste not life in idle regrets over a past which cannot be reclaimed. Just do present duty. Stand in your lot. Be at your post. Watch and pray. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. No one has or gives so good assurance that in the future he will be found faithful, as he who is now steadfast with God and righteous in all his ways. 6. Do good to all men as you have opportunity. Deal out kindnesses and favors with an unsparing hand. Make others happy, and see if that does not make you truly blessed. I saw a little child asked to share its apple with its playmate. It refused, and at once frowned and looked miserable. I saw another child asked to do the same thing, and with a benignant smile that told of inward joy, it called on its mother to divide the luscious fruit. All the malevolent passions are self-tormentors; all the benevolent affections conduce to happiness. 7. Another good rule to live by is this: Never make a mock at sin and never jest with sacred things. Let holiness to the Lord be written on His day, His word, His worship, His name, His cause. 8. Never attempt to find out how near you can come to sin without sinning. He who loves danger shall perish therein. Sam Patch made many a foolish leap, but it was only the last that was fatal. In abhorring evil and in cleaving to that which is good, there is no danger of excess. 9. Never expect great things from sloth, nor regard carelessness as the parent of any good. Feeble efforts cannot produce powerful results. It is the hand of the diligent that makes rich. 10. Steadfastly set your face against needless delays in doing any work for the honor of your Master, for the good of your fellow men, or for your own edification. A dilatory spirit is one of the most delusive of all the temptations of the Great Destroyer. It proposes merely to postpone, perhaps, for an hour or a day. It would shudder at the thought of final and utter neglect of what it thus defers. Do this very day and hour the duties which this hour and day demand. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 49: 03.19. THE CHRISTIAN'S ENEMIES ======================================================================== 19. THE CHRISTIAN’S ENEMIES That was a good prayer of David, "Lead me in a plain path, because of my enemies" (Psalms 27:11). A similar is that in Psalms 5:8 : "Lead me, O Lord, in Your righteousness, because of my enemies." Divine guidance is in every respect a blessing. When surrounded by foes we must fall, unless God leads and protects us. At such a time it is a great mercy to be kept from perplexity respecting duty. "A plain path," a smooth, clear, open way is of the Lord. The reasons are obvious. Our enemies are numerous. "Many are my persecutors and my enemies." How the dogs do surround some godly men. Packs of them pursue some all their days. One man often contends against a thousand enemies. Our enemies often have power, and wealth, and influence on their side. They are also lively (Psalms 38:19). They sleep not except they do some mischief; nor do they measure their hostility. They are like wild beasts. They roar (Psalms 74:4). They make a tumult (Psalms 83:2). They are very violent. Indeed they are often deadly. Since the days of Pharaoh, their great model, each cries: "I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil; my lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword; mine hands shall destroy them." Nothing is more noticeable than the merriment of the wicked over sacred things and innocent people. "Our enemies laugh among themselves" (Psalms 80:6). So we still have in the world "cruel mockings," even where "scourgings" and "imprisonments" are unlawful. They love to cry—Aha! aha! Oftentimes our enemies are so allied to us that we have no more peace at home than abroad (Micah 7:6). When this is the case, they are a smoke in the eyes, a thorn in the flesh. Very often they are full of treachery. "The kisses of an enemy are deceitful." Judas was neither the first nor the last who pretended friendship with the basest hypocrisy. Some men’s enmity has no holidays. It never wanes. It never cools. "And Saul became David’s enemy continually" (1 Samuel 18:29). Such enemies often produce a deep impression on others, persuading them that we are evil. No small part of Saul’s subjects really believed that David was a bad man, so that he says: "Because of all my enemies, I am the utter contempt of my neighbors; I am a dread to my friends—those who see me on the street flee from me. I am forgotten by them as though I were dead; I have become like broken pottery." Even godly men may be often greatly distressed by such hatred. David says: "My eye is consumed because of grief; it waxes old because of all my enemies." Read the Book of Lamentations, and see how Jeremiah sighed and wept under the raging of his foes. It is no small part of wisdom to know how to treat our foes. God gave Solomon a great blessing because he had "not asked the life of his enemies" (1 Kings 3:11-12; 2 Chronicles 1:11-12). We must love our enemies (Matthew 5:44; Luke 6:27-35). We must pray for them at all times, feed them when hungry, clothe them when naked, lend to them when needy. God always takes sides with the just against all their wicked foes. His promise is: "I will be an enemy unto your enemies, and an adversary unto your adversaries" (Exodus 23:22). The godly man will God never "deliver unto the will of his enemies." And it is very easy for God to defeat and overthrow all our enemies. He says: "I will send a faintness into their hearts; and the sound of a shaken leaf shall chase them; and they shall flee, as fleeing from a sword; and they shall fall when none pursues" (Leviticus 26:36). See also Exodus 23:27. Under the shadow of God’s wings His people are safe from all their adversaries. He stills the enemy and the avenger. "You have been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy" (Psalms 61:3). God can make our worst enemies to be at peace with us (Proverbs 16:7). God can convert foes into friends: "Verily I will cause the enemy to entreat you well in the time of evil and in the time of affliction" (Jeremiah 15:11). God’s power can subdue any will, change any heart. Every child of God may therefore address every foe, as did the Church of old: "Do not rejoice over me, my enemy! Though I have fallen, I will stand up; though I sit in darkness, the Lord will be my light. Because I have sinned against Him, I must endure the Lord’s rage until He argues my case and establishes justice for me. He will bring me into the light; I will see His salvation. Then my enemy will see, and she will be covered with shame, the one who said to me, "Where is the Lord your God?" My eyes will look at her in triumph; at that time she will be trampled like mud in the streets." Micah 7:8-10 Oh, how sweet will be the rest of heaven. There the wicked cease from troubling, and there the weary are at rest, and the righteous have everlasting deliverance from all their enemies. A late writer gives this good practical advice: "Have you enemies? Go straight on and mind them not. If they block up your path, walk around them, and do your duty regardless of their spite. A man who has no enemies is seldom good for anything—he is made of that kind of material which is so easily worked that everyone has a hand in it. A sterling character—one who thinks for himself, and speaks what he thinks—is always sure to have enemies. They are as necessary to him as fresh air; they keep him alive and active. A celebrated character, who was surrounded with enemies, used to remark: ’They are sparks which, if you do not blow, will go out of themselves.’ Let this be your feeling while endeavoring to live down the scandal of those who are bitter against you. If you stop to dispute, you do but as they desire, and open the way for more abuse. Let the poor fellows talk; there will be a reaction if you perform but your duty, and hundreds who were once alienated from you will flock to you and acknowledge their error." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 50: 03.20. THE CHRISTIAN'S SHEPHERD ======================================================================== 20. THE CHRISTIAN’S SHEPHERD "The Lord is my shepherd; there is nothing I lack. He lets me lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside quiet waters." Psalms 23:1-2 He leads me.—I certainly need someone to lead me. I am so poor, so blind, so weak, so foolish that, if left to myself, I must fatally err. For a long time I required the help of nurses and the guidance of parents and teachers; and when I ceased to have these, I needed God’s help as much as ever. It is not in man that walks to direct his steps. We have in our language hardly any form of speech that expresses a sadder state than when we say of a man, "He is awfully left to himself." Lord, never leave me nor forsake me, lest I be undone. Then He leads me so gently. Even when all around is uproar and confusion, I am carried along almost as if there was no commotion in the world. When God gives peace, who can make disturbance? The Lord is more true in His friendship than a brother, more pitiful than a father, more loving than a mother, more gentle than a woman. He does not afflict willingly. Nor does the Lord ever lead me otherwise than wisely. He makes no mistakes. He knows the way I ought to go. He knows how much sweet and how much bitter are best for me. He understands me fully. He knows my spirit would fail before Him if I were dealt with severely. Oh, how He mingles mercy with judgment! True, He leads me often in a mysterious way. I see not the end from the beginning. I cannot see afar off. If I perfectly comprehended all God’s ways, I think I would be capable of guiding myself, at least to some extent. When all His waves and billows go over me, how can I tell anything? Would Jacob, or Joseph, or Bunyan, or Rogers have chosen the way the Lord led them? Have not the saints long been crying, "O Lord, how long?" His footsteps are in the sea; clouds and darkness are round about Him. He gives account of none of His matters. His judgments are a great deep. But He never does wrong. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. Righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne. In review of all the past I can truly say, "You have dealt well with Your servant, O Lord. I know that in faithfulness You have afflicted me." He leads me always—in prosperity and in adversity; in joy and in sorrow; when alone and when surrounded by others. If He left me even for an hour I would be undone. When I sleep, You, Lord, keep vigil over me. When I awake, I am still with You. On the land and on the sea I am kept by the mighty power of God. He leads me, and I will trust Him. He deserves my entire confidence. It is my sin and my folly that I am so slow of heart to repose confidence in Him. I will try to do better. Lord, give me the heritage of those who seek shelter under the shadow of Your wings. You are my Shield, my Refuge, my Strong Rock, my God and Savior. He leads me, and I will follow Him. I will put my hand in His, and go wherever His prudence shall direct. Never yet has He brought me into needless trouble. When affliction has gained its end, relief, in some form, has come. I will mark His footsteps, and go right forward. He will guide me by His counsel, and afterward receive me to glory. Oh, well, if glory is to follow sorrow and anguish, I will say no more: "The path of sorrow, and that path alone, Leads to the land where sorrows are unknown." I must be content that He should have His way. My will is the will of a worm, a fool, a sinner. "Not my will, but Yours be done, O God." I care not what comes if the end be eternal life—everlasting repose in the bosom of God. Guide me on and up and through, O Lord. Be on my right hand and on my left by day and by night. Strengthen me with strength in my soul. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 51: 03.21. THE CHRISTIAN'S ADVOCATE ======================================================================== 21. THE CHRISTIAN’S ADVOCATE Who needs an Advocate? The accused. And are we accused? Yes; and we are rightly charged with many offences. Sin has ruined us. Iniquities have sadly prevailed against us. They have brought us into disgrace before God, and angels, and men. Our own consciences indict and convict us. We cannot answer for one of a thousand of our transgressions. In the court of Heaven our names are worthless. God often reminds us of this, telling us that if He shows mercy or spares us—it is not for our sakes. It is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed. And is there any Advocate for such transgressors? Yes. Is it a sinful man like ourselves? No. Such a one could not answer for himself. Is it some holy angel? No. If such an one were to hear the whole story of our guilt, he would throw out our cause from disgust at such baseness and ingratitude. It is Jesus Christ. He pleads and manages our cause before His Father. We have an Advocate. Thanks be to God for that. Our Advocate can lay His hand upon our offended Judge. He counts it not robbery to be equal with God. In Him the Father is well pleased. In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. All the multitudes in heaven worship Him. To Him the Father has committed all judgment and all authority. We are required to honor the Son as we honor the Father. God has given Him a name that is above every name. He is full of power, as He is of truth and grace. There is none like Him. He is over all, God blessed forever. And He has our nature also. He was once a weeping babe, a friendless stranger, and sorely tempted of the Devil. He is bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh. He has a brother’s heart. He knows by experience every kind of sorrow which it was possible for innocence to endure. Above all others was He a man of sorrows. He wept; He sweat blood; He hungered; He thirsted; He expired on the cross; He bore God’s wrath. And He was without sin. He knew no sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. Pilate found no fault in Him. Infidelity has detected no flaw in His character. Omniscient purity declared Him sinless, faultless. Now we may glory in Him. If we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father—Jesus Christ, THE RIGHTEOUS. Our hope springs from His worthiness and His merits; in no sense from anything in us. He is THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS. That is His name. Then He is a tried Friend of sinners. God has tried Him and found Him faithful as an Advocate for men. Many penitents have tried Him and found Him gracious. He has never undertaken a cause and lost it. He is mighty to save. His advocacy cannot but succeed. The Father hears Him always. All the redeemed in glory are monuments of the efficacy of His intercession. All this is right. He gave Himself for us as an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. He poured out His soul unto death. The Lord made His soul an offering for sin. He redeems not with silver and gold, but with His most precious blood. The ransom He paid was of infinite value. There is no limit to its sufficiency. "Dear dying Lamb, Your precious blood Shall never lose its power Until all the ransomed Church of God Be saved to sin no more." Those blessed hands which were pierced for us on Calvary are the hands which are lifted up for us before the eternal and glorious throne above. Of the manner of His advocacy we know but little, except that it is very glorious, full of dignity, and full of power. He appears for us. That is enough. Dr. Doddridge represents Him as introducing His chosen to the Father, admitting that they are worthy of death, but pleading that He has died for them. Of the substance of His advocacy we need entertain no doubt. It is pretty fully explained in His great intercessory prayer recorded in the seventeenth chapter of John. Now, does any humble soul wish for a sure ground of hope? He has it in Christ’s pleading his cause. "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat; but I have prayed for you—that your faith fail not" (Luke 22:31-32). And it did not fail—his faith recalled him and made him weep bitterly. In availing ourselves of Christ’s advocacy, let us know what our case is; let us attempt no concealment; let us tell Him all, and let us commit to Him the whole matter. None is able to destroy, if He protects. None can condemn those whom He justifies. Nor need we be deterred from seeking His mercy by the greatness of our guilt. He saves the chief of sinners as readily as the least of sinners. He is able to save to the uttermost, all who come to God by Him. Reader! you may think your case very bad—and so it is. But you are not worse than the chief of sinners. You may be the uttermost; but you are not beyond the uttermost. Hope in His mercy. Oh, give Him your confidence. Lean on His almighty arm. Take Him as your Advocate. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 52: 03.22. THE CHRISTIAN'S EARNEST ======================================================================== 22. THE CHRISTIAN’S EARNEST Inspired writers are exceedingly intent on impressing their thoughts on others. They seize on anything that will aid them in their work. They speak of breaking up fallow ground, of sowing and reaping, of building and journeying, when by these things they can unfold or explain what they mean. Paul sees an altar inscribed "To the Unknown God". He immediately proposes to tell them of that very God. Sometimes buying and selling with their various terms and usages serve their turn. Nor do they care whether a usage or idea is heathen or Jewish, so that it is pertinent to the matter in hand. Paul often refers to racing, wrestling, and fighting to elucidate his meaning. So, also, Paul borrows a word from trade among the Phoenicians, Arrabon, to teach a very important truth. This word Arrabon is always rendered earnest, in the sense of a pledge, a token of something yet to come. It occurs thrice in the New Testament, and only in the writings of Paul: "Now, He who establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God; who has also sealed us, and given us the EARNEST of the Spirit in our hearts." "Now He who has wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also has given us the EARNEST of the Spirit." "In whom also, after you believed, you were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the EARNEST of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of His glory" (2 Corinthians 1:22; 2 Corinthians 5:5; Ephesians 1:13-14). In many ways does God comfort His people. Sometimes it is by sacraments, which are signs and seals of His covenant. Sometimes it is by promises and oaths, that by these two immutable things His saints might have strong consolation. Sometimes it is by tokens for good, some visible evidence of Divine regard such as is noticed in Psalms 41:11 : "By this I know that You favor me." Compare Psalms 86:17. Sometimes it is by giving us an EARNEST. But what is an earnest? Brown defines it as "Something given in hand to give assurance that what more is promised shall be given in due time. It differs from a pledge, as it is not taken back when full payment is made." Burrill says that "An earnest is part of the price paid for property or goods sold, or money given in token that a bargain is ratified, or to bind a contract; often called earnest money." It seems that the merchants of Phoenicia either first or most extensively resorted to the arrabon, the earnest. One who disregarded the solemnity or obligations of the earnest, would have been infamous. Now the earnest God gives His people is the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, Sanctifier, and Guide of His redeemed people. Peace of conscience, assured to us by the Blessed Spirit of God, is a sure forerunner of life and peace beyond the grave. He who has the fruits of the Spirit, has the Spirit himself. And he who has the Spirit of God, is the temple of God, and is thus devoted, consecrated, and marked out as one belonging to the Most High. His spot is the spot of God’s people. His light is not darkness. His heart is the home of all that can ennoble human character. As David’s first anointing by the command of God gave a sure pledge that he should yet reign over Israel, so the anointing of the Christian by the Holy Spirit infallibly betokens his coming greatness, his everlasting bliss. The graces of God’s Spirit in our hearts, infallibly assure the people of God that in due time their rest shall be glorious. The title of believers is found in the righteousness of Christ. The faith of believers surely appropriates the merits of the Redeemer. Faith is the fruit of the Spirit, the gift of God—a gift never bestowed on any who remain in the bond of iniquity or in the gall of bitterness. And he who has living faith, has all the other graces of the Spirit—love, hope, joy, patience, meekness, gentleness, courage, charity, brotherly kindness, and perseverance. In the new birth there are no monstrous productions. Fear without hope, or hope without fear, would present to us a very sad character. Confidence without reverence, or joy without humility, is not the type of a soul born from above. In this way a beautiful symmetry of character is secured. The people of God are an honor to God. They adorn the doctrines of God their Savior. They are His witnesses in this wicked world. They are god-like just so far as they are godly. They know whom they have believed. They are known of God, and men take knowledge of them—that they have been with Jesus. In due time, and by God’s favor, such prove that the effect of righteousness is quietness and assurance forever. They see that nothing can harm them, because they are followers of that which is good. They know that they are of the truth, and shall assure their hearts before Him. The admission of such into glory is indeed a great event. Yet they had a right to expect it. Having on the wedding garments, it is right that they should go into the marriage supper. They walked with God on earth—and so they walk with Him in glory! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 53: 03.23. THE CHRISTIAN'S JOY ======================================================================== 23. THE CHRISTIAN’S JOY The Scriptures as frequently and as urgently call on the righteous to rejoice, as they call on the wicked to weep and mourn. "Let all who put their trust in You, rejoice." "Let Mount Zion rejoice, let Judah be glad." "Let the righteous be glad, let them rejoice before God; yes, let them exceedingly rejoice." "Rejoice evermore." These are mere samples of what may be found in both the Old and the New Testaments. Nor is the joy of the righteous vain and empty. He has good cause for the very highest exultations in which he ever indulges. Jehovah himself is a never-failing fountain of gladness to the humble. The Psalmist calls God his "exceeding joy." The darkest gulf into which the human mind ever looks, is the gulf of atheism. A world without a sun would be dismal, but a world without a God would be horrible. No wonder that the pious so exult in the Divine existence, and in all the Divine perfections. "Hallelujah, for the Lord God omnipotent reigns!" is a song sung wherever holy beings are found. The salvation of God is a matter of perpetual gladness to the saints in heaven and on earth. The plan, the Author, the cost, the nature, and the end of redemption—fill the soul with pious wonder, and with joy unspeakable and full of glory. In like manner the godly have joy in every good thing, in all the common bounties of Providence. They know that everything is sent in love. They even rejoice in tribulation. The martyrs have exultingly washed their hands in the flames which consumed them, and sung the praises of Immanuel until their voices sunk in death. It does not diminish, but rather increases, and gives permanency to this joy—that it is made sober by trembling, that is, by a holy caution, a beneficial fear. "Let him who thinks he stands take heed lest he fall," is a wholesome caution, and makes no godly man despondent. Godly fear is closely allied to pious joy. It was when the prophet had such a glorious vision of God that he trembled, and his lips quivered, and rottenness entered into his bones, and he trembled in himself, that he exultingly exclaimed: "Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation" (Habakkuk 3:17-18). So we see how by fear joy works, and by fear is made perfect. For the saints serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling (Psalms 2:11). The Christian has great joy when the kingdom of Heaven is first set up in his own heart. No day is more memorable than the day of one’s espousal to Christ. How could it be otherwise? The poor soul, long oppressed by the Devil, having all its noble faculties loaded with the chains of ignorance, guilt, depravity, and misery, and made to serve base lusts—is at that time delivered from its cruel taskmasters, and experiences the glorious liberty of the sons of God. "If the Son shall make you free, you shall be free indeed." Oftentimes in its pilgrimage the soul is allowed to have glorious views of the mystery of God and of Christ. If not taken to the Mount of Transfiguration, it at least ascends the mount of ordinances, and there it is satisfied, as with marrow and fatness. Then it is made like the chariots of Amminadab. It holds sweet fellowship with Heaven. Its fellowship is truly with the Father, and with His Son, Jesus Christ. At the close of his great work on the glory of Christ, John Owen has a chapter on the way and means of the recovery of spiritual decays, and of obtaining fresh springs of grace. He says: "There are two things which those who, after a long profession of the Gospel, are entering into the confines of eternity, do long for and desire. The one is, that all their breaches may be repaired, their decays recovered, their backslidings healed. The other is, that they may have fresh springs of spiritual life, and vigorous actings of all Divine graces, in spiritual mindedness, holiness, and fruitfulness unto the praise of God, the honor of the Gospel, and the increase of their own peace and joy. These things they value more than all the world, and all that is in it." To such in a very pleasing degree God grants their desire. He has said that He would. Hear Him: "I will be your God throughout your lifetime—until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you" (Isaiah 46:4). Again He says: "Even in old age they will still produce fruit; they will remain vital and green" (Psalms 92:14). Because God is faithful, He gives increase of peace and joy to His aged servants. I have met many such in my lifetime. I have met some such the last year. They tell me that they are just waiting, that they have no tormenting fears, that the joy of the Lord is their strength, and that their hearts are where their treasure is—even in heaven. Blessed are such. Their joys bear them quite above their trials and their sorrows. A young orchard full of blooms is a goodly sight. But a matured orchard in autumn, laden with the richest fruit, is still more charming. The last is the reality; the first was but the promise. The end of sowing is reaping. The end of a life of piety is comfort and joy in the Holy Spirit. He who says there is no solid nor abounding joy to the Christian, is a stranger to vital godliness. The joy of the Lord is his strength. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 54: 03.24. THE CHRISTIANS SORROW ======================================================================== 24. THE CHRISTIANS SORROW "God had one Son on earth without sin—but never a son on earth without affliction." This has long been regarded as one of the best sayings of Augustine. It is very true and quite coincides with Scripture. It is fully borne out by that saying of the prophet David: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous." Blessed Paul says, "Whom the Lord loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives." And sixty years after His ascension to glory, Jesus Himself said: "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." All this, when rightly considered, is seen to be fair and fitting. For if the Savior suffered, it is right the saved should suffer also. It is a great thing to be conformed to Christ in temper or suffering. "If we suffer with Him, we shall also reign with Him." "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for you, and I am completing in my flesh what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for His body, that is, the church." As Christ’s sufferings prepared Him to be the Captain of our salvation and our sympathizing Friend, so our sufferings make us mindful of the sorrows of our Lord and increase our sympathy with Him in all His undertaking for us. There is a "need be" for all the trials of God’s children on earth. Their pangs promote their purity. God puts them into the furnace that He may consume their dross, take away all their sin, and bring them out as pure gold. "He does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." He has no pleasure in seeing His chosen suffer, but He delights to see His image on their hearts perfected. He chastens them for their profit, that they may be partakers of His holiness. He is a wise and good Father, and all His people on earth are more or less wayward. Blessed be His name. He will not cease to chastise them until their wills submit to His and rejoice in tribulation. Thereby the Lord is honored and their salvation promoted. Future glory will be somewhat in proportion to what Christ’s people suffer for Him here. The crown of martyrdom is exceedingly bright. The glorious throng which John saw was made up of those who came out of great tribulation and had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. How sweet will be rest after turmoil, peace after war, a quiet home after a long and perilous journey. Where is the experienced minister who has not often seen one year of suffering, do more for the glory of Christ than five years of service? N. D. was a small man whose speech sounded very unusual. He was not popular. He lived in considerable retirement. He had but little worldly goods, yet no one accused him of stinginess. For one in his circumstances he gave liberally. He was a great student of the Word of God. He saw in men much that he could not approve. Nor did he keep silence at such times. He was very punctual in attending the house of God. He maintained family worship with great regularity. No one saw any flaws in his morals. But he could not express himself well on any subject. His manners were stiff and awkward. When he had been a professor of religion for about twenty-five years, he became a great sufferer. A complication of diseases came upon him. No such case of bodily disease had ever been seen in his neighborhood. He could not sleep for as much as six weeks at a time. He was in constant and excruciating pain. No one could see him without feeling great pain at his bodily distress. He wore away rapidly. He could not walk at all. He could not turn himself in bed. In this sharp trial his piety shined forth with great clearness. Not a murmur escaped his lips. He showed no impatience. His meekness and mildness were very striking. He was full of thankfulness to God and man. Of the least favor done him he would make some respectful and grateful mention. His whole character seemed to be changed. Yet he did not profess to be recently converted. On the contrary, he still believed that he had met with a saving change of heart long before. He spoke with delight of many pleasant days he had in youth when alone or when publicly worshiping God. He seemed to remember with accuracy and to quote with aptness considerable portions of God’s Word. He was a wonder unto many. Yes, he was a wonder to himself. He expressed his views as candidly as ever, but with the greatest gentleness and charitableness. His case was much spoken of. Many a Christian went miles to see him. The feeling of everyone seemed to be much like that of the prophet when he saw the bush in the midst of the flame unconsumed, "I will turn aside and see this great sight." And, truly, it was good to see how grace could bear one up, and bear him on, and bear him through, when his body was wracked with exquisite tortures. N. D. lived several years after this season of violent suffering, but he never ceased to be an invalid, nearly helpless, and often full of pain. His faith seemed to grow exceedingly. His end was peace. This little narrative should teach us— 1. Not to judge of character by mere voice or manners. Some godly men have no manners at all—and some very godly men have very bad manners. 2. Yet we ought to study to commend to others our religion by those ways which are pleasant, lovely, and of good report. Piety is no foe to the civilities of life. 3. No man knows what he can do and what he can bear—until he is tried and receives new supplies of grace. N. D. considered himself a wonder of mercy. 4. Let no man judge his brother. "The weak brother shall be held up, for God is able to make him stand." He who is most humble is best prepared to stand severe tests. 5. We greatly err when we lightly esteem the least of Christ’s disciples, the poorest of the saints. On trial they may quite outshine us. 6. It is certain that neither N. D. nor any other godly man who has left this world regrets any sufferings he ever endured on earth. All is well that ends in glory. 7. Amazing is the distinguishing love of God which often takes men who are naturally neither attractive nor amiable—and makes them the monuments of redeeming mercy."I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure." Matthew 11:25-26 The following "Song of a Tired Servant" has recently been printed in several journals: "One more day’s work for Jesus, One less of life for me! But heaven is nearer, And Christ is dearer Than yesterday, to me. His love and light Fill all my soul tonight. One more day’s work for Jesus: How glorious is my King; ’Tis joy, not duty, To speak His beauty; My soul mounts on the wing At the mere thought How Christ its life has bought. One more day’s work for Jesus, Sweet, sweet the work has been, To tell this story, To show the glory, Where Christ’s flock enter in. How did it shine In this poor heart of mine! One more day’s work for Jesus. In hope, in faith, in prayer, His word I’ve spoken, His bread I’ve broken To souls faint with despair; And bade them flee To Him who has saved me. One more day’s work for Jesus. Yes, and a weary day. But heaven shines clearer, And rest comes nearer. At each step of the way. And Christ is all; Before His face I fall. O blessed work for Jesus; O rest at Jesus’ feet! There toil seems pleasure, My wants are treasure, And for Him looks sweet. Lord, if I may, I’ll serve You more another day." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 55: 03.25. THE CHRISTIAN'S SORROW—CONTINUED ======================================================================== 25. THE CHRISTIAN’S SORROW—Continued It is not sinful to be sad. Blessed be God for that! Jesus wept. Tears have often been the food and drink of God’s people day and night. Sorrow is natural to men. It may become sinful, but it is not necessarily sinful. In fact, it is often a blessing, and does more good than gladness itself. Hear the wise man: "Sorrow is better than laughter; for by the sadness of the countenance, the heart is made better. The heart of the wise is in the house of mourning; but the heart of fools is in the house of mirth." The day of desperate sorrow seems to be reserved to the wicked (Isaiah 17:11). To saints, no night is without its morning. Light is sown for the righteous, and gladness for the upright in heart. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. Blessed is he who has the hope of salvation to cheer him along! David sometimes complains that his sorrow is daily, and sometimes that it is continual. Grief is often great, and dries up the blood and spirits. Job says: "My eyes have grown dim from grief, and my whole body has become but a shadow." We ought never to allow our sorrow to become turbulent, leading us to behave like the bullock unaccustomed to the yoke. This seems to have been one of the errors into which the man of Uz once fell (Job 6:8-11). Frequently sorrow is incurable. When it is felt to be so, we are in danger of sinking into sullenness, or of making our hearts like a stone—both very dangerous states of mind. A much better way, the right way, is in meekness to bear it, uttering no foolish words against God or man. "It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. He sits alone, and keeps silence, because he has borne it upon him." Let the sorrowful commit their ways to the Lord. "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, until my change comes," was one of Job’s wise sayings. Stoicism is not a virtue. When God calls us to weeping, we ought to weep. Insensibility is never pleasing to God—hardness of heart under judgments is very vile. "The Lord, the Lord Almighty, called you on that day to weep and to wail, to tear out your hair and put on sackcloth. But see, there is joy and revelry!" (Isaiah 22:12-13). To despise the chastening of the Lord is to despise the Lord Himself. But sorrow may be excessive. It is right to mourn when God calls us thereto; but it is wicked to faint when we are rebuked by Him. Our moderation should be as clearly known in grief as in joy. God’s people may not mourn the death of even great and godly men, as those who have no hope, or as the heathen do (Leviticus 19:28; Deuteronomy 14:1; 1 Thessalonians 4:13). We should pray that we may not have "overmuch sorrow," "sorrow upon sorrow," or "sorrow without hope," as the Bible uses those phrases. Nor are we any more at liberty to let our sorrow become excessive, than we are at liberty to indulge mirth to wildness. The tendency of sorrow is to break the spirit (Proverbs 15:13). But we must encourage ourselves in the Lord our God. When our sorrow is excessive, it is the sorrow of the world. Yet who can stand when God dispenses sorrow in anger? (Job 41:10). It is only by the Gospel that sorrow and sighing are effectually made to flee away. Only by faith can men in this life enter into rest. Believers, and only they, can be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing (2 Corinthians 6:10). To such God is indeed a stay and a friend. Hear Him: "I have satiated the weary soul, and I have replenished every sorrowful soul" (Jeremiah 31:25). By faith He, who was the man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, becomes our solace and our stay. Oh, consider Him! (Hebrews 12:3; 2 Timothy 2:11-13). Our great resort in times of sorrow must be the throne of grace. Is any afflicted? let him pray. David found this the best way (Psalms 116:3-4). Reader, are you tender and pitiful to the children of sorrow? You ought to be. "To him who is afflicted, pity should be showed from his friend" (Job 6:14). Oh, be tender, and avoid all harshness in dealing with the sorrowful. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 56: 03.26. THE CHRISTIAN'S HATRED OF ERROR ======================================================================== 26. THE CHRISTIAN’S HATRED OF ERROR Truth is light. It makes manifest. It is one. It is harmonious. No truth contradicts any other truth. Truth has in it no jars, no discords, no contradictions. Like its Author, it is simple, eternal, and immutable. It came from God, who cannot lie, cannot deceive, cannot be mistaken, cannot be outwitted. Sin and holiness never were the same, and to all eternity they shall be different. Right and wrong cannot agree, because one is conformity to truth and the other is at war with truth. One is from above; the other is from beneath. Truth is the opposite of fiction, fable, falsehood. All truth is equally true, but all truth is not equally important. The axioms of geometry are as true as the first principles of the Gospel, yet a man may be happy, holy, and saved without knowing any mathematical truth whatever; but eternal life depends on our knowing God and Jesus Christ, whom He has sent. In the arts and sciences a truth may be of great value to one man, while to him whose calling or profession is different, it is of no considerable value. But all Christian truth is of great price to every man. On it depends his eternal well-being. We cannot give too much for it. "Buy the truth and sell it not." The wise men of the East took a long journey to see Him who is the Way, the Truth, and the Life; and they gained their object. They went on no fool’s errand. It was with a great sum that the chief captain obtained the freedom of a Roman citizen. It was a grant worth having; but it reached not beyond this life. Many who had it not, lived virtuously and piously, and were happy beyond the grave. But he who has the truth is blessed forever and ever. No deficiency is so appalling as to be left destitute of God’s mercy and truth. All else is bearable. This is intolerable misery. Hezekiah justly thought it would be well with him if peace and truth were in his days. When the Messiah rides prosperously, it is because of truth and meekness and righteousness. When God would pronounce a blessing on philanthropists and benefactors, He says: "Mercy and truth shall be to those who devise good." Nor is there ever a sadder state of things in a community, than when truth is fallen in the streets, for then justice stands afar off and equity cannot enter. On the other hand, a lie is the opposite of truth. It misleads, deceives, and beguiles, just as far as it is received. It is the progeny of the wicked one. When men delight in lies they curse inwardly. The sentence of God is, "He who speaks lies shall perish." If any doubt God’s abhorrence of lies, in the shape of falsehood to men, let them read the awful history of Gehazi. And if any doubt God’s abhorrence of lies uttered to Himself, let him read the appalling story of Ananias and Sapphira. Lies, in the shape of religious error, are greatly displeasing to God. False teachers cause the people to err by their lies. By the same means they make the heart of godly men sad. They thus afflict whom God would comfort. When men speak lies in hypocrisy, you may know that their conscience is seared with a hot iron. Just as sure as a man loves God’s word—he hates and abhors lying. Nothing is more offensive to God than false doctrine. It is a slander on the Almighty. It is a deadly poison. It eats like a cancer. It is astonishing how bitter is the malignity of men against all who are grieved by their false doctrines. "A lying tongue hates those that are afflicted by it." The basest passions were indulged against all the prophets and apostles and intrepid friends of truth by all the fautors of wicked dogmas. "No lie is of the truth." That is, no lie is a part of the truth. No false doctrine is any part of Christianity. Pool: "Any part of false doctrine does so ill match and square with the frame of Divine truth, that judicious Christians may discern they are not of a piece." Remarks. 1. It is a solemn duty to be valiant for the truth. Men whose profession, office, or station calls them to be so, and are not—are justly condemned of the Lord, and are put down among the greatest enemies of God and man (Jeremiah 9:3). Over a people in such a state the bitterest tears may be justly poured out. If they cannot be changed, they are utterly undone. 2. God’s peace and God’s truth go together. We cannot have the former without the latter. Holy writers often unite them. Why should we foolishly try to separate them? They are closely united in all good governments, in all happy families, in all virtuous people. 3. No lie has any sanctifying power. It comes from wickedness. It leads to wickedness. God may save us notwithstanding some errors, but He will not save us by means of our errors. "Sanctify them through Your truth; Your word is truth." 4. True liberty is by the power of truth in the hands of the Holy Spirit. "The truth shall make you free." All error is wicked. It enslaves. It degrades. It debases. It opposes the God of truth and the Spirit of truth. 5. The truth may be held in unrighteousness. Many have done so. It is bad not to know the truth. It is ruinous to know the truth and not obey it. Practice is the very life of piety. "Everyone that is of the truth hears My voice," says Christ. "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 57: 03.27. THE CHRISTIAN'S GLORIOUS RICHES ======================================================================== 27. THE CHRISTIAN’S GLORIOUS RICHES "Known, yet regarded as unknown; dying, and yet we live on; beaten, and yet not killed; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing everything" (2 Corinthians 6:9-10). The Christian is a paradox. Because he has Christ, he has the unsearchable riches of Christ. Four times does Paul speak of "the riches of His glory." It is a Hebrew form of expression, equivalent to "His glorious riches." In Romans 9:23, the apostle states it was God’s plan to "make known the riches of His glory on objects of mercy that He prepared beforehand for glory." In Ephesians 1:18, he prays that the eyes of their understanding being enlightened, they "may know what is the hope of His calling, and what the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints." In Ephesians 3:16, he prays that God "would grant them, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might by His Spirit in the inner man." And in Colossians 1:27, we read of "the saints, to whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory." It is therefore clear that all implied in this phrase shall be made manifest in the saints, shall be known by them, shall strengthen them, and shall secure to them the blessings of a glorious eternity. What, then, are these "glorious riches"? Who but God can fully answer that question? Sometimes He speaks to us concerning them. By one apostle He tells us of "love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance" (Galatians 5:22-23). By another He tells us of "faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness, brotherly kindness, and charity" (2 Peter 1:5-7). What a beautiful constellation of virtues is here! They are the graces of the Holy Spirit. He who has these—has glorious riches. Nothing shall ever harm him. In another place God says, "All things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come: all are yours" (1 Corinthians 3:21-22). Are not these riches of glory? This world and the next, with all the real blessings in both, belong to the people of the Most High God. This is very much the way in which Christ personally stated the matter: "Verily I say unto you, There is no man that has left house, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children, for the kingdom of God’s sake, who shall not receive manifold more in this present time, and in the world to come life everlasting" (Luke 18:29-30). In like manner, Paul says that godliness has the "promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come" (1 Timothy 4:8). We may, then, sum up these riches of glory thus: Believers have full and free forgiveness of all their sins; they are fully accepted in the Beloved; they are clothed in Christ’s spotless righteousness; they are adopted into the family of God; their title to heaven through Christ is perfect; they are regenerated; they have increase of grace; their sanctification is secured; they have peace in believing; they are sure of victory over sins, the world, the flesh, the devil, all sorrow, death, hell, and the grave; they have the elements and principles of all virtues, and shall infallibly have them all perfected; they have God for their Father, Christ for their Savior, the Holy Spirit for their Comforter, hope in God for their anchor, and heaven for their home; they shall have boldness in the day of judgment; they shall be like Christ and with Christ forever; they shall inherit all things. Oh, who would not be a Christian? ======================================================================== CHAPTER 58: 03.28. SOME MUSINGS OF AN OLD CHRISTIAN ======================================================================== 28. SOME MUSINGS OF AN OLD CHRISTIAN Long-continued and sore trials would drown the people of God in sorrow, but that the Lord gives them blessed cordials and puts underneath them the everlasting arms. Sad indeed is the case of a man when Divine mercy cannot effect its object without his overthrow. God never withdrew His tender mercies from any, until sin had made its dreadful mark. As God is the Father of the fatherless, so is He also the Helper of the helpless. He who so fears as not to love, and he who so loves as not to fear his Maker—are alike destitute of true piety. He who trusts in great men is as foolish as he who trusts in base men. God’s condescension is equal to His majesty. Man’s knowledge is soon exhausted. Inanimate creation and brutes glorify God. Why should man expect to be left to do as he pleased, and honor or dishonor God, as he might choose? Our circumstances are never so depressed that the Almighty cannot give us effectual aid. The worst maladies are sinful passions. Neither men nor angels are ever better employed than in obeying God’s commandments. It is sad that so many boast of justification or cry for pardon—who never speak of sanctification nor pray for purity. Having learned to sing God’s praises here—we shall not lose the heavenly art by passing over Jordan. "Every creature is to us what God makes it to be—a friend or an enemy." Let all who have unusual prosperity remember that their condition has temptations not a whit less severe, than those of abject wretchedness. The early Christians, who had been converted from heathenism, often write almost as if they had just escaped from the precincts of perdition. Those who have honestly and heartily received the righteousness of Christ—will be sure to mark His footsteps and walk as He walked. All the sufferings and perplexities of man can be fairly traced to his apostasy from his Maker. Through the wonders of Divine grace, the natural evils which befall godly men are the means not only of checking, but also of eradicating, the evils of their hearts and preparing them for glory. The heart of Christ and the heart of His people, agree on all vital matters. If the Lord sufficiently helps His people along under trials, He shows Himself as kind as in granting deliverance. As the whole scheme of salvation had its origin in Jehovah’s mercy, goodness, and loving-kindness; and as He changes not, so we may rest assured He will perfect all the work He has begun. The most glorious thing in salvation, is the perfect consistency of its rich grace with inflexible justice. There are wonders enough in the constitution of the person of the Mediator, and in His amazing history while on earth, to fill the wisest and best of men with adoring admiration until they are admitted within the veil to behold the King in His glory. God is so determined on having our warm affections enlisted in all our approaches to Him, that if this point be not gained, nothing will please Him. Nothing is more necessary than the help of God’s Spirit. Without wind, sails will not carry a vessel onward. Without fire from heaven, Elijah’s sacrifice would have been no better than that offered to Baal. Without the spirit the body is dead. It would be a mystery amounting to a contradiction, if the salvation of God produced no controlling, delightful emotions in the souls of His true children. The nine lepers who returned not to give glory to God, were as well pleased with their cure as their companion, the tenth; but they cared nothing for the author of so great a mercy. It is sad to see teachers flattering their pupils, and pastors their people; but all that would be harmless if men did not flatter themselves and refuse to receive evidence against themselves. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 59: 03.29. WHAT CAN I DO ======================================================================== 29. WHAT CAN I DO "What can I do?" asked one, "I am a poor, feeble, erring creature. I know nothing aright until I am taught of God. I find my strength to be perfect weakness. My wisdom is folly. I make many mistakes. When I would do good, evil is present with me." Now, dear sir, let me say a few plain things for your guidance and encouragement. It is true that, if you are left to yourself, you are as weak as water. Think as little of yourself as the truth will allow, and yet say, "Surely, in the Lord have I righteousness and strength." Look away from yourself. You have, no doubt, often trusted in yourself in a foolish and sinful way, forgetting that "even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fail, but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint." We cannot be too much emptied of self; we cannot too confidingly trust in the Lord. A just sense of your weakness, therefore, so far from being a disqualification for usefulness, is really a preparation for it. "When I am weak, then am I strong," is true of the people of God in all their ways and duties. Let me advise you never to put yourself in a state either of indifference or of hostility to any good work or plan. It is impossible for every man to give effective aid in every enterprise. But let him not discourage or hinder others who can push it forward. Be careful, too, lest while you are doing nothing good, you are doing something wrong. Some professing people do a world of mischief. They display such carnal affections, are so much like men of the world, practice so little prudence, so often allow their good to be evil spoken of, and manifest such lack of tenderness of conscience—that they give great occasion to the enemy to speak reproachfully. If you would be useful on a large scale, take these hints: 1. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might. Pursue no good thing with languor. Feeble exertions court opposition and create embarrassments. 2. Believe assuredly that God can and will bestow a blessing on right plans rightly conducted. Be not faithless. Take God at His word. It is never relied on in vain. 3. Be patient and not fretful and restless. The farmer has great patience and waits for the precious fruits of the earth. Many a scheme cannot be executed in a day or a month. If a man would raise a forest of oaks, he must not expect to see his desires fully accomplished in even one long lifetime. Let us sow seed. Let us plant acorns. 4. Do not try to control Providence, but find out and conform yourself to its plans. Men may sometimes dream of making water run up stream. But they never really succeed. "Mind not high things, but condescend to men of low estate." 5. Be not easily discouraged. Hope on. Hope ever. A very experienced laborer says that he has frequently seen the happiest results flowing from labors performed under the greatest discouragements. Many have said as much. Look not much at discouragements. 6. Pray much. "To pray frequently is to pray fervently." Pitch your tent close by the mercy-seat. Pray without ceasing. Never be at ease in Zion. "The voice that rolls the stars along spoke all the promises." Plead them before God. Adopt the language of one of old: "I will not let You go except You bless me." 7. Enlist, so far as you can, the prayers and cooperation of others, especially of humble godly people. Waiting on the great for help and patronage is very tedious and discouraging. Hardly anything is more so. People of good sense and ardent piety, in the middle walks of life, are commonly, the best helpers. 8. Having done your best, cast yourself and your endeavors wholly on God’s great mercy in Christ Jesus. Seek to have yourself and your labors washed in atoning blood. Freely admit that you are nothing, that you deserve nothing, and that all you dare to hope to be and to obtain—is wholly through God’s sovereign grace. Be humble. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 60: 03.30. POSTHUMOUS USEFULNESS ======================================================================== 30. POSTHUMOUS USEFULNESS Dr. Doddridge has a chapter showing that we ought to glorify God in our death. And reason would show that we should try so to live as to be useful even after death. The Scriptures say of Abel: "He, being dead, yet speaks." This was said of a man nearly four thousand years after his time. This should encourage us to zeal in our Master’s service. Such cases are not rare, nor are they confined to olden times. God shall never cease to own His people and their pious labors. Their prayers, examples, sayings, and writings exert an influence long after they bid farewell to earth. However long ago genuine supplications and intercessions for the cause of Christ may have been offered, they are still sweet odors before God. Many have suggested that Saul of Tarsus was probably converted and saved in answer to the last prayer of the first martyr, Stephen. There is as sweet a savor in the prayer of the psalmist, "O send out Your light and Your truth," as in the day it was first offered. And a good life, how does God delight in it. He never forgets it. In His book of remembrance it is all delineated, even down to the giving of a cup of cold water. So a good song, or saying, or book may be blessed long after its pious author has slept the sleep of death. Their virtue ever depended on the truth they taught, and the spirit they breathed—and not at all on the natural life of him who wrote them. Blessed be God for all the bright hopes which His people are warranted to cherish for usefulness in this world after death, as well as for the glory, honor and immortality in the world that is to come. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 61: 04.00. THE GRACE OF CHRIST ======================================================================== The Grace of Christ, or, Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness William S. Plumer, 1853 "We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved." Acts 15:11 CHOICE QUOTES from the book 1. Introduction 2. All men are sinners 3. Sin is a great evil 4. How the pious regard sin in themselves and in others 5. The heart of man is all wrong 6. Wicked men are like devils 7. Man is utterly helpless 8. Without divine grace, men can do nothing but sin 9. The corruption of man is hereditary 10. Men are guilty. Imputation of Adam’s sin. Actual sins 11. Self-righteousness is worthless. Man needs a Savior 12. The true notion of grace 13. The properties of grace—it is free, sufficient, unselfish, rich in blessings 14. God’s grace is also of great antiquity, sovereign and distinguishing 15. God’s purpose of grace 16. God’s Word teaches the Doctrines of Grace; the Fathers 17. What the martyrs taught; the reformers; other godly men 18. The grace of Christ--like that of the Father and the Spirit 19. No salvation but by a Redeemer, and no Redeemer but Christ 20. The constitution of Christ’s Person; His Grace therein 21. The Work and Sufferings of Christ; His active and passive obedience 22. The Death of Christ; the Atonement 23. Justification before God 24. Justification—the pardon of sin by Christ’s blood 25. Justification—Acceptance in Christ 26. Justification—Christ’s Righteousness is imputed to believers 27. Justification—Imputed Righteousness; Additional Testimonies 28. The office of faith in justification 29. Why good works are necessary 30. Regeneration 31. Sanctification 32. Sanctification, continued 33. Relative duties 34. Temptation 35. The power of divine grace to console 36. Afflictions of the righteous; Sayings; Promises 37. The righteous shall hold on his way 38. The brevity of human life 39. The believer’s victory over death—the Martyrs 40. The believer’s victory over death—other Examples 41. The believer’s victory over death, continued 42. The immortality of the soul 43. The happy state of God’s people immediately after death 44. The resurrection of life 45. The final judgment 46. Eternal glory 47. All honor is due to Christ 48. Christians long to see Jesus 49. The danger of rejecting salvation 50. The wonders of grace will never cease 51. The offers of free grace are to all indiscriminately 52. The doctrine of free grace is safe and reforms sinners 53. The Conclusion—An offer of life made to the perishing ======================================================================== CHAPTER 62: 04.000. CHOICE QUOTES FROM THE BOOK ======================================================================== The Grace of Christ, or, Sinners Saved by Unmerited Kindness William S. Plumer, 1853 CHOICE QUOTES There goes John Bradford! When others sin, godly men see what they themselves were before conversion; or what they would have been— but for the restraints of God’s grace. Bradford, an eminent servant of Christ, seeing a criminal led to execution said, "There goes John Bradford—but for the grace of God!" Splendid sins! Two things are required to make an action right. One is that it be lawful in itself. The other is that it be done with a right motive. If the thing done is itself wrong, no motives can make it right. On the other hand, the thing done may be right in itself, but the motive which governs us may be wrong, and so the act may be sinful because the motive is sinful. Bad motives in good actions are like dead flies in sweet ointments. They corrupt the whole. The motive of the heart is everything! Most unbelievers do many things which are very proper, but not out of love to God. The unregenerate man never does anything with holy motives. His life is better than his heart. Indeed his heart is the worst part of him! It is all wrong. It is hard, and proud, and selfish, and unbelieving, and without any love to God. So far from pleasing God, all the unregenerate are continually offending him. Their very best works are but splendid sins! They do some things which God requires, and abstain from some things which God forbids—not because they love God or His law, but because it promotes their health, or wealth, or honor to do so. Ploughing is itself a lawful act. If there is no ploughing, there can be no bread. Yet God says: "The ploughing of the wicked is sin!" Yes, he puts it down with other sinswhich greatly offend him. The whole verse reads thus: "A high look, and a proud heart, and the ploughing of the wicked—is sin." Proverbs 21:4. If God had intended to teach that everything done by wicked men—even the most common and necessary thing was sinful—could He have chosen more fit words? Here is a passage which shows that all the religious services of the unconverted, are defiled with sin. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 15:8. God’s abhorrence of sin God’s abhorrence of sin is more clearly expressed in the cross of Christ, than in the flames of hell. Wonderful mystery! Wonderful mystery! God was manifest in the flesh! Our Lord Jesus Christ became incarnate, lived, acted, obeyed, suffered, died and rose again—for His people. He came down to earth—that they might go up to heaven. He suffered—that they might reign. He became a servant—that they might become kings and priests unto God. He died that—they might live. He bore the cross—that their enmity might be slain, and their sins expiated. He loved them—that they might love God. He was rich and became poor—that they, who were poor, might be made rich. He descended into the grave—that they might sit in heavenly places. He emptied Himself—that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. He took upon Him human nature—that they might be partakers of the divine nature. He made Himself of no reputation—that they might wear His new name, and obtain eternal excellency. He became a worm, and no man—that they, who were sinful worms, might be made equal to the angels. He bore the curse of a broken covenant—that they might partake of all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Though heir of all things, He was willingly despised of the people—that they, who were justly condemned, might obtain an inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and which fades not away. His death was a satisfaction to divine justice, a ransom for many, a propitiation for sin, a sweet smelling savor to God—that we, who were an offence to God, might become His sons and daughters. He was made sin for His people—that they might be made the righteousness of God in Him. Though Lord of all, He took the form of a servant—that they, who were the servants of sin, might prevail like princes with God. He had no where to lay His head—that they who otherwise must have lain down in eternal sorrow, might reach the mansions in His Father’s house. He drank the cup of God’s indignation—that they might forever drink of the river of his pleasures. He hungered—that they might eat the bread of life. He thirsted—that they might drink the water of life. He was numbered with the transgressors—that they might stand among the justified, and be counted among His jewels. Though He existed from everlasting, from the beginning, before ever the earth was, yet He became a helpless infant—that creatures of yesterday, sentenced to death, might live forever. He wore a crown of thorns—that all who love His appearing, might wear a crown of life. He wept tears of anguish—that His elect might weep tears of godly repentance. He bore the yoke of obedience unto death—that they might find His yoke easy and His burden light. He poured out his soul unto death, lay three days in the heart of the earth, then burst the bars of death, and arose to God—that they, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, might obtain the victory over the grave and become partakers of His resurrection. He exhausted the penalty of the law—that His redeemed might have access to His inexhaustible treasures of mercy, wisdom, faithfulness, truth and grace. He was matchless in grace—that they might be matchless in gratitude. Though a Son, He became a voluntary exile—that they, who had wickedly wandered afar off, might be brought near by His blood. His visage was so marred more than any man—that His ransomed ones might be presented before God without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing. For a time He was forsaken of his Father—that they, whom He bought with His blood, might behold the light of God’s countenance forever. He came and dwelt with them—that they might be forever with the Lord. He was hung up naked before His insulting foes—that all who believe on His name, might wear a glorious wedding garment—a spotless righteousness. Wonderful mystery! God was manifest in the flesh! Blessed is he who loves the incarnate mystery, and rests upon it. It is a mystery . . . of love, of truth, of grace, of wisdom, of condescension, of power, of salvation! It is the great study of the inhabitants of heaven, and shall be while immortality endures! When God pardons One unpardoned sin would destroy a soul forever. Many words in Scripture point towards forgiveness, such as: grace, mercy, peace with God, not imputing iniquity, taking away sin, bearing sin, making an end of transgression, covering sin, forgetting sin, not remembering iniquity, washing, cleansing and removing sin, casting it into the sea, or behind the back, scattering it like a cloud, burying it, blotting it out, pardoning it. The forgiveness of sins is free. It is "without money and without price." We can do nothing to merit it, or prepare ourselves for it. When God pardons, He pardons: all sins, original sin and actual sin, sins of omission and of commission, secret and open sins, sins of thought, word and deed. To those who believe in Jesus, all is freely forgiven. Full pardon, or none at all, is what God gives. Nor is this gift ever revoked by God. When He forgives, He forgives forever! "Blessed is he whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man whose sin the Lord does not count against him." Psalms 32:1-2 What devils never did "You are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does." John 8:44 Such is the sad state of man by nature, that he bears a fearful resemblance to devils. This truth is very abasing to human pride. Unconverted men are like devils in the sense in which a child is like a man, or a cub like a lion. All admit that devils have no holiness. In this unconverted men are precisely like them. They do not love God’s law, or nature, or government. They are alienated from Him, and opposed to all His attributes and authority. They do not glorify Him, do not delight in Him, do not find pleasure in thinking on His name. They choose sin and death—rather than holiness and life. Laws, public opinion, and God’s providence now restrain many; but the heart of unrenewed man is as wicked as it ever was. It hates holiness. In some things, the ungodly do what devils never did. They reject mercy and grace, kindly offered to them by the Lord. Devils never did that! You say—They never had the opportunity. True, but they never did it. Neither did they ever laugh at eternity, judgment and damnation. They have too fearful a sense of the wrath of God to be able to mock and jest at these most solemn things. How dreadful is sin! It converts angels into devils, and men into fiends! There is no unfitness in the arrangement which God has made for having one great prison-house for all His incorrigible foes. The very place prepared for the devil and his angels—will be the final abode of impenitent men! "Then He will also say to those on the left—Depart from Me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels!" Matthew 25:41 How dreadful will hell be! Nothing but the blood of Christ Nothing but the blood of Christ can quench . . . the fire of God’s wrath, the fire of lust, or the fiery darts of Satan! Short-lived, imperfect and unsatisfying "In Your presence is abundant joy; in Your right hand are eternal pleasures! Psalms 16:11 Here on earth—our greatest joys are short-lived, imperfect and unsatisfying. Nothing continues in a perpetually happy state. All is unsettled, and easily marred. In heaven—all is as stable as eternity—all is as durable as the throne of God! All flows from the bounty of an infinite God and Savior. Here on earth—sorrows beset us in troops. In heaven— all sorrows cease; sickness, sadness and sighing flee away; bereavement never desolates; tears never flow; tempests never rage; temptations never vex; poverty, war, and death never enter; rust never corrupts; thieves never steal; weariness and vanity are forever unknown; sin never defiles; peace reigns unbroken; "the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." "Well done, good and faithful servant! Enter into the joy of your Lord!" Matthew 25:21 The great attraction of heaven! "Your heart must not be troubled. In My Father’s house are many dwelling places. I am going away to prepare a place for you. I will come back and receive you to Myself, so that where I am you may be also!" John 14:1-31 "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far!" Php 1:23 The great attraction of heaven is the Lord Jesus Christ! He Himself is the object chiefly enjoyed. To be with Jesus, and like Jesus, and to behold His glory —constitute the heaven which true believers desire! They long to behold that blessed face which was buffeted for them! Their eternal anthem is, "All praise to Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by shedding His blood for us! Give to Him everlasting glory! He rules forever and ever! Amen!" Revelation 1:5-6 There is none like Jesus! "What is your Beloved more than another beloved?" Song of Solomon 5:9 Our Beloved alone can do sinners good. His blood alone atones. He loved us unto death! Jesus has at once an almighty arm—and a brother’s heart! None is more exalted—yet none stoops so low! None is mightier—yet none is more tender! He shall not break the bruised reed, nor quench the smoking flax. He is meek and lowly, merciful and mild—at the same time He is the omnipotent Jehovah! He enlightens, purifies and comforts the heart! His word cannot be broken! His power cannot be resisted! The law of heavenly kindness is in His heart! Great is His faithfulness! His royal titles are . . . Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace! To the pious, Jesus is the source of . . . all hope, all joy, all peace, all life, all comfort. Jesus is still as gentle, as kind, as tender as when He . . . wept at the grave of Lazarus, gave eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame, or granted mercy to a wretch hanging by His side. In Him dwell all excellencies! He is full of grace and truth! He takes poor, vile, ignorant, guilty, helpless sinners—raises them to sonship with God, and makes them partakers of His holiness! There is none like Him—no, not one! He is the chief among ten thousand! He is altogether lovely! Wherever He is, there is heaven! There is none like Jesus! "Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and praise!" Revelation 5:12 A day of great surprise! "The hopes of the godly result in happiness, but the hopes of the wicked are all in vain." Proverbs 10:28 "When the wicked die, their hopes all perish." Proverbs 11:7 The day of judgment will also be a day of great surprise, both to saints and sinners. So Christ expressly informs us: "Many will say to me on that day—’Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ’I never knew you. Away from Me, you evildoers!’" Matthew 7:22-23 Many will be saved, and many will be lost—contrary to the judgments formed of them by their neighbors. But more will be saved, and more will be lost contrary to the opinions they had of themselves! Christians will wonder that they are saved, and how they are saved, and they will wonder that they should be commended for deeds full of imperfection. The wicked will be amazed that they are lost, and how they are lost; and especially that God puts no value upon their self-righteousness. The sons of God will receive more honor than they ever thought of claiming; while the wicked will find their hopes perishing one by one, and their lamp going out in obscure darkness. Christians will wonder why they should be saved. Unbelievers will wonder why they should not be saved. The wicked will ask, "What have we done amiss?" The saved will say, "All our righteous acts are like filthy rags!" The wicked says he does the best he can. The righteous says, "Behold, I am vile!" "Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life." Matthew 25:46 Nothing can reverse, nor arrest the judgments of that day. Nothing can alter or vary the decree of the Judge. It shall stand forever. The judgment of the great day will be irrevocable and everlasting in its effects. It will bind forever. He never misses a sermon! Though it is not profane, yet it is foolish to speak lightly of the devil. He is not a sacred person—but he is a dangerous person! Thoughts of levity concerning him are quite out of place. They throw us off our guard, make us secure, lead us to sloth and carelessness—and thus to sin. He who is our adversary, and has slain his thousands and tens of thousands—is never more sure of his prey than when there is least fear of him. He began his work of revolt in heaven, afterwards invaded Eden, assaulted the Son of God Himself with the greatest violence and rancor, and will always be busy until he is chained down in the pit! He has no pity. He is wholly malignant and unscrupulous. To dishonor God, destroy souls, fill earth with woe, and hell with the damned—is his trade and his delight. The keener the anguish, the more pitiless the remorse and the deeper the guilt of man—the more is Satan gratified. He does all he can to make . . . earth like hell, men like devils, saints like sinners. He delights in seeing all wickedness raging and rioting on earth. He is the god of the men of this world. He commands and they obey. He is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. His empire is built on usurpation and fraud, cruelty and crime, blood and rebellion. Satan rages, and hates, and lies, and murders. His ways are various. Sometimes he appears as an angel of light. He has cordials for wounded consciences. He speaks much of mercy. He delights in corrupting the truth. His great object is to keep men from embracing Christ. He has much to do with religious men and religious ordinances. He never misses a sermon! He knows that men can go to hell in the pew of a church, as well as in the seat of a theater. If they will rest in ’religious forms’ and be satisfied with the ordinances of God without the God of the ordinances, if they will go about to establish their own righteousness—he will encourage them, and help them to be joyful. He frequents our closets, and there practices the same arts. The rules for domestic happiness Domestic happiness requires the elements of:truth, justice, consistency, humility, candor, gentleness and kindness from superiors; respect, love, obedience, honor from inferiors; truth, justice, tenderness and brotherly kindness from equals. A profession of religion, when not accompanied by a cheerful and habitual performance of family duties—is worth nothing. The rules for domestic happiness are few and simple. He who runs, may read. They are mighty. Who can but admire the effects produced in a Christian household by such maxims and precepts as these? 1. Be humble. "Pride only breeds quarrels." 2. "Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit." 3. Find your own happiness in trying to make others happy. 4. Mind your own business. Be not meddlesome. 5. Beware of a fretful, suspicious, or censorious temper. 6. "Overcome evil with good." "Bless and curse not." 7. "Love one another deeply, from the heart." 8. Do not magnify the trials or afflictions of life. 9. Beware of sloth. There is no greater enemy of peace and happiness. 10. Make it your business to serve God. 11. Keep out of debt. "Owe no man anything." Loans breed bad tempers and harsh dispositions. 12. Keep the ultimate purpose of life in view. This will repress many vain wishes and chasten immoderate desires. 13. Let your prayers be frequent and fervent. 14. Never listen to scandal nor backbiting. 15. Grieve not for things which cannot be helped. 16. Set the Lord always before you. Seek His glory. Do and suffer His will with readiness. Let Christ be all and in all. Trust in the Lord forever. There is something peculiarly pleasing in the manifestations of the grace of Christ in a truly pious family, however humble their condition in life. The only thing which God hates So far as we know—sin is the only thing which God hates. There are many filthy reptiles, unclean beasts and venomous serpents from which we instinctively turn away; yet God’s tender mercies are over all of these. He opens His hand and supplies the needs of every living thing. To the end which he proposed in their creation, they are well adapted. But sin in its own nature and tendency—is only evil. God abhors it. Sin is the only thing which dishonors Him, grieves Him, vexes Him. He is angry with the wicked every day. Excess in many things is wrong—but no man fears or hates sin too much. Remember that you are the son of a king! When a prince was about to travel, he asked his tutor for some maxims, by which to govern his behavior; and received this: "Remember that you are the son of a king!" Let all Christians remember that they are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, and "if sons, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ!" Justification and sanctification What is the difference between justification and sanctification? The answer is that they do not differ in their importance. Both are essential to salvation. Without either we must perish. Indeed God has inseparably joined them together. Christ Jesus is always made sanctification to those, to whom He is made righteousness. Nor do they differ in their source, which is the fiee grace and infinite love of God. We are justified by faith, and our hearts are purified by faith. Faith is the instrument of justification. Faith is the root of sanctification. In justification sin is pardoned; in sanctification it is slain. In justification we obtain forgiveness and acceptance; in sanctification we attain the victory over corruption, and obtain rectitude of nature. Justification is an act of God complete at once and forever. Sanctification is a work of God begun in regeneration, conducted through life and completed at death. Justification is equal and perfect in all Christians; sanctification is not equal in all, nor perfect in any—until they lay aside the flesh in death. In justification God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification He infuses grace, and enables us to exercise it. Justification always precedes sanctification. Sanctification always comes after justification. "Justification and sanctification differ in time and degree. Justification lies at the beginning of the Christian life, and, except in its consequences, does not extend beyond it, but is instantaneous and complete upon our first exercise of saving faith. Sanctification begins where justification ends, runs throughout the Christian life, and is partial and progressive, from measure to measure, until it reaches its perfection in glory. In short, justification is God’s act for us, through the righteousness of his Son. Sanctification is his work in us, by the power of his Spirit. Justification is our title to Heaven. Sanctification is our education for Heaven." Born a heathen, a beast or a monster Jesus replied, "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God." John 3:3 This new birth we must all undergo—or be forever undone. "All hangs upon this hinge. If this is not done, you are undone—undone eternally! All your profession, civility, privileges, gifts, and duties are ciphers, and signify nothing—unless regeneration is the figure put in front of them." Better to have been born a heathen, a beast or a monster; yes, better never to have been born at all—than not to be born again! "I assure you, unless you are born again, you can never see the Kingdom of God." John 3:3 I am not what I once was! In his old age, when he could no longer see to read, John Newton heard someone recite this text, "By the grace of God I am what I am." He remained silent a short time and then, as if speaking to himself, he said: "I am not what I ought to be. Ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor that which is evil, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon I shall put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, what I wish to be, and what I hope to be; yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was—a slave to sin and Satan! I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge—By the grace of God I am what I am!" They love it! "Man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks up evil like water!" Job 15:16 The unconverted live in sin—they sin all the time. It is their trade—they work hard at it. They love it, and are greedy of iniquity. They "dig up evil." They "fill up their sin ALWAYS." They "ALWAYS resist the Holy Spirit." Never for an hour do they love God supremely. Unregenerate men sin always—they do nothing but sin against God. All the unregenerate do nothing but sin. If for a while they seem to reform, they soon return to their wickedness, as the dog to his vomit, or the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. Neither mercies, nor judgments, nor promises, nor threatenings, nor hopes, nor fears —without the grace of Christ—will or can ever cure the love of sin, or arrest the practice of sin. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Romans 8:7 Deceitful & desperately wicked "The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?" Jeremiah 17:9 Man is the only creature on earth that seems to practice self-deception. That we should sometimes deceive others is proof of our depravity; but that we should spend our lives in self-deception is truly astonishing. Men of the fewest virtues commonly have the highest thoughts of themselves. How strange and yet how common that he, whose heart has deceived him a thousand times, should yet confide in it as if it had always been honest! The human heart deceives every being but one. It would deceive Him, if He were not omniscient. None but God knows all the depths of iniquity and duplicity within us. Though the language of the Bible is strong, it is just. God declares, and every Christian knows by sad experience—that his heart is deceitful above all things. A perfect knowledge of the treachery of our hearts is possessed by none but God. The heart is also VILE. It is "desperately wicked." It loves vanity, and folly, and sin. It hates holiness, and truth, and divine restraints. It is a sink of iniquity, a pool of pestilential waters, a cage of unclean birds, a sepulcher full of dead men’s bones. It is torn by wild, fierce, unhallowed passions. It rejects good and chooses evil. It is wholly corrupt. It is full of evil. There is no soundness in it. "For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all other sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander." Matthew 15:19 "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool." Proverbs 28:26 Good for nothing! Surely, the fruit of the Spirit—"love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," are very different and very distinguishable from the works of the flesh. In some measure these graces belong to all who are born from above. The great test of personal piety is personal holiness: a meek, forgiving temper, a serious, devout spirit, a tender, grateful heart, a chaste, pious conversation, a consistent, holy life. An alleged work of grace on the heart, which leaves the life wicked—is good for nothing! A life of holiness is an infallible evidence that we are God’s people. "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." Titus 2:11-12 Gospel holiness It is by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that the work of purifying our natures is carried on to completion. Gospel holiness is inward, personal, spiritual—of the heart. The beginning of sanctification, is regeneration. The measure of sanctification, is the word of God. The author of sanctification, is the Spirit of God. The source of sanctification, is the mediation of Christ. The necessity of sanctification, is laid in God’s spotless holiness and in man’s wicked enmity and utter helplessness. The end of sanctification, is eternal life. If he could have things as he would The child of God is becoming more and more like God. The wicked wax worse and worse. The saint longs for God’s salvation. The sinner sleeps not, except he has done some mischief. The heart of a believer is the best part about him. If he could have things as he would, he would never sin any more. The life of an unconverted man is not nearly so bad as his heart. He is restrained in many ways from acting out the worst that is in him. The godly man blushes at a sinful thought. The unbeliever loves to have vain thoughts lodge within him. It is the business of a godly man’s life to please God and strive after holiness. It is the business of a sinner’s life to please himself and commit sin. There is no difference between the elect and the non-elect This love of Christ shown in regeneration is exercised in a sovereign way. "Of his own will, he begat us." Those who receive Christ Jesus are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man—but of God." The vessels to honor and those to dishonor are made "from the same lump of clay." By nature there is no difference between the elect and the non-elect. Zaccheus as vile and greedy a worldling, as the rich man, who lifted up his eyes in hell. The thief who cried, ’Lord, remember me,’ was as guilty and criminal as he, who perished, reviling the dying Savior. Manasseh was for half a century wholly corrupt and hardened, covered with sins and crimes, yet he was saved; while the young ruler, who was so amiable as to draw forth the natural affections of Christ, persisted in his covetousness, and perished. The mere mercy of God It is the mere mercy of God, which keeps a sinner out of hell even for an hour! These are his gods The unbeliever has many objects of love. He loves the world and the things of the world. When he prospers in worldly things—he counts himself happy. He is greatly pleased with gold and silver, and objects of sense, and works of art. These are his gods, because he sets his heart on them. He thinks of them ten times as much and a thousand times as eagerly—as he thinks of God. What makes his case worse is that he is commonly much at ease. He is well pleased with himself. He is not sighing over and lamenting his sins. He thinks he is good enough! His real belief is that God could not righteously and forever condemn him! Wholly and absolutely indebted As a sinner, man can neither commend nor convert himself to God. He cannot atone for his sins, he cannot satisfy divine justice, he cannot subdue his own iniquities, he cannot perform any holy action. In the work of salvation, we are wholly and absolutely indebted to the Lord Jesus Christ for reconciliation with God. We are equally indebted to the Holy Spirit . . . for all right perceptions of truth, for all really good desires and proper motives, for all spiritual strength and power to do good. Truly all our hope is in free grace alone! In all things, at all times we need the grace of Christ. One believing view of Christ "And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and supplication. They will look on Me, the one they have pierced, and they will mourn for Him as one mourns for an only child, and grieve bitterly for Him as one grieves for a firstborn son." "On that day a fountain will be opened to the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and impurity. On that day, I will banish the names of the idols from the land, and they will be remembered no more, declares the Lord Almighty. I will remove both the [false] prophets and the spirit of impurity from the land." Zechariah 12:10-11, Zechariah 13:1-2. Here we are informed: 1. That God’s Spirit is necessary to bring men to true repentance. 2. That the Holy Spirit takes of the things of Christ and shows them to men for their salvation. 3. That Gospel truth when rightly understood affects all classes alike. 4. That true repentance inclines people to go alone and weep. 5. That such weeping will lead the soul to the blood of Christ. 6. That idolatry and error, sin and heresy will be driven from among the people. Such weeping for sin will weep away all love of iniquity. One believing view of Christ does more to mortify sin, than all the terrors of the Lord. An early death We should be cheered by knowing that our departed pious friends no more see, or hear, or feel those things—which were they alive—must vex their righteous souls from day to day. To the godly man, an early death is not an evil. He thereby escapes much suffering. He is taken away from the evil to come. Let us not be over-anxious for long life. The failure of early hopes, the decline of usefulness, neglect by one’s children, the memory of past joys, the presence of many pains and infirmities—burden nearly all the very aged. Their senses are blunted, their strength is not firm, and their fears have the ascendency. "Don’t let the excitement of youth cause you to forget your Creator. Honor him in your youth before you grow old and no longer enjoy living. It will be too late then to remember him, when the light of the sun and moon and stars is dim to your old eyes, and there is no silver lining left among the clouds. Your limbs will tremble with age, and your strong legs will grow weak. Your teeth will be too few to do their work, and you will be blind, too. And when your teeth are gone, keep your lips tightly closed when you eat! Even the chirping of birds will wake you up. But you yourself will be deaf and tuneless, with a quavering voice. You will be afraid of heights and of falling, white-haired and withered, dragging along without any sexual desire. You will be standing at death’s door. And as you near your everlasting home, the mourners will walk along the streets. Yes, remember your Creator now while you are young, before the silver cord of life snaps and the golden bowl is broken. Don’t wait until the water jar is smashed at the spring and the pulley is broken at the well. For then the dust will return to the earth, and the spirit will return to God who gave it." Ecclesiastes 12:1-7 The malice of the arch enemy Satan rages, and hates, and lies, and murders the saints; but his kingdom must fall. The kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ. Glorious things are spoken of Zion, and they shall all be fulfilled. Yet these very things awaken the malice of the arch enemy. Finding he cannot rule—he tempts and annoys the children of God. He is their great foe. He studies their tempers, and adapts his temptations to their age, station and inclination. He commonly attacks them in the weakest point. He worries those whom he cannot destroy. Christian graces Humility is an excellent grace, much commended in Scripture, and puts us where we ought to be—in the dust. Meekness bears the outrageous wrongs heaped upon us with pity and forgiveness—and so makes us like Christ, who was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and opened not His mouth. Hope is an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, andbeing lively, animates the soul in all times of trial. Love with her broad mantle covers the faults of others, fills the world with the fame of her deeds, and never fails. Penitence sits at the feet of Jesus, and bathes them with its tears. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. God’s rich grace and abundant mercy God’s rich grace and abundant mercy shine forth in the whole work of salvation from first to last. The whole devising, execution, application and crowning of redemption—flow from God’s boundless grace, and infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love! All our righteous acts "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us away." Isaiah 64:6 Self-righteousness seems to be born with sin, and to grow with its growth. A disposition to deny criminality is universal among men. Nothing but divine grace can effectually cure the habit of self-justification. Nothing in human nature seems to be more obstinate, ormore difficult to eradicate—than a self-righteous spirit. Without the grace of Christ, no man ever sought or desired a new heart, or a gracious pardon. Left to themselves, men will live in sin, die in sin, and lie down in eternal sorrow; rather than renounce their own goodness and abandon their self-righteous hopes. It tends greatly to strengthen these delusions, when men can plead natural amiability of temper, or a fair standing with the world for truth, justice and honor, or a decent and serious attention to the ordinances of religion. Christ said to the most exact observers of the Mosaic ritual, "the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you!" There is not a more hopeless class, than those who trust in themselves, that they are righteous. Until God’s Spirit enlightens his mind, he will not see that salvation can never be compassed by his own power or merit. So that the very process, by which a sinner is led to the Savior, is usually one of extreme sadness. He has less and less, in his own esteem, worthy of honorable mention before God, until at last he finds out that he is nothing but a guilty, vile, lost, helpless, perishing sinner. To him the Gospel is a revelation of mercy. He is charmed with the method of grace. He gives all honor to the Redeemer, and is willing to be counted the chief of sinners. He no longer goes about to establish his own righteousness. His own merits he counts as nothing. He simply wishes to be found in Christ. His song is of free, unmerited grace! He works, indeed, but it is from love to the Savior. He says, "What I am—I am by the grace of God." He casts his crown at the Savior’s feet. He expects all from the grace of Christ. Our guilt would instantly sink us to hell Man is not only vile and helpless—he is also guilty. He is not only depraved and without strength—he is also condemned. The wicked not only have their consciences to clamor against them, but God is angry with them every day. No sentence could be more just than this, "the soul that sins—it shall die." Punishment is deserved by all sinners. Our guilt would instantly sink us to hell—but for the patience and longsuffering of God. What you think of sin Tell me what you think of sin, and I will tell you what you think of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of the divine law, of the blessed Gospel. He, who looks upon sin merely as a fiction, as a misfortune, or as a trifle, sees no necessity either for deep repentance or a great atonement. He, who sees no sin in himself, will feel no need of a Savior. He, who is conscious of no evil at work in his heart, will desire no change of nature. He, who regards sin as a slight affair, will think a few tears, or an outward reformation ample satisfaction. The truth is, no man ever thought himself a greater sinner before God, than he really was. Nor was any man ever more distressed at his sins, than he had just cause to be. He, who never felt it to be "an evil and a bitter thing to depart from God," is to this hour an enemy of his Maker, a rebel against his rightful and righteous Sovereign. The chief of sinners Sin is the worst of evils. Sin in the heart of the believer, is to him exceedingly odious. "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes!" "O wretched man that I am!" "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you!" There is a sense, in which every godly man regards himself as the chief of sinners. That is, everyone who really knows his own heart, and has seen the sad work which sin has made in his moral character, is able as before God, to see more evil in himself than of any other being. Worse than poverty, sickness, reproach! Sin is worse than poverty, sickness, reproach. Sin is worse than all sufferings. The reason is because it is "exceeding sinful." Sin is committed against an infinite God. The ill-desert of any evil deed is to be determined in part by the dignity of the person, against whom it is directed. To strike a brother is wrong; to strike a parent is worse. To sin against God is so impudent, ungrateful and wicked, that no created mind can ever adequately estimate its atrocity; and so it is an infinite evil. If sin had its own way, it would dethrone the Almighty. If men saw their sins aright, they would more highly prize divine mercy; and if they had more worthy conceptions of God’s grace, they would have more abasing views of themselves. We may learn much of the evil nature of sin by the names which the Bible gives to it, and to those who practice it. It is called disobedience, transgression, iniquity, foolishness, madness, rebellion, evil, evil fruit, uncleanness, filthiness, pollution, perverseness, frowardness, stubbornness, revolt, an abomination, an accursed thing. In like manner deeds of wickedness are called evil works, works of darkness, dead works, works of the flesh, works of the devil. And wicked men are called sinners, unjust, unholy, unrighteous, filthy, evil men, evil doers, seducers, despisers, children of darkness, children of the devil, children of hell, corrupters, idolaters, enemies of God, enemies of all righteousness, adversaries of God and man, liars, deceivers. From low, meager apprehensions of the divine nature and law, flow a slight estimate of the evil of sin, spiritual pride, self-conceit, and a disesteem of the most precious righteousness of Jesus Christ. He, who can go to Gethsemane and Calvary, and come away with slight views of the evil nature of sin—must be blind indeed! There God speaks in accents not to be misunderstood but by the willful. Yet such is the perverseness of men that they often refuse to learn even at the cross of Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 63: 04.01. INTRODUCTION ======================================================================== INTRODUCTION Is salvation by grace--or is it of debt? Did God owe it to man to provide for him a Savior? Do men deserve all the wrath revealed from heaven against ungodliness? Is the sentence of condemnation just? Cannot human merits avail something towards eternal happiness? Is man able to turn himself to God and subdue his own sins? Is the ruin of the soul by sin partial--or total? Are men very far gone from righteousness before divine grace renews them? When Christ came, what did he do and suffer for us? How does his mediation avail for the lost? Is there mercy for all who come to God through Jesus Christ? Are the provisions of the gospel suited to the needs of men? Is salvation necessary? Is it infinitely important? Is it possible? These and many similar questions are continually undergoing discussion. In fact they are themes well worthy of the closest and most solemn inquiry. They are of paramount and universal interest. He, who seeks not the truth in these matters, must be found guilty of criminal recklessness. Whatever else may claim his attention--here are matters of still higher importance. These things pertain to the well-being of man and the honor of God. They lay hold of eternity. No man ever gave up his mind with too much candor, with undue love of truth, or with excessive earnestness to the investigation of the Scriptures--on themes of so vast moment. It ought not to be denied that there are difficulties in the way of every inquirer. The prejudices of men are strong and their passions violent. These mightily hinder our reception of the truth. The world also is full of error. Men love darkness rather than light. The friends of sound doctrine are often both timid and unresisting. The propagators of false notions are lively and confident. It is easy to embrace error. To know the right way demands patience, inquiry, humility. The great things of God are not to be learned by those who restrain prayer. How few men are found crying, "Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law!" Yet it is possible by the aid of God’s word and Spirit to learn the truth on all these matters. Thousands have made that great attainment. They have lived long lives and died in the possession and profession of the truth as it is in Jesus. When God bids us search the Scriptures, he sends us not on a fool’s errand, nor commands an impossible task. Indeed it is a part of God’s plan concerning his people that "we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming. Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will in all things grow up into him who is the Head, that is, Christ." Ephesians 4:13-15 And so it has happened that from the first founding of the Church of God, those, who gave the best evidence of being taught of God, have remarkably agreed in the great truths of religion. The matters on which they have fully harmonized have been like the continents and larger islands of our globe; while those, on which they have doubted or differed, may be compared to the lesser islands of the sea, many of which are but barren rocks or beds of sand. This has been demonstrably true since the founding of the Christian Church. The abundant outpouring of the Holy Spirit was the first glorious event succeeding the ascension of Christ. The second was the calling of the Gentiles, and the opening of a wide and effectual door to their conversion. This was hailed with joy by the truly pious portion of the Jewish nation. When Peter gave them an account of the commencement of this work, "they glorified God, saying, Then has God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life." Acts 11:18. This is what we should naturally expect. If a man loves God, whom he has not seen, he is sure to love his brother, whom he has seen. He, who in his heart glorifies Christ, will desire that all men should do the same. A converted man, who had no joy at seeing sinners coming to Christ, would be a monster, such as has never yet appeared. The bringing in of the Gentiles gave rise to questions, the settlement of which required the calling of a Synod, consisting of apostles, elders and brethren. The chief matter before the council respected the relation of the converts from paganism to the ceremonial law of Moses. But in his address Peter gave a summary of the faith of himself and ot his brethren. These are his words: "We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we are saved, just as they are." Acts 15:11. Concerning the method and Author of salvation, there was among them no disagreement. He therefore speaks for all, "We believe;" and he says there is but one scheme of mercy for Jew and Gentile. "We" and "they" relate to the Israelites and the pagans. Christ broke down the middle wall of partition between them, abolishing their old mutual enmity by his cross, and making them one in him. His church is not provincial or national, but catholic or universal. It is not confined to any one people, but was intended for the whole race, and embraces all true believers. Thus Simon Peter expressed the faith of the church of Christ nineteen years after our Lord’s ascension to glory. Whatever reluctance some have had to publishing their creed, the apostles had none. Their great object was to let men know what and why they believed. There is no solid argument against the use of doctrinal formulas, long or short, if they are sound, scriptural, and well understood. They should express the truth in clear terms, and be honestly held before they are professed. "Prove all things; hold fast to that which is good." 1 Thessalonians 5:21. "Hold fast the form of sound words, which you have heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 1:13. The salvation of the gospel is common to all, who are "sanctified by God the Father, preserved, in Jesus Christ, and called." Jude 1:3. In this first Synod we have the Christian faith in epitome. From that age to the present, the true faith has often been obscured, marred and corrupted by many, yet it has always won the love and confidence of people and communities, just in proportion as they loved our Lord Jesus Christ, and abounded in the knowledge of his salvation. At times it has seemed as if all the world would soon be drunken with the sorcery of fatal error. But when the enemy has come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord has lifted up a standard against him; and the cause of truth and righteousness has revived. As the character of this work is not polemic but practical, the references to books and pages are entirely omitted in the margin. The form of the work is popular, not scientific. It is designed not for the few, but for the masses. The chief object aimed at is to lead men to the foot of the cross; to encourage them to make Christ all and in all; to seek no other way of mercy but by the Redeemer; to satisfy all, who revere God’s word, of the perfect safety of a soul resting on the grace of Christ, and on that alone for all it needs for its complete deliverance from sin and misery; and so to comfort all who mourn for sin; give courage to the timid but real disciple of Christ; and ultimately to give all the glory to him, to whom it belongs. If men are saved by grace, it is because they need mercy; and if men are sinners they require a Savior. The first subject therefore in this treatise is the extent of the needs of men. The second is the supply of those needs in the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. The remainder of the work is taken up in considering some things growing out of the preceding discussions. May He, to whom we owe all that is pleasant in our history, and all that is animating in our prospects, graciously own this book, and bless its pages to the enlightening, comforting, edifying and saving of many souls. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 64: 04.02. ALL MEN ARE SINNERS ======================================================================== ALL MEN ARE SINNERS Jews and Gentiles, Greeks and Barbarians, bond and free--are sinners. If they are not, they need not mercy--but mere justice. Yet inspired men never preached the doctrine of human ’innocence’. They all knew and taught just the reverse. In the first chapter of his epistle to the Romans, Paul clearly proves that the Gentiles are sinners: "The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator--who is forever praised. Amen. Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion. Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God’s righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them." Romans 1:18-32. Could reasoning be more sound and conclusive? There is no way of escaping its force. Beyond a question the Gentiles are sinners. In the third chapter of the same epistle Paul shows that all men, not excepting the Jews, are sinners: "What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written: "There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one." "Their throats are open graves; their tongues practice deceit." "The poison of vipers is on their lips." "Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness." "Their feet are swift to shed blood; ruin and misery mark their ways, and the way of peace they do not know." "There is no fear of God before their eyes." Romans 3:9-18 More direct or cogent reasoning is no where found. It covers all cases. As a fair inference from it, the apostle says, every mouth must be stopped, and all the world stand guilty before God, and that by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight. No man will deny that our views of human guilt or innocence; human merit or demerit--will materially modify all our views in religion. This doctrine of the sinfulness of man is therefore, if true, very important, and so it may be well to look further at the arguments by which it is maintained. If men are enemies of God, it is high time they should know it. What then is the testimony of the Holy Spirit in other parts of Scripture? It is peculiarly clear: "There is no man who does not sin." 1 Kings 8:46. "If (God) will contend with (man), he cannot answer one of a thousand." Job 9:3. "Enter not into judgment with your servant, for in your sight shall no mani living be justified." Psalms 143:2. "There is not a just man upon earth that does good and sins not." Ecclesiastes 7:20. "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us." "If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us." 1 John 1:8, 1 John 1:10. In all the range of sober writings on serious matters, where can you find more pointed and explicit declarations? Who dare take up the challenge of the wise man, when he says: "Who can say, I have made my heart clean, I am pure from my sin?" Proverbs 20:9. "The heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live; and after that they go to the dead." Ecclesiastes 9:3. "The whole world lies in wickedness." 1 John 5:19. "In many things we all offend." James 3:2. The Scriptures speak a language no less distinct respecting our sins of omission. "All have sinned and come short of the glory of God." Romans 3:23. In Christ’s account of the final judgment in Matthew 25:42-46, the only sins charged upon the wicked are sins of omission. "I was hungry, and you gave me no food; I was thirsty, and you gave me no drink," etc. In that solemn scene on the last night of Belshazzar’s life, when Daniel was called in as it were, to pronounce sentence on the royal offender, one of his charges, and one that has a fearful significance was, "You have not humbled yourself." Another still more comprehensive was, "The God in whose hand your breath is, and whose are all your ways, have you not glorified." Daniel 5:22-23. If in reviewing the guilt of such a monster of depravity as Belshazzar, such prominence was due to the neglect of duty, it is easy to see what must be the vast amount of sin of omission among men generally. The law is, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself." This law is infinitely holy, just and good. Where is the living man who ever met these righteous demands even for an hour? Men must all be sinners, or they could not be so deficient in obedience to this fundamental law of God’s empire. Never was a complaint more just, or a rebuke more timely than when God says: "If I be a father, where is my honor? and if I be a master, where is my fear?" Malachi 1:6. "Man, if his heart were not depraved, might have had a disposition to gratitude to God for his goodness, in proportion to his disposition to anger towards men for their injuries." Who will say that any such proportion is observed? Such was the corruption of the entire race of man, that the Judge of all the earth destroyed the world, one family alone excepted, with a deluge. The reason assigned by God himself for this terrific judgment was the wickedness of men: "My Spirit shall not always strive with men." "And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart." "And God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt; for all flesh had corrupted his way on the earth." Genesis 6:3, Genesis 6:5-6, Genesis 6:12. If man naturally loved holiness and goodness, one would have said that the length of life in the ante-diluvian ages would have been very favorable to the establishment of individuals and communities in all virtues and moral excellencies. Instead of this, "the earth was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence." Genesis 6:11. Longevity wrought misery to man, and dishonor to God. The destruction of the old world was either just or unjust. If any say it was unjust, they blasphemously impeach God’s character. If they admit that it was just, then they say it was deserved, and so admit that human wickedness is dreadful. There is no candid reader of the Scriptures, who will deny that one of the duties urged in God’s word upon all men, is that of repentance. But can that duty be incumbent on the pure and holy? Is it not worse than mere folly to call on those to repent, who have nothing to repent of, to require men to be sorry for having committed no sin, to change their mind and behavior concerning their unfaltering obedience to God? To ask a holy being to repent is to call on him to apostatize from God. In like manner the Scriptures call on men to confess their sins and to forsake them, promising mercy to such. But have sinless angels ever been called to such work? Is it not absurd to require such things of the innocent? For a man to confess a fault which he never committed is a falsehood, an insult to God. So also in prayer we are taught to say, "Forgive us our sins." How idle to plead for mercy, when we need nothing but sheer justice; to beg for forgiveness, when we are chargeable with no offence! Jesus Christ and his apostles often speak of men as condemned, as under wrath, as liable to death. How can this be so, unless men deserve these things? But if they deserve them, they are sinners. In short, no such book of contradictions and extravagancies can be found as the Bible--unless man is a sinner. Bloody sacrifices are wholly unfit to be offered for the sinless. If men are all innocent, Jesus Christ redeemed no one by his blood, for the reason that no one needed redemption. If men are not sinners, the Holy Spirit never could convict them of sin, nor convert them from sin; and so the entire gospel would be glad tidings to no one. If men are not sinners, the preaching of Peter on the day of Pentecost, of Paul on Mars Hill, and of all others, who have held forth the truths of the Gospel was a cruel aggravation of human miseries, which nothing could justify. If men are innocent, all urgency, yes all concern about salvation is fanaticism. But it should not be forgotten that whenever men’s interests clash, when controversies arise, when litigations commence, they always regard each other as sinful. Nor is this all. Every good man, whom the world has ever seen, has pronounced on his own case that he was not innocent. David said, "I have sinned against the Lord." Isaiah said, "Woe is me, for I am a man of unclean lips." Job said, "Behold I am vile." Peter said, "I am a sinful man." Paul said, "I am the chief of sinners." Surely if converted and inspired men so judged of their case, in a word, if the best men the world ever saw were sinners, all men must be alienated from God. One reason for admitting this doctrine is that it is true. This is the grand reason for admitting any doctrine, and should end all controversy about it. But we may well remember that whatever humbles us, and causes us to take our place in the dust before God is good for us and is probably true. The right place for sinners is one of deep self-abasement. It is also important to us never to forget that in denying our lost and miserable condition we do thereby refuse Christ and all his mercies. "Until our necessities be understood, redemption cannot be well understood." "That is the reason we are no better, because our disease is not perfectly known. That is the reason we are no better, because we know not how bad we are." If there is no sin, there can be no salvation. If we are not great sinners, Christ is not a great Savior! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 65: 04.03. SIN IS A GREAT EVIL ======================================================================== SIN IS A GREAT EVIL Tell me what you think of sin, and I will tell you what you think of God, of Christ, of the Spirit, of the divine law, of the blessed Gospel, and of all necessary truth. He, who looks upon sin merely as a fiction, as a misfortune, or as a trifle, sees no necessity either for deep repentance or a great atonement. He, who sees no sin in himself, will feel no need of a Savior. He, who is conscious of no evil at work in his heart, will desire no change of nature. He, who regards sin as a slight affair, will think a few tears, or an outward reformation ample satisfaction. The truth is, no man ever thought himself a greater sinner before God, than he really was. Nor was any man ever more distressed at his sins, than he had just cause to be. He, who never felt it to be "an evil and a bitter thing to depart from God," is to this hour an enemy of his Maker, a rebel against his rightful and righteous Sovereign. When God speaks of the evil of sin it is in such language as this: "Be astonished, O you heavens, at this, and be horribly afraid; be you very desolate, says the Lord. For my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed out cisterns, broken cisterns, which can hold no water." Jeremiah 2:12-13. God is a God of truth, and would never speak thus about anything that was not atrocious and enormous in its very nature. Yet it should be observed that he mentions only such sins as are chargeable to all men, even the most moral and decent. In this estimate of the evil of sin, the righteous do well agree with God. The most piteous and bitter cries, which ever ascended from earth to heaven, were uttered under the sting of sin, or were for deliverance from its power. In doctrine there can be no worse tendency than that which diminishes men’s abhorrence of iniquity. Nor is there a darker sign in religious experience than the slightness of the impressions some have concerning the heinous nature of all sin. Sin is worse than poverty, sickness, reproach. Sin is worse than all sufferings. The reason is because it is "exceeding sinful." The worst thing that can be said of any thought, word, or deed is that it is wicked. It may be foolish, but if it is sinful, that is infinitely worse. It may be vulgar, and as such should be avoided; but if it is sinful, it should be avoided, were it ever so polite. An act may offend man, and yet be very praiseworthy; but if it displeases God, nothing can excuse its commission. Some have proposed curious and unprofitable questions respecting the infinitude of the evil of sin. An answer to them would probably give rise to a host of others like them, and so there would be no end of folly. Besides, men do not propose or discuss idle questions, when they are anxious to know how they may be saved from sin. Then they cry: "Men and brethren, what must we do? Is there mercy, is there help, is there hope for such perishing sinners as we are? if so, where can we find salvation?" Questions which are merely curious and not practical in religion--are unworthy of study and consideration. Yet it may be proper to say that anything is to us infinite, the dimensions of which we cannot gauge, the greatness of which we cannot understand. In this sense sin is an infinite evil. We cannot set bounds to it. We cannot say, Thus far it comes and no further. "Sin, when it is finished, brings forth death." And who but God can tell all that is included in that fearful word, death? Moreover, sin is committed against an infinite God. The ill-desert of any evil deed is to be determined in part by the dignity of the person, against whom it is directed. To strike a brother is wrong; to strike a parent is worse. To strike a fellow-soldier is punishable with chains; to strike a commanding officer is punishable with death. On this principle the Bible reasons: "If any man sins against another, the judge shall judge him; but if a man sins against the Lord, who shall entreat for him?" 1 Samuel 2:25. God is our Maker, Father, Governor, and Judge. He is glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders. He is the best of all friends, the greatest of all beings, the most bountiful of all benefactors. By ties stronger than death and more lasting than the sun, we are bound to love, fear, honor and obey him. To sin against him is so impudent, ungrateful and wicked, that no created mind can ever adequately estimate its atrocity; and so it is an infinite evil. If sin had its own way, it would dethrone the Almighty. All rebellion tends to the utter subversion of the government against which it is committed; and all sin is rebellion against the government of God. If men saw their sins aright, they would more highly prize divine mercy; and if they had more worthy conceptions of God’s grace, they would have more abasing views of themselves. We may learn much of the evil nature of sin by the names which the Bible gives to it, and to those who practice it. It is called disobedience, transgression, iniquity, foolishness, madness, rebellion, evil, evil fruit, uncleanness, filthiness, pollution, perverseness, frowardness, stubbornness, revolt, an abomination, an accursed thing. In like manner deeds of wickedness are called evil works, works of darkness, dead works, works of the flesh, works of the devil. And wicked men are called sinners, unjust, unholy, unrighteous, filthy, evil men, evil doers, seducers, despisers, children of darkness, children of the devil, children of hell, corrupters, idolaters, enemies of God, enemies of all righteousness, adversaries of God and man, liars, deceivers. From low, meager apprehensions of the divine nature and law, flow a slight estimate of the evil of sin, spiritual pride, self-conceit, and a disesteem of the most precious righteousness of Jesus Christ. He, who can go to Gethsemane and Calvary, and come away with slight views of the evil nature of sin--must be blind indeed! There God speaks in accents not to be misunderstood but by the willful. Yet such is the perverseness of men that they often refuse to learn even at the cross of Christ. Beveridge says: "Man’s understanding is so darkened that he can see nothing of God in God, nothing of holiness in holiness, nothing of good in good, nothing of evil in evil, nor anything of sinfulness in sin. Nay, it is so darkened that he fancies himself to see good in evil, and evil in good, happiness in sin, and misery in holiness." We all naturally belong to the generation of "the blind people who have eyes, and the deaf who have ears." In coincidence with these general views Brooks says: "No sin can be little, because there is no little God to sin against." Bunyan near death said: "No sin against God can be little; because it is against the great God of heaven and earth; but if the sinner can find out a little God, it may be easy to find out little sins." John Owen says: "He who has slight thoughts of sin, never had great thoughts of God." Luther said: "From the error of not knowing or understanding what sin is, there necessarily arises another error, that people cannot know or understand what grace is." The Westminster Assembly says: "Every sin, even the least, being against the sovereignty, goodness, and holiness of God, and against his righteous law--deserves his wrath and curse, both in this life, and that which is to come; and cannot be expiated but by the blood of Christ." Paul says: "The wages of sin is death." Chrysostom says: "There is in human affairs nothing that is truly dreadful, but sin. In all things else, in poverty, in sickness, in disgrace, and in death, (which is held to be the greatest of all evils) there is nothing that is really dreadful. With the wise man they are all empty names. But to offend God, to do what he disapproves, this is real evil." Truly every wise man will say that he has cause to cry--"Show me my sin, and my lost condition. Show me your love, and your mercy. Show me the extent, the holiness, the spirituality of your commandments. Reveal your Son in me. Let him be the cure of sin, both of its horrible pollution and its horrible guilt." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 66: 04.04. HOW THE PIOUS REGARD SIN IN THEMSELVES AND IN OTHERS ======================================================================== How the pious regard sin in themselves and in others "I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes!" "O wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?" "O my God, I am ashamed and blush to lift up my face to you!" "Cast me not away from your presence and take not your Holy Spirit from me." These are but specimens of the deep humiliation, self-loathing, bitterness of soul, and painful apprehension which the righteous of every age feel for their own sins. There is a sense, in which every godly man regards himself as the chief of sinners. That is, everyone who really knows his own heart, and has seen the sad work which sin has made in his moral character, is able as before God, to see more evil in himself than of any other being. The souls of such are filled with a godly sorrow, which works repentance to salvation, not to be repented of. Nor is this sorrow a solitary sentiment. What carefulness it works in all the regenerate, yes, what clearing of themselves, yes, what indignation, yes, what fear, yes, what vehement desire, yes, what zeal, yes, what revenge! In fine, it is certain that no sentiment is more powerfill in its effects on men’s hearts, than this self-abasement for personal vileness in the sight of God. Sin in the heart of the believer, is to him exceedingly odious. Some may say that Christians are chiefly distressed at their own sins, because they fear that they will prove their ruin at last. Those, who bring this charge, should know that the righteous seldom endure greate anguish of mind than that produced by the sins of others. This grief is not confined to any one class of good men. The young convert, the strong man in Christ, and the aged servant of the Lord alike, show their sadness when others are known to offend against God. It is therefore illogical and unfair to impute this distress to weakness of mind, to nervous debility, or to personal apprehension of coming wrath. It is a part of genuine Christian feeling. He, who cares not that others offend God, has never wept aright over his own sins. So certainly as the heart is savingly changed, will men hate and be made sad by all sin, even though it be in a stranger. Was not the soul of righteous Lot vexed from day to day by the wickedness of his neighbors? Did not David cry, "I beheld the transgressors and was grieved, because they kept not your word?" Again he says: "Horror has taken hold of me because of the wicked that forsake your law;" and "rivers of water run down my eyes, because they keep not your law." Jeremiah felt just so: "Oh that my head were waters, and my eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people." Ezekiel tells us how God, by an angel of mercy, "set a mark upon the foreheads of the men, that did sigh and cry for all the abominations" done in the land. Jesus himself was often grieved at the wickedness of men. He wept over the very city, which was about to shed his blood. There must be something very heinous in the nature of sin thus to awaken grief and abhorrence in every virtuous mind, To be indifferent to the moral character of those around us, if such a state of mind is possible, is proof of a sad benumbing of all virtuous sensibilities. To take pleasure in those, who make a trade of sin, and do abominable wickedness--is full proof of one’s loving iniquity for its own sake. But why does the Christian weep for the sins of others? He may do it as a man. Some sins bring shame, and poverty, and punishment on those who commit them; and all, who are connected with them, are to some extent involved in suffering. In this way the pious and the ungodly members of a family often weep together over the intemperance, or other ruinous and disgraceful vice of one of their number. But the good man stops not here. He weeps as a Christian. He is greatly grieved that God is dishonored. This is the main cause of all his grief. And as he is benevolent, he is sorry that men will expose themselves to Jehovah’s curse. It makes him tremble to see men pulling down wrath on themselves. He is also grieved at the probable ill effects of a bad example, in seducing others from the right way. He is specially afflicted at the blindness and wantonness of sinners, in despising mercy, rejecting Christ and vexing the Holy Spirit. Self-love commonly steps not in to shut the eyes of a Christian to the hatefulness of sin, when he sees it in others. When others sin, godly men see what they themselves were before conversion, or what they would have been, but for the restraints of God’s grace. Bradford, an eminent servant of Christ, seeing a criminal led to execution said, "There goes John Bradford--but for the grace of God!" Can any man thus see himself mirrored forth in the life of another, and not be humbled and grieved? Should he, who thus transgresses, be a professor of Christ’s religion, and eminent in gifts or station, the anguish felt is the more keen, because God is thus greatly dishonored, Christ is wounded in the house of his friends, the enemy takes occasion to utter new and bitter reproaches against religion, and the wicked are greatly emboldened in wrong-doing. Such a lapse commonly shakes all those secure thoughts, which men have of their own spiritual state, and awakens jealousies over one’s self, which are like coals of juniper. If David fell, much more may a weak believer. If the tempest tears up cedars by the roots, what shall become of the tender plants? If a giant may be overcome, how much more a child? So that the open sins of professors, in proportion to their eminence, lead God’s people to great heart-searchings and strong fears lest hidden iniquity should at last be their ruin. Let it be so; for "if the sins of others be not our fear, they may be our practice. What the best have done, the weakest may imitate. There is scarcely any notorious sin, into which self-confidence may not plunge us. There is hardly any sin, from which a holy and watchful fear may not happily preserve us." O that men would remember that, "Blessed is he who fears always." Preservation from sin is better than recovery from its snares. A man may escape death by a malignant pestilence, but it will probably leave him weak and liable to other diseases. How surely will a wise man profit by the errors of others! "In vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird." When the land is full of enemies, no wise man says, "There is no danger." Of all unamiable and unchristian tempers none is more dangerous to its possessor than harshness to a fallen brother, founded on confidence in our own strength. "Brethren, if a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such an one, in the spirit of meekness, considering yourself, lest you also be tempted." We cannot pity erring men too much, but in the abhorrence of sin there is no danger of excess, nor can we pray too fervently, nor watch too closely against falling into the evil practices, which we lament in others. Sin is the worst of evils. So greatly do godly men hate it, that they have long preferred anything else rather than its defilement. Joseph said: "How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?" and cheerfully went to prison rather than yield to temptation. Moses also chose "rather to suffer affliction with the people of God, than to enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season; esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt: for he had respect unto. the recompense of the reward." Anselm said: "If sin were on one side, and hell on the other, I would sooner leap into hell--than willingly sin against my God." Good old David Rice, the missionary of Kentucky, alluding to the irreligion of his day, said: "As I see the evil in it, so I feel an inclination to go mourning to my grave." How base and cruel it is in unconverted people by their wickedness to afflict all their pious friends, and then upbraid them for not being happy! How can one be joyful, when he sees those, whom he loves most, rejecting God, and "digging into hell?" Esther said, "How can I endure to see the destruction of my kindred?" And Paul said: "I say the truth in Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy Spirit, that I have great heaviness, and continual sorrow in my heart. For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ, for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh." What anguish wrings the heart of a pious wife, or child, who lives for years with the growing conviction that he, for whom they have so long wept and prayed, will yet pretty certainly die without hope! And who can describe the fearful tumult, or crushing sorrow, when the eyes of such a one are closed in death, and pious survivors have no reason to believe that the separation which then takes place, is other than eternal! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 67: 04.05. THE HEART OF MAN IS ALL WRONG ======================================================================== THE HEART OF MAN IS ALL WRONG Let us look at our own hearts. There is a mystery in all iniquity. In Scripture it is often called a lie, guile, deceit. The heart of man is full of all treachery; so that "there is no faithfulness in their mouth; their inward part is very wickedness; their throat is an open sepulcher; they flatter with their tongue." "His mouth is full of cursing, and deceit, and fraud." "They speak vanity everyone with his neighbor: with flattering lips and with a double heart do they speak." "The counsels of the wicked are deceit." "They hold fast deceit; they refuse to return." "The heart is deceitful above all things." It deceives every being but one. It would deceive Him, if he were not omniscient. None but God knows all the depths of iniquity and duplicity within us. Genuine conviction is attended with a sense of the divine knowledge and hatred of our sins. What unconverted man can without terror dwell on the words, "God, you see me!" To the regenerate it is for a joy that God knows all their hearts, and will search and cleanse them. When the wicked sin greedily, and have no checks in their consciences, you may know that it is because God is not in all their thoughts. "Do you think that I believe there is a God, when I do such things?" said Nero to Seneca, who was reproving him for his vices. Though the language of the Bible is strong, it is just. God declares, and every Christian knows by sad experience--that his heart is deceitful above all things. Among beasts, the fox and serpent are deceitful. But their arts are few and can soon be learned. The currents of the sea are deceitful, yet you may soon acquire a knowledge of the dangers thence arising. There is a law in their variations. Even the magnetic needle is not always true to the pole. Yet its variations can be precisely calculated. But no mortal knows how much his heart varies from the law of God. "Who can understand his errors?" Psalms 19:12. A broken tooth or foot out of joint can never be safely trusted. Men know this and never wittingly rely upon them. But all men put more or less confidence in their own hearts. Man is the only creature on earth that seems to practice self-deception. The fox deceives his pursuers, not himself. But man "feeds on ashes: a deceived heart has turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?" Isaiah 44:20. Who has not often seen that "there is a way that seems right unto a man, but the end thereof are the ways of death?" Proverbs 16:25. How timely is that exhortation of Paul, "Let no man deceive himself!" 1 Corinthians 3:18. How strange and yet how common that he, whose heart has deceived him a thousand times, should yet confide in it as if it had always been honest! Education is sometimes so conducted as to make us blind to our real characters. One trained at a Jesuit’s school complained: "I have been so long in the habit of concealing my real sentiments from others, that I hardly know what they are." Few men have been such adepts in the arts of a corrupt court as Talleyrand; but many still live, who think with him that "language was designed to conceal thought." In such cases "deceiving and being deceived" are commonly united. That we should sometimes deceive others is proof of our depravity; but that we should spend our lives in self-deception is truly astonishing. Men of the fewest virtues commonly have the highest thoughts of themselves. Peter solemnly averred his adhesion to Christ, though all others should forsake him; yet in the trying hour his conduct was worse than that of any but the traitor. When forewarned of his wickedness Hazael felt insulted, and cried, "What! is your servant a dog, that he should do this wicked thing?" Yet he very soon perpetrated all the horrible crimes, which had been foretold. Above most men Ahab sold himself to do iniquity, and thus brought dire curses on his person and kingdom; yet, as soon as he saw Elijah, he said, "Are you the one who troubles Israel?" A perfect knowledge of the treachery of our hearts is possessed by none but God; a just knowledge of them belongs to no portion of mankind, but those who are enlightened by the Holy Spirit. The heart is also VILE. It is "desperately wicked." It loves vanity, and folly, and sin. It hates holiness, and truth, and divine restraints. It is a sink of iniquity, a pool of pestilential waters, a cage of unclean birds, a sepulcher full of dead men’s bones. It is torn by wild, fierce, unhallowed passions. It rejects good and chooses evil. It is wholly corrupt. There is no soundness in it. It is full of evil. "Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies." Matthew 15:19. Men may rail at the vices, principles, and prejudices of others, and be worse themselves. "He who trusts in his own heart is a fool." Proverbs 28:26. If the word, fool, here as in some other cases designates a wicked man, it is well applied. None but ungodly men lean upon their own hearts, their own wisdom and counsels, their own strength and sufficiency, their own merit and righteousness. If the word, fool, points out one, who is destitute of wisdom, then who lacks that quality so much as he, who believes his heart upright and honest, when all his life it has been leading him away from God, and practicing on him the grossest deceptions? Surely human nature is a poor thing. Man at his best estate is altogether vanity. "Before conversion, his heart is the worst part about him." Every wise man will say with Paul: "I know that in me, that is, in my flesh, there dwells no good thing." Romans 7:18. Sometimes the word, heart, is in Scripture used to designate the conscience, as where it is said, "if our heart condemns us, God is greater than our heart, and knows all things." We all have by nature "an evil conscience." The state of the world judged by the entire state of men’s consciences, presents one of the most appalling subjects of contemplation. "He who has a blind conscience, which sees nothing; a dead conscience, which feels nothing; and a dumb conscience, which says nothing--is in as miserable a condition as a man can be in on this side hell." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 68: 04.06. WICKED MEN ARE LIKE DEVILS ======================================================================== WICKED MEN ARE LIKE DEVILS "You are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does." John 8:44 Such is the sad state of man by nature, that he bears a fearful resemblance to devils--the fallen angels. This truth is very abasing to human pride. To declare it, is a high offence in the judgment of many men of uncircumcised ears and hearts. They wait not to ask what is meant by it, nor what are the evidences of its truth. They instantly repel the charge with indignation. This truth, like any other, may be announced in an offensive manner; but it is a truth, which must never be given up. No one asserts that unrenewed men now on earth are as wicked as they possibly can be. If they live a day longer in sin, they will be worse. And if they go to eternity without a change of heart, they will be far, far worse. Continuance in sin hardens the heart, and makes men more and more reckless and desperate. "Evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse." Satan himself is more hardened and more malignant than when he first revolted. No man all of a sudden sinks to the lowest depths of debasement. Of course it is not asserted that men are now as bad as devils. Man has not time on earth to work out such completeness of evil as his elder brethren, who fell into sin, have attained. Moreover, most men have some degree of conscience, some natural affection, some regard to the proprieties of life, and some hope of future repentance, which restrain their evil natures. And yet unconverted men are like devils in the sense in which a child is like a man, or a cub like a lion. Let us see. All admit that devils have no holiness. In this wicked men are precisely like them. They do not love God’s law, or nature, or government. They are alienated from him, and opposed to all his attributes and authority. They do not glorify him, do not delight in him, do not find pleasure in thinking on his name. They choose sin and death, rather than holiness and life. "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Devils do not please God, neither do unconverted men. Neither class intends nor desires to please him. Fallen angels are without God in their prison-house; and unconverted men are without God in the world. Neither devils nor fallen men feel towards God, as loyal subjects towards a prince, as faithful servants to a master, as dutiful children to a father. The lack of truth is a great sin among fallen angels and fallen men. Satan is a deceiver, a slanderer, an accuser of the brethren, a liar and the father of lies. Men also are deceivers. They lay snares privily. They use cunning craftiness. They practice intrigue, imposture, and equivocation. They love and make a lie. They are a lie. "They delight in lies." The wicked are estranged from the womb: they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies. All the hopes of wicked men are but "refuges of lies," and the last day will show it. Satan is cruel, unrelenting, and a murderer from the beginning. He delights in scenes of blood. His trade is to murder souls. Wicked men are murderers. They hate one another. They hate the just. They shed innocent blood. They murder souls. They have no compassion for the perishing: "He who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him." More than twice the whole number of inhabitants of the United States in 1852, that is, more than fifty million people have been murderously put to death in the last eighteen hundred years, simply because they professed to love the truth of God and the Savior of sinners. Laws, public opinion, and God’s providence now restrain many, but the heart of unrenewed man is as wicked as it ever was. It hates holiness, wherever seen. Those men who go about murdering souls by teaching false doctrine, are peculiarly like the great destroyer. Satan is a robber. He would rob men of their salvation, Christ of his crown, and God of his glory. He plotted and instigated the robbery, which the Sabeans perpetrated upon Job. He is the great patron of pirates, burglars and thieves--and wicked men do his bidding. They oppress, defraud, and rob one another. They do more. They defraud the Almighty. "Will a man rob God? yet you have robbed me in tithes and offerings." Devils are greedy of sin and delight in wickedness. Wicked men are just so. "They sleep not except they have done some mischief." "They draw iniquity with a cart-rope." "They are mad upon their idols." They have pleasure in those who do iniquity. They delight themselves in vanity. They are bent on backsliding. Satan is a tempter and so are wicked men. He would have Job curse God and die; so his wife invites him to the horrid deed. He gives the text, "You shall not surely die," and the Universalist takes it up and goes through the land, promising life to the wicked, salvation to the impenitent, heaven to the unbelieving. In some things, the ungodly do what devils never did. They reject mercy and grace, kindly offered to them by the Lord. Devils never did that. You say, They never had the opportunity. True, but they never did it. Neither did they ever laugh at eternity, judgment and damnation. They have too fearful a sense of the wrath of God to be able to mock and jest at these most dreadful things. If these things are so, then we understand something of the import of our Savior’s words to the wicked of his day: "You are the children of your father the Devil, and you love to do the evil things he does." John 8:44. How dreadful is sin! It converts angels into devils and men into fiends! There is no unfitness in the arrangement which God has made for having one great prison-house for all his incorrigible foes. The very place prepared for the devil and his angels, will be the abode of finally impenitent men. How dreadful will hell be, filled up with outlaws, robbers, murderers, liars, hypocrites, wretches, enemies of God and of all righteousness, from among angels and men. And how startling is the thought that devils have stronger emotions pertaining to religion than some wicked men. "The devils believe and tremble." How many sinners neither believe nor tremble! And how many others who seem to believe, laugh at things which lay hold on eternity! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 69: 04.07. MAN IS UTTERLY HELPLESS ======================================================================== MAN IS UTTERLY HELPLESS As a sinner, man can neither commend nor convert himself to God. He cannot atone for his sins, he cannot satisfy divine justice, he cannot subdue his own iniquities, he cannot perform any holy action. In our day there are but few Protestants, who maintain that man can make any atonement for his sins against God; or redeem himself, by paying any ransom for his soul. "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law." "He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins." "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." These and many similar passages of Scripture have brought all but outrageous errorists to acknowledge, that in the work of salvation we are wholly and absolutely indebted to the Lord Jesus Christ for reconciliation with God. He is our peace. But some are not so ready to confess their indebtedness to the Holy Spirit for all right perceptions of truth, for all really good desires and proper motives, for all spiritual strength and power to do good. It is with extreme reluctance that men admit their utter helplessness in this respect. And yet the Scriptures speak a language as decisive, as unmistakable about our inability to purify our hearts as to make an atonement for transgression. Therefore when God promises aid it is in this way: "He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength." Isaiah 40:29. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of hosts." Zechariah 4:6. Even converted people stand by borrowed strength. "Be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might." Ephesians 6:10. "As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abides in the vine, no more can you except you abide in me." John 15:4. "Be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus." 2 Timothy 2:1. Indeed the righteous have always delighted to acknowledge that all their strength is in God. Of the helplessness of unregenerate man the Bible speaks in the clearest terms and in many ways. First, it teaches that he cannot see and know the truth. "The natural man receives not the things of the Spirit; for they are foolishness to him; neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." 1 Corinthians 2:14. Left to themselves men are "always learning, but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth." 2 Timothy 3:7. Accordingly unregenerate men are often spoken of as blind; and God very graciously promises to "bring the blind by a way that they knew not." Isaiah 42:16. Secondly, without God’s Holy Spirit, men cannot believe, cannot receive Christ: "No man can come unto me, except the Father who has sent me, draws him." "No man can come unto me except it were given him of my Father." John 6:44, John 6:65. "How can you believe, who receive honor one of another, and seek not the honor which comes from God?" John 5:44. Even a disposition to hear God’s word belongs to no man without God’s Spirit. "Why do you not understand my speech? Because you cannot hear my word." John 8:43. Lydia never attended to the preached gospel until the Lord opened her heart. Acts 16:14. Thirdly, without God’s Spirit man cannot obey a single law of God. "The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Romans 8:7. The Church of God has always held this doctrine. Augustine, whom the truth has perhaps never had an abler uninspired defender, says: "Neither does a man begin to be converted, or changed from evil to good by the beginnings of faith, unless the free and undeserved mercy of God works it in him." "So therefore let the grace of God be accounted of, that from the beginning of his conversion to the end of his perfection, he that glories let him glory in the Lord. Because as none can begin a good work without the Lord, so none can perfect it without the Lord." The Lord does not say, ’Without me you can hardly do anything;’ but he says, ’Without me you can do nothing.’ In the very same sentence of the Gospel, he does not say ,’Without me you cannot perfect,’ but ’Without me you cannot do anything.’ For if he had said, You cannot perfect, then men might say, We have need of the help of God, not to begin to do good, for we have that of ourselves, but to perfect it." He subsequently quotes and remarks on those notable texts, "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think anything as of ourselves;" and "Who makes you to differ?" He also says that "unless God works, we can have no piety or righteousness either in word or in will." "It is certain that we act when we act, but it is God who makes us to act, by affording most efficacious strength to our will." Ambrose says: "Although it be in man to will that which is evil; yet he has no power to will that which is good, except it be given him." In like manner Maxentius says: "We believe that natural free-will is able to do no more than desire carnal and worldly things. But those things that belong to eternal life, it can neither think, nor will, nor desire, nor perform, but only by the infusion and inward working of the Holy Spirit." Fulgentius says: "We have not received the Spirit of God because we do believe, but that we may believe." "In the heart of man, faith can neither be conceived, nor increased unless the Holy Spirit does infuse it, and nourish it." "He delivers us not by finding faith in any man, but by giving it." Bernard says, "If human nature, when it was perfect, could not stand; how much less is it able of itself to rise up again, being now corrupt." "What do you have--which you have not received?" "By the grace of God I am what I am." The Confession of Helvetia says that since the fall, the understanding and will "are so altered in man, that they are not able to do that now, which they could do before his fall." "Man, not as yet regenerate, has no free-will to good, no strength to perform that which is good." In proof of this doctrine it presently quotes several texts of Scripture, of which the following are two: "Unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake." "It is God, who works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure." Php 1:29 and Php 2:13. The Confession of Basle says: "Our nature is defiled, and become so prone unto sin, that, except it be renewed by the Holy Spirit, man of himself can neither do nor will any good." John 3:3. The Confession of Bohemia says: "That will of man, which before the fall was free, is now so corrupted, troubled and weakened, that henceforth of itself and without the grace of God, it cannot choose, judge or wish fully; nay it has no desire, nor inclination, much less any ability to choose that good, wherewith God is pleased. For albeit it fell willingly, and of its own accord, yet, by itself, and by its own strength, it could not rise again, nor recover that fall; neither to this day, without the merciful help of God, is it able to do anything good at all." Romans 7:19-23. Again: "No man by his own strength, or by the power of his own will, or of flesh and blood, can attain unto or have this saving or justifying faith, except God of his grace, by the Holy Spirit, and by the ministry of the Gospel preached, plants it in the heart of whom he desires, and when he desires." John 1:13. The Confession of England says, "that the law of God is perfect, and requires of us perfect and full obedience;" and "that we are able by no means to fulfill that law in this worldly life." In one edition the Augsburg Confession speaks thus: "Man’s will has no power to perform a spiritual righteousness without the Holy Spirit;" and quotes in proof 1 Corinthians 2:14 and John 15:5. The Confession of Saxony says: "Man by his natural strength is not able to free himself from sin and eternal death." The Confession of Wirtemburg says: "As a man physically dead is not able by his own strength to prepare or convert himself to receive physical life; so he, who is spiritually dead, is not able by his own power to convert himself to receive spiritual life." The churches of England and Ireland both teach that "the condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith and calling upon God." The Synod of Dort says that all men are "adverse to all good tending to salvation, forward to evil; dead in sins, slaves of sin, and neither will, nor can (without the grace of the Holy Spirit, regenerating them) set straight their own crooked nature, no, nor so much as dispose themselves to the amending of it." The Westminster Confession says that by our "original corruption, we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." Alas! in what a sad condition we are by nature! Ambrose says: "Though bound with the chains of my sins, I am held fast hand and foot, and buried in dead works. Only by your effectual call, O God, I come forth free." Beveridge says: "I cannot pray, but I sin. I cannot hear or preach a sermon, but I sin. I cannot give an alms, or receive the sacrament, but I sin. Nay, I cannot so much as confess my sins, but my confessions are still aggravations of them. My repentance needs to be repented of, my tears need washing, and the very washing of my tears needs still to be washed over again with the blood of my Redeemer." Truly all our hope is in free grace alone! If we are not still in spiritual death, it is because we are "risen with Christ." Our helplessness, when left to ourselves, is as manifest in small as in great things, on little as on great occasions. It has long been observed that men are as apt to err from the right way upon a slight, as upon a great provocation. Jonah said he did well to be angry, even unto death, about a gourd. A young damsel put Peter to cursing and swearing. Job bore all his losses without one sinful word; but when falsely accused by his brethren, he entirely lost his temper. A bee has killed a man, who had survived the perils and grievous wounds of battle. Many will weigh every word and speak the whole truth in solemn judicature, and yet forfeit veracity in talking with a child, or in telling an amusing anecdote. I have seen a man bear with composure the burning of his house, and yet lose proper control of himself, when charged too much for a quire of paper. John Newton says: "The grace of God is as necessary to create a right temper in Christians on the breaking of a china plate, as on the death of an only son." We as truly need help from God to enable us in a right spirit to bear the tooth-ache as to suffer martyrdom in the cause of truth. In all things, at all times we need the grace of Christ. By it alone, can we be or do anything pleasing to God, or beneficial to our own souls. "It is impossible for free will without grace--to begin or perfect any true or spiritual good. I say, the grace of Christ, which pertains to regeneration, is simply and absolutely necessary for the illumination of the mind, the ordering of the affections, and the inclination of the will to that which is good. It is that which operates on the mind, the affections, and the will; which infuses good thoughts into the mind, inspires good desires into the affections, and leads the will to execute good thoughts and good desires. It goes before, accompanies, and follows. It excites, assists, works in us to will, and works with us, that we may not will in vain. It averts temptations, stands by and aids us in temptations, supports us against the flesh, the world, and Satan; and, in the conflict, it grants us to enjoy the victory. It raises up again those, who are conquered and fallen, it establishes them, and endues them with new strength, and renders them more cautious. It begins, promotes, perfects, and consummates salvation. I confess that the mind of the natural and carnal man is darkened, his affections are depraved, his will is refractory, and that the man is dead in sin." Richard Watson fully admits that "the sin of Adam introduced into his nature such a radical impotence and depravity, that it is impossible for his descendants to make any voluntary effort of themselves, towards piety and virtue." He also quotes with entire approbation this celebrated sentence from Calvin: "Man is so totally overwhelmed, as with a deluge, that no part is free from sin, and therefore whatever proceeds from him is accounted sin." Do not all these Scriptures and reasonings from Scripture make it clear that the victory over sin will never be gained by an arm of flesh? Nature is too weak. She is broken, and crippled, and helpless. In this work, all men, if left to themselves, are stark nothings. They have no might to do good, though they are mighty to do evil. One of the most instructive portions of personal history is the record of various attempts made by several great men to reform their hearts by a self-invented discipline, without the aid of God’s Holy Spirit. They have reflected, have made resolutions, have drawn up schedules of their vices to be corrected, have examined their hearts, have found fault with their own efforts, and have formed new plans; but with the exception that now and then a decent exterior has been attained, all has been a sad failure. Their history was long ago given by Prosper: "Though there have been some, who by their natural understanding have endeavored to resist vices, yet they have barrenly adorned only their present life; but they could not attain to true virtues and everlasting happiness." Bernard addresses such in these words: "What have you philosophers to do with virtues, who are ignorant of Christ, the virtue of God?" Fuller’s soap and much water will not take out the scarlet dye and crimson hue. Leviathan is not thus taken. The core of depravity is not thus extracted. "Old Adam is always too strong for young Melancthon." Prodigality may wage war on covetousness, pride on the love of popularity, the love of ease on the love of show; but one evil passion cannot so expel another as to purify the heart. "Restrained sensuality often takes a miser’s cap, or struts in pharisaic pride." It is easy to pass from one sin to another, but to become holy is never possible but by the power of God’s efficacious grace. "Nature can no more cast out nature, than Satan can cast out Satan." These views are strengthened by the fact that we not only have sinful natures, but have also formed sinful habits, whose power is terrific. "Can an Ethiopian change the color of his skin? Can a leopard take away its spots? Neither can you start doing good, for you always do evil." Jeremiah 13:23. "If Adam, when he had committed but one sin, and that in a moment, did not seek to regain his lost integrity; how can any other man, who by a multitude of sinful acts has made his habits of a giant-like stature, completed many parts of wickedness, and scoffed at the rebukes of conscience?" The power of habit is such that even in the pallor and agony of death, its influence is often manifest in the whole manner of a dying man. But enough of this. In full accordance with all that has been said, these things are noticeable in Scripture. First, God has mercifully promised the needed strength and grace: "My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness." 2 Corinthians 12:9. "The Lord will give strength unto his people." Psalms 29:11. "Your people shall be willing in the day of your power." Psalms 110:3. See also Deuteronomy 30:6-8; Ezekiel 11:19-20 and many other places. Secondly, pious men do uniformly ascribe all their ability to God. "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble." Psalms 46:1. "In the day when I cried--you answered me, and strengthened me with strength in my soul." Psalms 138:3. "Sing aloud unto God our strength." Psalms 81:1. "Our sufficiency is of God." 2 Corinthians 3:5. "I labored more abundantly than they all; yet not I, but the grace of God, which was with me." 1 Corinthians 15:10. Thirdly, wise and good men always have looked to God alone, and not at all to themselves or other men for ability to do right. "O Lord God of Abraham, Isaac, and of Israel--keep this forever in the imagination of the thoughts of the heart of your people, and prepare their heart unto you." 1 Chronicles 29:18. "O that my ways were directed to keep your statutes." "Incline my heart unto your testimonies." "Quicken me, so shall I keep the testimonies of your mouth." Psalms 119:5, Psalms 119:36, Psalms 119:88. See also Hebrews 13:20-21 and parallel passages. Let it, however, not be forgotten that our helplessness does not at all proceed from any defect in the original constitution of our minds as they came from the hands of God. He made man upright. It is sin, which has done all the mischief. This very helplessness is part and proof of our wickedness. Our very weakness is our crime. It is very wicked to have no right views of God, to have our minds full of ignorance and prejudices against him, to have no heart to fear, love, or obey him, or to fail to do these things perfectly. Thus the Scriptures abundantly teach. Paul says neither in the way of boasting, nor of excuse, but in confession and humiliation: "I know that in me (that is, in my flesh) dwells no good thing: for to will is present with me, but how to perform that which is good I find not." Romans 7:18 and context. "The flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other; so that you cannot do the things that you would." Galatians 5:17. He is not expressing approbation, but reproof, in so speaking to the Galatians. So when Peter describes a class of men, "having eyes full of adultery, and that cannot cease from sin;" 2 Peter 2:14, no man will so far pervert his meaning as to say that he is freeing these people from blame. It was in reproof that Christ said, "How can you believe, who receive honor one of another?" etc. In fact there is no deeper guilt in man, than that contracted by having no heart to do right. The very essence of filial impiety consists in having no heart to love and honor one’s parents. The very ground of impiety to God is to have no heart to know, or love, or obey him. To have eyes and not see, to have ears and not hear, to have a heart and not understand is the very sin Isaiah charged on degenerate Israel, the very sin of apostate angels. If the helplessness induced by sin were any excuse or palliation of sin, fallen angels would be quite innocent, at least excusable; for no sober man will say that they can by any possibility turn to God and live. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 70: 04.08. WITHOUT DIVING GRACE, MEN CANDO NOTHING BUT SIN ======================================================================== Without Divine Grace, Men Do Nothing but Sin "Man, who is vile and corrupt, who drinks up evil like water!" Job 15:16 "The carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be." Romans 8:7 The unconverted live in sin--they sin all the time. It is their trade--they work hard at it. They love it, and are greedy of iniquity. They "love death." They "dig up evil." They "fill up their sin ALWAYS." They "ALWAYS resist the Holy Spirit." Never for an hour do they love God supremely. They sin without cessation. Two things are required to make an action right. One is that it be lawful in itself. The other is that it be done with a right motive. If the thing done is itself wrong, no motives can make it right. To steal, or curse, or murder, or despise the poor, or hate the just--can never under any circumstances be right. To do evil that good may come, is the doctrine of none but devils, and the worst of men. On the other hand, the thing done may be right in itself, but the motive, which governs us, may be wrong, and so the act may be sinful because the motive is sinful. Bad motives in good actions are like dead flies in sweet ointments. They corrupt the whole. The motive of the heart is everything! Most unbelievers do many things which are very proper, but not from love to God. No man, who has not been born again, ever does anything with holy motives. His life is better than his heart. Indeed his heart is the worst part of him. It is all wrong. It is hard, and proud, and selfish, and unbelieving, and without any love to God. So far from pleasing God, all the unregenerate are continually offending him. Their very best works are but "splendid sins." There are reasons found in human nature, which render it certain that unrenewed men will do nothing but sin. They are blind and see no beauty in holiness. They have no spiritual discernment. "They have eyes but they see not." "They know not what they do." If they do not see the beauty of holiness, how can they love it? No being can love that which does not seem to him good or lovely. The man who is without the grace of God--never fully approves the law of God, as holy, just and good, nor adopts it as the rule of his life. He does some things which it requires, and abstains from some things which it forbids, not because he loves God or his law, but because it promotes his health, or wealth, or honor, or quiet, to do so. God is not in all his thoughts. He would live very much as he does if the law of God were not known to him. Ask him, and he will tell you that he does not aim with a single eye to honor God in everything. He does not frame his doings to that end at all. All the lines of his conduct meet and end in himself. He is without God in the world. He serves the creature more than the Creator. Nor is his heart without objects of love. He loves the world and the things of the world. When he prospers in worldly things--he counts himself happy. He is greatly pleased with gold and silver, and objects of sense, and works of art. These are his gods, because he sets his heart on them. He thinks of them ten times as much and a thousand times as eagerly--as he thinks of God. What makes his case worse is that he is commonly much at ease. He is well pleased with himself. He is not sighing over and lamenting his sins. He thinks he is good enough. Rivers of water never run down his eyes for his own sins or the sins of others. He seldom cries, "God, be merciful to me a sinner," and when he does, it is rather a mere form, than a hearty prayer. His real belief is that God could not righteously and forever condemn him! At least he says, "If I am lost, I know not what will become of many others." Would it not be strange that one, who cares not to serve God, should do it? that he, who tries to please himself and wicked men, should as by accident please God? that he, who seeks the honor which comes from man, should find the honor which comes from God only? Surely there is no such confusion where God reigns. He does not put darkness for light, bitter for sweet, sin for holiness, and vice for virtue. Nor should men be offended at this doctrine. It is not new. It is not of human invention. It is not the doctrine held by a few only. It is not a mere theory. It is very practical, very important. No truth concerns any man more than this. It is the very doctrine of the Bible in many places. Paul says, "Those who are after the flesh [who are unrenewed by God’s Spirit] do mind the things of the flesh. To be carnally-minded is death. The carnal [or unregenerate] mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God." Romans 8:5-8. Could words be plainer or stronger? Until God shall be pleased with a heart that is enmity against him, and with a mind that "cannot be subject" to his law, until he shall cease to be a holy God, he cannot be pleased with anything done by a man who has not the Spirit of God, and whose heart has not been mightily changed. Ploughing is itself a lawful act. If there is no ploughing, there can be no bread. Yet God says: "The ploughing of the wicked is sin!" Yes, he puts it down with other sins which greatly offend him. The whole verse reads thus: "A high look, and a proud heart, and the ploughing of the wicked--is sin." Proverbs 21:4. If God had intended to teach that everything done by wicked men--even the most common and necessary thing--was sinful, could he have chosen more fit words? Here is a passage which shows that all the religious services of the unconverted are defiled with sin. "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight." There are but two classes of men known in the Bible. They are called saints and sinners, the just and the unjust, the righteous and the wicked, men of the way and men of the world. Their final end will be different, because their characters are different. From the earliest ages of the Christian church, this has been the uniform doctrine, held and insisted on by God’s people. Basil says expressly, that it is not possible, nor a thing pleasing and acceptable to God, for one who is the servant of sin to perform righteousness, according to the rule of the saints’ piety. In proof he urges these words of our Savior: "Let us first make the tree good, and then the fruit will be good--and first make clean the inside of the cup and platter," and then the outside will be wholly clean. He also refers to 2 Corinthians 7:1. Jerome says: "Let us pronounce our sentence against those that do not believe in Christ, and yet think themselves valiant, and wise, and temperate, and just; that they may know that none can live without Christ, without whom all human virtue is vice." Augustine says: "Be it far from us to think that true virtue should be in any one, unless he is a Christian man. And let it be as far from us to think that any one is truly righteous, unless he lives by faith." "All the life of unbelievers is sin, and there is nothing good without the chief good: for where the knowledge of the eternal and unchangeable truth is lacking, there is but false virtue in the best manners." Again: "The man is first to be changed, that his works may be changed; for if a man remains in his sinful state, he cannot have good works." Gregory says: "If faith is not first begotten in our hearts, all the other things cannot be good, though they may seem good." The Church of England and the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America do both say of works done before the grace of Christ and the work of his Spirit, that "they are not done as God has willed and commanded them to be done, so they must have the nature of sin." The 5th article of the Church of Ireland contains the same words without alteration. It holds also this language: "We have no power to do good works, pleasing and acceptable unto God, without the grace of God going before us, working with us." It also incorporates these words from the Lambeth Articles: "The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn, and prepare himself, by his own natural strength and good works, to faith, and calling upon God." The Reformed Churches generally fully agree with the above testimonies. The Synod of Dort says: "There is indeed remaining in man, since the fall, some light of nature, by the help of which, he retains certain notions concerning God and natural things; concerning the difference bf things honorable and shameful, and manifests some desire after virtue and external discipline: but so far from his being able, by this light of nature, to attain to the saving knowledge of God, or to turn himself to God, he does not use it rightly in natural and civil things. Nay, indeed, whatever thing it may at length be, he contaminates it all in various ways, and holds it in unrighteousness, which when he does, he is rendered inexcusable before God." The French Confession says: "Although man can somewhat discern between good and evil, yet we affirm, that whatever light he has, it straightway becomes darkness, when the question is of seeking God, so that by his understanding and reason he can never come to God. Also, although he is endued with will, whereby he is moved to this or that, yet in as much as it is altogether captivated under sin, it has no liberty at all to desire good, but such as it has received by grace and of the gift of God." The Augsburg Confession, which is the standard of the Lutheran churches in Germany and America, says: "We condemn the Pelagians and all such as they are--who teach that by the only powers of nature, without the Holy Spirit, we may love God above all, and fulfill the law of God, as touching the substance of our actions. We necessarily disapprove these dreams; for they obscure the benefits of Christ. For therefore is Christ the Mediator set forth, and mercy promised in the gospel, because that the law cannot be satisfied by man’s nature, as Paul witnesses when he says, ’The wisdom of the flesh is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be.’ For albeit that man’s nature by itself can after some sort perform external works (for it can restrain the hands from theft and murder) yet can it not make those inward motions, as godly fear, true faith, patience, and chastity, unless the Holy Spirit governs and helps our hearts. And yet in this place also do we teach, that it is also the commandment of God, that the carnal motions should be restrained by the industry of reason and by civil discipline, as Paul says, ’The law is given to the unjust.’" And again: "Albeit that men by their own strength are able to do outward honest deeds in some sort, and must also perform this civil obedience; yet so long as men are void of faith, they are in the power of the devil, who drives them to shameful sins, occupies their minds with wicked and blasphemous opinions, for that is the kingdom and tyranny of the devil. Moreover, nature is weak, and cannot without God’s help strengthen itself to any spiritual works." The Moravian Confession says: "And since through faith the Holy Spirit is given, thus also the heart is made fit to do good works. For before that, as long as it is without the Holy Spirit, it is too weak; and besides it is in the power of the devil, who impels the poor human nature to many sins. Without faith and without Christ, human nature and ability is far too weak to do good works; as to call upon God, to show patience in suffering, to love one’s neighbor, diligently to discharge offices entrusted to us, to be obedient, to avoid evil lusts. Such noble and truly good works cannot be done without the help of Christ, as he himself speaks, ’Without me you can do nothing.’" The Westminster Confession says: "Works done by unregenerate men, although for the matter of them they may be things which God commands, and of good use both to themselves and others; yet because they proceed not from a heart purified by faith; nor are done in a right manner, according to the word; nor to a right end, the glory of God; they are therefore sinful, and cannot please God, or make a man fit to receive grace from God. And yet their neglect of them is more sinful and displeasing unto God." This article is found without alteration in the Confessions of all the Presbyterian bodies of Scotland, Ireland, and Canada, and of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. It was incorporated entire into the Savoy Confession, into the Saybrook Platform, into the London Baptist Confession, into the Philadelphia Baptist Confession, as well as into the Confession of numerous smaller bodies in this and other countries. The eighth article of the Methodist Episcopal Church, of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, and of the Protestant Methodist Church in the United States, is in these words: "The condition of man after the fall of Adam is such, that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and works to faith, and calling upon God: therefore we have no power to do good works, pleasant and acceptable to God, without the grace of God by Christ going before us, that we may have that good will, and working with us, when we have that good will." The Confession of Sueveland says: "Good works (which are good indeed) do proceed from a lively faith, by the Holy Spirit, and are done of the faithful according to the will or rule of God’s word." The Confession of Basle says: "The Lord himself says, ’Without me you can do nothing;’ that is, nothing that may please God and be for your salvation. Faith and love are the fountain and square of all virtues and good works, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ’The goal of our instruction is love from a pure heart, a good conscience, and a sincere faith.’ 1 Timothy 1:5. And again: ’Without faith it is impossible to please God.’ Hebrews 11:6." The Confession of Belgia says: "We are justified by faith in Christ, yes, even before such time as we could bring forth any good work: for our works before faith can no more be good, than the fruit of a tree can be good, before the tree itself be good." The Confession of Saxony says: "External discipline, even where it is most honest, is not a fulfilling of the law. But all this discipline is an external government, such as it is; like unto the leaf of the fig-tree, wherewith our first parents, after their fall, did cover their nakedness: neither does it any more take away sin, and the corruption of nature, and death, than those fig-leaves did." The Confession of Wirtemberg says: "We confess and believe that to do and practice such righteousness as is acceptable to God, these virtues be necessary--faith, hope, and love; and that man cannot of himself conceive these virtues, but does receive them by the grace of God." These extracts from the standards of different bodies of Christians might have been much more extended. They are, however, sufficient to show that the doctrine here set forth is not novel--it is not the doctrine of a few extreme writers, but is the common doctrine of the purest and most zealous churches. The fair arguments used and the texts quoted in these Confessions do mightily strengthen the arguments and proofs before quoted. It is not too much to say that it has been fairly and scripturally proven--that unregenerate men sin always--they do nothing but sin against God. Is not the misery of an unregenerate state indescribable and unfathomable? No wonder that pious Ezra, having some just sense of the evil of sin, and the vileness of men, "ate no bread, nor drank water because of the transgression of those who had been carried away." No wonder that Jeremiah said of the wicked of his day: "If you will not hear it, my soul shall weep in secret places." Even Daniel "was astonished for one hour and his thoughts troubled him," when he foresaw the ruin which the king of Babylon was about to bring on himself by his royal crimes. All the unregenerate do nothing but sin. If for a while they seem to reform, they soon return to their wickedness, as the dog to his vomit, or the sow that was washed to her wallowing in the mire. All their goodness is as the morning cloud; as the early dew it passes away. They sometimes return from outward acts of sin; but they return not unto the Lord. When the unclean spirit is gone out of a man and returns again, "the last state of that man is worse than the first." Matthew 12:45. Neither mercies, nor judgments, nor promises, nor threatenings, nor hopes, nor fears--without the grace of Christ--will or can ever cure the love of sin, or arrest the practice of sin! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 71: 04.09. THE CORRUPTION OF MAN IS HEREDITARY ======================================================================== THE CORRUPTION OF MAN IS HEREDITARY No mere man was ever born without a sinful nature. The Son of God miraculously derived his human nature from his mother alone, and escaped the taint of original sin. Mary herself however was a sinner and needed a Savior, as she readily confessed. Luke 1:47. As Emesenus said, "the mother of the Redeemer is not otherwise loosed from the bonds of her sin, than by redemption." All the Pope’s teachings on this subject are idle dreams. Every human being whose descent has been in the ordinary way has inherited a corrupt nature. The faith of the people of God on this subject has been as uniform as on any other truth of the Gospel. In Psalms 51:5, in the midst of the humblest and most penitent confessions, David says: "Behold, I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." All attempts to set aside the clear teachings of this passage have been such as rather to shock by their profaneness, than to deceive by their plausibility. Sound commentators have been wonderfully agreed as to the teaching of this verse. Ambrose says: "All are born in sin, as David witnesses," and then quotes these words. Luther says: "It is a great part of wisdom, for one to know, that there is nothing good in us, but vain sin, that we do not think and speak so triflingly of sin as those, who say that it is nothing else than the thoughts, words, and deeds, which are contrary to the law of God. But if you will rightly point out according to this Psalm, what sin is, you must say, that all are sinners, who are born of father and mother, even before the time that man is of age to know what to do, speak, or think." Calvin says: "David does not confess himself guilty merely of some one or more sins, as formerly, but he rises higher, that from his mother’s womb he has brought forth nothing but sin, and by nature is wholly corrupt, and, as it were, immersed in sin. And certainly we have no solid conviction of sin, unless we are led to accuse our whole nature of corruption." Perhaps in all his writings this great man has not made a remark more fully coincident with religious experience, and of more weight in personal piety than the last sentence quoted from him: "Certainly we have no solid conviction of sin, unless we are led to accuse our whole nature of corruption." Patrick’s paraphrase of the verse is: "It is true indeed, and you, O Lord, know it better than I--that there is in me an innate proneness to evil; but I am so far from representing this as an excuse for what I have done, that I confess the consideration of it ought to have rendered me the more watchful and diligent to suppress those bad inclinations; which I knew to be so natural, that I brought them into the world with me." Horne says: "Divine mercy is implored by the penitent, because that alone can dry up the fountain of original corruption, from which the streams of actual transgression derive themselves; and which is here only lamented as their cause, not as their excuse; seeing that the greater our danger is of falling, the greater should be our care to stand. David was the offspring of the marriage-bed, which is declared to be honorable and undefiled. No more, therefore, can be intended here, than that a creature begotten by a sinner, and formed in the womb of a sinner, cannot be without that taint, which is hereditary to every son and daughter of Adam and Eve." Matthew Henry says: "David here confesses his original corruption." "He elsewhere speaks of the piety of his mother, that she was God’s handmaid, and he pleads his relation to her, and yet he here says she conceived him in sin; for though she was, by grace, a child of God, she was by nature a daughter of Eve, and not excepted from the common character. Note--it is to be sadly lamented by everyone of us that we brought into the world with us a corrupt nature, wretchedly degenerated from its primitive purity and rectitude." Scott says that David, "having received from his parents Adam’s fallen nature with all its evil propensities, confesses that he was conceived and shaped in iniquity." Hengstenberg says that the doctrine of original sin is so plainly taught here, "that nothing but the most confused mind can deny it. For when David confesses, that even before the development of his consciousness, before the time of his distinguishing between good and evil, that even at his birth, nay at his very conception, sin dwelt in him, and had so poisoned his nature, that he was quite incapable of attaining to true righteousness and wisdom; he places himself in direct collision with those, who consider sin merely as a product of the abused freedom of each individual, and leaves room for no other derivation of sinfulness than this, that it goes down from parents to their children, according to the word, ’what is born of the flesh is flesh.’" J. A. Alexander says: "Having just before confessed his actual transgressions, he now acknowledges the corruption of his nature." Theologians no less than commentators, have taken the same view of this text. Even John Taylor of Norwich admits that the first clause is correctly translated "I was born in sin." Whereupon Edwards well says, "If it is owned that man is born in sin, it is not worth the while to dispute, whether it is expressly asserted that he is conceived in sin." Beveridge says, "Sin was in his heart, while he was in his mother’s womb; for seeing he was conceived in sin, sin must needs be conceived in him." Alexander Hill says: "The Scriptures not only declare that all have sinned, but they seem to refer the abounding of iniquity to a cause antecedent to education, example, or the operation of particular circumstances; and in numberless places they represent the nature of man as corrupt. Of this kind are the following: "The imagination of man’s heart is evil from his youth." "Behold I was shaped in iniquity, and in sin did my mother conceive me." "The wicked are estranged from the womb, they go astray as soon as they be born, speaking lies." "Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? Not one.’" Dr. Leonard Woods of Andover says: "Is it not a plain matter of fact, that a depraved nature, a propensity to sin, is transmitted from parent to child, and has descended from the common ancestor of our race to all his posterity? Are we not ’degenerate plants of a strange vine?’ And if depravity comes in this way, what impropriety is there in calling it hereditary?" These views have been presented chiefly in connection with one text of Scripture, rather than to call attention to many. If any prefer to examine others, they are easily found. The true spirit of David’s confession in Psalms 51:5 is fully coincident with the sentiments of every deeply humble and penitent man who ever lived. Different Christian Churches have spoken very strongly and harmoniously on the subject of native depravity. The Confession of Bohemia says: "Original sin is naturally engendered in us, and hereditary; wherein we are all conceived and born into this world." The Confession of France says: "We believe that all the offspring of Adam is infected with this contagion, which we call original sin: that is a stain spreading itself by propagation, and not by imitation only as the Pelagians thought; all whose errors we do detest. Neither do we think it necessary to search how this sin may be derived from one unto another. For it is sufficient that those things which God gave unto Adam, were not given to him alone, but also to all his posterity; and therefore we, in his person, being deprived of all these good gifts are fallen into all this misery and curse." The Confession of England holds this language: "We say also that every person is born in sin, and leads his life in sin: that nobody is able truly to say his heart is clean." The Confession of Scotland says that by the fall "the image of God was utterly defaced in man; and he, and his posterity of nature became enemies to God, slaves to Satan, and servants to sin." The Confession of Belgia teaches that, "Original sin is a corruption of the whole nature, and an hereditary evil; wherewith even the very infants in their mothers’ womb are polluted; the which also as a most noisome root does branch out most abundantly all kind of sin in man." The Augsburg Confession says that "after the fall of Adam, all men descended one from another have original sin, even when they are born." The Confession of Saxony says: "As touching original sin, we do plainly affirm that we do retain the consent of the true Church of God, delivered to us from the first fathers, prophets, apostles, and the apostles, scholars, even unto Augustine, and after his time, and we do expressly condemn Pelagius, and all those, who have scattered in the Church like doting follies." The Confession of Wirtemberg says: "We believe and confess that in the beginning, man was created by God--just, wise, endued with free will, adorned with the Holy Spirit, and happy; but that afterwards for his disobedience, he was deprived of the Holy Spirit, and made the bondslave of Satan, and subject both to corporal and eternal damnation; and that evil did not stay in one only Adam, but was derived into all the posterity." The Church of England, the Church of Ireland, and the Wesleyan Methodist Churches all hold this language: "Original sin stands not in the following of Adam (as the Pelagians do vainly talk) but in the corruption of the nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam, whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and of his own nature inclined to evil and that continually." The Synod of Dort says: "Such as man was after the fall, such children he begat; namely, a corrupt issue from a corrupt father; this corruption being by the just judgment of God derived from Adam to all his posterity (Christ only excepted) and that not by imitation (as of old the Pelagians would have it), but by the propagation of nature." The London and Philadelphia Baptist, the Savoy, Cambridge and Boston Congregational, and the Presbyterian Confessions in Great Britain and America, say that a "corrupted nature is conveyed to all the posterity of our first parents," and that thereby "we are utterly indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly inclined to all evil." The Heidelberg Catechism, speaking of the misery of man, says: 3. Whence know you your misery? Out of the law of God. 4. What does the law of God require of us? Christ teaches us briefly, (Matthew 22:37-40) "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This is the first and the great command; and the second is like to this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commands hang the whole law and the prophets." 5. Can you keep all these things perfectly? In no sense; for I am prone by nature to hate God and my neighbor. 6. Did God then create man so wicked and perverse? By no means, but God created man good, and after his own image, in righteousness and true holiness, that he might rightly know God his Creator, heartily love him, and live with him in eternal happiness, to glorify him and praise him. 7. Whence, then, proceeds this depravity of human nature? From the fall and disobedience of our first parents, Adam and Eve, in Paradise; hence our nature is become so corrupt, that we are all conceived and born in sin. 8. Are we then so corrupt that we are wholly incapable of doing any good, and inclined to all wickedness? Indeed we are, except we are regenerated by the Spirit of God. 9. Does not God then do injustice to man, by requiring of him, in his law, that which he cannot perform? Not at all; for God made man capable of performing it; but man, by the instigation of the devil, and his own willful disobedience, deprived himself and all his posterity of those divine gifts. 10. Will God allow such disobedience and rebellion to go unpunished? By no means, but he is terribly displeased with our original sin, as well as actual sins; and will punish them in his just judgment temporally and eternally, as he has declared, "Cursed is everyone who continues not in all things which are written in the book of the law, to de them." 11. Is not God then also merciful? God is indeed merciful, but also just; therefore his justice requires that sin, which is committed against the most high majesty of God, be also punished with extreme, that is, with everlasting punishment, both of body and soul." John Wesley says, "If, therefore, we take away this foundation, that man is by nature foolish and sinful, fallen short of the glorious image of God, the Christian system falls at once; nor will it deserve so honorable an appellation as that of a ’cunningly devised fable.’" Richard Watson says: "The true Arminian, as fully as the Calvinist, admits the doctrine of the total depravity of human nature in consequence of the fall of our first parents." Arminius, speaking of the first sin oft the first man, says: "The whole of this sin is not peculiar to our first parents, but is common to the whole race, and to all their posterity, who at the time when the first sin was committed, were in their loins, and who afterwards descended from them in the natural mode of propagation." Richard Baxter says: "You cannot exempt infants themselves from sin and misery." Beveridge says: "Adam begat Seth and all his posterity in his own likeness, (Genesis 5:3) and, if in his own likeness, then sinners like himself. A wolf begets wolves, not lambs; so a sinner begat sinners, not saints." Let the celebrated saying of Augustine not be forgotten: "Neither the guilty unbeliever, nor the justified believer begets innocent--but guilty children; because the generation of both is from corrupted nature." Nor is the remark of Calvin less weighty: "Original sin is properly accounted sin in the sight of God, because there could be no guilt without crime." As frequent allusion is made to the Pelagians, it may be useful here to insert their opinions on the subject of the native corruption of man. Pelagius says: "In our birth we are equally destitute of virtue and vice; and previously to moral agency, there is nothing in man, but that which God created in him." His disciple Celestius held that "infants are born in that state in which Adam was before he sinned." Julian, another of the same school, held that "human nature in the time of our being born is rich in the gift of innocence;" and "nobody is born with sin." It is a very favorite idea with all Pelagians that sin consists only in acts, and is a voluntary transgression of known law and nothing else. As to the text of Scripture, on which such rely, it should be remembered that while we read "sin is the transgression of the law;" the word rendered "transgression" is literally "want of conformity," and no one denies that sin is either a transgression of law, or a lack of conformity to it. The same inspired apostle tells us that "all unrighteousness is sin." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 72: 04.10. MEN ARE GUILTY. IMPUTATION OF ADAM'S SIN. ACTUAL SINS ======================================================================== Men are guilty. Imputation of Adam’s sin. Actual sins. In all inquiries it is important to understand the use of terms. This is quite true when we speak of guilt and of being guilty. The word guilt sometimes signifies a crime, an offence, a sin. In colloquial use this sense is common. So when we speak of guilty conduct, we mean it is sinful, or criminal conduct. Sometimes the word guilt is taken in the sense of consciousness of guilt. This is an improper but not an uncommon use of the word. Thus when a man is said to be borne down by his guilt, the meaning often is that he is oppressed by a sense of his sinfulness. Again, guilt is the state of a man justly charged with a crime. In this sense he, who has done the deed charged in an indictment, is said to be guilty. The charge is true of him. Again, guilt signifies exposure to forfeiture, or penalty, on account of some law violated. Thus Kent says, "A ship incurs guilt by the violation of a blockade." This was by far the most common sense of the word when our English translation of the Bible was made. Accordingly we there find the phrase "guilty of death," which evidently means justly liable to the penalty of death. Indeed our word, guilt, is derived from the Saxon, gylt, which signifies a fine or a debt. To pay a gylt was to pay a debt or fine. This is also by fair the most common sense of the word as used by theologians, who use the term guilt in the sense of exposure to penal suffering. In this sense it is commonly used in this chapter. By saying that men are dreadfully guilty, it is taught that they are justly exposed and fairly liable to dreadful penal sufferings. Man is not only vile and helpless--he is also guilty. He is not only depraved and without strength--he is also condemned. The wicked not only have their consciences to clamor against them, but God is angry with them every day. Inspiration has settled it that we are "by nature the children of wrath even as others." Ephesians 2:3. Yes, by nature we are under wrath. To be a child of sorrow is to be subject to sorrow. To be a child of wrath is to be subject to wrath. This doctrine is taught in the most explicit terms. Paul says: "By one man sin entered into the world and death by sin." "Through the offence of one, the many died." "The judgment was by one, to condemnation." "By one man’s offence death reigned by one." "By the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation." "By one man’s disobedience many were made sinners." Romans 5:12-19. "In Adam all die." 1 Corinthians 15:22. Clearer and more varied terms could not be required to teach us that we are by nature under a curse, liable to wrath, suffering a penalty. So the Church of Christ has always understood the sacred writers. This appears by many monuments of ancient and modern times. Cyprian says: "There were before Christ also famous men, prophets and priests; but being conceived and born in sin, they lacked neither original nor personal guilt." Jerome says: "All men are held to be guilty, either in consequence of the sin of Adam, their ancient progenitor, or by their own personal act." So also the great weight of Augustine’s arguments fell upon and crushed the favorite dogma of Pelagius--"that the consequences of Adam’s sin were confined to his own person." Augustine says: "We were all in that one man, when he, being one, corrupted us all." In fact a denial of the federal headship of Adam has commonly been followed by denying the federal headship of Christ. Although the enemies of truth are often rancorous in their opposition to the doctrine of our representation in Adam, yet the Church of God has never been ashamed of it. The Confession of Helvetia having spoken of the fall of man into sin, death, and divers calamities, says: "By death we understand not only bodily death, which is once to be suffered of us all for sins, but also everlasting punishments due to our corruption and our sins." The Confession of Basle says that by the fall all mankind became "subject unto damnation." The Confession of Bohemia says that by the fall, man "cast headlong both himself and all his posterity into sin, death, and all kinds of miseries in this life, and into punishments eternal after this life." The Confession of France says: "We believe that this stain is indeed sin; because it makes all and every man guilty of eternal death before God." The Confession of Belgia says that original sin "is so filthy and abominable in the sight of God that it alone is sufficient to the condemnation of all mankind." The Augsburg Confession begins its account of original sin by saying that it is "that guilt, whereby all who come into the world, are, through Adam’s fall, subject to God’s wrath ant eternal death." The Churches of England and Ireland in their Articles say that "in every person born into the world original sin deserves God’s wrath and damnation." The Synod of Dort condemns the errors of those, who teach "that it cannot well be affirmed that original sin is sufficient for the condemning of all mankind, or for the deserving of temporal and eternal punishment." They declare that such go against the Apostle in Romans 5:12-19, and Romans 6:23. The Westminster Confession, now so extensively adopted in Great Britain and America by orthodox churches, says: "Every sin, both original and actual, being a transgression of the righteous law of God, and contrary thereunto, does, in its own nature, bring guilt upon the sinner; whereby he is bound over to the wrath of God, and curse of the law, and so made subject to death with all miseries, spiritual, temporal and eternal." Should any be inclined to think these remarks needlessly protracted, let them remember, 1. that the doctrine of the guilt of Adam’s first sin being imputed to his posterity has been opposed, vilified and maligned in an extraordinary way; and, 2. that the entire work of Christ as a Savior will soon be deemed unnecessary by those, who are bold enough to deny original sin. The ablest writers the Church has ever had, have taken this view of this doctrine. Ridgley says: "The Apostle calls Adam the figure of him that was to come. Romans 5:14. Now, in what was Adam a type of Christ? Not as he was a man, consisting of soul and body; for, in that respect, all that lived before Christ might as justly be called types of him. Whenever we read of any person or thing being a type in Scripture, there are some peculiar circumstances, by which they may be distinguished from all other persons or things, which are not types. Now Adam was distinguished from all other persons, more especially as he was the federal head of all his posterity; and that he was so, appears from what the Apostle not only occasionally mentions, but largely insists on, and shows in what respect this was true; and he particularly observes, that as one conveyed death, the other was the head, or Prince of Life. These respective things, indeed, were directly opposite, therefore the analogy, or resemblance consisted only in the manner of conveying them; so that as death did not become due to us, in the first instance of our liableness to it, for our own actual sin, but the sin of Adam; that right we have to eternal life, by justification, is not the result of our own obedience, but Christ’s. This is plainly the Apostle’s method of reasoning." Edwards says: "When the doctrine of original sin is spoken of, it is vulgarly understood in that latitude, which includes not only the depravity of nature, but the imputation of Adam’s first sin; or, in other words, the liableness and exposedness of Adam’s posterity, in the divine judgment, to partake of the punishment of that sin. So far as I know, most of those who have held one of these, have maintained the other; and most of those, who have opposed one, have opposed the other." He shows his estimate of the importance of this doctrine when he devotes an entire chapter to its separate consideration. He also says that "the rejection of the doctrine of original sin renders redemption unnecessary." Thomas Boston in his discourse on Romans 5:19 says: "There are only two ways how men might be made sinners by the disobedience of Adam; namely, either by imputation or imitation. The last is not meant; (1) Because some of those many who are made sinners are not capable of imitation of actual sin, namely, infants. (2) Because we are made righteous, not by the imitation, but imputation of Christ’s righteousness; but as we are made righteous by the one, so we are made sinners by the other." Owen says: Adam’s "actual sin is imputed unto us, as that which becomes ours by that imputation." Beveridge says: "We see the Apostle saying, ’All have sinned,’ (Romans 5:12) before all were born, which could not be unless they had before sinned in him from whom they were born. And so, many render the words ’in whom all have sinned;’ and therefore the same Apostle tells us, ’In Adam all died.’ 1 Corinthians 15:22. Now how could all die in him, unless all sinned in him? For death is the wages of sin only, as well as the only wages of sin." The celebrated James Arminius of the University of Leyden, though erroneous in many things, yet closes a paragraph on original sin with these words: "From these things, the imputation of the sin of our first parents is necessarily inferred; for wherever there is the punishment of sin, there is the imputation of the same." Again: "Whatever punishment was inflicted on our first parents, has also pervaded all their posterity, and still oppresses them; so that all are by nature children of wrath, (Eph. 2:31,) obnoxious to condemnation, and to death--temporal and eternal, (Romans 5:12) and are, lastly, devoid of that original righteousness and holiness; with which evils they would continue oppressed forever, unless they were delivered from them by Jesus Christ; to whom be glory forever and ever." (Romans v. 18, 19.) Richard Watson says: "In Romans 5:1-21, Adam and Christ are contrasted in their public or federal character; and the hurt which mankind have derived from the one, and the healing they have received from the other, are also contrasted in various particulars, which are equally represented as the effects of the ’offence’ of Adam, and of the ’obedience’ of Christ. Adam, indeed, in verse 14, is called, with allusion to this public representative character, the figure, type, or model of Him that was to come.’ The same Apostle also adopts the phrases ’the first Adam,’ and ’the second Adam,’ which mode of speaking can only be explained on the ground, that as sin and death descended from one, so righteousness and life flow from the other; and that what Christ is to all his spiritual seed, that Adam is to all his natural descendants. On this, the parallel is founded, ’For as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive;’ (1 Corinthians 15:22) words, which on any other hypothesis can have no natural signification." Even Bellarmine says: "The sin of Adam is so imputed to all his posterity--as if they had all committed the same sin." It ought constantly to be remembered that errorists have an almost uniform mode of attacking the truth. They would subvert the doctrine of universal depravity, and they begin by attacking native depravity. They would set aside the whole doctrine of original sin, and they commence by finding fault with the imputation of Adam’s first sin. There is also a constant sinking down into lower error. Pelagius first propagated his errors by putting objections into the mouths of others, and by suggesting difficulties to the true doctrine. But his follower Julian unblushingly said: "The triune God should be adored as most just; and it has been made to appear most irrefragably, that the sin of another never can be imputed by him to little children." Again: "Hence that is evident, which we defend as most reasonable, that no one is born in sin, and that God never judges men to be guilty on account of their birth." "Children, inasmuch as they are children, never can be guilty, until they have done something by their own proper will." There is about as close an agreement between the enemies of truth in different ages as to the language they will adopt in opposing sound doctrine, as there is among its friends in the manner of maintaining it. But as if this condemnation by nature, this death by the sin of our progenitor imputed to us, were not as fiery and terrible as men would have it, they rush into actual sins, and bring more wrath upon themselves by great wickedness and unrighteousness, by many acts of impiety and malice. They devise mischief upon their beds; they love vain thoughts; they rebel against God; break every precept of his law, and vex his Holy Spirit. In thought, word, and deed they are transgressors. They are as an unclean thing. Their consciences are defiled. Their wills are perverse. They have all done, and are all doing that which was forbidden. They have all failed and are daily failing to do what was commanded. The law, which they break, is holy, just and good. It is the only perfect law ever enacted. No sentence could be more just than this, "the soul that sins--it shall die." Punishment is deserved by all transgressors. If there were no prohibitions to sin, men could not seem more eager after iniquity than at present. Not only so, the very prohibition provokes a longing for disobedience. "Sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of covetous desire." Romans 7:8. Thus "the whole world lies in wickedness." Its guilt would instantly sink it to hell but for the patience and longsuffering of God. If the precept of the law is holy, just, and good; so is the penalty. God is the author of both. The human conscience whenever enlightened and aroused, pronounces damnation just. Psalms 51:4. The boldest sinners in the world will be speechless in the day of judgment. Guilt is a dreadful chain. It holds all its prisoners bound in affliction and iron. No man can give to God a ransom for himself, or for his brother; for "the redemption of the soul is precious," costly, infinitely costly. In the awards of the last day every conscience will acquiesce, and all caviling at God’s sovereign disposal of men will be forever silenced. The sentence of exclusion from the presence of the Lord, and from the glory of his power, will be most righteous. Nothing could be more holy, more deserved. All heaven, all earth, all hell will see and feel how just it is. O man of the world, can your hands be strong, or your heart endure, when God shall call you to account? "What will you say when he shall punish you?" Well did Augustine say, "Woe to the life of man, be it never so commendable, apart from the mercy of God in Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 73: 04.11. SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS IS WORTHLESS. MAN NEEDS A SAVIOR ======================================================================== Self-righteousness is worthless. Man needs a Savior Our own merits are of no avail for salvation. Man never deserves the favorable regard of God. The more self-righteous any one is, the worse it is for him. He, who is found with a little counterfeit money on him, may be suspected; but he, who knowingly carries much of it, may be convicted. Self-righteousness is spurious coin. Whoever relies on his own goodness for salvation will surely perish. He puts darkness for light and bitter for sweet. He turns judgment into wormwood and righteousness into hemlock. Self-righteousness is a condemnation of God’s law and an impeachment of his justice. There are but two ways in which man ever had solid peace with God. The first is by having a heart and life free from sin. When Adam was holy, his peace was unbroken. But we have all sinned, and this door is forever closed against our race. Of all that have been born of woman, but one entered heaven by his own merits. That one was Jesus, the Son of God. The other way for us to have peace is to flee to Christ who is our peace, and has made peace for all who believe on him. Those who receive him shall never come into condemnation. Their peace shall be like a river, which widens and deepens the farther it flows. The way in which some secure a false peace and destroy themselves, is to shut their eyes on their offences, sear their own consciences, and persuade themselves that they are not truly and fearfully guilty, and have not grievously sinned against God. They spend their days in framing excuses, perhaps vindications of a life of rebellion and sin; or they boldly deny their guilt in every particular, as did the Jews in the days of Malachi, and of our Savior. Self-righteousness seems to be born with sin, and to grow with its growth. A disposition to deny criminality is universal among men. Nothing but divine grace can effectually cure the habit of self-justification. One honest confession is a better sign of amendment, and promises more good than all excuses and denials. Indeed no saving mercy can come to him who will not confess his sins. The reason is that to him, who thinks he has no malady—all medicine is offensive. "The whole need not a physician." He who thinks he knows—will not inquire. He who says he sees—will not ask for a light. How can he wish to be better, who is already in his own esteem good enough? How can he who believes he has done no wrong, ask for pardon? Forgiveness to the ’innocent’ is impossible. To absolve the guiltless is an absurdity. The very offer of mercy to the sinless is an indignity. Nothing in human nature seems to be more obstinate, or more difficult to eradicate than a self-righteous spirit. Without the grace of Christ going before, no man ever sought or desired a new heart, or a gracious pardon. Left to themselves, men will live in sin, die in sin, and lie down in eternal sorrow, rather than renounce their own goodness and abandon their self-righteous hopes. It tends greatly to strengthen these delusions when men can plead natural amiability of temper, or a fair standing with the world for truth, justice and honor, or a decent and serious attention to the ordinances of religion. Christ said to the most exact observers of the Mosaic ritual, "the publicans and harlots go into the kingdom of God before you." "There are many who think they are safe, so long as they can find others worse than themselves. As if the fox should thank God that he is not a bear; or the wolf that he is not a lion; or the swine that he is not a wolf; whereas all this is nothing to the purpose, because God has called his children to be sheep, neither shall any species of unclean beasts be tolerated in the Christian society, unless they become sensible of their sinful disposition, and put it off as fast as they can by repentance and conversion." All observation goes to show that there is not a more hopeless class of offenders than those who trust in themselves that they are righteous. "All our righteous acts are as filthy rags." "If I wash myself in snow-water, and make my hands ever so clean, yet shall you plunge me in the ditch and my own clothes shall abhor me. For he is not a man as I am, that I should answer him, and we should come together in judgment." Job 9:30-32. "If you, Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" Psalms 130:3. See also Job 4:17-20, and Job 15:15-16, and Job 9:2-3. How wisely did David plead, "Enter not into judgment with your servant, for in your sight shall no man living be justified." Psalms 143:2. It is the part of wisdom for every mortal to say "If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me: if I say, I am perfect, it shall also prove me perverse." Job 9:20. Let us confess, "all we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned everyone to his own way." Peter has forewarned us that "God resists the proud, and gives grace to the humble." Here is the secret of the difference of the treatment received by the pharisee and the publican, the one with unhumbled heart pleading his own goodness, the other crying "God be merciful to me a sinner." Indeed it is the unvarying law of God’s government that "whoever shall exalt himself shall be abased, and he who humbles himself shall be exalted." "Christ came not to call the righteous," he came to call "sinners to repentance." All this is well summed up in the Heidelberg Catechism: 62. But why cannot our good works be the whole or part of our righteousness before God? Because that the righteousness which can be approved of before the tribunal of God, must be absolutely perfect, and in all respects conformable to the divine law; and also, that our best works in this life, are all imperfect and defiled with sin. 63. What! do our good works merit nothing, which yet God will reward in this and a future life? This reward is not of merit, but of grace. 64. But does not this doctrine make men careless and profane? By no means; for it is impossible that those who are implanted into Christ by a true faith, should not bring forth the fruits of thankfulness. The effect of all God’s saving dealings with men’s souls, is ultimately to bring them to remember their ways, and all their doings wherein they have been defiled; and to loathe themselves in their own sight for all their evils that they have committed, and to know that God is the Lord, when he has wrought with them for his name’s sake, and not according to their wicked ways, nor according to their corrupt doings. Ezekiel 20:43-44. From all that has been said it follows that man needs the grace of Christ. Where evil exists—a remedy is called for. He who is sick—needs a physician. It would be better for the blind—if their eyes were opened; for the deaf—if their ears were unstopped; for the halt—if their lameness were taken away. The unclean need washing; the condemned, pardon. Those who are not holy should be renewed. To the diseased even painful remedies are a kindness. The perishing need mercy; the guilty need grace. The lost should be sought and found. The starving require bread; the thirsty, water; the wounded, oil and wine; the cold and naked, raiment and shelter. The truth is, we are dead in trespasses and sins, yes, twice dead. How strong this language, and yet how just! If any man fights against it, his quarrel is with God, not with those, who by divine command preach the doctrine. The Bible is a sober book. It never mocks us. It never trifles with any man’s feelings. It gives no idle alarms. It scatters all needless fears, and cuts up superstition by the roots. Yet it says, we are dead, twice dead, dead by nature; dead by actual transgression; dead by the law; dead by a willful, ungrateful, unbelieving rejection of Christ. What a death! Men are dead, like a very dry tree, which is ready to be plucked up by the roots. If a spark touches it, it is soon all in a blaze. There is in unconverted men, no spiritual life, no warmth of affection, towards God and holiness. They have no good hope through grace. The life and love of God are not in them. Separated from God, they cannot live. For as the branch severed from the vine, or the arm from the body; or the body from the soul is dead, being alone, so the spirit of man without God is dead also. Surely man in this state needs a Savior. Never were necessities so extreme. If God intended to do something, "which angels would desire to look into," what would more surely gain his end, than to provide a Savior for lost men? It is no insult to offer grace to such rebels as we are. A little humility, faith and love, would make us all adopt as our creed, the words of Peter: "We believe that through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, we shall be saved even as they." At least we should say, that we never can be saved otherwise, and should greatly desire to be saved in this blessed way. If not thus saved, we are forever undone. Our true wisdom is to cry, "We do not present our supplications before you for our righteousness, but for your great mercies." Daniel 9:18. This brings us naturally to the consideration of the amazing grace, actually shown to men in their salvation by Jesus Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 74: 04.12. THE TRUE NOTION OF GRACE ======================================================================== THE TRUE NOTION OF GRACE The Synod of Dort says that "God owes no man grace. For how can God become debtor to him, who has nothing to give first, that it might be recompensed to him again? Nay, what can God owe him, who has nothing of his own but sin and untruth? Whoever therefore is made partaker of this kind of grace, ever owes and ever gives thanks to God only." The term, grace, often occurs in Scripture. Sometimes it means beauty, as in Proverbs 1:9 and Proverbs 4:9. But this is never the meaning of the word in the New Testament. There the generic idea of the term is favor, unmerited kindness, undeserved love, unbought pity, gift, gratuity. This grace is variously manifested. The gospel is itself called grace because it is the fruit and evidence of God’s unmerited goodness. The privilege of preaching the gospel is for the same reason called grace. And indeed it is a great favor to be allowed to publish the glad tidings of great joy. No man deserves such honor. Pardon of sin and acceptance with God, are both often said to be by grace—by undeserved mercy. The work of purifying the hearts of his people and fitting them for glory is effected by the grace of God. God does it purely out of pity and love, and not at all out of regard to any merit of ours. Renewal and sanctification are rich fruits of mercy. Without God’s grace, salvation is absolutely impossible. A salvation, which failed to root out sin, and set up the reign of grace, would no doubt be pleasing to the carnal mind, and would delight a hypocrite; but could never satisfy the longings of a real child of God. Sin in its reigning power, no less than in its fearful guilt, must be destroyed, or it will destroy us. He who fails to gain the victory over his lusts—fails of heaven. If they be not put down, we labor in vain and spend our strength for nothing. Hardly anything is more striking than the obstinate attachment of men to their own works, and their consequent aversion to the grace of God. The great mass of unrenewed men, even in Christian assemblies, have really no idea of ever being saved otherwise than by becoming good, and that in their own strength. They generally suspect that they are not now what they ought to be, but they intend to do better hereafter. They seem very ignorant of the extent, spirituality and holiness of the law; and thus while conscience does not flame out against them, they rest in the delusion that they are not very bad, and may easily improve. The very last thing which a sinner under conviction does, is to give up his self-confidence. He cleaves to it as if salvation depended upon his good opinion of himself. Indeed until God’s Spirit enlightens his mind, he will not see that salvation can never be compassed by his own power or merit. So that the very process, by which a sinner is led to the Savior, is usually one of extreme sadness. He has less and less, in his own esteem, worthy of honorable mention before God, until at last he finds out that he is nothing but a guilty, vile, lost, helpless, perishing sinner. To a Christian, who knows what is going on in the sinner’s mind, these new views awaken lively hopes that a work of grace is begun in his heart. But often the sinner himself is almost in despair. He supposes that his convictions are forerunners of condemnation and rejection, not of conversion. And when he is led to Christ, and hope springs up in his mind, none is more surprised at the change in his views than himself. He did not expect deliverance in that way. He had not yet become good in his own eyes. He now learns that it is God’s plan to save sinners who simply believe. To him the Gospel is a revelation of mercy. He is charmed with the method of grace. He gives all honor to the Redeemer, and is willing to be counted the chief of sinners. He no longer goes about to establish his own righteousness, which is of the law. His own merits he counts as nothing. He simply wishes to be found in Christ. His song is of free unmerited grace. He is no longer wedded to the law, as a means of justification, but he is married to Christ, who is now all his salvation. He works, indeed, but it is from love to the Savior. He says, "What I am, I am by the grace of God." He casts his crown at the Savior’s feet. He expects all from the grace of Christ. A clergyman once represented the conduct of awakened sinners towards God’s offers of gratuitous salvation thus: A benevolent and rich man had a very poor neighbor, to whom he sent this message; "I wish to make you the gift of a farm." The poor man was pleased with the idea of having a farm, but was too proud at once to receive it as a gift. So he thought of the matter much and anxiously. His desire to have a home of his own was daily growing stronger, but his pride was great. At length he determined to visit him who had made the offer. But a strange delusion about this time seized him, for he imagined that he had a bag of gold. So he came with his bag, and said to the rich man, "I have received your message, and have come to see you. I wish to own the farm, but I wish to pay for it. I will give you a bag of gold for it." "Let us see your gold," said the owner of the farm. The poor man opened his bag and looked, and his countenance was changed, and he said, "Sir, I thought it was gold, but I am sorry to say it is but silver. I will give you my bag of silver for your farm." "Look again; I do not think it is even silver," was the solemn but kind reply. The poor man looked, and as he beheld, his eyes were further opened, and he said, "How I have been deceived. It is not silver but only copper. Will you sell me your farm for my bag of copper? You may have it all." "Look again," was the only reply. The poor man looked, tears stood in his eyes, his delusion seemed to be gone, and he said, "Alas, I am undone. It is not even copper. It is but ashes! How poor I am! I wish to own that farm, but I have nothing to pay. Will you give me the farm?" The rich man replied, "Yes, that was my first and only offer. Will you accept it on such terms?" With humility but with eagerness the poor man said, "Yes, and a thousand blessings on you for your kindness." The fable is easily applied. Mather has well expressed the difference between grace and merit in few words; "God was a God to Adam before he fell, but to be a God to sinners, this is grace. He was a God to Adam in innocency by virtue of the covenant of works; but he is not a God to any sinner but in the way of free grace. Now that was the covenant, ’I will be a God to you and your seed.’ Genesis 17:7. Abraham was a sinner and a child of wrath by nature as well as others; yet God was his God truly. For God to be a God to those who never sinned, there may be merit; but for God to be a God to those that have sinned, this is grace indeed. They, that do not think this is grace, need not argument, but pity and prayer." The pious John Newton in few words states with great clearness what grace is: "To bestow gifts upon the miserable is bounty; but to bestow them upon rebels is grace. The greatness of the gifts contrasted with the characters of those who receive them, displays the exceeding riches of the Redeemer’s grace. He came to save not the unhappy only, but the ungodly. He gives pardon, peace, and eternal life to his enemies; whose minds are so entirely alienated from him that, until he makes them willing, in the day of his power, their minds are determined against accepting any favor from him." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 75: 04.13. THE PROPERTIES OF GRACE - IT IS FREE, SUFFICIENT, UNSELFISH, RICH IN BLESSINGS ======================================================================== The PROPERTIES of grace. It is free, sufficient, unselfish, rich in blessings. In many things the grace of God differs from all other manifestations of favor. We should not be surprised at this when we reflect that as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are his ways higher than our ways, and his thoughts than our thoughts. There are none like Jehovah in love, or in majesty, in glory or in condescension. Beyond everything else, grace is FREE. It is beyond the power of man to earn it, to deserve it, to purchase it. No price is to be paid for it. To offer anything as an equivalent for it is to insult God. "Without money and without price" is the sole method of its bestowment. This grace is absolutely, everlastingly, immutably free. If you ever secure it, it will not be by paying for it thousands of rivers of oil, the cattle on a thousand hills, or the wealth of the world. This grace is, moreover, ALL-SUFFICIENT. It alone does all. He, who has it, is rich beyond the power of need, is strong beyond the possibility of being finally vanquished, is justified so that he can never come into condemnation. It meets every demand of justice, every temptation, every emergency. "My grace is sufficient for you," are words as sweet as ever reached the ears of mortals. Another property of divine grace is that it is UNSELFISH. It is pure grace. The happiness of the King of kings is not augmented by having kings and priests to bow before him. God is, and was, and shall be blessed for evermore. God’s almightiness excludes all need, by excluding all weakness. If God could fail in anything, he might cease to be blessed and so cease to be God. When there was as yet no created spirit, and the eternal God existed in solitary grandeur in the universe, that Infinite and Eternal Mind was as happy as it is now, or ever shall be. To the divine blessedness there is no limit, there comes no change. Like his wisdom, power, holiness and truth, his happiness cannot vary. Neither creation nor redemption was undertaken to heighten the bliss of the Godhead. The Bible teaches that if men were even spotlessly holy, they would still be unprofitable servants. "If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him? If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand? Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself, and your righteousness only the sons of men. Can a man be of benefit to God? Can even a wise man benefit him? What pleasure would it give the Almighty if you were righteous? What would he gain if your ways were blameless?" Job 35:6-8 and Job 22:2-3. God does indeed order all things for his own honor and glory; but that is not for the increase of his infinite blessedness. Pure grace and unbought love have done all for sinners. There is no mixture of God’s grace and man’s goodness in salvation. God owed nothing, could owe nothing to apostate man. It is a shameful and wicked derogation from the grace of the Gospel to assert that God intended thereby to make amends to our race for the defects of the covenant of works. That covenant was wise, holy, just and good. Under it the angels enjoy all their bliss. As long as man kept it, he was unspeakably happy. And when he fell under the curse of that covenant, he did it not by any inevitable necessity of nature, but by his own voluntary choice of that which had been forbidden. Nowhere in the Bible is it hinted that God originated the covenant of grace as something due to us. On the contrary, it traces all to divine bountifulness and mercifulness. It speaks on this wise: "But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions--it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith--and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God--not by works, so that no one can boast. Ephesians 2:4-9. Many other portions of Scripture teach the same truth, but this one is so full and explicit that nothing but perversity and blindness can misconstrue its precious doctrine. The peculiar sweetness and excellence of this view of the subject is, first, that it renders illustrious beyond a parallel, the mercy of God in Christ, and thus lays a sure foundation for the temple of praise which is now rising to the sovereign love of God. Secondly, this view brings strong consolation to the godly, because if God had gracious regards towards them when they had no holiness nor good desires, they may assuredly hope that having freely given them new hearts, and having also freely justified them—he will not abandon them to ruin, nor hand them over to condemnation. Nor is this grace in its bestowments limited to a few small items. It would have been unmerited kindness for eternal mercy to have expressed any pity for man. It would have been more than man deserved for God to have given him a respite of a thousand years from the fiery doom, which was before him. It is mere mercy that keeps a sinner out of hell even for an hour! But when God undertook to be gracious, he confined himself to no little work, but devised a plan incomprehensibly great and glorious, running through all coming time, and the eternity beyond that, and embracing in its effects in some way, myriads on myriads of happy creatures, who study it, admire it, or taste its abundant provisions. So that on this side of heaven there is no higher exercise of virtue than simply to believe and cordially to rely upon the statements of God’s word respecting this greatest of all devices. The first result attained by the works of grace in our world, is the securing of an unparalleled revenue of renown to the divine government. Glory to God in the highest is an effect peculiar to the work of redemption. To men the results are as happy, as to God they are honorable. The fruits of God’s grace are so many, and so rich, and so necessary, that we may safely say, without them existence is not desirable; but with them life is a great blessing and blessing, though it should be begun by ten thousand years of such affliction as the saints on earth are subject to. God’s plan of mercy in Christ secures us against all conceivable ills, except such as shall themselves be made the means of ultimate and eternal gain to us. It also secures the possession of all conceivable good things for this world and the next, and at the best possible time. The tenor of Scripture on these points is unmistakable: "All things are yours; whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; and you are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s." 1 Corinthians 3:21-23. Even inspired men seem at a loss for words to convey an adequate conception of any of God’s saving mercies. In his gospel, John says, "God so loved the world." And in his first epistle he says, "Behold! How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!" Paul breaks out, "Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!" With our Lord and his apostles, crowns and kingdoms are favorite emblems of the riches of our inheritance in Christ. Nor does God ever revoke any promise made to man in Christ Jesus. "The Lord is not man that he should repent." He never begins to build and finds himself unable to finish. Nor has he affixed to the gospel offer any meritorious condition to be performed by us. Jesus Christ fulfilled the entire conditions of the covenant of grace—so far as satisfying the law and bringing in righteousness are concerned. The fourth property of this grace, then, is that it is exceedingly fruitful in the most precious and most permanent blessings! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 76: 04.14. GOD'S GRACE IS ALSO OF GREAT ANTIQUITY, SOVERIGN AND DISTINGUISHING ======================================================================== God’s grace is of great antiquity, sovereign and distinguishing Another property of God’s grace is that it bears date from the most remote antiquity, even the past eternity of Jehovah. It is not therefore of recent origin, as all human and even angelic friendships are. The plan of showing grace to lost sinners existed before men were lost. It is as old as the plan of the universe. On this subject the language of inspiration is decisive. Paul says to the Ephesians, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love he predestined us to be adopted as his sons through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will--to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves." Ephesians 1:3-6. David says: "The mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon them that fear him." Psalms 103:17. In Ephesians 3:11, it is said, we are saved according to an "eternal purpose." Our mercies of time, are the fruits of the eternal love of God. In Jeremiah 31:3, the whole work of salvation is ascribed to a divine regard as eternal as the Godhead. "I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn you." How precious is the truth that in the counsels of inconceivably distant ages, man was not forgotten; but even then Jehovah by his foreknowledge looked upon him in his guilt and vileness and misery; and purposed to raise from the deep and dark abyss of the apostasy a people who would be his church, a people who would ever stand "to the praise of the glory of his grace." Some indeed say that this doctrine encourages sin. But the Bible teaches a very different doctrine. "We love him because he FIRST loved us." "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that you should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain." Some say that this view represents God as loving the vile and base and guilty. The answer is that the Scriptures clearly teach as much. "God so loved the world" (guilty, lost and ruined as it was,) "that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes on him should not perish, but have everlasting life." Indeed they say that this view is not only just and true, but honorable to God. In Romans 5:8, Paul says that "God commends his love towards us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Here is one of the brightest glories of the covenant of grace. The stability of the whole plan of redemption is in Scripture said to depend on this great fact: "If while we were enemies we were reconciled by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Romans 5:10. God’s good will to man, his pity for the lost, his grace to sinners are not novelties to the divine mind. They have run parallel with the divine existence in all past duration. In contemplating this grace, the devout mind finds itself filled with awe and delight, at discovering that God’s grace is sovereign and distinguishing. Thus our Savior thought and felt when he said, "I thank you, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hid these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight." Matthew 11:25-26. In this solemn, holy and thankful manner, did our blessed Master view this doctrine. Let us imitate him. Let us not rush into doubtful disputations. Let us adore, and not cavil. Reason is presumptuous when it revises the decisions of God. Our blessed Lord often insisted on this doctrine, although then as now it was very offensive to the carnal mind. "I assure you that there were many widows in Israel in Elijah’s time, when the sky was shut for three and a half years and there was a severe famine throughout the land. Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon. And there were many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian.’ All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, in order to throw him down the cliff." Luke 4:25-29. What shall we then do? If the doctrine so offends men, shall we give it up? Are we to make peace with human wickedness by observing a profound silence on this topic? Nay, let us rather imitate Christ, who often preached it. The parable of the hired laborers found in Matthew 20:1-16 is spoken for the express purpose of showing that God will do as he pleases with his own, and that for so doing, he may not be complained of. Indeed by Moses God said, "I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion, on whom I will have compassion; so then, it is not of him that wills, nor of him that runs, but of God that shows mercy." As God is abundant in goodness and truth, we see ground of hope and confidence. As he is sovereign in the bestowment of his favors, let us fear before him and adore. He, who will not be pleased with the divine character and government until he can see God waiting on the nod and promptly obeying the mandates of the human will, can never be reconciled to God. "The Lord is a great king and a great God above all gods." "The Lord is king forever and ever." "The Lord reigns, let the earth rejoice." "The Lord reigns, let the people tremble." Jesus Christ not only taught this doctrine, but as the Son of God with power he displayed its truth in calling to himself whom he would for his disciples and apostles; in saving one thief and not the other; in bringing Peter to repentance, and in sending Judas to his own place; in calling and saving Saul of Tarsus and letting Nero persist in sin. The sovereignty of grace is shown principally in three ways; in the race to which mercy is extended, namely, the human and not the angelic. The heavenly multitude, who fell, were passed by and left in utter and irretrievable ruin and hopeless sorrow. Compare Jude 1:6 and John 3:16. Why this was so we cannot tell. The loadstone passes by gold and silver—and attracts iron. The grace of God passed by angels and came "a little lower," even to man. God also makes known his Gospel and sends his ambassadors to some nations and not to others. Thus at first Judea was distinguished from India. Thus now America and Britain are distinguished from Tartary and Japan. And in the same nation, city and family—one person is taken and another left; one is pardoned, converted, sanctified and received up to glory—while another no worse by nature, dies in his sins. This sovereignty is exercised solely "according to the good pleasure of his will," and not at all on account of any goodness belonging to us, or foreseen in us. Very explicitly and conclusively does Paul prove this: "Yet, before the twins were born or had done anything good or bad--in order that God’s purpose in election might stand: not by works but by him who calls--she was told, "The older will serve the younger." Just as it is written: "Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated." What then shall we say? Is God unjust? Not at all! For he says to Moses, "I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion." It does not, therefore, depend on man’s desire or effort, but on God’s mercy. For the Scripture says to Pharaoh: "I raised you up for this very purpose, that I might display my power in you and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth." Therefore God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden. One of you will say to me: "Then why does God still blame us? For who resists his will?" But who are you, O man, to talk back to God? "Shall what is formed say to him who formed it, ’Why did you make me like this?’" Does not the potter have the right to make out of the same lump of clay some pottery for noble purposes and some for common use? What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath--prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory." Romans 9:11-23. Is not such teaching conclusive? Who can resist it, without refusing to believe God? In rebuking some, who persisted in asserting that God dispenses his grace among men, according to his foreknowledge of the good use which they will severally make of it, Augustine says: "Who but must wonder that this most ingenious sense should escape the Apostle? For after proposing what was suited to excite astonishment respecting those children yet unborn, he started to himself by way of objection, the following question—What then, is there unrighteousness with God? It was the place for him to answer, that God foresaw the deserts of each of them, yet he says nothing of this, but resorts to the decrees and mercy of God." Indeed on the day of Pentecost the whole weight of Peter’s argument in convincing his hearers of their sin was in connection with this doctrine. Speaking of Christ, Peter said: "Him being delivered by the determinate counsel and foreknowledge of God, you have taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and slain." Acts 2:23. Now, if he had failed to convince them that in putting Christ to death they had fulfilled the eternal purpose, the determinate counsel of God, he would have failed to convince them of Christ’s Messiahship. Or if he had failed to convince them that in doing this of envy and unbelief and enmity they were wicked, then his preaching would have been in vain. There is no escaping from these conclusions. To fulfill God’s decrees with a wicked heart is wicked, is the height of wickedness. That the doctrine of election is a ground of encouragement to pious preachers of the Gospel is certain. Thousands have told us so. It was so to Paul. "Then the Lord said to Paul in a night vision, ’Don’t be afraid, but keep on speaking and don’t be silent. For I am with you, and no one will lay a hand on you to hurt you, because I have many people in this city.’ And he stayed there a year and six months, teaching the word of God among them." Acts 18:9-11. The previous context shows that the Jews at Corinth "opposed Paul and became abusive." In fact the work of founding a church there was but just begun. Yet God says, "I have many people in this city." The only fair logical meaning, is that among the crowds of the ungodly in that city, were many of God’s elect, whom he purposed by Paul’s ministry soon to bring to a saving knowledge of Christ. The doctrine of election, rightly understood, holds out the only ground of encouragement, which we have, for preaching the blessed Gospel. If God has no elect—we preach in vain! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 77: 04.15. GOD'S PURPOSE OF GRACE ======================================================================== GOD’S PURPOSE OF GRACE "All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." If this be so we should very carefully guard ouri hearts that we indulge in no prejudices against any portion of divine truth. If God has revealed anything to us, it will do us good to receive it with meekness and fear. It is not possible for any sincere person to deny that the Bible uses words, which seem to teach that God governs the world by a fixed plan, and that events occurring in a manner to us accidental, or brought about by human agency—were foreseen and pre-ordained by God. Without dealing in general assertions, let us come at once to God’s word. There we find first the word decree applied to God’s plan. The reason why the sea is contained within certain limits is that God has determined it shall be so. "He gave the sea his decree, that the waters should not pass his commandment." Proverbs 8:29. He has "placed the sand for the bound of the sea by a perpetual decree." Jeremiah 5:22. Elsewhere the same thing is taught in almost the same words. It cannot therefore be denied that God holds the sea in bounds by his unchangeable decree. The Scriptures also declare that it is the fixed decree of God, which nothing can alter, that his Son should be the Mediator. "Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: The Lord has said unto me, You are my Son, this day have I begotten you." None will deny that the mediatorial throne has its stability in the everlasting unchangeable purpose of God. So likewise Daniel declares that Nebuchadnezzar was expelled from among men "by the decree of the Most High God." Daniel 4:24. The Scriptures also use the word appoint as expressive of the same idea. Thus Christ says: "I appoint unto you a kingdom, as my Father has appointed unto me." Luke 22:29. Men must have made great advances in boldness before they can deny that all Christ’s exaltation and glory are fixed and given him by the unchangeable appointment of God, and yet by an appointment of the same kind, all his people shall have a kingdom. So also the day of judgment is fixed. Nothing can hasten it; nothing can defer it: "He has appointed a day, in the which he will judge the world." Acts 17:31. So also no man can die a moment sooner, or live a moment longer than God pleases, and his pleasure and his counsel always agree. "Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth?" "Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months is with you, you have appointed his bounds that he cannot pass." Job 7:1 and Job 14:5. Nor is this doctrine offensive to the pious. Job says: "All the days of my appointed time will I wait, until my change comes." Job 14:14. The subversion of the plots of the wicked is in Scripture ascribed to their running counter to God’s fixed plan. "For the Lord had appointed to defeat the good counsel of Ahithophel, to the intent that the Lord might bring evil upon Absalom." 2 Samuel 17:14. God’s word no less clearly declares that the wicked rejection of Jesus Christ by sinners, instead of defeating, is executing God’s plan. For he is "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offence, even to those who stumble at the word, being disobedient: whereunto also they were appointed." 1 Peter 2:8. Again, the Scriptures call God’s fixed plan his counsel and declare its unchangeableness. If it could be changed, it would be either for the better, or for the worse. If it could be changed for the better, it is now imperfect. If it should be changed for the worse it would become imperfect. In either case, it would be unworthy of God. But it cannot be changed: "I am God and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning, and from ancient times the things that are not yet done, saying, My counsel shall stand, and I will do all my pleasure." Isaiah 46:9-10. "The counsel of the Lord stands forever, the thoughts of his heart to all generations." Psalms 33:11. No plotting and ingenuity and malice of man can hinder what God will do. "There are many devices in a man’s heart; nevertheless the counsel of the Lord, that shall stand." Proverbs 19:21. The Apostles held that God’s plan was carried out, even in the wickedness shown towards Christ, and they adoringly said that his enemies "were gathered together to do whatever your hand and your counsel determined before to be done." Acts 4:28. Indeed Paul says that God does "all things after the counsel of his own will." Ephesians 1:11. He also says that God has taken great care "to show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of his counsel." Hebrews 6:17. In like manner the Bible speaks of God’s purpose; and says that our conversion is in fulfillment of it, "called according to his purpose." It declares that this purpose embraces the destinies of men. Before Rebecca had given birth to any child it was said, "The elder shall serve the younger," and all this Paul says was, "that the purpose of God according to election might stand." Romans 8:28 and Romans 9:11. Nor is God’s purpose temporal, or mutable, but he conducts all things "according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord." Ephesians 3:11. Here is the foundation of all our hopes of life; for he "has saved us, and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Timothy 1:9. Nor are inspired writers afraid of the word, predestination, or of the doctrine taught thereby: "Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren. Moreover, whom he did predestinate, them he also called; and whom he called, them he also justified; and whom he justified, them he also glorified." Romans 8:29-30. "Having predestinated us unto the adoption of children by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will." Ephesians 1:5. See also Ephesians 1:11-12. We also find election taught throughout God’s word and in many ways. 1. God’s well-beloved and eternal Son was chosen out of all in the universe to be the Redeemer of lost men. Accordingly in Isaiah 42:1, and in 1 Peter 2:6, Christ is called God’s elect. I have never seen the professing Christian, who was bold enough to deny that our Savior was "chosen of God." Augustine well says: "The highest illustration of predestination and grace, is in the Savior himself, the man Christ Jesus, who has acquired this character in his human nature, without any previous merit either of works or of faith." 2. Election extends to the angels, some of whom are holy and happy, others sinful and miserable. The holy ones are expressly called "elect angels." 1 Timothy 5:21. 3. When some angels and all men had fallen under condemnation, God’s electing love turned towards sinners of the human race and not at all towards fallen angels. John 3:16; 2 Peter 2:4. 4. When all nations were rapidly hastening to idolatry and gross corruption, God selected one man and granted to him and his descendants peculiar privileges and mercies. "He choose Abram and brought him forth out of Ur of the Chaldees." From that time for generations this family was often spoken of as the chosen, the elect of God. Deuteronomy 4:37 and Deuteronomy 7:6-8; 1 Chronicles 16:13-14; Psalm 32:12, and in many other places. 5. God also exercises his choice as to the heirs of salvation. They are called "God’s elect." Romans 8:33. Christ calls them "the elect." Matthew 24:22, Matthew 24:24, Matthew 24:31; Luke 18:7. Paul says, "God has chosen us in Christ before the foundation of the world that we should be holy and without blame before him in love." Ephesians 1:4. How any man can dispose of all these texts without rejecting God’s word, and yet refuse to admit decrees, predestination and election, it is not easy to tell. Is anything more fixed than the events of death, judgment and eternity with all that shall be done therein? Every man fixes his plans and purposes before he acts or builds. Has the Builder of the universe no plan, no purpose? As to whether we first chose Christ, or Christ us, what Christian can have a doubt, when he remembers his own vile wanderings, and Christ’s explicit teachings? "You have not chosen me, but I have chosen you." John 15:16. Indeed what is a prophecy but a revealed decree? What is a decree but a purpose not revealed, not made known in prophecy? The consent of the people of God in all periods of the Christian Church has been as remarkably in favor of the doctrine here maintained. Formal opposition to it by those, who otherwise stood fair in God’s Church, was unknown to the ancients. How clearly this doctrine was taught by Augustine all well-informed people know: "We are made in time, but we were chosen before the world began." "Before he made us, he foreknew us, and he chose us in his foreknowledge when he had not as yet made us." "Out of those to whom the righteous Lord had adjudged punishment, according to the unspeakable mercy of his hidden dispensation, he chose out vessels, which he might fit for honor." Augustine also quotes the following from Ambrose’s book on predestination: "Whom Christ has mercy on, him he calls. Those who were undevout, he could, if he would, have made devout. But God calls whom he pleases, and makes whom he will pious." Augustine took the right view of this doctrine when he said: "Do you wish to dispute with me? Rather unite with me in admiration, and exclaim, O the depth! Let us both agree in fear, lest we perish in error." More explicit statements he could not make. Fulgentius says: "God, who has made man, did himself prepare, in his predestination, both the gift of illumination to believe, and the gift of perseverance to profit and persevere, and the gift of glorification to reign, for those to whom he pleased to give it; who also does not any otherwise perform indeed, than was ordained by his eternal and unchangeable will. The truth of which predestination, whereby the Apostle witnesses, we were predestinated in Christ before the foundation of the world." Prosper says: "No Christian denies the predestination of God." "The belief of predestination is confirmed by abundant authority of the holy Scriptures." "From the punishment of the sin of our first parent none is freed but by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, prepared and predestinated in the eternal counsel of God before the foundation of the world." The Confession of Helvetia says: "God has from the beginning, and of his mere grace, without any respect of men, predestinated or elected the saints, whom he will save in Christ." "Therefore, though not for any merit of ours, yet not without a means, but in Christ, and for Christ, did God choose us; and they who are now engrafted into Christ, the same also were elected." The Confession of Basle says: "We confess, that God, before he had created the world, had chosen all those to whom he would freely give the inheritance of eternal blessedness." The Confession of France says: "We believe that out of this universal corruption and condemnation, wherein by nature all men are drowned, God did deliver and preserve some, whom, by his eternal and immutable counsel, of his own goodness and mercy, without any respect of their works, he did choose in Christ Jesus; and others he left in that corruption and condemnation, in whom he might make manifest his justice, by condemning them justly in their time, as well as declare the riches of his mercy in the others. For some are not better than others, until such time as the Lord does make a difference, according to that immutable counsel, which he had decreed in Christ Jesus before the creation of the world." The Confession of Scotland says: "That same eternal God, who of mere grace elected us in Christ Jesus his Son, before the foundation of the world was laid, appointed him to be our head." The Confession of Belgia says: "We believe that God has showed himself to be both merciful and just: merciful, by delivering and saving those from condemnation and from death, whom, in his eternal counsel, of his own free goodness, he has chosen in Jesus Christ our Lord, without any regard at all of their works; but just, in leaving others in that their fall and perdition, whereinto they had thrown themselves headlong." The Synod of Dort says: "Election is the unchangeable purpose of God, by which, before the foundation of the world, according to the most free pleasure of his will, and of his mere grace, out of all mankind (fallen through their own fault from their first integrity into sin and destruction) he has chosen in Christ unto salvation a set number of certain men, neither better nor more worthy than others, but lying in the common misery with others." In subsequent sections many explanations are given, as that this election is not manifold, but one; that it was not made upon the foresight of faith or good works, but was unto faith and holiness; that the true cause of this free election is the good pleasure of God; that it cannot be interrupted, changed, revoked, or disannulled; that this doctrine is to be reverently received, etc. etc. The Church of England in her 17th Article says: "Predestination to life is the everlasting purpose of God, whereby (before the foundations of the earth were laid) he has decreed by his counsel, secret to us, to deliver from curse and damnation those, whom he has chosen in Christ out of mankind, and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation, as vessels made to honor. Therefore, they which are endued with so excellent a benefit of God—are called according to God’s purpose by his Spirit working in due season: they through grace obey the calling: they are justified freely: they are made sons of God by adoption: they are made like the image of his only begotten Son, Jesus Christ: they walk piously in good works: and at length, by God’s mercy, they attain to everlasting felicity." As the godly consideration of predestination, and our election in Christ, is full of sweet, pleasant, and unspeakable comfort to godly people, and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ, mortifying the works of the flesh, and their earthly members, and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things—as well because it does greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ, as because it does fervently kindle their love towards God. So, for curious and carnal people, lacking the Spirit of Christ, to have continually before their eyes the sentence of God’s predestination, is a most dangerous downfall, whereby the devil does thrust them either into desperation, or into wretchedness of most unclean living, no less perilous than desperation. The Church of Ireland states, "By the same eternal counsel, God has predestinated some unto life, and reprobated some unto death; of both which there is a certain number, which can neither be increased nor diminished. The cause moving God to predestinate unto life, is not the foreseeing of faith, or good works, or of anything, which is in the person predestinated, but only the good pleasure of God himself. But such as are not predestinated to salvation, shall finally be condemned for their sins." The Westminster Confession says that "God from all eternity did, by the most wise and holy counsel of his own will, freely and unchangeably ordain whatever comes to pass: yet so as thereby neither is God the author of sin, nor is violence offered to the will of the creatures, nor is the liberty or contingency of second causes taken away, but rather established." Much more is said to the same purpose, but quite coincident with what has been already quoted from the same confessions of faith. The great lights of the Church in modern times have also spoken with much force on this subject. Luther, in commenting on the words "who separated me from my mother’s womb," (Galatians 1:15) says: "This is a Hebrew phrase; as if he said, Who had sanctified, ordained and prepared me. That is, God had appointed, when I was yet in my mother’s womb, that I should so rage against his Church, and that afterward he would mercifully call me back again from the midst of my cruelty and blasphemy, by his mere grace, into the way of truth and salvation. To be short, when I was not yet born, I was an apostle in the sight of God, and when the time was come, I was declared an apostle before the whole world. Thus Paul cuts off all deserts, and gives glory to God alone—but to himself shame and confusion. As though he would say, All the gifts, both small and great, as well spiritual as temporal, which God purposed to give unto me, and all the good things, which at any time in all my life I should do, God himself had before appointed when I was yet in my mother’s womb, where I could neither wish, nor think, nor do any good thing. Therefore this gift also came unto me by the mere predestination and free mercy of God, before I was born." Calvin says: "We shall never be convinced as we ought to be, that our salvation flows from the fountain of God’s free mercy, until we are acquainted with his eternal election, which illustrates the grace of God by this comparison, that he adopts not all promiscuously to salvation, but gives to some what he refuses to others. Ignorance of this principle evidently detracts from the divine glory, and diminishes real humility." Beveridge says: "If God has elected us, it is in vain for men or devils to accuse us; if he is our friend, it is in vain for any one to be our foe." Charnock says: "Conformity to God in purity is the fruit of electing love. He has chosen us that we should be holy. Ephesians 1:4. The goodness of the fruit evidences the nature of the root; this is the seal that assures us the patent is the authentic grant of the prince." John Newton says: "Admitting the total depravity of human nature, how can we account for the conversion of a soul to God, unless we likewise admit an election of grace? The work must begin somewhere. Either the sinner first seeks the Lord, or the Lord first seeks the sinner. The former is impossible, if by nature we are dead in trespasses and sins. Let me appeal to yourself. I think you know yourself too well to say that you either sought or loved the Lord first." Flavel says: "God has chosen some to salvation and passed by others." "God’s choice was not on foreseen works, but merely of his grace, and good pleasure of his will." Leighton says: "The foreknowledge of God is no other than that eternal love of God, or decree of election, by which some are appointed unto life, and being foreknown or elected to that end, are predestinate to the way of it." "That thus he chooses some, and rejects others, is for that great end—to manifest and magnify his mercy and justice. But why he appointed this man for the one, and that man for the other, made Peter a vessel of this mercy, and Judas of wrath, this is even so, because it seemed good to him. This, if it is harsh, yet is apostolic doctrine. Has not the potter (says Paul) power over the clay, of the same lump to make one vessel unto honor and another unto dishonor? This deep we must admire, and always, in considering it, close with this: O the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God!" A class of honest but timid people, who embrace these views, yet ask, Should this doctrine be preached? The answer is in the affirmative: 1. Because Christ and his Apostles preached it. Their example is safe. 2. It is conducive to holiness when rightly understood and sincerely loved. 3. It is full of comfort to the humble. But then it should be preached as Christ and his Apostles preached it. Augustine says: "Both the grace of free election and predestination, and also wholesome admonitions and doctrines are to be preached." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 78: 04.16. GOD'S WORD TEACHES THE DOCTRINES OF GRACE; THE FATHERS ======================================================================== God’s Word Teaches the Doctrines of Grace. The Church Fathers. The doctrine of gratuitous salvation is prominent in the teachings of inspired men. It is implied in the whole structure of revelation. It is expressly taught in many places. Even on Mount Sinai, amidst all the grandeur and terror of that scene, the Lord passed by and proclaimed himself, "The Lord, the Lord God, merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth, keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity, transgression and sin, and that will by no means clear the guilty." Exodus 34:6-7. Although in this passage we have a clear revelation of God’s inflexible justice, yet we have also a rich variety of expression revealing his grace. That great patriot, soldier, and statesman, renowned for his piety in days of general wickedness, Nehemiah, having given an account of all his labors, perils and sufferings says: "Remember me, O my God, concerning this also, and spare me according to the greatness of your mercy." Nehemiah 13:22. To this day convinced and penitent sinners find no language more appropriate to their needs, when pleading for mercy and asking for grace, than that used by David, by Daniel, and other Old Testament saints. The needs of sinners as such are in all ages the same. The parable of the pharisee and the publican, the parable of the prodigal son, the parable of the two debtors, and many other teachings of Jesus Christ, clearly show that he led men to hope for salvation as a gift, and in no other way. One of our Lord’s sayings has been very dear to afflicted consciences ever since it was uttered, and shall be so while the world stands: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have everlasting life." But in the Epistles, especially those of Paul, the doctrines of grace are stated with great clearness and fullness. In particular the fact of our salvation being a gratuity is unmistakably announced. The following texts are considered sufficient: "But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished—he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus. Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith." Romans 3:21-27. Here we are taught: 1. that the righteousness of God is without the law; 2. that it yet meets the demands of law, for God is just, when he justifies; 3. that boasting is, by God’s method of saving, cut off in every case; 4. that this is done not by works but by faith. Soon afterwards Paul speaks thus: "Now to him that works, is the reward not reckoned of grace, but of debt. But to him that works not, but believes on Him that justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted for righteousness." Romans 4:4. 5. Here whatever works mean, faith is just the opposite; whatever debt is, grace is its opposite. If you owe a man a shilling and pay it, you do not bestow on him a gift. If you owe him nothing and hand him a shilling, it is not paying a debt. The same thing cannot be both a gratuity and the payment of a debt. Again: "Where sin abounded, grace did much more abound, that as sin has reigned unto death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life, by Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 5:20-21. Here we have, 1. the utter ruin of man "sin abounded;" 2. the glory and fullness of God’s scheme for saving men "grace did much more abound;" 3. God saves not by trampling on justice, but "grace reigns through righteousness;" 4. the salvation of the gospel is not limited by the temporal blessings it brings—grace reigns "unto eternal life;" 5. no man is the author of his own salvation, but it is all "by Jesus Christ our Lord." Again: "The gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6:23. Nor did Paul teach one doctrine to the Romans, and a different doctrine to other churches. To the Galatians he says: "We who are Jews by birth and not ’Gentile sinners’ know that a man is not justified by observing the law, but by faith in Jesus Christ. So we, too, have put our faith in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by observing the law, because by observing the law no one will be justified. I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not set aside the grace of God, for if righteousness could be gained through the law, Christ died for nothing!" Galatians 2:15-16, Galatians 2:20-21. He could not more clearly teach that a denial of gratuitous salvation subverts the whole gospel scheme. Indeed he teaches clearly that "All who rely on observing the law are under a curse, for it is written: ’Cursed is everyone who does not continue to do everything written in the Book of the Law.’ Clearly no one is justified before God by the law, because, "The righteous will live by faith." Galatians 3:10-11. Again: "You who are trying to be justified by law have been alienated from Christ; you have fallen away from grace. But by faith we eagerly await through the Spirit the righteousness for which we hope." Galatians 5:4-5. To the Corinthians he says: "By the grace of God I am what I am." 1 Corinthians 15:10. To a fourth church he twice says: "By grace are you saved." Ephesians 2:5, Ephesians 2:8. To another he says that God even our Father "has loved us, and given us everlasting consolation and good hope through grace." 2 Thessalonians 2:16. To Titus he says that "not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to his mercy has he saved us." If any want yet other proofs they can consult Romans 3:24; Romans 5:4, Romans 5:8, Romans 5:15, Romans 5:17, Romans 5:20-21. Paul takes pains to remind us that grace excludes works, and works grace. He argues that if salvation be "by grace, then it is no more by works: otherwise grace is no more grace. But if it be of works, then it is no more grace: otherwise work is no more work." Wages is one thing, a debt is another thing. The merits of men, if pleaded for righteousness, exclude the merits of Christ. The merits of Christ, if accepted for salvation, exclude our own merits. It is truly refreshing to find the early writers of the Christian church, after the apostles’ days, speaking so clearly as they often do on this subject. Clement of Rome, a cotemporary and fellow laborer of Paul, referring to the Old Testament Fathers says: "All were glorified and exalted, not by themselves, nor by their works, nor by the righteousness they have wrought out, but by his will. We, therefore, being called by his will in Christ, are not justified by ourselves, nor by our own wisdom, understanding or piety, nor by any works, which we have wrought in the holiness of our hearts; but we are justified by faith, by which God Almighty has justified all from the beginning of the world." Polycarp, the disciple of John and the venerable witness of Christ, says: "Let us incessantly and steadfastly adhere to Him, who is our hope, and the pledge of our righteousness, Jesus Christ, who bore our sins in his own body on the tree: who did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, but he suffered all on our account, that we might live in him." Justin Martyr says that God "gave his own Son a propitiation for us, the Holy One for transgressors, the innocent for the guilty, the just for the unjust, the incorruptible for the corrupt, for what else could cover our sins but his righteousness? In whom was it possible that we, who are guilty and ungodly, could be justified, except in the Son of God alone? O unsearchable wonder! O unexpected benefit! that the sins of many should be hid in one—and that the righteousness of one should justify many transgressors." Macarius says that, "whatever good a man does by natural strength, can never save him without the grace of Jesus Christ." Ambrose says, "If so be that justification, which is by grace, were due unto merits going before, so that it should not be a gift of the giver, but a reward of the worker—the redemption by the blood of Christ would grow to be of small account, and the prerogative of man’s works would not yield unto the mercies of God." Again: "They are evidently blessed, whose iniquities are forgiven, without any labor or work, and whose sins are covered, no help of repentance being required of them, but only this—that they believe." Again: "They are justified freely, because that working nothing, nor requiting anything, by faith alone they are justified, by the gift of God." Hilary says: "It offended the Scribes, that man should forgive sin, (for they beheld nothing but man in Jesus Christ) and that he should forgive that which the law could not release. For faith alone does justify." Chrysostom says: "Our works, if there be any consequent on God’s gratuitous vocation, are a retribution and a debt; but the gifts of God are grace, beneficence, and immense liberality." In remarking on these words, "that we might be made the righteousness of God in him," he exclaims, "What a saying! what mind can comprehend it? For he made a just person a sinner, that he might make sinners just! He does not say, he made him a sinner, but sin, that we might be made righteousness, even the righteousness of God. For it is of God, since not of works (which would require spotless perfection) but by grace we are justified, where all sin is blotted out." And as Paul among inspired men, so Augustine among the Fathers stands out the great champion of the doctrines of grace. He says: "Let human merit, which was lost by Adam, here be silent, and let the grace of God reign through Jesus Christ." "The saints ascribe nothing to their own merits; they will ascribe all, O God, only to your mercy." "And when a man sees that whatever good he has, he has it not from himself, but from his God, he sees that all that is commended in him, proceeds not from his own merits, but from the divine mercy." "You cannot deliver yourself. You have need of a Savior. Why do you vaunt yourself?" ======================================================================== CHAPTER 79: 04.17. WHAT THE MARTYRS TAUGHT; THE REFORMERS; OTHER GODLEY MEN ======================================================================== What the martyrs taught. The reformers. Other godly men. Did you ever hear of a martyr dying in the triumphs of self-righteousness, giving glory to human nature, lauding his own ability, extolling his own works? All those faithful witnesses held one doctrine, namely—that works avail nothing, and grace is everything. Hear blessed old Tyndall: "If you would obtain heaven by the merits and deservings of your own works, you wrong and shame the blood of Christ. Faith alone justifies. In believing we receive the Spirit of God, who is the pledge of eternal life; and we are in eternal life already, and already feel in our heart the sweetness thereof, and are overcome with the kindness of God, and of Christ, and therefore we love the will of God, and of love are ready to work freely." And that ever-honored man, great Patrick Hamilton, burned at St. Andrews in the year 1527, spoke no less decisively. He said: "No man is justified by the deeds of the law, but by the faith of Christ. He was punished for you, and therefore you shall not be punished. I do not say we ought to do no good deeds; but I say we should do no good works to the intent to obtain remission of sins, and the inheritance of heaven, for God says—Your sins are forgiven for my Son’s sake, and you shall have the inheritance of heaven for my Son’s sake. I condemn not good deeds, but I condemn trust in any works; for all the works, wherein a man puts any confidence, are by his confidence poisoned, and become evil; therefore you must do good works, and beware of doing them with the view to deserve any good for them. In a Christian man’s life, and in order of doctrine, there is the law, repentance, hope, charity, and the deeds of charity; yet in the act of justification there is nothing else in man that has part or place but faith alone, apprehending the object, which is Christ crucified, in whom is all the worthiness and fullness of our salvation." Robert Barnes, an English martyr of great eminence, says: "All the merit and goodness, grace and favor, and all that is in Christ to our salvation—is imputed and reckoned unto us because we hang and believe on him." Cranmer says that when we believe, "God does no more impute unto us our former sins, but he does impute and give unto us the justice and righteousness of his Son Jesus Christ, who suffered for us." The Marquis of Argyle on the scaffold said, "Many look on my condition as a suffering condition; but I bless the Lord, that he who has gone before me, has trod the wine-press of the Father’s wrath; by whose sufferings, I hope that my sufferings shall not be eternal. I bless him that has taken away the sting of my sufferings: I may say that my charter was sealed today; for the Lord has said to me, ’Son, be of good cheer, your sins are freely forgiven you!’ And so I hope my sufferings shall be very easy." James Guthrie on the scaffold said, "I bless God and die not as a fool; not that I have anything wherein to glory in myself; I acknowledge that I am a sinner, yes, one of the greatest and vilest that has owned a profession of religion, and one of the most unworthy that has preached the gospel; my corruptions have been strong and many, and have made me a sinner in all things, yes, even in following my duty; and therefore, righteousness have I none of mine own; all is vile; but I do believe that ’Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.’ Through faith in his righteousness and blood have I obtained mercy; and through him and him alone have I the hope of a blessed conquest and victory over sin, and Satan, and hell, and death." In Revelation 7:9-17, John gives us the following account of the martyrs in glory, corresponding exactly with the foregoing views of the martyrs on earth. "After this I looked and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: "Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb." All the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures. They fell down on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying: "Amen! Praise and glory and wisdom and thanks and honor and power and strength be to our God for ever and ever. Amen!" Then one of the elders asked me, "These in white robes--who are they, and where did they come from?" I answered, "Sir, you know." And he said, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore, "they are before the throne of God and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will spread his tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; he will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes." Many other great men, whose praise has long been in the churches speak the same things. In his article of Justification, Luther says: "This is the true gospel, Jesus Christ redeemed us from our sins, and he alone. This most firm and certain truth is the voice of Scripture, though the world and all the devils rage and roar. If Christ alone takes away our sins, we cannot do this with our works; and as it is impossible to embrace Christ but by faith, it is therefore impossible to apprehend him by works. If, then, faith alone must apprehend Christ before works can follow, the conclusion is irrefragable, that faith alone apprehends him, before and without the consideration of works; and this is our justification and deliverance from sin. Then, and not until then, good works follow faith, as its necessary and inseparable fruit." Calvin in his last will says: "I witness and declare that I intend not to seek any other aid or refuge for salvation, than his free adoption, in which alone salvation rests; and with my whole heart I embrace the mercy which he has used with me for Jesus Christ’s sake, recompensing my faults with the merit of his death and passion, that satisfaction might be made by this means for all my sins and crimes, and the remembrance of them be blotted out. I witness also and declare, that I humbly beg of him, that being washed and cleansed in the blood of that highest Redeemer shed for the sins of mankind, I may stand at the judgment-seat under the image of my Redeemer." Zwingle in his famous Articles issued in 1523, says: "Christ is the only way of salvation to all who ever have lived, are living now, or ever shall live." Again, "Christ is our righteousness. Hence it follows that our works are so far good, as they are of Christ; but as far as they are ours, they are not truly good." Peter Martyr says: "If faith itself be considered as our act, it is impossible we should be justified by it, because faith, in this view of it, is lame and imperfect, and falls short of that completeness which the law requires. We are said to be justified by faith because it is by faith that we lay hold upon, and apply to ourselves the promises of God, and the righteousness and merits of Christ." Leighton says: "Free grace, being rightly apprehended, is that which stays the heart in all estates. What though there be nothing in myself—but matter of sorrow and discomfort; it cannot be otherwise. It is not from myself I look for comfort at any time, but from my God and his free grace. Here is comfort enough for all times! When I am at the best, I ought not, I dare not, rely on myself. When at the worst, I may and should rely upon Christ, and his sufficient grace." Whitefield says that some "are for doing what they can themselves, and then Jesus Christ is to make up the deficiencies of their righteousness. This is the sum and substance of our modern divinity. And was it possible for me to know the thoughts of most that hear me this day, I believe they would tell me this was the scheme they had laid, and perhaps depended on, for some years, for their eternal salvation. Is it not then high time, my brethren, for you to entertain quite different thoughts concerning justification by Jesus Christ? Salvation is the free gift of God. I know no fitness in man but a fitness to be cast into the lake of fire and brimstone forever! Our righteous deeds in God’s sight, are but as filthy rags. He casts our best works away. Our holiness, if we have any, is not the cause, but the effect of our justification in God’s sight. ’We love him because he first loved us.’ Our salvation is all of God from the beginning to the end; it is not of works lest any man should boast. Man has no hand in it." Pemble says that our assent to the promise of God must be "of the whole heart, in trust, reliance, dependence, adherence, affiance, or, if there be any other word, expressing that action of the soul, whereby it casts and reposes itself only upon God’s promise in Christ for obtaining eternal happiness. The heart, touched with the spirit of grace, throws itself into Christ’s arms, grasping him with all its might. Hiding itself in the clefts of this rock from the storms of God’s furious indignation, it bespeaks Christ in all the terms of confidence and affiance—my Lord, my God, my hope, my fortress, my rock, my strength." Beart in his treatise entitled the Eternal Law and Everlasting Gospel says: "The essence of the Gospel is a free promise, free gift, free grace: ’A Savior! A Savior!’ is the loud proclamation of the Gospel. Justification, as it is the application of the righteousness of Christ, in the Spirit’s working faith, has an unbelieving ungodly man for its object; as it is an acquittance or declaring righteous, so it has a believer for its object, God, who justifies the ungodly, the justifier of him who believes in Jesus. That faith in Christ as a priest is the foundation of all obedience to him as a king, must be inculcated. O here lies God’s order—to bring a soul to Christ, and then he is brought to holiness! Man’s order is—to bring him to holiness, that he may come to Christ. But this is to try to wash the Ethiopian white." Toplady says: "Fallen man can never know what it is to speed his way to the kingdom of heaven, and make large advances in sanctification, until his progress is halted by a full submission to the righteousness of God the Son, as the sole procuring cause of eternal blessedness." Among the dying words of John Brown of Haddington were these: "O what a mercy that my admission into eternal life does not in the least depend on my ability for anything; but I, as a poor sinner, will win in leaning on Christ, as the Lord my righteousness; on Christ ’made of God unto me righteousness, sanctification and redemption.’ I have nothing to sink my spirits but my sins; and these need not sink me either, since the great God is my Savior." "I have altered my mind about many things; but I am now of the same mind that ever I was, as to grace and salvation through Christ." One of Nevins’s dying sayings was: "I recommend Christ to you; I have nothing else to recommend." And blessed McCheyne said: "Live within sight of Calvary and you will live within sight of glory." Vinet says, "Grace, as it is manifested in the Gospel, is the most splendid homage which the law can receive. The same act proclaims the compassion of God, and the inflexibility of his justice." As Dr. Nettleton drew very near his end, he said—"the great truths of the Gospel appear more precious than ever; and they are the truths which now sustain my soul." Again: "I do not need anybody to tell me that the doctrines of grace are true. I am fully convinced of the truth by my own experience." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 80: 04.18. THE GRACE OF CHRIST - LIKE THAT OF THE FATHER AND THE SPIRIT ======================================================================== The Grace of Christ is not different from that of the Father or Spirit It would be a great mistake if any should suppose that the grace of Christ is greater than that of the Father or of the Spirit, or that the love of Christ differs from the love of the first and third persons of the Trinity. The truth is, the grace of each person of the Godhead in man’s salvation is absolutely infinite and amazing. The "help of the Spirit," and "the love of the Spirit," are forms of expression as dear to the church of God as any found in Scripture. So also when "grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ," are brought to our notice, we see at once how inspiration refuses to separate between the love and grace of one person, and the love and grace of another person of the Godhead. Sometimes all three persons are spoken of in one verse, as in 2 Corinthians 13:14. "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all." The concord of the divine persons is no less than the harmony of the divine attributes in the work of man’s salvation. The Father pitied our case, and gave his Son, and sends his Spirit. The Son loved us, came and died for us, is ascended up on high to plead for us, and unites with the Father in sending the Spirit. The Holy Spirit loved us, and illuminates, regenerates, sanctifies and comforts all the people of God. So that while the phrase "grace of God" has at times, no doubt, special reference to the kindness of the Father, it yet appropriately expresses the mercy and favor of the entire Godhead. The Bible no where represents to us a Trinity divided in counsels, in purposes, in works, in being or in glory. Creation, providence and redemption are the works of all united. In all of these each person has equal and undivided honors. The death of the man Christ Jesus, was the fruit, and not the cause of the love of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Spirit towards our race. The first and third persons of the Trinity are as compassionate and loving as is the second. The love of Father, Son and Holy Spirit is shown in Christ Jesus, being the way, the truth and the life. Yet nothing here said is designed to diminish our love for Christ, but on the contrary to heighten it. His grace is indeed an expression of the unfailing good will of the Creator of the ends of the earth. To those who believe Christ is precious. Calvin well says "Since we see that the whole of our salvation, and all the branches of it, are comprehended in Christ, we must be cautious not to alienate from him the least possible portion of it. If we seek salvation, we are taught by the name of JESUS that it is in him; if we seek any other gifts of the Spirit, they are found in his unction; strength, in his dominion; purity, in his conception; grace discovers itself in his nativity; by which he was made to resemble us in all things, that he might learn to condole with us. If we seek redemption, it will be found in his passion; absolution, in his condemnation; remission of the curse, in his cross; sanctification, in his sacrifice; purification, in his blood; reconciliation, in his descent into hell; mortification of the flesh, in his sepulcher; newness of life and immortality, in his resurrection; the inheritance of the celestial kingdom, in his entrance into heaven; protection, security, abundance and enjoyment of all blessings, in his kingdom; a fearless expectation of the judgment, in the judicial authority committed to him. Finally, blessings of every kind are deposited in him; let us draw from his treasury and from no other source, until our desires are satisfied; for they who, not content with him alone, are driven hither and there into a variety of hopes, although they fix their eyes principally on him, nevertheless deviate from the right way in the diversion of any part of their attention to another quarter. This distrust however cannot intrude where the plenitude of his blessings has once been truly known." Nor is it necessary to be continually on our guard lest by giving divine honors to one we should offend the other persons of the Trinity. He who honors the Son, honors the Father. God is one, though subsisting in three persons. Worship offered to one person of the Godhead with the intention of slighting the others would indeed be an abomination. But a heart full of love to the Father for giving his Son, will be sure to love the Son, who came, and the Spirit who anointed him. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 81: 04.19. NO SALVATION BUT BY A REDEEMER, AND NO REDEEMER BUT CHRIST ======================================================================== No Salvation but by a Redeemer, and no Redeemer but Christ The Lord is a holy God. He hates all sin, yes, he abhors it. His aversion to it is infinite. Moreover, he is a Lawgiver and Governor. In this respect his character must be maintained. God cannot deny himself. He cannot deny his right to rule. He cannot permit transgression in his dominions to go unpunished. He cannot but justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked. When man sinned he fell under the wrath of God, the indignation of the King Eternal. His ruin was entire. What was to be done in his case? The following are the only courses, which can be conceived of. 1. God had power and authority, if he had seen fit, to annihilate the human race. But to this course the objections are numerous and insurmountable. Dreadful as is annihilation, it has never been shown to be an adequate punishment for sin. So far as we know, God never has annihilated, and never will annihilate anything, which he has made. Even the fires of the last day will but change and not destroy the elements on which they will kindle. Had God extinguished our race, he would have left this lower world without an intelligent head. In that case no reasonable service, no song of thanksgiving could ever have been rendered to the Maker of heaven and earth by any inhabitant of our globe. Besides, who is the Lord, that he should repent? Having begun to build he was able to finish, and he determined to prove that he was neither disappointed nor baffled. 2. A second course, conceivable in our case was that Jehovah should without delay and without mercy consign the entire human family to hopeless, endless misery. This would have been just, gloriously just and right. Our elder brethren, the sinning angels, had received this doom, and all heaven had pronounced their sentence righteous. But had this been done in the case of man, not an individual of our entire race of intelligent beings would have remained a worshiper of the God who made us; nor would earth have ever resounded with a single hosanna. Like hell our globe would have sent up only wailings, howlings, blasphemies, and the smoke of its torment forever and ever. Men would have been solemn monuments of inexorable justice; but none of them would have ever illustrated God’s long-suffering, or his loving-kindness. Yet the justice of such a doom being absolute, sentence of eternal banishment pronounced against the entire race would have wronged no one, and, being what had before fallen. on rebel angels, could hardly have surprised anyone. 3. The third conceivable course for God to pursue was entirely to overlook man’s sin and rebellion, and take him into the divine embrace, though steeped in guilt and reeking in pollution. This is conceivable, but not admissible. For then the universe would have seen the divine government trampled on, and that with impunity, the eternal law broken, and the Lawgiver consenting to such rebellion. This course must have not only shaken but destroyed all confidence in the rectitude of the divine character. In that case the government of the universe must have been dissolved, and war and anarchy and rebellion have reigned and rioted forever. Seriously to suppose that God should ever consent to let sin pass unnoticed is to conceive blasphemy. 4. The last conceivable course to be pursued in man’s case, was to adopt some method, by which to satisfy the demands of law, and yet save the sinner; maintain the glory of divine justice, and yet rescue the criminal offender. What that method of deliverance should be, no creature could tell. Sin had wrought such mischief, and was in its nature so deadly and malignant, that God himself is in Scripture represented as wondering that none could provide a remedy. Our case is well described by Jehovah: "When I passed by you, and looked upon you, behold your time was the time of love; and I spread my skirt over you, and covered your nakedness; yes, I swore unto you, and entered into a covenant with you, says the Lord God." A ransom, a Mediator were spoken of, but where a sufficient Savior could be found, no man, no angel could tell. Who could pay a full, an adequate redemption price? The law violated and dishonored by transgression, the law to be satisfied and magnified in man’s recovery was glorious in holiness, absolutely incapable of amendment, and infinitely perfect. It was suited and intended to be universal, binding every rational creature to all eternity. The only perfectly happy society that ever existed was a community wholly conformed to its precepts. The only absolutely miserable and intolerable state of personal or social existence ever known was where all the precepts of this law were constantly broken. How could reparation be made to such a government violated? How could a ransom be provided for such transgressors? Suppose man should offer to God all the products of the earth, all its grain and all its mines, all its fruits and all its cattle. At the very best, man could offer but some of these, for he must use a part in order to subsist. The residue he might indeed offer. But if men come with any decent regard to truth in making such offerings they would say as David of old: "Who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of you, and of your own have we given you." 1 Chronicles 29:14. A company of beggars in going to ask alms of a rich man might drive up his flocks and his herds to stand before him, or might bring the fruits of his fields and lay them at his feet, but these were all his before they brought them before him, and so could not purchase anything from him. So God says, "the earth is mine and the cattle upon a thousand hills." The gifts we can bring from the store-house of nature all belong to God already, and so can make no atonement, can be no price which he will accept as from us. A citizen of a free and sovereign State lawfully gets into his possession five million dollars of her funds, and then not only embezzles the whole amount, but also commits treason and is arrested and brought to trial. He proposes to stop all legal proceedings by delivering up all the money except one thousand dollars, which sum he has spent, and has nothing besides. Can the government accede to his proposal? It may be in great straits for funds, it may see no way of escaping bankruptcy unless it can recover the sum lost or near that amount; it may see that without the consent of the guilty man it can recover nothing. Under these circumstances it may accept his offer, but when it does, it clearly admits its own weakness and imperfection. It declares that there are cases of atrocious crime and novel difficulty, where it cannot bring the law to bear, except by sustaining a loss too great for its own resources. But the divine government could never accede to such a compounding of crime. It would tarnish all its glory. It can bring every offender to justice. It holds all the wicked in the grasp of its omnipotence. It knows all their secrets, all their accomplices, all their hiding-places. It is never in straits. To allow men to redeem themselves by silver and gold or the fruits of the earth would have been a mockery of all justice. Nor could bloody sacrifices of animals have been a ransom. As property the animals slain belonged to God already: and as sacrifices they never did nor could have any efficacy in setting aside the penalty of the moral law. They never were at all acceptable to God—except as appointed by himself to be the types of the sacrifice of his Son. Viewed in any other light, "When such people sacrifice an ox, it is no more acceptable than a human sacrifice. When they sacrifice a lamb or bring an offering of grain, it is as bad as putting a dog or the blood of a pig on the altar! When they burn incense, it is as if they had blessed an idol." Isaiah 66:3. So that it was impossible to make satisfaction in this way. Nor could man by voluntary suffering, self-inflicted, work out his own redemption. He cannot do this when he has offended a merely human government, The murderer found guilty and sentenced to death is never permitted by total or partial fasting, by sighing and groaning, by beating himself with rods, or tearing himself with pincers to set aside the penalty of the law. The reason is that all these sufferings do not satisfy the law. They are not the penalty provided. So under the government of God voluntary beating of the body, though in the eyes of the simple they have a show of wisdom, can never redeem a soul, can never satisfy God’s law. Nor can present or future reformation atone for past sins. The very best obedience, which can possibly be rendered, is due, always was due, always will be due to God. He, who owes a thousand dollars, cannot discharge that debt by being careful to contract no new debts. A man may have lived a blameless life for half a century. He may then commit murder; but he cannot plead his former good conduct, nor give the amplest security for future good behavior, in order to set aside the penalty incurred by murder. Under God’s government all our obedience is God’s right, and to give him his right at one time cannot redeem us from the guilt of transgression at another. Nor can one man redeem another. All men are guilty and have forfeited their lives by their own sins. When two pirates are condemned to death, one of them cannot die for the other, for the reason that he has to die for himself. Two manslayers are sentenced for life to close prison. One cannot take the place of the other, and so let him go free. Redemption, therefore, by any human means or merits was absolutely out of the question. Nor could angels atone for men. Of course the sufferings of fallen angels, though they are the pains of hell, being due for their own transgressions, could be no ransom for us. Nor could holy angels make atonement or bring in righteousness for others. All the obedience they can render is due for themselves. They can have no surplus of merit beyond their own needs. Nor could they by suffering ever exhaust the penalty due for man’s sins. An angel is finite. The law violated and the justice offended are infinite. Sin is therefore an infinite evil. In an angel an eternity of suffering would be necessary to redeem one man from hell. The sin of even one man would, if imputed to an angel, send him to prison forever. Had his mediation been admitted, where would have been the gain in the happiness of the universe? Then too a sinner pardoned would have been bound forever to ascribe his redemption not only to a mere creature, but to that creature ever suffering in hell the penalty due to the ransomed spirit, whose substitute he had become. In this way no end would ever be made of transgression. The suffering substitute could never rise triumphant and say, "It is finished." And the redeemed would have praised in the highest notes and with the deepest sense of obligation their deliverer, and that deliverer would have still been enduring the penalty. Such would have been the confusion, disorder, and idolatry of admitting an angel or angels to undertake the work of redemption. Besides, any holy angel must have been forever unfit for the work of mediation, as he is not able as a days-man to lay his hand upon both God and man. The highest created angel is infinitely inferior to God. For him to claim equality with God would have been robbery indeed. He never could have appeared before God with authority, asserting a right to dominion over any part of his works. He never could have been admitted into the counsels of eternity. He would have been looked upon with a righteous jealousy by God himself as a rival in his kingdom and for his throne. His intercessions must therefore have failed. He never could have said, "Father, I WILL," without great presumption. Nor could any holy angel ever have sympathized with man, either as a sufferer or as a sinner, to such an extent as would have fitted him to be a Redeemer. Angels know not what suffering is. In their natures they are quite ignorant of what are the real feelings of men. They know nothing by experience of the natural affections of men. They understand not the hard pressure of poverty, or shame. Being holy and yet finite in their compassions, no one of them could endure the recital of our offences without utter dislike to our persons. Before he had learned half of the details and aggravating circumstances of any one’s crimes, he would have turned away with unspeakable loathing from the shocking tale of human guilt. He would have said, "Such a sinner ought to perish—must perish—I can have no sympathy with him." It is indeed well for us that our salvation does not depend on the mercies of an angel. If it did, our doom would soon be sealed. The reason is that our case requires a height, a depth, a length and a breadth of compassion and grace to be found in but one being in the universe. "It is of the Lord’s mercies," yes, "it is of the Lord’s mercies that we are not consumed." Nor upon any admissible supposition could one angel have redeemed many souls. Had one of them become a mediator, he could not have saved any considerable number of the human family. So that still nearly all the inhabitants of earth must have perished, or there must have been millions of redeemers, and consequently as many different objects, to whom loud praises and eternal thanks should have been rendered. And as redemption is a greater blessing than creation, each person thus saved would forever have felt himself more indebted to a creature than to the Creator, inasmuch as the deliverer of each one would in the case supposed have been a creature. Such are some of the monstrous results, to which the admission of a finite mediator would have led. So that we are shut up to the admission that no finite being could ever fitly or successfully have undertaken our cause. None of these difficulties lie in the way of Christ’s mediation. Nor could there be any objection to his undertaking our cause, unless it were one of the following, namely: 1. That God was unwilling to admit any interposition in our behalf. Such unwillingness would have been no injustice to us. Our mouths must have been forever stopped, if he had treated us as he treated rebel angels. But God, ever blessed be his name, pitied us, and was willing to save us. He rejoiced to send his Son. He delivered him up freely. He so loved the world that he gave him not grudgingly, nor reluctantly, but freely and graciously. God, therefore, as the offended Lawgiver, made no objection to Christ’s mediation. 2. Or it would have been a valid objection to Christ’s mediation, if he himself had been unwilling to become our surety. For eternal justice to have seized upon any innocent victim and led him forth a reluctant sufferer in the room and stead of others, would have been a procedure, which we could never justify. The Spirit of God, knowing how this point would come up before our minds, has mercifully and completely relieved all our apprehensions on the subject. By the Psaulmist he declares in the name of Christ, "Lo, I come, I delight to do your will, O my God." And in the Gospel we are informed by Christ himself that his sufferings were voluntary. His words are: "I lay down my life that I might take it again. No man takes it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again." John 10:17-18. If in any sense Christ was constrained to suffer for us, it was only by his amazing love and mercy to the lost. 3. Or if the satisfaction rendered, or to be rendered, had fallen short of what might justly have been required by the law of God, or by the good of his dominions, this would have been an objection to Christ’s mediation. If Christ’s interposition was in any way to diminish the due force of law, or the just power of government in any province of God’s empire; if, in short, it could be fairly construed as a relaxation of moral obligation, a concession to iniquity, then indeed there would have been a valid objection to Christ’s undertaking. But the Son of God gave for man’s redemption as heavy a ransom as justice, law, the conscience of man, the judgment of angels, or the infinite holiness of God demanded. He paid the full price. He drank the cup of bitterness even to the dregs thereof. He magnified the law and made it honorable. God’s abhorrence of sin is more clearly expressed in the cross of Christ, than in the flames of hell. Even the most tender and enlightened conscience of the most guilty man says of Christ’s satisfaction, whenever it is divinely revealed, "This is enough—I ask no more—I end my quest of atonement here." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 82: 04.20. THE CONSTITUTION OF CHRIST'S PERSON; HIS GRACE THEREIN ======================================================================== The Constitution of Christ’s Person. His Grace Therein Nothing in the Christian religion has been the subject of so much error as the person of our Lord Jesus Christ. Some have denied that he was God. Some have said that he was a ’created god’. Some have denied that he had a true body, and some that he had a reasonable created soul. Some have held that he had two persons, and some that one of his natures absorbed the other. The apostles were not all dead when Ebion and Cerinthus denied our Lord’s divinity. To counteract their dangerous opinions John wrote his Gospel. Their error was revived, though in a form somewhat varied, by Arius and his followers in the fourth century, by the Socinians of the seventeenth century, and by still more modern Unitarians. Most of these perhaps have held simply to Christ’s humanity. Some, however, have spoken of our Lord as a ’created god’. Duly considered, this must appear absurd. The greatest gulf in the universe is that which separates the finite from the infinite, the creature from the Creator. A God, not self-existent, eternal, independent and unchangeable—is no God. He, who has these attributes—is the supreme God. The Manicheans denied that Christ had a true body. Consistency compelled them to deny his death. Others have held that the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit were one person, became incarnate and suffered on the cross. Indeed the forms of error on this whole subject have been almost countless. The enmity of the human heart against God has brought all its strength, violence and ingenuity to destroy the corner-stone, or to remove it out of our sight. What then is the truth on this subject? I. Jesus Christ had and has a DIVINE nature. He was truly God. He is expressly called "God," "God and our Savior Jesus Christ," "The great God and our Savior Jesus Christ," "the Lord their God," "the true God and eternal life," "Emmanuel, God with us," "Jehovah," "Lord Almighty," "Lord of lords," "King of kings," "the mighty God," "the everlasting Father." That he existed before his incarnation it requires great boldness to deny. He often asserts this truth. "Before Abraham was, I am." "And now, O Father, glorify me with your own self, with the glory which I had with you before the world was." "I came down from heaven." "What if you shall see the Son of man ascend up where he was before." John 6:38, John 6:62; John 8:58; John 17:5. Paul says: "He is before all things." Colossians 1:17. These texts clearly prove two things: 1. That Christ existed before he was born in the days of Herod. But as his human nature then had its beginning, it must have been in some other nature that he was before Abraham, and had glory with the Father before the world was. 2. That if he was before all things, he had an uncaused existence, and so was God. Christ was also the Creator of all things. "All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." John 1:3. "You, Lord, in the beginning have laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands." Hebrews 1:10. The Maker of all things, of the heaven and of the earth, is God. There is none above him, none more worthy of love and fear. Paul says, that he, "being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God." Php 2:6. The only thing which could hinder such a claim from being the most daring robbery was that it was well founded, and that he was God. In Revelation 1:8, he gives this account of himself: "I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, says the Lord, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty." Is not that being God? In 1 Timothy 3:16, Paul says, "God was manifest in the flesh." But God was not manifest in the flesh, unless he was there in the person of him who took our flesh. If any should say that the meaning simply is that virtue, which is conformity to God, was manifest in the flesh of Christ, the reply is at hand; 1. There is not a word said about virtue in the text or context. The words are "God was manifest." 2. Where would be the propriety of calling virtue a great mystery? Paul says, "Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifest," etc. 3. This interpretation ill suits the remainder of the passage: "He was justified in the Spirit, seen of angels, preached unto the gentiles, believed on in the world, received up into glory." To Christ belongs also the work of universal providence. "By him all things consist," and "he upholds all things by the word of his power." Colossians 1:17. Hebrews 1:3. Can it be possible that a mere creature can do such things? What can Jehovah do in providence to evince his proper divinity more than to uphold all things by his powerful word? Christ is also omniscient. He knows what is in man. John 2:24-25. He searches the heart and tries the thoughts. Revelation 2:23. In short, let any man prove by any scriptural course of argument the divinity of the Father, and by the same process can we establish the divinity of the Son. Is the Father almighty and so divine? So is the Son, Revelation 1:8. Is it a prerogative of the supreme God to forgive sins? Jesus Christ forgives sins. Matthew 9:2-6. Is the supreme God everywhere present? So is Christ. "Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world." "Where two or three are gathered together in my name there am I in the midst of them." Matthew 17:20; Matthew 28:20. If the divinity and supremacy of Jehovah were proven by the miracles in Egypt and the wilderness, the divinity and supremacy of Christ were proven by the miracles in Palestine. They were many; (John 21:25) were wrought for his own glory; (John 2:11) were of a stupendous nature; (John 9:30-33) and were all wrought in his own name, and not in the name of some other person. See every account. Is the Father worshiped by all the holy angels? So is the Son. "When he brings the first-begotten into the world, he says, And let all the angels of God worship him." Hebrews 1:5. Did David devoutly say of Jehovah, "You are my God?" Thomas addressed Jesus, saying, "My Lord and my God." John 20:28. Is the Father now worshiped in heaven? So is the Son. Revelation 5:12-14. So that Jesus Christ is in his preexistent nature God, the true God, equal with the Father. Our Savior is truly divine. II. Christ is as to his created nature truly and properly a MAN. He had entire humanity, as fully as Moses, Paul, or any other man. In proof inspired writers call him a man. "A man shall be as a hiding place," "A man approved of God," "A man of sorrows," "There is one God and one Mediator, the man Christ Jesus." He is often called the Son of Man. This phrase teaches his humanity. Thus we read: "The Son of Man has power to forgive sins," "The Son of Man is Lord even of the Sabbath-day," "Now is the Son of Man glorified." The objection of some that he was not truly a man, because he had no father according to the flesh is of no force, for: 1. He derived his human nature from his mother, and was made of her substance as much as any child derives its nature from its parents. 2. If it is essential to humanity entire and complete, that it be derived from a pair, then Eve, the mother of all living, was not a human being, for she derived her nature through Adam alone. 3. By parity of reasoning, yes, by still stronger reasoning, Adam was not a human being, for he had neither father nor mother. Such are some of the conclusions to which this objection would lead us. Christ’s humanity is also proved by many plain texts of Scripture. "He was made in the likeness of men," "He was found in fashion as a man," "His visage was so marred more than any man." He had eyes, and saw the beauties of nature, even of the lilies of the field. He had ears, and heard the words of friends and of foes. He had all the senses of a man. He ate, he drank, he slept, he awaked, he walked, he rested, he was weary, he was hungry, he was thirsty, he was handled, was bound, was scourged, was smitten, was spit upon, was crowned with thorns, and crucified. He was born, he wept, he bled, he died. Prophecy promised him a body; (Hebrews 10:5, and Psalms 90:6-8,) and Providence gave him a body. Jesus Christ had a soul also, a human soul, a true rational soul. The proof is that he had sentiments of joy and sorrow, of indignation and grief, of compassion and pity, of hope and fear. He had the mental trials and sorrows of men. "He was tempted in all points like as we are." As a son and as a friend none ever more clearly showed that he had true human affections. As he had the body and affections, so also he had the intellect of man. He grew from infancy to manhood, not only in stature but in the strength and scope of his faculties—as other children do, except that he had far more abundant influences of the Spirit than all other children. He had the Spirit without measure. So that his growth in holy wisdom was extraordinary and unparalleled. That he had a human mind is as clear as that he had a human body; and that he had both is as certain as that any other person ever had them. To suppose the contrary is to charge him with imposture, and this is blasphemy. If Christ were not man, how could he be a descendant of Eve; (Genesis 3:15) or of Abraham (Genesis 22:18) or of David, as was often promised? or why did Matthew and Luke in their Gospels give the genealogy of our Lord, if they did not intend to teach that he derived his human nature through a long line of ancestors from Abraham and from Adam? Some would lead us to suppose that Christ had no human soul, but that he merely had a human body, inhabited by his heavenly or pre-existent nature, and in proof they quote such expressions as these: "God was manifest in the flesh," and "The word was made flesh." They contend that the word, flesh, includes the body only. If this is so, their objection has force. Let us see what the truth is. Admitting that the primary meaning of the word was that of the body, yet this was far from being its usual signification. By flesh Paul understands the depraved moral nature of man: "those who are in the flesh cannot please God." The word is often applied to men, as men, so that in the following cases, "all flesh" simply means "all men." "All flesh had corrupted his way." "Unto you shall all flesh come." "Let all flesh bless his holy name forever and ever." "All flesh shall see the salvation of God." Paul therefore intends to teach that God was manifest in the man, Christ Jesus. John in saying "the Word was made flesh," etc., teaches that the Word, which was God, became man, not by the conversion of the divine into the human nature, but by uniting the two. Has it not therefore been shown that Christ had a true, proper, entire human nature, a true body and a reasonable soul? III. The divine and human natures of Christ are united in one person; so that it is proper to speak of the Lord Jesus in the singular number, and not in the plural. When we speak of him we say, "he, his, him," not they, theirs, them. When Christ spoke of himself, both before and after his death and ascension, he said, "I, mine, me," not we, ours, us. There is but one Christ. He is a Lamb, a Priest, a King, a Shepherd, a Savior, a Mediator, a Surety. Though he has two natures, the human and the divine, yet he is but one person, one Redeemer, one Mediator. His human and divine natures are distinct, not separate; distinguishable, not separable. His two natures became one person, not by his human nature seeking to be affianced to his divine nature, but by his divine nature seeking union with the human. For the human nature to have sought union with divinity would have been blameworthy ambition. For the divine nature to seek union with the human was great condescension, unspeakable love. Besides, Christ’s human nature never existed separately from the divine. The union was formed at his conception in the womb of the virgin. The divine nature existed separately from the human nature, and prior to it, and sought union with it, and assumed it into indissoluble union. So the Scriptures do not say that flesh was made the Word, but that "the Word was made flesh," nor that the flesh was made manifest in God, but that "God was made manifest in the flesh." Human nature did not assume divinity; but the divine nature assumed humanity. So the Scriptures say that "being in the form of God, he thought it not robbery to be equal with God, but made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men." He was first rich in all the attributes and glories of Divinity, and by taking a body he became poor, for our good, out of love to us. Here is indeed a wonder, a very marvelous thing, but in it nothing is so marvelous as the love and mercy which it reveals; love and mercy so great that none but the wicked reject them; love and mercy so great that even angels do not comprehend them. Here is the light of men, the life of the world. In this union the natures of Christ are not confused, compounded, or converted one into the other, or absorbed one by the other. His body was and is a true human body, not mixed with his soul or divinity, nor converted into them, yet it is forever united with both. His human soul is as truly a human soul as that of Enoch or Abraham, and will forever so remain. It is not absorbed by his divinity, nor mingled with it, but united with it. So that Christ is the "God-man," possessing at once and henceforth forever, the image of the invisible God and the likeness of men. Thus is constituted the person of our one Lord Jesus Christ, our one Mediator. This is the Bible doctrine on the subject. His conception and birth were miraculous, so that he was born free from the guilt and defilement of original sin. Accordingly Gabriel said unto Mary: "that holy One who shall be born of you, shall be called the Son of God." He was and is in his entire nature holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners. This view of his person gives us the key, by which to unlock the mystery of any text of Scripture relating to that subject. Thus when it is said, he thirsted, he walked, he slept, he ate—the reference is to his body. After his resurrection he said "handle me and see, for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see me have." Surely he thus intended to convince them of the truth and reality of his body. There was no deception in the case. Both before his death and after his resurrection he gave infallible proof of his having a body. There is no absurdity or contradiction here. Corporeally he did as other men do. Another class of texts relates to his human soul. Thus it is said, "He rejoiced in spirit," "he was grieved for the hardness of their hearts," "he began to be sorrowful and very heavy." All these are the acts and exercises of his reasonable human soul, and are in themselves no more inscrutable than the same things said of any other man. Sometimes the Scriptures speak of his entire human nature, soul and body, in the same verse. Thus: "The child grew and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom." Again: "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man." There is nothing more mysterious in this than if the same had been said of any other healthy, pious, amiable child. Again: "He beheld the city and wept over it." Beholding and weeping were bodily acts. But shedding tears, accompanied by his lament over the city, showed that his whole human nature, soul and body, was united, his soul being moved by prophetic visions and heavenly compassions, and his body agitated by his thoughts and pure affections. This is all plain. Thus we all speak and weep, when we think strongly and feel exquisitely. Again we read, "in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by him, and without him was not anything made that was made." This plainly and clearly belongs to his divine nature alone. His human nature was not in the beginning with God, and had no part in the work of creation. But "the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father) full of grace and truth." "God was manifest in the flesh." Thus the person of the Mediator was constituted. He was found in fashion as a man. He was made a little lower than the angels. He humbled himself and became obedient unto death. It is of himself as the Mediator and in a low condition that he says, "The Father is greater than I." But lest this language should mislead any one, and cause them to think that in his divine nature he was inferior to the Father, he said, "I and the Father are one,"’ He who has seen me has seen the Father." To him as Mediator in his exaltation "all power is given in heaven and earth." "All judgment is committed." By his divine nature and by divine right he was fit to be judge of the world—he who was pierced shall be on the throne. The entire person of the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus, shall judge the world. Thus and thus only every text referring to him has a full, fair, plain, consistent sense given to it. This union of the two natures in Christ is most intimate. No union could be more perfect. If the term, one person, can be properly applied to any being in the universe, that being is Christ Jesus, the Lord. So the Scriptures uniformly teach by speaking of him always in the singular. So perfect is this union, that although his divine nature, because divine, could neither suffer nor die, yet we properly speak of him as a divine sufferer. Paul calls his blood the blood of God. "Feed the church of God, which he has purchased with his own blood." The same person is God and man forever. If any say this is a great mystery, the Bible said the same long ago: "Great is the mystery of godliness; God was manifest in the flesh." Anything, which we do not comprehend, is mysterious. But because a thing is incomprehensible, it is not therefore absurd or false. No man comprehends how his soul and body are united; yet no sober man doubts their union. No man knows how an animal frame is nourished by food, yet we all know the fact. How the human will can control the muscles of the body is inexplicable, yet the fact is indisputable. Mysteriousness, so far from disproving a fact, is a property of every fact known to us. Our Lord Jesus undertook the greatest work ever devised, namely, to reconcile God and man. In doing this none but shallow thinkers will expect everything to be level to their comprehension, and none but the unbelieving and abominable will reject his grace, because they discover a mystery in the constitution of his person. The Westminster Assembly thus expresses the whole doctrine of this chapter. "The Son of God, the second person in the Trinity, being very and eternal God, of one substance and equal with the Father, did, when the fullness of time was come, take upon him man’s nature, and all the essential properties and common infirmities thereof, yet without sin: being conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the womb of the virgin Mary, of her substance. So that two whole, perfect, distinct natures, the Godhead and the manhood, were inseparably joined together in one person, without conversion, composition or confusion. Which person is very God and very man, yet one Christ, the only Mediator between God and man." Without giving extended quotations from symbols of faith on this head, it is deemed sufficient to say that the doctrine of this chapter is not controverted in any but Arian, Socinian or Unitarian churches. It is thought, however, that the following extract from the Confession of Belgia may be useful to some: "We believe also, that the person of God’s only and eternal Son was, by his conception, inseparably united and coupled with the human nature; yet so that there be not two Sons of God, nor two persons, but two natures joined together in one person; both which natures do still retain their own properties. So that, as the divine nature has remained always uncreated, without beginning of days or term of life, filling both heaven and earth; so the human nature has not lost its properties, but has remained still a creature, having both beginning of days and a finite nature. For whatever does agree unto a true body, that it still retains. And although Christ, by his resurrection, has bestowed immortality upon it, yet notwithstanding, he has neither taken away the truth of the human nature, nor altered it. For both our salvation, and also our resurrection depend upon the truth of Christ’s body. Yet these two natures are so united and coupled in one person, that they could not, no not in his death, be separated one from the other. Therefore that, which in his death he commended unto his Father, was indeed a human spirit, departing out of his body; but in the mean time, the divine nature did always remain joined to the human, even then when he lay in the grave; so that his Deity was no less in him at that time, than when as yet he was an infant, although for a small season it did not show forth itself. Therefore, we confess that he is true God, and true man; true God, that by his power he might overcome death; and true man, that in the infirmity of his flesh he might die for us." Let us dwell a moment on the grace and mercy of Christ in the constitution of his person. Duly considered, his incarnation is the most amazing step in his humiliation. His first becoming a man is more surprising than his sufferings and death after he became man. Having assumed our nature, we would expect that he would submit to all else necessary for our deliverance. But the marvel is that he should have ever married our nature. Here is the mystery of mysteries, the wonder of wonders. The conduct of the heavenly multitudes at his birth seems to justify such views as this. Many things in Scripture look the same way. The following is but a sample of the way in which inspired men treat the whole subject of his humiliation: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich—yet for your sakes he became poor, that you through his poverty might be rich." In his incarnation the Son of God stooped to a union with the lowest intelligent nature, and that nature all in ruin and rebellion. In dying it was the human nature alone that suffered. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 83: 04.21. THE WORK AND SUFFERINGS OF CHRIST; HIS ACTIVE AND PASSIVE OBEDIENCE ======================================================================== The Work and Sufferings of Christ. His Active and Passive Obedience. Our Lord Jesus Christ became incarnate, lived, acted, obeyed, suffered, died and rose again for his people. He came down to earth—that they might go up to heaven. He suffered—that they might reign. He became a servant—that they might become kings and priests unto God. He died that—they might live. He bore the cross—that their enmity might be slain, and their sins expiated. He loved them—that they might love God. He was rich and became poor—that they, who were poor, might be made rich. He descended into the grave—that they might sit in heavenly places. He emptied himself—that they might be filled with all the fullness of God. He took upon him human nature—that they might be partakers of the divine nature. He made flesh his dwelling place—that they might be an habitation of God through the Spirit. He made himself of no reputation—that they might wear his new name, and be counted an eternal excellency. He became a worm, and no man—that they, who were sinful worms, might be made equal to the angels. He bore the curse of a broken covenant—that they might partake of all the blessings of the everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. Though heir of all things, he was willingly despised of the people—that they, who were justly condemned, might obtain an inheritance that is incorruptible, undefiled, and which fades not away. His death was a satisfaction to divine justice, a ransom for many, a propitiation for sin, a sweet smelling savor to God—that we, who were an offence to God, might become his sons and daughters. He was made sin for his people—that they might be made the righteousness of God in him. Though Lord of all he took the form of a servant—that they, who were the servants of sin, might prevail like princes with God. He, who had made swaddling-bands for the sea, was wrapped in swaddling-clothes—hat they, who were cast out in their blood, might be clothed in linen white and clean, which is the righteousness of saints. He had no where to lay his head—that they who otherwise must have lain down in eternal sorrow, might reach the mansions in his Father’s house. He was beset with lions and bulls of Bashan—that his chosen might be compassed about with an innumerable company of angels. He drank the cup of God’s indignation—that they might forever drink of the river of his pleasures. He hungered—that they might eat the bread of life. He thirsted—that they might drink the water of life. He was numbered with the transgressors—that they might stand among the justified, and be counted among his jewels. He made his grave with the wicked—that they might sleep in Jesus. Though he existed from everlasting, from the beginning, before ever the earth was, yet he became a helpless infant—that creatures of yesterday, sentenced to death, might live forever. He wore a crown of thorns—that all who love his appearing, might wear a crown of life. He wept tears of anguish—that his elect might weep tears of godly repentance. He bore the yoke of obedience unto death—that they might find his yoke easy and his burden light. He poured out his soul unto death, lay three days in the heart of the earth, then burst the bars of death, and arose to God—that they, who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage, might obtain the victory over the grave and become partakers of his resurrection. He exhausted the penalty of the law—that his redeemed might have access to the inexhaustible treasures of mercy, wisdom, faithfulness, truth and grace promised by the Lord. He passed from humiliation to humiliation, until he reached the sepulcher of Joseph—that his people might be changed from glory to glory as by the Spirit of the Lord. He was matchless in grace—that they might be matchless in gratitude. Though a Son, he became a voluntary exile—that they, who had wickedly wandered afar off, might be brought near by his blood. He was compassed about with all their innocent infirmities—that he might perfect his strength in their weakness. His visage was so marred more than any man—that his ransomed might be presented before God without spot, or blemish, or wrinkle, or any such thing. For a time he was forsaken of his Father—that they, whom he bought with his blood, might behold the light of God’s countenance forever. He came and dwelt with them—that they might be forever with the Lord. He was hung up naked before his insulting foes—that all who believe on his name, might wear a glorious wedding garment, a spotless righteousness. Though he was dead—he is the first-born among many brethren. Through his sorrow—his people obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing flee away. Though he endured the worst things—they do and shall forever enjoy the best things. Wonderful mystery! God was manifest in the flesh! Here is no absurdity, no contradiction, no fiction—and yet a mystery which baffles all attempts to solve it, and dazzles all human and angelic knowledge. Blessed is he, who is not offended in Jesus. Blessed is he, who loves the incarnate mystery, and rests upon it. It is a mystery of love, of truth, of grace, of wisdom, of condescension, of power, of salvation. It is the mystery of Godliness. It is the great study of the inhabitants of heaven, and shall be while immortality endures. If it be allowed to take these statements in a general and vague sense, most people, who are willing to be called evangelical, will at least assent to them. But let us consider more particularly the work and the sufferings of our Lord, what he did, and what he endured, his obedience to law, and his submission to pain. It is true these things were not separated in him; but it is true that they can be distinguished. Some ignorant people have seemed to suppose that orthodox Christians held that Christ obeyed one day or hour and suffered another. But Christ was from his birth to his death a sufferer. He was also a servant to do the will of God. He obeyed in suffering. He suffered in obeying. His obedience to the precept and his endurance of the penalty of the law ran parallel to each other. Sound divines have therefore commonly spoken of Christ’s active and passive obedience as comprehending the whole of his work on earth. His ACTIVE obedience was rendered to the moral law as a rule of life. His PASSIVE obedience was his voluntary submission to the penal sufferings provided by the law for the transgressors of its holy commandments. Although a few good men have not favored this formal distinction, yet the great body of sound writers have approved it. Nor is there any objection to it, if correctly understood. And until a better mode of explaining the mediatorial work of Christ on earth shall be suggested, let the friends of truth hold fast to the established language of sound divinity. It is remarkable that modern writers, who oppose the use of these phrases almost without exception are very erroneous on other points. If a man denies that Christ obeyed the precept of the law for us, it is almost certain that he will deny that he bore the curse or penalty of the law in our stead. Nor is it known that any sound writer has ever rejected the doctrine, which sober divines have always understood to be involved in the active and passive obedience of Christ. Owen says: "There is no other way whereby the original, immutable law of God may be established, and fulfilled with respect unto us, but by the imputation of the perfect obedience and righteousness of Christ, who is the end of the law for righteousness unto all that do believe." Indeed he enters into a formal argument in defense of "the imputation of the active obedience or righteousness of Christ unto us, as an essential part of that righteousness whereon we are justified before God. If it were necessary that the Lord Christ, as our surety should undergo the penalty of the law for us, or in our stead, because we all have sinned; then it was necessary also, that as our surety he should yield obedience unto the preceptive part of the law for us also: and if the imputation of the former be needful for us unto our justification before God, then is the imputation of the latter also necessary unto the same end and purpose." "And as we are no more able of ourselves to fulfill the law, in a way of obedience, than to undergo the penalty of it, so as that we may be justified thereby; so no reason can be given, why God is not as much concerned in honor and glory, that the preceptive power and part of the law be complied withal, by perfect obedience, as that the sanction of it be established by undergoing the penalty of it." That Charnock held the same doctrine is very clear; for in extolling the work of the Mediator, he thus dwells on "His obedience to his Father. It is a signal testimony given him, that he was obedient even to the death of the cross. Php 2:8. The sharper then his circumstances were upon the cross, the more illustrious his obedience was. The luster of obedience is seen in engaging upon command with the most affrighting difficulties." He subsequently dwells at length on the sufferings of Christ. Leighton speaking on 1 Corinthians 1:30, "he is made of God unto us righteousness," says: "This doubtless is meant of the righteousness by which we are justified before God; and as he is made this to us, applied by faith, his righteousness becomes ours. That exchange made, our sins are laid over on him, and his obedience put upon us." Thomas Boston says that Christ’s obedience to the law for his people included "these three following things: 1. That he, as the second ADAM, should obey the whole law, in the name of those he represented. This was a debt owing by them all, and was required of them, by the law, as a condition of life." "It was provided, that Christ, as their representative, should give obedience to the whole law for them; that both tables of the law, and each command of each table, should have the due obedience from him; that the law being laid before him, in its spirituality and full extent, he should fully answer it, in internal and external obedience, in his mind, will and affections, in thought, word and deed: that he should conform himself to the whole natural law, and to all divine institutions, ceremonial or political, so as to be circumcised, keep the Passover, to be baptized, to be a servant or subject to rulers, pay tribute to whom it was due, and the like. [In fact the very reason Christ gave for being baptized was that "thus it becomes us to fulfill all righteousness."] 2. "That every part of that obedience should be carried to the highest pitch and degree. This the law required of them, as a condition of life. 3. Lastly, that all this should be continued to the end, without the least failure in parts, or degrees of obedience. This also was a condition of life." It was agreed that the second ADAM should, in the name of those he represented, ’continue in all things, written in the book of the law to do them’ even to the end. All which he did accordingly fulfill, being ’obedient unto death.’ Php 2:8. Ridgley says: "Satisfaction must bear some similitude, or resemblance, as to the matter of it, to that debt which was due from those for whom it was to be given. Here we must consider what was the debt due from us, for which a demand of satisfaction was made; this was twofold: 1st. A debt of perfect and sinless obedience, whereby the glory of God’s sovereignty might be secured, and the honor of his law maintained. This debt it was morally impossible for man to pay, after his fall; for it implies a contradiction to say that a fallen creature can yield a sinless obedience; nevertheless it was demanded of us, though fallen; for the obligation could not be disannulled by our disability to perform it. 2ndly. There was a debt of punishment, which we were liable to, in proportion to the demerit of sin, as the result of the condemning sentence of the law, which threatened death for every transgression and disobedience. Now, to be satisfaction to the justice of God, it must have these ingredients in it." Dr. A. Alexander says: "By the righteousness of Christ, we mean all that he did and suffered to satisfy the broken law of God, for those whose salvation he undertook to secure. It has been shown that the law has a double demand upon us, both of which must be satisfied before a sentence of justification can righteously be pronounced." The "double demand" here spoken of is explained to be obedience to the precept, and endurance of the penalty of the law. Indeed so precious is the doctrine of the full and perfect obedience of Christ, both in doing and suffering, in meeting the demands of both the precept and the penalty of the law, that in experience no enlightened mind can rest satisfied until it is assured of the truth of the positions here maintained. Some indeed object and say Christ’s obedience to the precept of the law was due from him for himself, his human nature being under natural and indissoluble obligations to holiness. It is indeed true that Christ’s human nature was bound for itself after being in existence to obey the law. And so was Adam, in the garden of Eden. Yet if he had stood faithful to the end of his probation, his obedience would have been counted not only for himself but for us also. So the obedience of Christ not only caused the Father to say "This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased," but also for his sake to promise eternal life to as many as are found in him, clothed with his righteousness. Besides the person of the Mediator was constituted of a divine and a human nature. In his divine nature he was the lawgiver, the Lord of the Sabbath day, and the King universal. This gave to his obedience both to the precept and penalty of the law, a value transcending all our conceptions of merit as obtained even by angels who never sinned. This is the very doctrine of the Scriptures. The reader has already had the interpretation of Charnock and Boston of the phrase "obedient unto death." Php 2:8. Ridgley interprets the phrase the same way, namely, to signify Christ’s active obedience, even in dying. That this is the correct mode of interpreting the text has long been held by the Church of God. The same doctrine is clearly taught by Paul in Romans 5:12-19. There our justification is clearly stated to be ’by the obedience of one,’ by the righteousness of one." If Christ’s "obedience," in Romans 5:1-21 has any meaning, it is the opposite of Adam’s "disobedience." Christ’s "righteousness" is the opposite of Adam’s "offence." If Christ’s obedience means simply his death, then Adam’s disobedience means simply his life. If Christ’s righteousness includes nothing but his suffering on the cross, Adam’s offence must be that he did not suffer for us. In fine, no more unwarrantable liberties are taken with God’s word than by the enemies of the doctrine of Christ’s active obedience. In Galatians 4:4-5, Paul says: "God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to redeem those who were under the law." A law consists of two parts: 1. a precept, a rule to be followed; 2. a penalty for the transgressor. Now, was Jesus Christ made under the precept only, or the penalty only? One errorist will perhaps say one thing, and another a different thing. Some very bold heretics will deny that he was placed either under the precept or the penalty for us; but from the days of Paul to the present the Church of God has held that Christ was made under both the precept and the penalty of the law for us. Indeed it is well worthy of notice that as error never stops of its own accord, as its nature is to sink lower and lower—so it is very common, yes, almost universal to find those, who object to Christ’s active obedience soon subverting all his righteousness, and even denying that he bore the penalty of the law for us, and contending that even his death was but a show of what God could do when he chose to express his indignation against his well beloved Son. But of Christ’s death, and the atonement thereby made the next chapter will treat. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 84: 04.22. THE DEATH OF CHRIST; THE ATONEMENT ======================================================================== The Death of Christ The Atonement When we speak of the cross and death of Christ, we intend to set forth all his expiatory work. Christ’s sufferings did not begin at the time of his crucifixion. Nor were his last sufferings alone possessed of value. The flight into Egypt no less than the nailing to the cross; the hunger and subsequent temptation in the wilderness no less than the thirst upon the cross—belonged to the sum of those things, which he endured for others. From most men the time and manner of their death are mercifully concealed until they are about to leave the world. But the Lord Jesus knew the end from the beginning. He had all the revolting circumstances distinctly before his mind for long years before his crucifixion. His life was as a death. He died as it were a thousand times. No words nor acts of our blessed Lord convey more just conceptions of the anguish he endured than that saying of his spoken long before his betrayal: "There is a terrible baptism ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished." Luke 12:50. Here is one secret of the sorrows of his life. I marvel not that his visage was so marred more than any man, and his form more than the sons of men. No sorrows were ever so keen, so consuming, and so long continued as his. Well may we blush to have made an ado over the comparatively little ills, to which our sins, or our sense of duty may at any time have subjected us. Yet the actual death of Christ was necessary. If it had not been, it would not have occurred. The modes of bringing Christ’s mediatorial work on earth into disesteem, are countless. Some, using great swelling words, have said that his death was unnecessary, and that one drop of his blood was sufficient to all the ends of his death. But the Scriptures teach no such doctrine. They clearly declare that Christ ought to have suffered all that came upon him, and so to enter into his glory. Such a view is also very derogatory to the character of God. Flavel says: "I dare not affirm, as some do, that by reason of the infinite preciousness of Christ’s blood, one drop thereof had been sufficient to have redeemed the whole world: for if one drop had been enough, why was all the rest, even to the last drop, shed? Was God cruel, to exact more from him than was needful and sufficient? Besides, we must remember, that the sufferings of Christ, which were inflicted on him as the curse of the law, these alone are the sufferings, which are sufficient for our redemption from the curse of the law. Now it was not a drop of blood, but death, which was contained in the curse: this therefore was necessary to be inflicted. But surely as none but God can estimate the weight and evil of sin, so none but he can comprehend the worth and preciousness of the blood of Christ, shed to expiate it." The DEATH of Christ was necessary. The victim, because it stood in the place of the transgressor, must die. "A testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator lives." While Jews, infidels and Christians all agree in holding that Christ died; the latter only hold, that without his death we could not be saved. Of the nature and intention of Christ’s sufferings, which terminated in his death, the human mind has indulged many wild and dangerous fancies. There are still men on earth, who boldly deny that Jesus Christ endured the penalty of the law in the room and stead of sinners, or that the sins of any were imputed to him, or that he was a substitute for others, or that his sufferings were strictly vicarious. With very various degrees of ignorance or hatred of the truth, men reject all the established forms in which sound doctrine is taught. Yet all error is dangerous, and all truth is precious. The doctrine of the death of Christ holds a very prominent place in the Christian system. In fact it is a central truth and demands our warmest love. The common doctrine of the Christian world has been that our sins were imputed to Christ, that he bore the curse due to us for our transgressions, that he endured the penalty of the law in our stead, that his sufferings were those of a substitute for guilty men. It has been the judgment of the people of God for ages on ages that this doctrine is well established in both the Old and the New Testaments. It is natural to inquire whether our Lord himself explained the nature and object of his own death. In the Gospels we gain light on this point. "The Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister—and to give his life a ransom for many." Matthew 20:28, and Mark 10:45. In full agreement with this declaration Paul says that Christ "gave himself a ransom for all to be testified in due season." 1 Timothy 2:6. The words translated ransom in these passages are not the same. One is lutron—the price of redemption. The other is antilutron—which also signifies ransom, the price of redemption. Our Lord then did not die reluctantly, nor as the martyrs died, but he died as a ’payment’, as Grotius says. His life was the price of our deliverance. It was all the price demanded. It was the ransom, the full ransom. Robinson’s definition of lutron is "a ransom, the price paid for the release of any one." His definition of antilutron is "an equivalent for redemption—a ransom." Christ paid the price for which many, who had been justly detained as prisoners to sin and death, are released. Our Lord also said: "This is my blood of the New Testament which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matthew 26:28. Whose blood besides was ever shed for the same end? Isaiah, John the Baptist, Stephen and many others died for the truth, but not for the remission of sins. In full accordance with this Paul says that Christ "purged our sins." Hebrews 1:3. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." Hebrews 9:22. Here is the reason why "repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations." Luke 24:47. Remission is by no other name given under heaven among men. Not the blood of the prophets, nor of the martyrs, nor of beasts—but only the blood of Christ secures the forgiveness of sins. Revelation 1:5; Acts 20:28; Hebrews 9:12. Again, Christ says: "I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep." John 10:11. "Great and good, just and holy, as he is—he saw his sheep about to perish in their wanderings, and in order to expiate their guilt, and to ransom them from destruction, he not only endured hardship, and encountered danger, but he ’laid down his life for them,’ and in their stead!" With the truths thus explicitly taught well agree all those general statements of Christ respecting his mission into this world, such as this, "The Son of man has come to seek and to save those who were lost." Luke 19:10. He is the Savior. That is his name. The reason why he bears his name JESUS is that he saves his people from their sins. The apostles and prophets give an account of the death of Christ every way coincident with that given by the Lord himself. Thus Peter says: "Christ also has once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God." 1 Peter 3:18. All suffering under the moral government of God is in some sense "for sins." "Death by sin." Some suffering is purely by way of deserved punishment. Thus lost angels suffer for their own sins. Some suffering is disciplinary, and is designed to wean men from error. Thus the pious Christian often suffers for his follies. Some suffering is exemplary. Thus the old prophets often suffered. James 5:10. But the ground of their suffering was always their own sins. God never permitted a holy angel to be a sufferer. The wicked who are suffering the vengeance of eternal fire, are also an example to us, but they suffer justly for their own sins. The last kind of suffering for sin is expiatory, where "the just" suffers "for the unjust." Christ in no sense suffered for himself. In fact the apostle in the next chapter says expressly that "Christ has suffered FOR us in the flesh." 1 Peter 4:1. In like manner the Scriptures generally and explicitly teach that Christ died for our sins. "He was delivered for our offences." Romans 4:25. "He gave himself for our sins." Galatians 1:4. "Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures." 1 Corinthians 15:3. No words could more clearly teach that Christ’s death was because of our offences against God, on account of our rebellion against the Most High. The word of God as clearly expresses the same truth in other language. "While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8. "Christ died for the ungodly." Romans 5:6. "This is my body, which is broken for you." 1 Corinthians 11:24. Here is substitution taught in the clearest terms. Christ died in the room and stead of us—sinners and ungodly. By two different writers of Scripture Christ is said to be the propitiation for our sins. "Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation, through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins, that are past." Romans 3:25. "He is the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 2:2. "He loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins." 1 John 4:10. In the above verses it is not the same word in all places that is rendered propitiation. Paul’s word is hilasterion; John’s is hilasmos. They are, however, both correctly rendered propitiation, meaning an expiation for sin. In full harmony with the foregoing, Paul says that "Christ also has loved us and has given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor." Ephesians 5:2. All Christ did—he did "for us." In particular when he offered himself a sacrifice it was not for himself, but for us. He needed no expiation on his own account, because he was holy and personally innocent. But just as surely as Abel’s firstlings were sacrifices in his room and stead, so surely was Christ a sacrifice "for us." Accordingly he is said to have "offered himself without spot to God." Hebrews 9:14. So also Christ is called "the lamb of God" and "a lamb without blemish and without spot." There is no significance in any bloody sacrifice unless the victim offered is a substitute for some one. Christ is also called our Surety. Hebrews 7:22. A surety binds himself to perform something for others, and this obligation is either absolute or conditional. If one be hopelessly insolvent, the surety unconditionally assumes the payment of his debts. This was precisely our case. Our ruin was complete. We were utterly bankrupt, and Christ undertook to extricate us: 1. by obeying the precept of the law for us, and 2. by enduring the punishment due to us for our transgressions. In our helplessness Christ pitied us, voluntarily and lovingly undertook our cause for us, was fully able to accomplish all he engaged to do, and did satisfy all the demands of the law against us as rebels. The Scriptures teach that Christ did all this. "He was manifested to take away our sins, and in him was no sin." 1 John 3:5. He took away our sins by taking them upon himself. Accordingly the Scriptures clearly assert that he "his own self bore our sins in his own body on the tree." 1 Peter 2:24. "Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many." Hebrews 10:28. No such language is ever used of any other. Men bear their own sins in many cases. But Christ alone is the offering for the sins of many, to bear them quite away as the scape-goat did. In Romans 8:3, Paul says: "What the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, by sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh." That the word here translated condemned means punished is satisfactorily shown by Dr. Hodge in his commentary. That the doctrine thus taught is true many Scriptures declare. God then punished sin, not in those who committed it and who deserved his wrath—but in the flesh of his dear Son! In like manner Paul says: "Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us." Galatians 3:13. If language has any force or meaning, this passage teaches that Christ has rescued his people from the penalty of the law, and that he did this by enduring the penalty in their room and stead. It is not probable that any man, who will deny that these words teach as much as is here supposed, would be profited by any teachings on the subject, whether from men or from heaven. The curse of the law can mean nothing but the penalty of the law. Christ’s being made a curse for us can mean nothing less than that he bore the penalty for us. The Scriptures also expressly teach that Jesus Christ is the sole author of reconciliation between God and sinners, that by him "we have received the atonement" (or reconciliation); Romans 5:11; that we are "reconciled to God by the death of his Son;" Romans 5:10; and that God has reconciled us to himself by Jesus Christ." 2 Corinthians 5:18. Now there is no way that the death of -God’s Son could make reconciliation but by his satisfying divine justice in our place and stead. Christ is our peace. Having seen what Christ and his apostles taught respecting the intent of his death, let us look at two portions of the Old Testament, which have been supposed to teach that Christ bore the punishment due to his people for their sins. The first is in the 40th Psalm "Sacrifice and offering you did not desire; my ears have you opened [or bored, as Hebrew masters bored the ears of their servants]: burnt-offering and sin-offering have you not required. Then said I, Lo I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me: I delight to do your will, O my God." The apostle Paul, in Hebrews 10:5-12, has given us an inspired and therefore infallible interpretation of this passage. It is fully coincident with what has already been argued. The other portion of the Old Testament to which attention is here called is the precious Isaiah 53:1-12, where many of the forms of speech already noticed occur and others are introduced, all teaching that Christ was our substitute, that he was punished for us, that he bore the wrath of God in our stead. The whole chapter is very dear to God’s people. But a few quotations must suffice: "Surely he has borne our grief and carried our sorrows," Isaiah 53:4. William Lowth says of this: "He has borne the evils and punishments which were due to our sins. The Hebrew verbs [rendered he has borne and has carried] properly signify to bear the punishment due to sin.’ Matthew Henry says: "The load was heavy, and the way long, yet he did not tire, but persevered to the end, until he said, It is finished." Dr. Scott says: "He endured our griefs and sorrows, becoming a sufferer to redeem us from eternal sufferings." Isaiah 3:5 reads thus: "But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed." Lowth says, "He suffered those chastisements or punishments, by which our peace with God was wrought, and satisfaction was made to the divine justice." Scott says, "He was wounded,’ but it was not for his own sins, but for our transgressions; he was crushed with most intense agonies of body and soul, but it was for our iniquities." Dr. J. A. Alexander says: "The chastisement of peace is not only that which tends to peace, but that by which peace is procured directly." "The Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all," Isaiah 53:6. Lowth says: "The letter of the Hebrew runs thus, The Lord has made the iniquities of us all to meet on him, or to fall upon him." Scott says, "The justice of God must be satisfied, before the criminals could be again received into his favor and under his care, and therefore JEHOVAH laid, or ’caused to meet’ upon Christ, the Surety, not the punishment only, but the iniquity of them all, imputing it to him, and requiring of him satisfaction for it." Dr. Alexander says that our version "is objectionable only because it is too weak, and suggests the idea of a mild and inoffensive gesture, whereas that conveyed by the Hebrew word is necessarily a violent one, namely, that of causing to strike or fall." "For the transgression of my people was he stricken," Isaiah 53:8. Dr. Alexander translates it, "for the transgressor of my people (as) a curse for them." Dr. Scott says: "For the transgression of his people, the stroke or punishment was on him." "It pleased the Lord to bruise him; he has put him to grief; when you shall make his soul an offering for sin," Isaiah 53:10. Surely none will blaspheme his blessed name by saying that his soul was an offering for his own sin. He was holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners. As his soul was the offering also, and not merely his body, so it was the sword of the Lord that pierced him much more deeply than the nails or the spear. Zechariah 13:7. Awake, O sword, and smite the man, that is my fellow, says Jehovah." "For he shall bear their iniquities," Isaiah 53:11. Dr. Alexander on this verse remarks that Christ "becomes a Savior only by becoming a substitute." His people shall receive his righteousness, "and he shall bear their burdens." Such is a very brief view of the express and precious teachings of this portion of God’s word, which makes Matthew Henry say that "this chapter is so replenished with the unsearchable riches of Christ, that it may be called rather, The Gospel of the evangelist Isaiah, than the prophecy of the prophet Isaiah." In teaching the imputation of our sins to Christ no one holds that there is or could be any personal identity between Christ and his people. When we say that he and they are one, we mean that for their sakes and on their account, he was regarded and treated as if he deserved evil, and that for his sake and on his account they are regarded and treated as if they were innocent and deserving of good. Nor is it any portion of sound doctrine that the moral turpitude of our sins was transferred to Christ. This, in the nature of things, is impossible. The moral qualities of personal acts are confined to the acts themselves, or to those who perform them. The defilement of our sins is not imputed to Christ any more than the moral excellence of his acts is imputed to us. Of course Christ felt no consciousness of personal ill-desert, and consequently no remorse. This was as impossible as that we should feel self-delight for Christ’s righteousness imputed to us. A surety is not partaker of the misdeed, which has brought a party into trouble, but he simply agrees to pay the penalty or debt. Bitter as may be the sufferings brought on us by the sins of others, we cannot upbraid ourselves for having committed them. Neither did our Savior feel the cruel gnaw of despair. O no. "For the joy that was set before him he endured the cross, despising the shame, and is set down at the right hand of God." Hebrews 12:2. Neither remorse nor despair was the penalty denounced against transgression. The penalty was death. And although despair and remorse come on those, who are personally depraved, yet this is because they are thus sunk in sin. It may be well also here to say that Christ’s sufferings, though protracted, were not eternal, because of the infinite dignity of his person. "The eternity of punishment," says Charnock, "arises from the condition of the subject suffering, not from the nature of punishment itself. A creature, being a limited nature, cannot give an infinite satisfaction commensurate to an infinite justice, without suffering eternally. Therefore though infinite punishment be due, yet eternal punishment is not in itself due, but falls in, for lack of the creature’s ability to satisfy the demands of legal justice. Since it cannot satisfy the law by one, or many acts of sufferings, it is always suffering, but never fully satisfies. But the infinite dignity of the person of Christ transcending all creatures, made the satisfaction he offered valuable without an eternal duration of those torments." As our Savior was a voluntary surety there was no injustice in requiring of him the satisfaction due from us. So true and so old is the doctrine that our Lord suffered the just for the unjust, the innocent for the guilty, that to this day we have no better means of illustrating the whole method of pardon and acceptance than by a simple explanation of many of the types, and especially the sacrifices of the Old Testament. The doctrine of the imputation of the sin of one to the person of another is as old as the institution of shedding blood in solemn worship, and slaying victims at earthly altars. One of the most painful things in the life of a lover of sound doctrine is, that where his own views and feelings would lead him to rejoice and adore, he finds cavilers calling him to refute frivolous objections. "The highest wonder ever exhibited to the world, to angels and men, is the Son of God suffering and dying for sinners." But such is the wickedness of men that instead of being charmed and awed by the glories of redemption by Christ Jesus, they often sit down in cold blood, as did his murderers, and without emotion contemplate the most amazing sufferings ever witnessed. Beware of self-conceit, beware of all opinions on the subject of the atonement, unless you can prove them by the tenor of Scripture. Respecting the satisfaction of Christ four views have been taken: 1. That he fully satisfied all the claims of the law for all men, and that all shall therefore infallibly be saved. This was the doctrine of the old Universalists. As it is fallen into general disfavor, further notice need not here be taken of it. 2. Another theory is that Christ did not satisfy divine justice for any of the sins of any man. In other words there was no atonement required and none made. This theory teaches that Christ’s death was a symbol, a testimony, a display of justice against one on whom no sins were laid. The old Socinians held that Christ’s death was a mere martyrdom. Is it not strange that they should thus hold, when our Lord gave signs of distress and agony never witnessed in any of his people when called to die for the truth? John Newton says, "No words can be more select and emphatic than those which the evangelists use in describing his consternation in the garden of Gethsemane. How can this his dejection and terror be accounted for by those, who deny that his sufferings and death were a proper atonement of sin; and who suppose, that when he had given to men a perfect rule of life, and commended it to them by his own example, he died merely to confirm the truth of his doctrine, and to encourage his followers to faithfulness under sufferings? Many of his followers, who were thus witnesses for the truth, and patterns of faithfulness to us, have met death in its most terrible forms with composure, yes, with pleasure, yes, with transports of joy. But is the disciple above his Lord? If Christians have triumphed in such circumstances, why did Christ tremble? Not surely because their constancy and courage were greater than his. The causes were entirely different. The martyrs were given up to those who could kill the body only; but Jesus suffered immediately from the hand of God. One stroke of his mighty hand can bruise the spirit of man more sensibly than the united power of all creatures." 3. Another theory is that Christ satisfied for some of the sins of all men, and left them by their own works and sufferings to satisfy for the rest. This theory is seldom stated in so many words, but it is very pleasing to many, and is the actual scheme of thousands. It is virtually the plan of many Roman Catholics, who add their own merits and those of the saints to the merits of Christ. The Archbishop of Paris dying of wounds, received in fightings, said: "O God, I offer to you my present sufferings as an atonement for the errors of my episcopate." This sounds indeed as if his own sufferings were his sole reliance; but his creed mentions the sufferings and death of Christ. 4. The last theory is that Jesus Christ made satisfaction for all the sins of all his people, that he paid the last farthing of the debt they owed to the broken law and injured government of God, and that in him they are complete and have full redemption. The Westminster Assembly says: "Christ by his death did fully pay the debt of all his people, and did make a proper, real, and full satisfaction to his Father’s justice in their behalf." The essence of the atonement consists in this satisfaction, which was proper, not figurative, not emblematical; real, not imaginary, nor pretended; and full, not partial, nor incomplete—not needing our merits to eke it out. We have already seen how well this doctrine agrees both with the very words and with the general scope of Scripture. Were not this chapter already long, it would be easy to add the concurrent testimony of the best reformed churches and of many great divines. Some of these will hereafter be adduced for the purpose of illustrating other points. In the meantime the foregoing is the plain simple doctrine of the atonement as held in the Presbyterian and many other churches. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 85: 04.23. JUSTIFICATION BEFORE GOD ======================================================================== JUSTIFICATION BEFORE GOD No doctrine is more important than that of justification before God. This has long been the judgment of the Christian world. Luther says: "The article of justification being lost, all Christian doctrine perishes with it." He elsewhere calls justification "the article of a standing or falling church." Melancthon says: "We are brought into danger for the only reason—that we deny the Romish doctrine of justification." Calvin says: "If this one head were yielded safe and entire, it would not pay the cost to make any great quarrel about other matters in controversy with Rome." Hooker says: "The grand question, that hangs in controversy between us and Rome is about the matter of justifying righteousness." John Newman says: "A sinner’s justification before God is a doctrine of great importance in the Christian religion." Usher says: "The strong bastion of our Reformed Church is justification by faith; erected upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner-stone. That gone, the temple is taken, the ark is in captivity; from the daughter of Zion all her beauty is departed." Hall says: "That point of justification, of all others, is exceeding important." John Newton says: "The great privilege of the elect, comprehensive of every blessing, is, that they are justified, finally and authoritatively justified.’ Dr. Thomas Scott says: "’How should man be just with God?’ All our eternal interests depend on the answer, which, in our creed and experience, we return to this question: for if God has, for the glory of his own name, law, and government, appointed a method of justifying sinners, and revealed it in the gospel; and they in the pride of their hearts, refuse to seek the blessing in this way, but will come for it according to their own devices; he may justly, and will certainly, leave them under merited condemnation." The elder Edwards presents the following considerations in proof of the importance of the doctrine of justification by faith alone: 1. "The Scripture treats of this doctrine as a doctrine of very great importance." 2. "The adverse scheme lays another foundation of man’s salvation, than which God has laid." 3. "It is in this doctrine that the most essential difference lies between the covenant of grace and the first covenant." 4. "This is the main thing for which fallen men stood in need of a divine revelation, to teach us how we who have sinned may come to be again accepted of God." 5. "The contrary scheme of justification derogates much from the honor of God and the Mediator." 6. "The opposite scheme does most directly tend to lead men to trust in their own righteousness for justification, which is a thing fatal to the soul." One tells us that the Popish fathers and divines of the Council of Trent admitted that all the alleged errors of Luther could be traced to his views on justification, and that the only way to maintain the other dogmas of Rome was "to overthrow the heresy of justification by faith only." Socinus calls this doctrine base and pernicious, and says it is to be execrated and detested. Swedenborg and his followers direct their strongest efforts against this doctrine. The same is true of nearly all modern heretics. So that by the confession of the friends and the enemies of the true doctrine, the views men entertain on this subject are vastly important and control their belief on other points. Indeed Paul’s epistles to the Romans and to the Galatians, written chiefly to teach and establish the truth on this subject, stand imperishable monuments of the judgment of that great and inspired man as to the weighty matter of justification before God. It could not be otherwise. We rise or fall, we live or die, we are saved or lost, according as we are justified, or not. On such a subject we should conduct our inquiries with great sincerity and fair-mindedness, and adopt conclusions after much prayer, and in the fear of God. He, who heartily loves and adopts the truth here, may indeed be left to some other errors, which will mar the symmetry of his Christian character, impair his usefulness, and diminish his final reward—yet he shall not be cast off at last. But he, who at heart rejects the true ground of justification must finally, utterly, inevitably perish. So teaches Paul: "For no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ. If any man builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward. If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames." 1 Corinthians 3:11-15. This settles the question. Justification is the opposite of condemnation. Whatever one is, the other is not. In Scripture they are often set over against each other. "By your words you shall be justified, and by your words, you shall be condemned." Matthew 12:37. "He who justifies the wicked, and he who condemns the just—both are abomination to the Lord." Proverbs 17:15. "If there is a controversy between men, and they come unto judgment, that the judges may judge them; then they shall justify the righteous, and condemn the wicked." Deuteronomy 25:1. "If I justify myself, my own mouth shall condemn me." Job 9:20. "As by the offence of one, judgment came upon all men to condemnation, even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men to justification of life." Romans 5:18. These texts not only show that condemnation and justification are opposite to each other, but that these two words are borrowed from judicial proceedings, and so are properly said to be forensic. Justifying is declaring or pronouncing one righteous; as condemning is pronouncing or declaring one guilty. Often in Scripture these terms are said to belong to judicature, as in Psalms 37:33, "The Lord will not condemn him when he is judged;" Matthew 12:42, "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it;" Psalms 119:7, "When he shall be judged, let him be condemned." "That you might be justified, when you speak, and be clear, when you judge." Yet, while the term is borrowed from the forum, it is not used precisely in the same sense in theology as when we apply it to judicial proceedings among men. At a human tribunal a man is said to be justified, when no crime has been proven against him, but his conduct has met with the approval of those by whom he was judged. But when a man is said to be justified before God, the meaning is that a sinner has been pardoned and accepted in the Beloved. Had man never sinned, he would have been justified as one who had broken no law, and would have needed no pardon. But being a law-breaker, any trial in the sight of God will show him culpable, and in himself undone. If a sinner is justified, it must be by an act of grace. The Westminster Assembly thus taught: "Justification is an act of God’s free grace unto sinners, in which he pardons all their sin, accepts and accounts their persons righteous, in his sight; not for anything wrought in them or done by them, but only for the perfect obedience and full satisfaction of Christ, by God imputed to them, and received by faith alone." You will hardly find a better definition than this in uninspired writings. It is true, complete, guarded, comprehensive. Let us consider it somewhat in detail. First, justification is an ACT. It is not a work, or series of acts. It is not progressive. The weakest believer and the strongest saint are alike and equally justified. Justification admits of no degrees. A man is either wholly justified or wholly condemned in the sight of God. "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus." "Who shall lay ANYTHING to the charge of God’s elect?" Romans 8:1, Romans 8:33. And when a soul is condemned it is wholly condemned. "Whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is GUILTY OF ALL." James 2:10. "The soul that sins, IT SHALL DIE." Ezekiel 18:4. When it is said in Luke 18:14, that the publican went down to his house justified rather than the pharisee, it does not mean that the pharisee was somewhat justified and the publican more justified. The sense is that the former was justified in preference to the other, to the exclusion of the other. The publican was perfectly justified, the pharisee was not at all justified. There is a moment, when a man is under the curse, and a moment when he comes to be under grace. Secondly, justification is an act of GOD. He alone is its author. He is called "the Justifier." "It is God who justifies." "It is one God who shall justify the circumcision by faith, and uncircumcision through faith." Romans 3:26, Romans 3:30, and Romans 8:33. We should not forget this great truth. We may justify ourselves, our neighbors may call us the excellent of the earth, pretended priests of God may blasphemously pronounce us absolved from all sin, but all this will avail us nothing; "for the Lord sees not as man sees; for man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart." 1 Samuel 16:17. Christ said to some, "You are those who justify yourselves before men; but God knows your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men is abomination in the sight of God." Luke 16:15. Moreover it is one of the highest prerogatives of sovereignty to condemn and to justify. As it is God’s government which we live under, as it is his law which we have broken, as it is his Son who died, as it is his tribunal, before which we must all appear; so it is right that he and not another should pass sentence upon us. The governor of one state, or the king of one country cannot punish or pardon an offence committed in the territorial limits of another. It is beyond his jurisdiction. In the moral government of the universe, God’s authority is sole, supreme, exclusive. He alone is the Lawgiver, he alone is the Judge. No one has jurisdiction but himself, None can really or effectually justify or condemn but he. Thirdly, justification is more than is of right due to any man. Every man is a sinner, and whatever good thing comes to him must be of God’s mere bounty. It is a gratuity, not a debt. So justification is "an act of God’s FREE GRACE UNTO SINNERS." Considered in regard to holy angels, justification would have another signification. They have no sins to pardon. Their innocence is their shield. In the eye of the divine law they stand on the ground of perfect, personal, perpetual obedience. But the question is not, How are holy angels justified? but, How shall man be just with God? Had man never sinned he would have stood justified in the same way as his elder brethren in glory. Indeed the natural method of justification for all accountable creatures is by personal righteousness, but since man became a sinner, this door is shut up, and cherubim and a flaming sword forbid his entrance into life by that method. The Scripture does not deny that angels stand before God by their works. But it does say: "By the deeds of the law there shall no FLESH be justified in his sight;" "a MAN is not justified by the works of the law;" "by the works of the law shall no FLESH be justified." Romans 3:20, and Galatians 2:16. Paul expressly teaches that God "justifies the ungodly." Romans 4:5. To say that the power of sight in the blind, whose eyes Christ opened, was the cause of the miracle by which they obtained vision, is absurd. Their ability to see came only from the love and power of the Son of God. To say that a sound condition of the body was the cause of the expulsion of the fever from the veins of Peter’s wife’s mother, is to speak foolishness. That disease was removed by Christ alone. Health did not precede; it followed the act of Christ. So God looks on sinners as ungodly, and in their ruin he pities them, and graciously pardons and accepts them. This doctrine must be insisted on at all times and at all hazards for three reasons. First, it is the only doctrine which can properly be called Gospel, good news to sinners. Secondly, God’s honor is more completely staked on the maintenance, propagation and reception of this than of any other doctrine of revealed religion. Thirdly, this is the only doctrine which produces genuine holiness of heart and life. Three points of the definition of justification quoted have been considered. Four others, namely—the pardon of sin, the acceptance of the sinner in Christ, the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, and the office of faith in justification, remain to be considered. Each of these is vastly important, and shall be distinctly treated. In the mean time let everyone exalt the loving-kindness of him, who allows us to hope for full justification by the blood and righteousness of the great Redeemer. If ever glad tidings of great joy reached the ears of mortals, here it is: "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God, through our Lord Jesus Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 86: 04.24. JUSTIFICATION - THE PARDON OF SIN BY CHRIST'S BLOOD ======================================================================== Justification. The Pardon of Sin by Christ’s Blood. To holy angels innocence is a sweet word. But to humble, penitent sinners, forgiveness is music and life. In itself the former is better than the latter, as uninterrupted health is better than recovery from sickness; and unbroken friendship better than quarrels followed by reconciliations. Yet such is the wisdom of God in man’s salvation that forgiveness has a sweetness and will be followed by glories, which never belonged to innocence. By the incarnation of Christ, human nature is married to the divine, and is thus exalted to a seat on the throne of the universe. And as Christ has shown by three parables that it is common to men to rejoice more over one thing lost and recovered, than over ninety-nine things never lost—so we may forever rejoice unspeakably more over a lost paradise regained, than we would have done over a paradise never lost. Surely the sweetest songs ever warbled, the most thrilling anthems ever sung, the loudest Alleluias ever thundered—relate to redemption and forgiveness, to salvation and the Lamb—the Lamb, the loving Lamb, The Lamb who died on Calvary. Should such, however, be the result, it will not be because sin is not in its own nature ineffably mischievous and malignant; but solely because Jehovah is infinite in skill and love, bringing light out of darkness; joy out of sorrow; good out of evil. Marvelous is his loving-kindness. Plenteous is he in mercy. God alone is great. Many words in Scripture point towards forgiveness, such as—grace, mercy, peace with God, not imputing iniquity, taking away sin, bearing sin, making an end of transgression, covering sin, forgetting sin, not remembering iniquity, washing, cleansing and removing sin, casting it into the sea, or behind the back, scattering it like a cloud, burying it, blotting it out, pardoning it. When the scape-goat bore away the sins laid upon him to an uninhabited land, he only did in a figure and type, what Jesus does in fulfillment of this and many other types. In the Old Testament the word often rendered atonement is literally "covering," or covering up. As we bury our dead out of our sight, so God buries the sins of believers out of his sight. In old times accounts were often kept on tables of wax, and when a debt was paid or forgiven, the account was blotted out by rubbing a smooth surface over it. So God cancels our debts, blots out the handwriting that was against us, not because we have paid what we owed or any part of it, but because he pities us and is rich in mercy towards us. When a master does not wish to notice the errors of a servant, he turns his head another way. So God hides his face from our sins, and refuses to "behold iniquity in Jacob," or to "see perverseness in Israel." Numbers 23:21. Yes God hides our sins themselves, not from his omniscience, for that is impossible, but from his punitive justice. "In those days, and in that time, says the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found: for I will pardon them whom I reserve." Jer. 1:20. As a man ceases to brood over an offence, which he has forgiven, and does not wish to cherish a remembrance of it, so says God: "Their sins and iniquities will I remember no more." Hebrews 10:17. And as a thing which might do a child harm, is put far from it, so God’s people sing: "As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us." Psalms 103:12. The Scripture fully informs us that our hope of pardon is in God alone. "To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses, though we have rebelled against him." Daniel 9:9. It no less distinctly lets us know that in pardoning us, God is self-moved to so gracious an act: "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions for my own sake, and will not remember your sins." Isaiah 43:25. The forgiveness of sins is free. It is "without money and without price." We can do nothing to merit it, or prepare ourselves for it. To deserve forgiveness is a solecism in language, an absurdity in law, a heresy in doctrine, and an impossibility in practice. When God pardons, he pardons all sins, original sin and actual sin, sins of omission and of commission, secret and open sins, sins of thought, word and deed. One unpardoned sin would destroy a soul forever. A single transgression can rouse an enlightened conscience to the wildest fury. And "every sin deserves the wrath and curse of God both in this life, and in that which is to come." Yet to those who believe in Jesus, all is freely forgiven. Full pardon, or none at all, is what God designs to give. This suits human necessities. Nor is this gift ever revoked by God. When he forgives, he forgives forever. He, who is once pardoned, never again comes under the curse of the law. Upon new provocations, men sometimes revive old controversies. Not so God. Sin once pardoned by him is done with forever. He has cast it behind his back and will not return to search for it. Forgiveness of sins that are past is a sure pledge that future sins shall not have a condemning power. God forgives no sin until it is committed, but he executes his unchanging purposes of love to his people and judicially forgives their sins as soon as committed. 2 Samuel 12:13. This does not screen them from fatherly chastisement for their good and his glory; but they never come into penal condemnation. At no time are believers under the law as a covenant of works, but they are always under grace. Christ is set upon the hill of Zion to grant repentance and remission of sins. The moving cause of forgiveness is his boundless love; but the procuring cause is his own most precious blood. "Without shedding of blood is no remission." "By his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us." "The blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, shall purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God." We have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he has consecrated for us, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh." Hebrews 9:12, Hebrews 9:14, Hebrews 9:22, and Hebrews 10:19-20. "As for you also, by the blood of your covenant I have sent forth your prisoners out of the pit wherein is no water." Zechariah 9:11. "This is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins." Matthew 26:28. "Being justified by his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through him." Romans 5:9. "In whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace." "In Christ Jesus, you, who sometime were far off, are made near by the. blood of Christ." Ephesians 1:7, and Ephesians 2:13. He has "made peace through the blood of his cross." Colossians 1:20. "The blood of Christ his Son cleanses us from all sin." 1 John 1:7. So that nothing but extreme ignorance or extraordinary wickedness can induce a poor sinner to venture near to God except through the blood of Christ. By his stripes we are healed. By his chastisement is our peace. By his sorrows come our joys. By his death is our life. As our Surety, he pays all our debt. As the lamb of God he takes away the sins of the world. By his expiation we go free. No man is truly blessed until he has this blessing—the pardon of sin. It is the pledge and forerunner of all others. It is a fountain of life. It takes away the sting of death. Augustine says: "All my hope is in the death of my Lord. His death is my merit, my refuge, my salvation, my life and my resurrection. The mercy of the Lord is my merit; I am not without merit, so long as the Lord of mercies is not lacking. And if the mercies of the Lord be many, I abound in merits." Again, "the certainty of our whole confidence consists in the blood of Christ." The blood of sprinkling speaks better things than the blood of Abel. That called for vengeance, this for peace. How highly the people of God prize this blessing of forgiveness may be learned from their history in all ages: "Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, and whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity." Psalms 32:1-2. In enumerating the benefits he had received, David puts this first. "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgives all your iniquities." Psalms 103:2-3. So the Church of God has always held. The Confession of France says: "We affirm, that Jesus Christ is our perfect and entire washing; in whose death we obtain full satisfaction; whereby we are delivered from all those sins, whereof we are guilty, and from which we could not be acquitted by any other remedy." That of England says: "Our only support and refuge is to fly to the mercy of our Father by Jesus Christ, and assuredly to persuade our minds, that he is the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins; and that, by his blood, all our spots of sin be washed clean; that he has pacified, and set at one, all things by the blood of his cross." That of Scotland: "We confess and avow, that there remains no other sacrifice for sin." That of Belgia: "We account all things as dung, in respect of the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus our Lord, finding, in his wounds and stripes, all manner of comfort that can be desired. Therefore, there is no need, that either we should wish for any other means, or devise any of our own brains, whereby we might be reconciled unto God, besides this one oblation once offered, by which all the faithful, who are sanctified, are consecrated, or perfected forever." That of Augsburg teaches that Christ, "who was born of the virgin Mary, did truly suffer, was crucified, dead and buried, that he might reconcile his Father unto us, and might be a sacrifice, not only for the original sin, but also for all actual sins, of men." It is worthy of special notice that the nearness of death makes the pardon of sin and the blood of Christ very precious to the souls of godly men. Dr. Cornelius on his death-bed said: "The impression has been on my mind for these last three days, that this is my final sickness; and I bless God that I can look forward to the change before me with composure and hope. I feel that I am a poor sinner; I need to be washed from head to foot in the blood of atonement. I hope to be saved through the blood of Christ. Within the last year and especially of late, the Lord Jesus Christ has been becoming more and more precious to my soul. I feel that I can commit my immortal all to him—and here I wish to bear my dying testimony that I go to the judgment, relying on nothing but the blood of Christ. Without that I should have no hope." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 87: 04.25. JUSTIFICATION - ACCEPTANCE IN CHRIST ======================================================================== JUSTIFICATION. ACCEPTANCE IN CHRIST It is an error of some that they make our entire justification to consist in the pardon of sin. It is not here denied that by a well-known figure of speech, that remission, pardon and forgiveness, are each sometimes put for the whole of justification; just as fear, love and faith are each put for the whole of religion; and just as the cross of Christ is spoken of to signify the whole system of truths essentially connected with the cross. But precious as is the gift of pardon, and certainly as it is accompanied by acceptance in the Beloved--yet it is not itself such acceptance. Our case demands more than mere remission. Bare pardon would save us from hell. It could give us no title to heaven. It would bar the gates of death--but it would not open the gates of life. It breaks off our chains and opens our prison doors, but it does not beauteously array us, and send us forth in the garments of salvation. It destroys the fear and takes away the pains of hell, but gives not the hope of glory, nor secures the rewards of grace. Pardon turns the rebel loose, but it does not authorize him to sit at the table of the king. It secures to us remission; we need admission to the divine favor. Pardon brings us out of Egypt. Acceptance brings us into Canaan. Pardon causes us to cease to be heirs of hell. Acceptance makes us heirs of heaven. It is also freely granted that forgiveness and acceptance, remission and a title to eternal glory--are never separated, though they are distinct and different; just as faith, hope and love are never separated, yet no man will contend that they are the same Christian virtues. As many as God pardons, he accepts in Christ, regenerates, sanctifies and glorifies. A separate link of this blessed chain is never found, yet each link is distinct. As this distinction is highly important, and the opposition to it sometimes violent and scornful, it may be well to give the views of those, whose names are of weight with nearly all good men. It is strange that such hatred of the precious truth of God should ever be indulged, but the friends of sound doctrine cannot abandon the defense of that, which is so precious. It is their life. Calvin says: "We simply explain justification to be an acceptances by which God receives us into his favor, and esteems us as righteous people; and we say it consists in the remission of sins and the imputation of the righteousness of Christ." Owen says: "Had we not been sinners, we would have had no need of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ to render us righteous before God. Being so, the first end for which it is imputed is the pardon of sin; without which we could not be righteous by the imputation of the most perfect righteousness. These things therefore are consistent, namely that the satisfaction of Christ should be imputed unto us for the pardon of sin, and the obedience of Christ be imputed unto us to render us righteous before God. And they are not only consistent, but neither of them singly were sufficient unto our justification." How precious such doctrine is, how faith lays hold of it as with both hands! Hopkins says: "It is not therefore, O my soul, a mere negative mercy that God gives you in the pardon of your sins: it is not merely the removing of the curse and wrath, which your sins have deserved, though that alone can never be sufficiently admired. But the same hand which plucks you out of hell by pardoning grace and mercy, lifts you up to heaven by what it gives you together with your pardon, even a right and title to the glorious inheritance of saints above." The bitterness, with which the present defenders of orthodox views in this matter are assailed, must justify the making of an extract from Thomas Scott: "The justification of a sinner must imply something distinct from a total and final remission of the deserved punishment; namely a renewed title to the reward of righteousness, as complete and effective as he would have had if he had never sinned, but had perfectly performed, during the term of his probation, all the demands of the divine law. The remission of sins would indeed place him in such a state, that no charge would lie against him; but then he would have no title to the reward of righteousness, until he had obtained it by performing, for the appointed time, the whole obedience required of him; for he would merely be re-admitted to a state of probation, and his justification or condemnation could not be decided until that were terminated. But the justification of the pardoned sinner gives him a present title to the reward of righteousness, independent of his future conduct, as well as without respect to his past actions. This is evidently the scriptural idea of justification: it is uniformly represented as immediate and complete, when the sinner believes in the Lord Jesus Christ; and not as a contingent advantage to be waited for until death or judgment: and the arguments, which some learned men have adduced, to prove that justification means nothing else than forgiveness of sins, only show that the two distinct blessings are never separately conferred. David, for instance, says, ’Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes not iniquity;’ and Paul observes that in that passage, ’David describes the blessedness of the man, unto whom God imputes righteousness without works.’ This does not prove, that ’not imputing sin,’ and ’imputing righteousness’ are synonymous terms: but merely, that where God does not impute sin, he does impute righteousness’ and that he confers the title to eternal life, on all those whom he rescues from eternal death. Indeed exemption from eternal punishment, and a right to an actual and vast reward, are such distinct things, that one cannot but wonder they should be so generally confounded as they are in theological discussions." These extracts have been purposely given at length, because they fairly and cogently argue the question, because these writers are remarkable for sound and clear discrimination, because they were eminently earnest and deeply experienced Christians, because above most they were Bible theologians, and because they justly have great weight with good and sober people in settling the opinions of the wavering. It would be easy to swell the testimonies to this precious truth to a great number. Take the following as the only additional witness now offered. The Confession of Helvetia says: "To justify, in the apostle’s disputation concerning justification, does signify to remit sins, to absolve from the fault and punishment thereof, to receive into favor, to pronounce a man just." Still our dependence is on God’s precious word for all our doctrinal principles. There we find the remission and the reward both stated. Jesus Christ says, "Verily I say unto you, he who hears my word, and believes on him who sent me, has everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation; but has passed from death unto life." John 5:24. Here life and death, everlasting life and condemnation are opposite, and justification by faith is described, not merely as escape from death and condemnation, but as a passage already made from death unto life. In Acts 13:38-39 are these words also: "Be it known unto you therefore, men and brethren, that through this man is preached unto you the forgiveness of sins; and by him all who believe are justified from all things, from which you could not be justified by the law of Moses." So Christ sent Paul to preach to the gentiles, "that they might receive forgiveness of sins, AND inheritance among those who are sanctified." Acts 26:18. Here both the blessings are distinctly stated as flowing from Christ. So in Romans 5:1-2, "Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom also we have access into this grace wherein we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God." Surely, the second verse here is not mere tautology. By the pardon of sin "there is no condemnation" to the believer; by his acceptance in the Beloved, "he is made an heir according to the hope of eternal life." Romans 8:1; Titus 3:7. If the distinction has not been made clear, and also well established, perhaps it is hardly necessary to spend more time upon it. Its importance may be seen by asking--what is the true state of believers? Are they merely a company of pardoned wretches? or are they a glorious family of adopted children? Are they merely turned out of prison to wander at large? or are they through Christ entitled to eternal glory? Do they stand before God’s tribunal as a reprieved felon stands before his king? or have they "a right to the tree of life?" But we are already trenching upon the subject of the next chapter, namely, the imputed righteousness of Christ. May this and that be a blessing to many a child of God. O that God’s people knew their privileges and rejoiced in them continually. And "while we carry a sense of grace in our conscience to comfort us--let us carry a sense of sin in our memory to humble us." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 88: 04.26. JUSTIFICATION - CHRIST'S RIGHTEOUSNESS IS IMPUTED TO BELIEVERS ======================================================================== Justification. Christ’s righteousness is imputed to believers As our works are the works of sinners—we must either stand before God, covered with the filthy rags of our own righteousness, or we must obtain some better righteousness than we are capable of working out for ourselves. We must either be justified by God without any cause, and this would be both connivance at sin—and approbation of it, to assert which of God would be blasphemy; or by works in their nature imperfect and sinful, as all ours confessedly are—and that would be an admission that the law had once demanded too much; or by the all-perfect work and infinite merit of Jesus Christ. This last is God’s published plan. Christ is "the Lord our righteousness." The end of his life on earth was that he might be the end of the law for righteousness to every one who believes. His righteousness is not imparted, but imputed to us. It does not cure our corruption, but it covers our nakedness. It is not infused into us, but it is reckoned to us. It is not inherent in us, but it is set down to our account. We do not imbibe it, but we are invested with it. We are not imbued, but endued with it. It does not give us a fitness for heaven, but a title to it. It is not Christ’s work in us, but his work and sufferings for us—which give us an indefeasible title to the privileges of sons of God. To enter the kingdom of God without a right would make us stand before him as presumptuous intruders, called by Christ "thieves and robbers, who had climbed up some other way." To enter it with a title less perfect than the law requires would be exalting mercy at the expense of justice, and relaxing all the bonds of God’s moral government. To enter it with a title based upon our own merits would be a public and bold denial of our guilt and ruin. But here is Jehovah’s way. "The grace of God, and the gift by grace, which is by one man, Jesus Christ, has abounded unto many." "Those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness, shall reign in life by one, Jesus Christ." "By the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life." "By the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." "Our righteousness," says Calvin, "is not in ourselves but in Christ." "As by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous." What is placing our righteousness in the obedience of Christ, but asserting that we are accounted righteous only because his obedience is accepted for us as if it were our own?" Such Scriptures and such reasonings settle to the satisfaction of the great mass of God’s people, the truth of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to his people. The righteousness by which a sinner stands accepted is called the righteousness of God, because it is in opposition to the righteousness of men, because God provided and approves it and none other, and because he puts great honor upon it. It is called the righteousness of Christ, because our Lord Jesus being made under the law, was obedient to all its precepts, and suffered its dreadful penalty for us, and so he himself brought in everlasting righteousness for us. It is called the righteousness of faith, because it is apprehended and appropriated by faith. It is not a righteousness secured by working, but by believing. "We are justified by faith." This righteousness is at least once called the righteousness of the law, because in its absolute perfection it is all that the moral law, spotless and eternal, demands for the justification of a sinner in the sight of God. It may well excite amazement that the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness should be so violently opposed as it sometimes is. Owen says: "In our day nothing in religion is more maligned, more reproached, more despised, than the imputation of righteousness unto us, or our imputed righteousness." Thomas Scott says, "the proud heart of man is prone to deny, or object to it, even with blasphemous enmity." And Archibald Alexander says: "No part of evangelical doctrine has met with a more determined opposition than the doctrine of imputation. It has been loaded with reproaches, as a doctrine the most unreasonable, the most dangerous, and the most impious. It is a remarkable circumstance, however, that all the objections, which have been made to it, are founded on a misapprehension or a misrepresentation of the true nature of imputation." It is said that a divine of our own country has been so far left to himself as to say publicly that "imputed righteousness is imputed nonsense." The motives of those, who revile this doctrine, will be judged by Him, who cannot err. No human tribunal is competent to pronounce upon them. But the pretended arguments brought against the doctrine of the imputation of Christ’s merits to his people, as they have often been, so they should again and again be fully and fairly answered. He who defends, and he who assails, this doctrine are busied at a vital point of Christianity. Some have really held and taught the substance of this doctrine, and yet rejected the term, imputation. If any ask, why we should insist on the use of the term and not yield it to such people and others, the answer is ready. First, we have the example of inspired men on our side. Psalms 32:2, and 2 Corinthians 5:9; Romans 4:6, Romans 4:11, Romans 4:23-25. If David and Paul use the word, why may not we also? If any man should propose to banish the word redemption from our theological vocabulary, what friend of truth would consent to it? Imputed righteousness is and ought to be just as dear to millions of God’s people as redemption. Secondly, we could not get on well without this term. It conveys the very idea we wish to present in the pulpit and in our writings. If a man gives due notice that henceforth he will always call a hat a spade, it cannot fairly be said that he deceives any one by such a misnomer, but surely he will give trouble both to himself and his friends. Nor will he gain any good, unless he esteems the reputation of singularity such. And he may mislead some one. Thirdly, good theological terms are not easily obtained and agreed upon; and when they are settled they become out-posts to important truths, and should not be surrendered. The man, who asks that the people of the United States shall no more use the phrases, republican government, union, federative system, rights of the States—would be very confusing. It is an old art of enemies to assault, and of traitors to surrender the out-posts. Fourthly, this phrase has long been in use, is incorporated into many symbols of faith, into many manuals of Christian doctrine, and into nearly all bodies of divinity, and so ought not to be given up. Those who have objected to it have suggested no better, indeed none so good. The Swiss Reformers in the Confession of Helvetia say: "God imputes the righteousness of Christ unto us for our own: so that now we are not only cleansed from our sin, and purged, and holy, but also endued with the righteousness of Christ. To speak properly, then; it is God alone who justifies us, and that only for Christ, by not imputing unto us our sin, but imputing Christ’s righteousness unto us." Romans 4:23-25. The Augsburg Confession says: "When therefore we say, that ’we are justified by faith,’ Romans 5:1, this is our meaning: that we do obtain remission of sins, and imputation of righteousness, by mercy showed us for Christ’s sake." The confession of France says: "Casting away all opinion of virtues and merits, we do altogether rest in the only obedience of Jesus Christ, which is imputed to us, both that all our sins may be covered, and that we may obtain grace before God." The Confession of Saxony says: "Christ himself is our righteousness, because that by his merit we have remission, and God does impute his righteousness to us, and for him does account us just." The Confession of Belgia says: "Christ himself is our righteousness, which imputes all his merits unto us; faith is but the instrument, whereby we are coupled unto him." The Church of England says: "We are accounted righteous before God only for the merits of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ by faith; and not for our own works or deservings, therefore, that we are justified by faith alone—is a most wholesome doctrine and full of comfort." The Church of Ireland says: "We are accounted righteous before God, only for the merit of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, applied by faith. And this righteousness, which we receive of God’s mercy, and Christ’s merits, embraced by faith, is taken, accepted, and allowed of God, for our perfect and full justification." The Confession of Wirtemburg says, that "man is made acceptable to God and accounted just before him for the only Son of God, our Lord Jesus Christ, through faith; and when we appear before the judgment-seat of God, we must not trust to the merit of any of those virtues which we have, but only to the merit of our Lord Jesus Christ, whose merit is ours by faith." The Confession of Sueveland says: "This whole justification is to be ascribed to the good pleasure of God, and to the merit of Christ, and to be received by faith alone." John 1:12-13, Ephesians 2:8-10. The Savoy, the Cambridge and the Boston Congregational Confessions, and the London and Philadelphia Baptist Confessions hold forth these very words: "Those, whom God effectually calls, he also freely justifies, not by infusing righteousness into them, but by pardoning their sins, and by accounting and accepting their persons as righteous; not for anything wrought in them, or done by them—but for Christ’s sake alone; not by imputing faith itself, the act of believing, or any other evangelical obedience to them as their righteousness, but by imputing Christ’s active obedience unto the whole law, and passive obedience in his death, for their whole." It is well known that all branches of the Presbyterian Church in North America and in Great Britain and her colonies, with the exception of a few Arians in Ireland and a few Unitarians in England, who for some reason wear the Presbyterian name, use almost verbatim the same formula on this subject. The Heidelberg Catechism thus speaks: "56. What do you believe concerning the forgiveness of sins? "That God, for the sake of Christ’s satisfaction, will no more remember my sins, neither my corrupt nature, against which I have to struggle all my life long, but will graciously impute to me the righteousness of Christ, that I may never be condemned before the tribunal of God. "59. But what does it profit you that you believe all this? "That I am righteous in Christ, before God, and an heir of eternal life. "60. How are you righteous before God? "Only by a true faith in Jesus Christ; so that, though my conscience accuses me that I have grossly transgressed all the commands of God, and kept none of them, and am still inclined to all evil; notwithstanding God, without any merit of mine, but only of mere grace, grants and imputes to me the perfect satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ; even so, as if I never had had, nor committed any sin; yes, as if I had fully accomplished all that obedience which Christ has accomplished for me; inasmuch as I embrace such benefit with a believing heart. "61. Why are you are righteous by faith alone? "Not that I am acceptable to God on account of the worthiness of my faith, but only because the satisfaction, righteousness, and holiness of Christ is my righteousness before God, and that I cannot receive and apply the same to myself any other way than by faith only." The Welch Calvinistic Methodists’ Confession says: "Justification is an act of the grace of God, judging and proclaiming man to be righteous, through imputing to him the righteousness of Christ, which is received by the sinner through faith." "Justification includes in itself a forgiveness to the transgressor of all his iniquities, so that he shall not die on their account; an exaltation of the person to the favor of God; and a bestowing on him a lawful right to enjoy never-ending happiness." We are made the righteousness of God in Christ, in the same sense in which he was made sin for us. As his receiving the curse for us did not defile his soul, or make him personally ill-deserving; so our receiving the blessing does not make us pure or personally meritorious. We are made righteous in Christ in the same way, in which we are made sinners in Adam. In neither case is there an identity of person. In neither case do the personal acts or qualities of these our representatives become our acts or qualities. In both cases are we counted, reckoned, regarded, held and treated in law—as if they were ours. As Christ did none of the acts which were imputed to him for expiation, so we have done none of the acts, which are imputed to us for justification. Men sometimes say—How can we be justified by a righteousness not our own? It is freely admitted that our justifying righteousness is not inherently ours. Nor is it in any sense so ours that we can proudly boast of it, and so deny that in ourselves we are perishing sinners. Nor is our justifying righteousness ours by any hereditary right, nor until God imputes it to us, and we receive it by faith. But if the objectors mean that when we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and God imputes his righteousness to us, it does not become ours in the eye of the law, then they do contradict God’s word and the sense of God’s people in all ages. How is he "Jehovah our righteousness," (Jeremiah 23:6) if his merits in no sense become ours? If these objectors are right, what sense is there in such passages of Scripture as those already quoted from the fifth chapter of Romans? or what is the meaning of these words: "Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes?" Romans 10:4; or of this, "Christ is of God made unto us righteousness?" 1 Corinthians 1:30; or of this, "He has made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him?" 2 Corinthians 5:21. See also Romans 4:5-6, and Galatians 3:6, Galatians 3:9, Galatians 3:22. Augustine says: "There is a righteousness of God, which is made ours, when it is given unto us. It is called the righteousness of God, lest man should think that he had a righteousness of himself." Cowper says: "The righteousness of Christ is ours, and ours by as great a right, as any other thing which we possess; to wit, by the free gift of God; for it has pleased him to give a garment to us, who are naked, and to give us, who had none of our own—a righteousness answerable to justice." A. Alexander says: "Whatever Christ has done or suffered for our salvation, in order that it may be available to us, must in some way become ours." Again: "When God imputes the righteousness of Christ to a sinner, he actually bestows it upon him for all the purposes of his complete justification." The doctrine commonly held by the Church of God is, that what Christ has done and suffered for his people becomes actually and legally theirs, in the sight of God, in virtue of their union with him. So that we do not, we dare not teach that a man is justified by a righteousness in no sense his own. The great difference between saints and sinners in the matter of justification is, that the former are partakers of the righteousness of Christ, and the latter are not. This is our title to life and immortality. This is the believer’s claim to the infinite merits of Christ. The doctrine maintained is simply that God looks upon believers in Christ as one with the Savior, that Christ’s righteousness is counted, reckoned to them for righteousness; or that as their surety he meets all the demands of the law on them as transgressors, and makes over to them his perfect obedience as ground of their acceptance with God. It is sometimes said that the doctrine of imputed righteousness sets aside the fulfillment of the law. But this is surely a mistake. Paul says, that God sent his Son to the very end "that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us." And Dr. Gill well says that "though righteousness does not come by our obedience to the law, yet it does by Christ’s obedience to it. Though by the deeds of the law as performed by man, no flesh shall be justified; yet by the deeds of the law as performed by Christ, all the elect are justified." So that now "if we confess our sins, God is faithful and JUST to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9. On any other scheme than that which is here contended for—what sense is there in the word, just, in the text last quoted? If the import of the objection is that the doctrine is unfriendly to the promotion of holiness among men, the answers are ready. In Romans 6:1-2, Paul meets this objection thus: "What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid; how shall we who are dead to sin, live any longer therein?" In that and the next chapter he says much more to the same effect. Besides, the whole gospel plan goes on the supposition that the strongest motive, which can incline man’s heart to holiness, is love. Now "love is the fulfilling of the law." "We love him because he first loved us." "The love of Christ constrains us, because we thus judge—that if one died for all, then were all dead, and that he died for all, that those who live should not henceforth live unto themselves, but unto him that died for them." And the facts are all on one side. It would be impossible to find in any age an eminently holy man, who did not openly declare that his hope was in God’s mercy—not in his own doings; in the righteousness of Christ—not in his own deservings. There was as much agreement among the Reformed churches, for more than two hundred years from the days of Luther and Calvin, in receiving this doctrine, as that of the divinity of Christ, or the personality of the Holy Spirit. Some say, if we are justified on the ground of the merits of Christ, where are the grace and mercy of the gospel? The answer is that God’s rich grace and abundant mercy shine forth in the whole work of salvation from first to last. The whole devising, execution, application and crowning of redemption flow from God’s boundless grace, and infinite, eternal, and unchangeable love. Grace is not connivance at sin. Mercy is not contempt of law. The grace of Christ vindicates the justice and government of God, while it brings salvation to the guilty. Hear the language of the Baptist and Congregational Confessions, which have been already quoted in this chapter: "Christ by his obedience and death did fully discharge the debt of all those who are justified, and did by the sacrifice of himself, in the blood of his cross, undergoing in their stead the penalty due unto them, make a proper, real and full satisfaction to God’s justice in their behalf; yet inasmuch as he was given by the Father for them, and his obedience and satisfaction accepted in their stead, and both freely, not for anything in them, their justification is only of free grace, that both the exact justice and rich grace of God might be glorified in the justification of sinners." The Presbyterian Confession has nearly the same words. To the question, "if our justification be thus purchased by the perfect obedience and satisfaction of Christ, how is it of free grace?" Thomas Boston replies, "Very well; for 1. God accepted our surety, when he might have held by the sinner himself, and insisted that the soul that sinned might die. Romans 5:8. God did this freely. 2. God himself provided the Surety. John 3:16. The Father gives the Son, and the Son assumes man’s nature and pays the debt. What is there here but riches of grace to the justified sinner? 3. God demands nothing of us in payment for it. It is a rich purchase, a dear purchase, the price of blood; but the righteousness and justification are given to us most freely through faith. That is, we have it, for ’take-and-have.’ And the very hand, wherewith we receive it, namely faith, is the free gift of God unto us. Ephesians 2:8. So that most evident it is that we are justified freely by his grace." Calvin says: "It betrays ignorance to oppose the merit of Christ to the mercy of God. For it is a common maxim, that between two things, of which one follows or is subordinate to the other, there can be no opposition. There is no reason therefore why the justification of men should not be gratuitous from the mere mercy of God, and why at the same time the merit of Christ should not intervene, which is subservient to the mercy of God." Thus the doctrine has been explained, it has been proven from Scripture, it has been shown to be interwoven with our best formulas of doctrine, and objections to it have been answered. In the next chapter some additional testimonies in its favor will be given. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 89: 04.27. JUSTIFICATION - IMPUTED RIGHTEOUSNESS; ADDITIONAL TESTIMONIES ======================================================================== Justification. Imputed righteousness. Additional testimonies. There is hardly anything more gratifying to the pious mind than to discover an agreement between its own conclusions and those of great and good men, who have lived in former generations. They may indeed have been mistaken, and so they are no standard to us; yet when their number is large, when they lived in different ages and countries, and yet were led by honest inquiry and much prayer to the same results, and when their well-earned reputation for piety, love of truth and diligence in study, create a strong presumption in favor of their united testimony, a good man will very carefully examine the grounds of his conclusions before he will refuse to adopt their sentiments, especially where they have all put much honor on God’s holy word. In other chapters of this work many such witnesses have been adduced. But this chapter will consist chiefly of the views of others on the subject in hand. The language of God’s people often varies considerably, but the sense of the following quotations is clearly confirmatory of our doctrine. Having already noticed the views of the writers of the first five centuries, the first now given is that of Gregory. He says: "Our righteous Advocate shall defend us in the day of judgment, because we know and accuse ourselves to be unrighteous. Therefore let us not trust to our tears, nor to our actions, but to the alleging of our Advocate." Calvin remarking on Romans 5:19, says: "The meaning is, that as by the sin of Adam we were alienated from God, and devoted to destruction, so by the obedience of Christ we are received into favor, as righteous people. Nor does the future tense of the verb exclude present righteousness; as appears from the context. For he had before said, "The free gift is of many offences unto justification." Again, "if righteousness consist in an observance of the law, who can deny that Christ merited favor for us, when by bearing this burden himself he reconciles us to God, just as though we were complete observers of the law ourselves." Latimer says: "When we believe in Christ, it is like as if we had no sins. For he exchanges with us. He takes our sins and wickedness from us, and gives unto us his holiness, righteousness, justice, fulfilling of the law—and so consequently everlasting life. So that we are like as if we had done no sin at all; for his righteousness stands us in good stead, as though we of our own selves had fulfilled the law." Hooper says: "We must only trust to the merits of Christ, which satisfied the extreme jot and uttermost point of the law for us. And this his justice and perfection, he imputes and communicates with us by faith." Richard Hooker says: "Although in ourselves we are altogether sinful and unrighteous, yet even the man who is impious in himself, full of iniquity, full of sin—him being found in Christ through faith, and having his sin remitted through repentance—him God beholds with a gracious eye, puts away his sin by not imputing it, takes quite away the punishment due thereunto by pardoning it, and accepts him in Jesus Christ as perfectly righteous, as if he had fulfilled all that was commanded him in the law; shall I say more perfectly righteous than if himself had fulfilled the whole law? I must take heed what I say: but the apostle says ’God made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.’ Such we are in the sight of God the Father—as is the very Son of God himself. Let it be counted folly or frenzy, or fury, whatever, it is our comfort and our wisdom; we care for no knowledge in the world but this, that man has sinned and God has suffered; that God has made himself the Son of man, and that men are made the righteousness of God." Grotius says: "Whereas we have said that Christ has brought forth or procured two things for us—freedom from punishment and a reward; the ancient church attributes the one of them unto his atonement, the other unto his merit. Atonement consists in the translation of sins, merit in the imputation of his most perfect obedience performed for us." Bates says: "There are but two ways of appearing before the righteous and supreme Judge: 1. In innocence and sinless obedience: or, 2. by the righteousness of Christ. The one is by the law, the other by grace. And these two can never be compounded; for he who pleads innocence, in that disclaims grace; and he who sues for grace acknowledges guilt. Now the first cannot be performed by us. For entire obedience to the law supposes the integrity of our natures, there being a moral impossibility that the faculties once corrupted should act regularly; but man is stained with original sin from his conception. And the form of the law runs universally, ’cursed is everyone that continues not in all things, written in the book of the law to do them.’ In these scales, one evil work outweighs a thousand good ones. If a man were guilty of but one single error, his entire obedience afterwards could not save him; for that being always due to the law, the payment of it cannot discount for the former debt. So that we cannot in any degree be justified by the law; for there is no middle between transgressing and not transgressing it. He who breaks one article in a covenant cuts off his claim to any benefit from it. Whoever presumes to appear before God’s judgment-seat in his own righteousness shall be covered with confusion. "2. By the righteousness of Christ. This alone absolves from the guilt of sin, saves from hell and can endure the trial of God’s tribunal. This the apostle prized as his invaluable treasure, in comparison of which all other things are but dross and rubbish. That which is ordained, and rewarded in the person of our Redeemer, God cannot but accept. Now this righteousness is meritoriously imputed only to believers. As all sins are mortal in respect of their guilt, but death is not actually inflicted for them, upon the account of the grace of the new covenant; so all sins are venial in respect of the satisfaction made by Christ; but they are not actually pardoned, until the performing of the condition, to which pardon is annexed. Faith transfers the guilt from the sinner to the sacrifice." Leighton says: "This is the great glad tidings, that we are made righteous by Christ; it is not a righteousness wrought by us, but given to us, and put upon us. This carnal reason cannot comprehend, and being proud, therefore rejects and argues against it, saying, how can this thing be? But faith closes with it, and rejoices in it. Without either doing or suffering, the sinner is acquitted, and justified, and stands as guiltless of breach—yes, as having fulfilled the whole law. And happy they that thus fasten upon this righteousness, that they may lift up their faces with gladness and boldness before God. Whereas the most industrious, self-saving justiciary, though in other men’s eyes and his own, possibly for the present, he makes a glittering show; yet when he shall come to be examined of God, and tried according to the law, shall be covered with shame, and confounded in his folly and guiltiness." Owen says: "There is an imputation of mere grace and favor. And this is, when that which antecedently unto the imputation was no way ours, not inherent in us, not performed by us, which we had no right nor title unto—is granted unto us, made ours, so as that we are judged of, and dealt with according unto it. This is that imputation in both branches of it, negative in the non-imputation of sin, and positive in the imputation of righteousness, which the apostle so vehemently pleads for, and so frequently asserts in Romans 4:1-25. For he both affirms the thing itself, and declares that it is of mere grace, without respect unto anything within ourselves. And if this kind of imputation cannot be fully exemplified in any other instance, but this alone, whereof we treat, it is because the foundation of it in the mediation of Christ is singular, and that which there is nothing to parallel in any other case." "The imputation we plead for is not a judging or esteeming of them to be righteous, who truly and really are not so." In imputation God "makes an effectual grant and donation of a true, real, perfect righteousness, even that of Christ himself, unto all who truly believe, and accounting it as theirs, on his own gracious act, both absolves them from sin, and grants them right and title unto eternal life. In this imputation, the thing itself is first imputed unto us, and not any of the effects of it, but they are made ours by virtue of that imputation." "To say the righteousness of Christ is not imputed unto us, only its effects are so, is really to overthrow all imputation." Charnock says: "All the world stands guilty before God; so cannot present God with a righteousness of their own, commensurate to the law; not one act any man can do, can bear proportion to it; all strength to do anything suitable to it was lost in Adam. Since no righteousness of our own can justify, it must be the righteousness of the Son of God, which must be imputed to us in the same manner our sins were imputed to him; as it is accepted by God for us, so it is accounted by God to us. 2 Corinthians 5:21. Sin was in us, but charged upon Christ; righteousness is in Christ, and imputed to us." Tuckney says: "We are made the righteousness of God in Christ in the same way that he was made sin for us, that is, by imputation." Ryland says: "Justification by Christ’s imputed righteousness is the center arch of that bridge, by which we pass out of time into a blissful eternity." John Willison when near death uttered: "am living on the righteousness of Christ, yes dying in the Lord. It is not past experiences or manifestations I depend upon; it is Christ, a present, all-sufficient Savior, and perfect righteousness in him, I look to. All my attainments are but loss and rubbish besides him." Bunyan said: "There is no other way for sinners to be justified from the curse of the law, in the sight of God, than by the imputation of that righteousness long ago performed by, and still residing with the person of Jesus Christ." The author of the sermon on justification in the "Morning Exercises" published in 1675 says: "To be justified is to be freely accepted of God as righteous, so as to have pardon and title to life, upon the account of Christ’s righteousness. We cannot be accepted as righteous until we be acquitted from guilt." "There are these several things considerable about the imputing this righteousness; first, substitution; Christ satisfied in our stead, that is, he tendered that which was due from us. Secondly, acceptance; the Father accepted what Christ performed in our stead, as performed on our behalf. Thirdly, participation; we have the fruits and advantages of his undertaking, no less than if we ourselves had satisfied." Stedman says: "The first blessing that I shall mention as depending upon union with Jesus Christ is the justification of a sinner in the sight of God, upon the account of Christ’s righteousness imputed to him; whereby the guilt of sin is removed, and the person of the sinner accepted as righteous with the God of heaven." "The only matter of man’s righteousness since the fall of Adam, wherein he can appear with comfort before the justice of God, and consequently whereby alone he can be justified in his sight, is the obedience and sufferings of Jesus Christ, the righteousness of the Mediator." Wilcox says: "If you ever saw Christ, you saw him a rock higher than self-righteousness, Satan and sin, and this rock does follow you; and there will be a continual dropping of honey and grace, out of this rock, to satisfy you." Crisp says: "These are the sure mercies of David, when a man receives the things of Christ, only because Christ gives them; and not in regard of any action of ours, as the ground of taking them. Christ is not more rich in himself than he is liberal to contribute of his treasures. He makes his people sharers to the uttermost of all that he has." Bengel says: "The law presses on a man, until he flees to Christ; then it says, You have gotten a refuge. I forbear to follow you. You are wise. You are safe." Glascock says: "The grand design of all false religion is to patch up a righteousness for the justification of the sinner before God. The Christian religion teaches us to seek justification before God by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to us upon our believing on him. The denial of a believer’s justification, by the imputation of Christ’s righteousness to him, stabs the very heart of Christianity, and destroys all true revealed religion." Philip Henry cried: "Lord, clothe me with your righteousness, which is a lovely, costly, lasting, everlasting garment." Richard Taylor says: "Christ will only be a strength to those who trust in him for righteousness; those who will not have him for righteousness, shall not have him for their strength, to enable them to resist temptations, to mortify sin and corruption, and to bring forth the fruits of holiness." During the last century there arose a philanthropic Englishman, whose deeds of mercy have resounded throughout the civilized world. "He visited all Europe—not to survey the sumptuousness of palaces, or the stateliness of temples, not to make accurate measurements of the remains of ancient grandeur, nor to form a scale of the curiosity of modern art; not to collect medals, or collate manuscripts—-but to dive into the depths of dungeons; to plunge into the infection of hospitals; to survey the dwellings of sorrow and pain; to take the gauge and dimensions of misery, depression, and contempt; to remember the forgotten, to attend to the neglected, to visit the forsaken, and to compare and collate the distresses of all men in all countries. His plan is original; and it is as full of genius as it is of humanity. It was a voyage of discovery; a journey of charity. Already the benefit of his labor is felt in every country. I hope he will anticipate his final reward, by seeing all its effects fully realized in his own." Now would it not be instructive, if we could penetrate the hidden recesses of Howard’s thoughts, and find out what gave him this wondrous zeal? He himself has told us in one of the most solemn acts of his life. The inscription which he directed to be put on his tomb, was this: "Christ alone is my hope!" Hervey says: "Had I all the faith of the patriarchs, all the zeal of the prophets, all the good works of the apostles, all the holy sufferings of the martyrs, and all the glowing devotion of the seraphs; I would disclaim the whole, in point of dependence, and count all but dross and dung, when set in competition with the infinitely precious death, and infinitely meritorious righteousness of the Lord Jesus Christ!" Thomas Scott, remarking on Romans 10:4, says: "This ’righteousness of God is without the law,’ being entirely independent of our personal obedience, either before or after justification; it becomes ours ’by faith in Christ Jesus;’ and in the next chapter we read of ’righteousness imputed without works.’ Is it not then plain that ’the righteousness of God is unto all who believe,’ by imputation? Thus likewise it is ’upon all who believe:’ for they ’have put on Christ;’ God now looking on them, there appears nothing but Christ; they are as it were covered all over with him, as a man with the clothes he has put on. Hence in the next verse it is said, they ’are all one in Christ Jesus,’ as if there were but one person. Alexander Hill says: "Considered in themselves, believers are guilty and deserve to suffer, but by means of the imputation of Christ’s righteousness, they are completely acquitted from the punishment due to their sins, because it was endured for them by the Lord Jesus, and they acquire a right to eternal life, because it was purchased for them by his obedience." He also says that this is the universal opinion. Chalmers says: "I trust I shall never lose my hold of the fullness and peace, which lie in the doctrine of Christ’s imputed righteousness." Later in life he says: "O my God, enable me to lay hold of the righteousness of Christ as my righteousness. Never am I in a better frame than when dwelling in simple faith on Christ’s offered righteousness, and making it the object of my acceptance. O Lord, I pray for more and more of the clearness and enlargement of this view, and grant me the Spirit of adoption." Indeed so uniform has been the love of Christians of all ages and nations to the doctrine of salvation by the imputed righteousness of Christ, that it is hardly less for a wonder than for a lamentation that any in our day should express doubts on the subject. Christ’s righteousness meets the greatest need of an enlightened conscience. It is the strength of all holy joy on earth. It is the life of a believer’s soul. In the last day the shouts of ’Grace, grace unto it!’ shall be heard from all the redeemed as the top-stone shall be laid on the living temple, the Church. To Christ, who has paid the ransom for us, God’s faithfulness and justice bind him to give all whom in covenant he had promised, yes, finally to give him the heathen for his inheritance and the uttermost parts of the earth for a possession. But to sinners saved, all is grace, unmerited favor, because it comes to them through the imputed righteousness of our Lord Jesus Christ. And all this is but the fulfillment of the prophecy of Isaiah 45:24-25): "Surely shall one say, In the Lord have I righteousness and strength;" and "In the Lord shall all the seed of Israel be justified and shall glory." Even "he who has clean hands, and a pure heart, who has not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully" shall not be saved by his own merits, but "he shall receive the blessing from the Lord, and righteousness from the God of his salvation." Psalms 24:4-5. Indeed, the capital error of multitudes in every age has been that "they, being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and going about to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted themselves unto the righteousness of God." Romans 10:3. Here, just here myriads have lost their all. Reader, let it not be so with you. Owen expresses the judgment that it is "impossible that any man should be justified before God any other way, but by the imputation of the righteousness of Christ," and says this was a common sentiment among the orthodox. Yet he as readily says that "they do not think or judge that all those are excluded from salvation, who cannot apprehend, or do deny the doctrine of the imputation of the righteousness of Christ, as by them declared." "To believe the doctrine of it, or not to believe it, as thus or thus explained, is one thing; and to enjoy the thing, or not to enjoy it, is another. I no way doubt, but that many men do receive "more grace from God than they understand, or will own." "Men may be really saved by that grace which doctrinally they do deny; and they may be justified by the imputation of that righteousness which in opinion they deny to be imputed." Such views relieve the mind not only of uncharitableness, but also of anguish respecting some, who have difficulties on the subject. It is well known that the venerable Dr. Dwight at one time wrote against the doctrine of imputation of righteousness; but it is delightful to find that when he had recovered from a long and dangerous illness, he poured out his thoughts before his pupils in these words: "Those acts of my life concerning which I entertained the best hopes which I was permitted to entertain, those, which appeared to me the least exceptionable, were nothing, and less than nothing. The mercy of God as exercised through the all-sufficient and glorious righteousness of the Redeemer, yielded me the only foundation of hope for good beyond the grave. During the long continuation of my disease, as I was always, except when in paroxysms of suffering, in circumstances entirely fitted for solemn contemplation, I had ample opportunity to survey this most interesting of all subjects on every side. As the result of all my investigations, let me assure you, and that from the borders of the eternal world, confidence in the righteousness of Christ is the only foundation upon which, when you are about to leave this world, you can safely rest the everlasting life of your souls. To trust upon anything else will be to feed upon the wind. You will then be at the door of eternity; will be hastening to the presence of your Judge; will be just ready to give up your account of the deeds done in the body; will be preparing to hear the final sentence of acquittal or condemnation; and will stand at the gate of heaven or of hell. In these amazing circumstances you will infinitely need, let me persuade you to believe and to feel that you will infinitely need—a firm foundation on which you may stand, and from which you will never be removed. There is no other such foundation but the Rock of Ages. Then you will believe, then you will feel that there is no other." How precious is such truth! There is ground of hope for a sinner in the righteousness of Christ. How solemn the testimony here borne to its vital importance! And neither the wit of man, nor the wisdom of God has pointed out any method by which that righteousness may become ours to a complete justification, unless God in mercy will impute it to us. Such language from President Dwight reminds one of that of President Davies describing his thoughts during an illness. He says: "In my sickness, I found the unspeakable importance of a Mediator, in a religion of sinners. O! I could have given you the word of a dying man for it—that Jesus, that Jesus whom you preach, is indeed a necessary and an all-sufficient Savior. Indeed he is the only support for a departing soul. None but Christ, none but Christ! Had I as many good works as Abraham or Paul, I would not have dared build my hopes on such a quicksand, but only on this firm eternal Rock." Indeed to dying believers, Christ’s righteousness is very, very precious! W. H. Hewitson dying said: "The righteousness of Christ is my stay. That sustained me in Madeira in the midst of persecution and difficulties; it has sustained me through all my ministry; and it sustains me now." Indeed Christ is all and in all, to his departing followers. It is not long ago, since a pious native Christian in India was asked, on her dying bed, what was the state of her mind. She replied, "Happy, happy!" Then laying her hand on her Bible she said, ’I have Christ here!" Then pressing it to her heart she said, "And Christ here!" Then pointing toward heaven she added, "And Christ there!" Thrice blessed soul. In whatever part of the universe she might be, Christ was with her. He was formed in her the hope of glory. "There is none like Jesus." What do you say to these things? Is Christ all your hope? Are you building on this sure, this only foundation? In coming before God dare you make mention of any but his righteousness, even of his alone? Let every man take heed that he be not found naked, or clothed in rags and shame. Hold fast the merits of the Redeemer and you are safe. Let them go—and you are undone! His blood alone atones! His righteousness alone justifies! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 90: 04.28. THE OFFICE OF FAITH IN JUSTIFICATION ======================================================================== The Office of FAITH in Justification The Scriptures abound with assertions that our justification is by faith. Thus Habakkuk says: "The just shall live by faith." Habakkuk 2:4. We are at no loss for the sense of this passage; for we have an inspired interpretation of it given by Paul. Indeed it seems to have been a very favorite text with him. He quotes it in Romans 1:17, Galatians 3:11, Hebrews 10:38. But we may go further back than the days of Habakkuk, even to the time of Abraham. Of him we read: "Abram believed the Lord, and He credited it to him as righteousness." Genesis 15:6. This passage is no less celebrated than that already quoted. It is also divinely interpreted by the inspiration of God in Romans 4:1-6, Galatians 3:6-14. Upon the first part of Romans 4:1-25 Beza well says: "From this single example of Abraham, as deservedly selected from among all the fathers, the apostle intended to draw a conclusion, which would necessarily take in all believers. And that he might do this fairly, he intimates at the very entrance of the question, that he did not propose Abraham as one of the number of believers, but as the father of the Church; that he might properly reason from the father to his children, the foundation of which he lays in the thirteenth verse. In whatever way Abraham, the father of believers was justified, in the same must all his children (that is all believers) be justified; but Abraham was not justified, and made the father of the faithful, by any of his own works, either preceding or following his faith in Christ, as promised to him; but merely by faith in Christ, or the merit of Christ by faith imputed to him for righteousness. Therefore all his children become his children and are justified, not by their works, either preceding or following their faith; but by faith alone in the same Christ, who was at length to come; and thus they are at present justified, and shall be to the end of the world," And so "those who are of faith, shall be blessed with faithful Abraham." Galatians 3:9. Indeed the Scriptures are very explicit on this point: "A man is not justified by the works of the law, but by the faith of Jesus Christ." Galatians 2:16. "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 5:1. "The law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ, that we might be justified by faith." Galatians 3:24. "You stand by faith." Romans 11:20. "God shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through faith." Romans 3:30. Many other texts are no less clear. But what is the meaning of the expression "we are justified by faith?" How are we justified by faith? Why are we never said to be justified by other Christian graces? Humility is an excellent grace, much commended in Scripture, and puts us where we ought to be—in the dust. Meekness bears the outrageous wrongs heaped upon us, with pity and forgiveness, and so makes us like Christ, who was brought as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent—so he opened not his mouth. Hope is an anchor to the soul, both sure and steadfast, and being lively, animates the soul in all times of trial. Love with her broad mantle covers the faults of others, fills the world with the fame of her deeds, and never fails. Penitence sits at the feet of Jesus, and bathes them with its tears. The fear of the Lord is a fountain of life to depart from the snares of death. Excellent as all these graces are, yet it is nowhere said in Scripture that a man is justified by the fear of God, by charity, by penitence, by hope, by meekness, or by humility. But he is often said to be justified by faith. God does not put this honor upon faith because it is greater than other graces, for it is not. 1 Corinthians 13:13. Love is greater. So are all graces, which shall flourish forever. But the reason why faith justifies—is because it receives Christ. In the language of the Bible, to receive Christ is to believe on him. "To as many as received him to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to as many as believed on his name." John 1:12. The hand of the beggar receives the loaf, which charity offers him, and so he is fed by his hand and not by another member of his body. To believe in Christ is in Scripture said to be "looking to him." Isaiah 45:22, Hebrews 12:2. Now although he who looks, may have all his other senses, and in other respects they may be of eminent use to him, yet he sees only with his eyes. Faith is the vision of the new-born soul. It looks back thousands of years. "Through faith we understand that the worlds were made." It looks forward also thousands of years "Abraham rejoiced to see my day and he saw it and was glad." And as the dying Israelite looked to the brazen serpent and was healed, so de perishing sinners look by faith to Jesus and are saved. They look and live. Faith is a reliance upon testimony; and saving faith has special regard to the testimony of God concerning his Son. Even to men we extend our belief of their word in certain circumstances. "If we accept the testimony of men, God’s testimony is greater, because it is God’s testimony that He has given about His Son. (The one who believes in the Son of God has the testimony in himself. The one who does not believe God has made Him a liar, because he has not believed in the testimony that God has given about His Son.) And this is the testimony: God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son. The one who has the Son has life. The one who doesn’t have the Son of God does not have life." 1 John 5:9-12. So that he, who believes he has need of a Savior and credits this testimony of God, does rest the whole weight of his salvation here and not elsewhere. He takes Christ as his sole, sufficient Redeemer. Faith justifies us only as it receives Jesus Christ as "the Lord our Righteousness." It takes the robe of righteousness which he has wrought, and puts it on, and so hides the nakedness of the soul. The Westminster Confession says: "Justifying faith is a saving grace, wrought in the heart of a sinner, by the Spirit and word of God; whereby he, being convinced of his sin and misery, and of the disability of himself and all other creatures to recover him out of his lost condition, not only assents to the truth of the promise of the gospel, but receives and rests upon Christ and his righteousness therein held forth, for the pardon of sin, and for the accepting and accounting of his person righteous in the sight of God for salvation." Hall says: "The spiritual hand whereby we receive the sweet offer of our Savior is faith; which in short is no other than an affiance in the Mediator. Receive peace, and be happy; believe, and you have received." Usher says: "Justifying faith consists in these two things, in having a mind to know Christ, and a will to rest upon him. Whoever sees so much excellency in Christ, that thereby he is drawn to embrace him as the only Rock of salvation, that man truly believes to justification." Others very well represent the office of faith when they say that by means of it a union is formed between Christ and believers. Thus Luther says: "Faith unites the soul with Christ as a spouse with her husband. Everything which Christ has, becomes the property of the believing soul; everything which the soul has, becomes the property of Christ. Christ possesses all blessings and eternal life—they are thenceforth the property of the soul. The soul has all its iniquities and sins—they become thenceforward the property of Christ. It is then that a blessed change commences: Christ, who is both God and man, Christ who has never sinned, and whose holiness is perfect, Christ the Almighty, and Eternal, taking to himself, by his nuptial ring of faith, all the sins of the believer, those sins are lost and abolished in him; for no sins dwells before his infinite righteousness. Thus, by faith, the believer’s soul is delivered from sins, and clothed with the eternal righteousness of her bridegroom, Christ. O happy union! the rich, the noble, the holy Bridegroom takes in marriage his poor, guilty and despised spouse, delivers her from every evil, and enriches her with the most precious blessings. Christ, a King and a Priest, shares this honor and glory with all Christians. The Christian is a king, and consequently possesses all things; he is a priest, and consequently possesses God, and it is faith, not works, which brings him all this honor. A Christian is free from all things, above all things, faith giving him richly all things." Should any be startled at such expressions as "he possesses God," let them consider the import of these words: "You are my portion, O Lord." Psalms 119:57; "God is our refuge and strength." Psalms 46:1; "I am the Lord your God," and many such expressions of Scripture. On the other hand how many scores of times does God call the saints, "my people," "the lot of my inheritance," "my redeemed," "my love," etc. "All grace flows from Christ united to the soul, as all life flows from the soul united to the body." This union between Christ and believers shall never be broken. It is in perpetuity as to all its blessed consequences. From all that has been said, it is very evident that there is no merit in our believing, though by believing we become savingly interested in the merits of Christ. If faith itself, the act of believing, were the ground of our acceptance, it would certainly be works, even the work of faith. And as no man’s faith is absolutely perfect—we would then have justification by a work full of imperfection. Faith is indeed the instrument, but not the ground of salvation; the means, but not the cause of our justification. If faith itself were the ground of our acceptance, it would be our Savior, and it would be entitled to all the glory of our salvation. And as faith is an act of the soul, each man would then be entitled to the full honor of his own salvation; and instead of boasting being excluded, as Paul says (Romans 2:27) all heaven would be filled with it, and each man would have a right to say that he came there by his own act, merit and virtue. And where then would be the glory of Christ? His reward would consist in nothing. Those, who should be saved, would owe him nothing. They would have saved themselves. To be justified by faith itself as the ground of acceptance would surely be to be "justified by works of righteousness, which we had done." But Paul says this is impossible. The faith, by which a soul is united to Christ, is itself the gift of God, and a gift, which never could have been bestowed but for the finished work of Christ. That it is a gift from God is declared in Matthew 16:16-17, in John 1:13, in Romans 12:3, in Ephesians 2:8, in Php 1:29, and in many other places. The Savior is expressly called "the author and finisher of our faith." Hebrews 12:1. Again it is expressly ascribed to God’s Spirit: "The fruit of the Spirit is faith." Galatians 5:22. How then could itself be any just ground of acquitting the guilty, and of taking the undeserving into the favor of God? Faith makes no atonement for sin. Faith even when genuine is not in any case perfect and blameless. Should we have no better righteousness than this in which to appear before God—his holy eye would behold rips in every part of it. So that the Scriptures ascribe even our believing to the amazing kindness of God. In Acts 18:27, men are in so many words, said to have "believed through grace." These general views of the subject are common to all evangelical Christians. The Augsburg Confession says: "Christ is given for a Mediator to us, and this honor is not to be transferred unto our works. When therefore we do say that ’we are justified by faith,’ we do not mean that we are just for the worthiness of that virtue; but this is our meaning: that we do obtain remission of sins and imputation of righteousness by mercy shown us for Christ’s sake. But now this mercy cannot be received but by faith. When Paul says, ’Faith is reckoned for righteousness,’ he speaks of a trust and confidence of mercy, promised for Christ’s sake; and his meaning is, that men are pronounced righteous, that is, reconciled, through mercy promised for Christ’s sake, whom we must receive by faith. Now the novelty of this figurative speech of Paul, ’We are justified by faith,’ will not offend holy minds, if they understand that it is spoken properly of mercy, and that herein mercy is adorned with true and due praises. For what can be more acceptable to an afflicted and fearful conscience in great griefs, than to hear that this is the commandment of God, and the voice of the Bridegroom, Christ Jesus—that they should undoubtedly believe; that remission of sins, or reconciliation, is given unto them, not for their own worthiness, but freely, through mercy, for Christ’s sake; that the benefit might be certain." The Confession of Helvetia says: "Because faith does apprehend Christ our righteousness, and does attribute all to the praise of God in Christ, in this respect justification is attributed to faith chiefly because of Christ, whom it receives, and not because it is a work of ours. For faith is the gift of God. Now, that we do receive Christ by faith, the Lord shows in the sixth chapter of John, where he puts eating for believing, and believing for eating. For as by eating we receive food, so by believing we are made partakers of Christ." The Confession of Bohemia speaking "of true justification of faith" says: "This faith properly is an assent of a willing heart to the whole truth delivered in the gospel, whereby man is enlightened in his mind and soul, that he may rightly acknowledge and receive for his only Savior, his God, and Lord Jesus Christ, and upon him, as on a true rock, he may build his whole salvation; and love, follow and enjoy him, and repose all his hope and confidence in him." "But the lively and never dying spring of justification is in our Lord Jesus Christ alone—whose saving works give salvation." The Confession of Belgia says: "True faith does embrace Jesus Christ, with all his merits, and seeks for nothing besides him." "He, who by faith possesses Jesus Christ, has also perfect salvation." "Yet to speak properly, we do not mean that faith by itself, or of itself, does justify us. Faith is only the instrument, whereby we apprehend Christ, who is our righteousness. Christ therefore himself is our righteousness, which imputes all his merits unto us." The London and Philadelphia Baptist Confessions, the Confessions of the Savoy, Cambridge and Boston, and the Confessions of Presbyterian Churches generally in Great Britain and America agree in saying, "Faith receiving and resting on Christ and his righteousness, is the sole instrument of justification; yet is not alone in the person justified, but is ever accompanied with all other saving graces, and is no dead faith—but works by love." Some of the old writers quaintly say, "We are justified by faith solely, but not solitary." Leighton says: "True it is, that this faith purifies the heart, and works holiness, and all graces flow from it. But in this work of justifying the sinner, it is alone, and cannot admit of any mixture, as Luther’s analogy is, ’Faith is as the bride with Christ in the bed-chamber alone, but when she comes forth, has the attendance and train of her graces with her.’" The Synod of Dort says: "To as many as truly believe, and through the death of Christ are delivered and saved from sin and condemnation—this benefit comes from the sole grace of God, which he owes to no man, given them in Christ from eternity." The Welch Calvinistic Methodists’ Confession says: "It would be as improper to attribute the righteousness of Christ to faith itself, as to attribute the light of the sun to the medium through which it is transmitted to us." Further testimonies are needless. How clear and harmonious is God’s way of saving sinners! And how safe is it to follow him in all things! Holiness no less than bliss, follows a true faith. "Reliance is the essence of faith. Christ is the object of faith. The word is the food of faith. Obedience is the proof of faith. True faith is a depending upon Christ for salvation in the way of obedience—as he is offered in the word." Well may all give thanks for such a gift. It is the pledge of salvation. "Peace be to the brethren, and love with faith from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 91: 04.29. WHY GOOD WORKS ARE NECESSARY ======================================================================== WHY GOOD WORKS ARE NECESSARY The Church of Christ has uniformly insisted upon good works as being pleasing and honorable to God, as being the evidences of faith and the fruits of love, and as being profitable to our neighbor. The Scriptures are as careful to insist that good works be performed, as they are to warn us against trusting in them for justification before God. They are often commanded in the plainest terms. "Depart from evil and do good." Psalms 34:14. "Trust in the Lord and do good." Psalms 37:3. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven." Matthew 5:16. "Dear friends, I urge you, as aliens and strangers in the world, to abstain from sinful desires, which war against your soul. Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us." 1 Peter 2:11-12. "Herein is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit, so shall you be my disciples." John 15:8. "Walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work." Titus 3:1. "These things I will that you affirm constantly, that those who have believed in God, might be careful to maintain good works. These things are good and profitable unto men." Titus 3:8. "Let ours also learn to maintain good works for necessary uses." Titus 3:14. These are but specimens of scores of texts of Scripture, which assert the necessity of good works in all, who would glorify God, be useful to their generation, or evince a true Christian character. There is no substitute for a life of holiness. Nothing is a good work unless it is something commanded by God. Human inventions may please men, win the applause of the ignorant, and build up in us a vain self-confidence. But "who has required this at your hand?" is a solemn challenge from God to all who follow such devices. It was a great complaint of God against some, "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men." Isaiah 29:13. And Christ said of some; "In vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men." Matthew 15:9. The confessions of the various Churches of Christ are remarkably clear and harmonious on the subject of works. Here is the testimony of the Confession of Sueveland: "We are so far from rejecting good works, that we do utterly deny that any man can fully be saved except that he be thus far brought by the Spirit of Christ—that he finds no lack at all in him, touching those good works whereunto God has created him." "Without faith it is impossible to please God." "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." The Confession of Wirtemburg says "that good works, commanded of God, are necessarily to be done." The Confession of Saxony says: "Obedience, and the righteousness of a good conscience, must be begun in this life; and this obedience, although it be very far from that perfection, which the law requires, is nevertheless, in the regenerate, acceptable to God, for the Mediator’s sake: who makes request for us, and by his merit covers our great and unspeakable miseries." The Confession of Scotland says, "That God has given to man his holy law, in which not only are forbidden all such works as displease and offend his godly majesty, but also, are commanded all such as please him, and as he has promised to reward. And these works be of two sorts. The one are done to the honor of God, the other to the profit of our neighbors." The Confession of England says, "Though we say we have no shelter at all in our own works and deeds, but appoint all the means of our salvation to be in Christ alone; yet say we not, that for this cause men ought to live loosely and dissolutely: nor that it is enough for a Christian to be baptized only, and to believe; as though there were nothing else required at his hand. For true faith is lively, and can in no wise be idle. Thus therefore teach we the people: that God has called us, not to follow riot and wantonness, but as Paul says, ’unto good works, to walk in them;’ Ephesians 2:10; that we are delivered from the power of darkness, (Colossians 1:13); to the end that we should serve the living God, (Hebrews 9:14); to cut away all the remnants of sin, and to work out our salvation with fear and trembling, (Php 2:12); that it may appear that the Spirit of sanctification is in our bodies, and that Christ himself dwells in our bodies." The Confession of France says: "So far is faith from extinguishing the desire to live well and holily, that it does rather increase and kindle it in us: whereupon good works do necessarily follow." The Confession of Bohemia having quoted at length 2 Peter 1:5-8, 2 Corinthians 3:10, 2 Peter 1:11-12, Luke 6:36, Luke 6:38, and Luke 12:33 and Luke 14:13-14, says, "By these it is plain and manifest that those works which proceed from faith, do please God, and are rewarded with abundant grace: to wit, with the recompense of all kind of good things and blessings, both in this life and in the life to come." The Heidelberg Catechism under the head of Thankfulness thus speaks: "86. Since then we are delivered from our misery, merely of grace through Christ, without any merit of ours, why must we still do good works? "Because that Christ, having redeemed us and delivered us by his blood, also renews us by his Holy Spirit, after his own image; so that we may testify, by the whole of our conduct, our gratitude to God for his blessings, and that he may be praised by us; also, that everyone may be assured in himself of his faith, by the fruits thereof; and that by our godly conversation others may be gained to Christ. "87. Cannot they then be saved, who, continuing in their wicked and ungrateful lives, are not converted to God? "By no means; for the holy Scripture declares that no unchaste person, idolater, adulterer, thief, covetous man, drunkard, slanderer, robber, or any such like, shall inherit the kingdom of God. "88. In how many parts does the true conversion of man consist? "In two parts; in the mortification of the old, and in the quickening of the new man. "89. What is the mortification of the old man? "It is a sincere sorrow of heart, that we have provoked God by our sins; and more and more to hate and flee from them. "90. What is the quickening of the new man? "It is a sincere joy of heart in God, through Christ, and with love and delight to live according to the will of God in all good works. "91. But what are good works? "Only those which proceed from a true faith, are performed according to the law of God, and to his glory, and not such as are founded on our imagination or the institutions of men." The Confession of Basle says: "The faithful do work, not to atone for their sins, but only that they may in some sort show themselves thankful unto God our Lord for the great benefits bestowed upon us in Christ." The former Confession of Helvetia says, "This is indeed the only true worship of God: namely, a faith most fruitful of good works, and yet not putting any confidence in works." The latter Confession of Helvetii says, "We condemn all those, who despise good works, and babble that they are needless, and not to be regarded." Again, "Works do necessarily proceed from faith." The Church of England says that "good works are the fruits of faith and follow after justification," and that "they are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ, and necessarily spring out of a true and lively faith, insomuch that by them a lively faith may be as evidently known, as a tree is discerned by the fruit." The Church of Ireland uses almost the very same words and in the same connection. The Westminster Confession says, "The persons of believers being accepted through Christ, their good works also are accepted in him; not as though they were in this life wholly unblamable and unreprovable in God’s sight, but that he, looking upon them in his Son, is pleased to accept and reward that which is sincere, although accompanied with many weaknesses and imperfections." So that unless men intend to abandon themselves to wickedness, despise God’s authority, and fly in the face of the testimony of all true Christians, they must lead lives of holiness and obedience. Indeed the uniform teaching of Scripture is that while no man shall be saved for the merit of his works, yet men shall be judged and treated according to their works. The wicked deserve all that shall come upon them by lack of good works and their performance of evil works. The righteous do not indeed deserve any good thing, yet of his mercy and grace, God will at last reward them, as though they deserved much. Thus we read: "The work of a man will God render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways." Job 34:11. "You render to every man according to his work." Psalms 62:12. "Tell the righteous it will be well with them, for they will enjoy the fruit of their deeds. Woe to the wicked! Disaster is upon them! They will be paid back for what their hands have done." Isaiah 3:10-11. "I the Lord search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve." Jeremiah 17:10. "The Son of man shall come in the glory of his Father, with his angels; and then he shall reward every man according to his works." Matthew 16:27. God "will render to every man according to his deeds." Romans 2:6. See also 2 Corinthians 5:10; Col. 6:7; Ephesians 6:8; 1 Peter 1:17; Revelation 2:23, and Revelation 20:12 and Revelation 22:12. So the doctrine is clear. He who sows sparingly shall reap also sparingly, while he who sows bountifully shall reap also bountifully. He, who cared comparatively little for the cause of Christ, and did but little for it, shall have a comparatively small reward, while he who gave up all and lived and died for Christ shall be very glorious. "One star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection from the dead." To render mistake on this doctrine impossible, let it never be forgotten that the works of believers will not be the cause, but only the occasion of their many rich blessings; the measure, but not the merit of their reward. Nor is there anything in this contrary to the doctrine of gratuitous salvation; for these very works themselves are the fruit of God’s mercy and love. He works in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure, and then kindly takes occasion from our obedience to measure out to us, of his own love and bounty, richer and vaster blessings still. That our works themselves are from God the Bible everywhere teaches. "From me is your fruit found." Hosea 14:8. "Lord, you will ordain peace for us: for you also have wrought all our works in us." Isaiah 26:12. "God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work." 2 Corinthians 9:8. In fact Jesus Christ "gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all iniquity, and purify unto himself a peculiar people, zealous of good works." Titus 2:14. "Faith if it has not works is dead, being alone." James 2:17. And here precisely is what the apostle James meant whet he said we are justified by works. His meaning is that we are justified in making our profession of faith, we establish our sincerity and consistency, we prove to all the world and to God himself that we are what we profess to be and ought to be, when our lives show forth the glory of God. Christian brethren, let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due time we shall reap if we faint not. Let us abound unto every good word and work. How dishonorable to religion it would be—if it were otherwise. Is not all religion an entire failure, if it does not bring us into conformity to God? "Grace is an immortal seed, cast into an immortal soil, which brings forth immortal fruit." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 92: 04.30. REGENERATION ======================================================================== REGENERATION From first to last salvation is all of grace. Paul says: "For we too were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, captives of various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, detesting one another. But when the goodness and love for man appeared from God our Savior, He saved us—not by works of righteousness that we had done, but according to His mercy, through the washing of regeneration and renewal by the Holy Spirit." Titus 3:3-5. So that it is clearly by the grace and mediation of our Lord Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit is sent down to renew our natures, and to accomplish in us the new birth. Pardon saves a sinner from the curse of the law and the lake of fire; acceptance through Christ gives him a title to heaven; but in regeneration the dominion of sin begins to be destroyed, and the soul begins to be fitted for the Master’s use. The new birth is a great mystery, yet it is much insisted on in Scripture. "The washing of regeneration" is as necessary as washing in the blood of Christ. "The renewing of the Holy Spirit" is as essential as the "justification of life." Within the space of four verses our Lord thrice declares how necessary it is to salvation. Hear him: "I tell you the truth, no one can see the kingdom of God unless he is born again. I tell you the truth, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless he is born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, You must be born again." John 3:3, John 3:5, John 3:7. The fallow ground must be broken up or the good seed will not take root in our hearts. The wild olive tree must undergo the operation of engrafting with the good olive tree, or it will remain worthless. All the Scriptures teach as much. Christ taught that a vile sinner must undergo a great spiritual change, before he could be fit for the service of God. Perhaps there is not a more driveling error than that which teaches that baptism with water is the regeneration, which Jesus Christ and his apostles insist upon. When men can confound the "washing of regeneration" with the washing with water, they are fully prepared to follow, in fact they are already following, in the footsteps of those, who confounded "that circumcision, which is outward in the flesh," with that circumcision, which is "of the heart, in the spirit, and not in the letter; whose praise is not of men, but of God." Perhaps, too, no error is more mischievous than this. It is monstrous that such error and folly should be taught in lands where God’s word is in general use. To baptism some add an outward reformation, and insist that this should be admitted as sufficient. Supposing this to be the meaning of Christ and his apostles, it is impossible to defend them from the charge of using very mysterious language to convey so simple an idea. But such a belief is never entertained by those, who have a fitting respect for God’s word. It will therefore claim no more attention at this time. Sound divines have very remarkably agreed in telling us what regeneration is. Witherspoon says: "A new birth implies an universal change. It must be of the whole man, not in some particular, but in all without exception." And he shows at length that it is not PARTIAL, EXTERNAL, IMPERFECT; but that it is UNIVERSAL, INWARD, ESSENTIAL, COMPLETE, and SUPERNATURAL. Charnock says: "regeneration is a mighty and powerful change, wrought in the soul by the efficacious working of the Holy Spirit, wherein a vital principle, a new habit, the law of God, and a divine nature are put into and framed in the heart, enabling it to act holily and pleasingly to God, and to grow up therein to eternal glory." Thomas Scott quotes with approbation another definition, but does not give his author. He says: "Regeneration is a change wrought by the power of the Holy Spirit, in the understanding, will and affections of a sinner; which is the commencement of a new kind of life, and which gives another direction to his judgment, desires, pursuits, and conduct." Although this change is called by various names, yet the doctrine of Scripture respecting it is uniform. Sometimes it is called a holy calling, a creation, a new creation, a translation, a circumcision of the heart, a resurrection; but whatever be the name, the thing signified is everywhere spoken of in very solemn terms and as a rich fruit of God’s grace. Thus says Paul, "It pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me." Galatians 1:15-16. Again: God "has saved us and called us with a holy calling, not according to our works but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began." 2 Timothy 1:9. Again Peter says that "the God of all grace has called us unto his eternal glory by Christ Jesus." 1 Peter 5:10. Nor have the purest churches ever doubted the necessity of this change. They also remarkably agree concerning its nature. The Westminster Assembly teaches that "God is pleased in his appointed and accepted time, effectually to call his people by his word and Spirit out of that state of sin and death, in which they are by nature, to grace and salvation by Jesus Christ; enlightening their minds spiritually and savingly to understand the things of God; taking away their heart of stone, and giving them a heart of flesh; renewing their wills, and, by his almighty power, determining them to that which is good, and effectually drawing them to Jesus Christ; yet so as they come most freely, being made willing by his grace." The Latter Confession of Helvetia says, "In regeneration the understanding is illuminated by the Holy Spirit, that it may understand both the mysteries and will of God. And the will itself is not only changed by the Spirit, but is also endued with faculties, that, of its own accord, it may will and do good," and quotes in proof, Romans 8:4; Jeremiah 31:33; Ezekiel 36:27; John 8:36; Php 1:6, Php 1:29; and Php 2:13. The Synod of Dort says, "This regenerating grace of God works not upon men as if they were stocks and stones, nor does it abolish the will and properties of their will, or violently constrain it; but does spiritually revive it, heal it, rectify it, and powerfully yet gently bend it: so that where formerly the rebellion of the flesh, and stubbornness did domineer without control, now a willing and sincere obedience to the Spirit begins to reign; in which change the true and spiritual rescue and freedom of our will does consist. And surely, unless the wonderful Worker of all goodness should deal with us in this sort, there were no hope left for man to arise from his lapse by his free-will, through which, when standing, he threw himself headlong into destruction." The truth is, that if we give up regeneration, the last hope that a sinner may ever again be either holy or happy is gone forever. The Church of Ireland holds that "All God’s elect are in their time inseparably united unto Christ, by the effectual and vital influence of the Holy Spirit, derived from him, as from the head, unto every true member of his mystical body. And being thus made one with Christ they are truly regenerated, and made partakers of him and all his benefits." Indeed nothing could more distress one, who rightly considered his lost estate, than to have the hope, which springs from the doctrine of regeneration, destroyed or seriously shaken. In other words, God does in regeneration but graciously respond to an urgent demand of every enlightened conscience. Every man, who has ever had his eyes opened to see his own wretchedness and vileness, will agree to the saying of Usher: "It is not a little reforming will save the man, no, nor can all the morality of the world, nor all the common graces of God’s Spirit, nor the outward change of the life: they will not do, unless we are quickened and have a new life wrought in us." In his old age, when he could no longer see to read, John Newton heard someone recite this text, "By the grace of God I am what I am." He remained silent a short time and then, as if speaking to himself, he said: "I am not what I ought to be. Ah, how imperfect and deficient! I am not what I wish to be. I abhor that which is evil, and I would cleave to that which is good. I am not what I hope to be. Soon, soon I shall put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection. Though I am not what I ought to be, what I wish to be, and what I hope to be, yet I can truly say, I am not what I once was, a slave to sin and Satan! I can heartily join with the apostle and acknowledge--By the grace of God I am what I am!" God’s people are born three times, once into this world, once into a state of grace, and once into glory. They and the finally impenitent have the first, and none but the first birth in common. It brings the same to all. "That which is born of the flesh is flesh." This natural birth is a great wonder. Devout men have always so regarded it. David says, "You are he who took me out of my mother’s womb; my praise shall be continually of you." Warm should be the heart and thankful should be the song of her, who is made the joyful mother of a living healthy child. To how many, is the womb the grave. The wonder is that it is not so to more. Every good man is ready to say, "I bless God that ever I was born." "Those born once only, die twice. They die a temporal, and they die an eternal death. But those who are born twice, die only once; for over them the second death has no power." Our second birth brings us into a state of grace. It is one of the richest of God’s covenanted mercies. When one is born anew, a fatal blow is given to Satan’s kingdom in the heart; for "that which is born of the Spirit is spirit." This is a work of amazing power. It was for good cause that the Synod of Dort taught "that God, in regenerating a man, does employ that omnipotent strength, whereby he may powerfully and infallibly bow and bend his will unto faith and conversion." Paul uses all the strong words he is master of, to teach us that we are renewed by power, by amazing energy. He prayed that his Ephesians might know "what is the exceeding greatness of his power to us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he wrought in Christ when he raised him from the dead." Ephesians 1:18-19. We know of no greater power than that which accomplished the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the same power converts the soul. Augustine says: "To justify a sinner, to new create him from a wicked person to a righteous man, is a greater act than to make a new heaven and earth!" Nevins says, "Some think it easy to save a soul, to bend a will, to change a heart. But it is God’s greatest work. Creation is not so hard. It is the most wonderful species of resurrection. With men it is impossible, with God it is possible. In saving a soul he puts forth a mightier energy than in making many worlds." In his Views in Theology Beecher admits that "the power of God in regeneration is represented as among the greatest displays of his omnipotence ever made, or to be made in the history of the universe. When the fair creation rose fresh in beauty from the hand of God, the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy; but sweeter songs will celebrate, and louder shouts will attend, the consummation of redemption by the power of God’s Spirit; and such brighter glories of God, and illustrations of his power will be manifested to principalities and powers by the Church, as will cause the light of his glory in physical creation to go out and be forgotten, as the stars fade and are lost amid the splendors of the sun." Hervey says, "Without the powerful agency of the blessed Spirit to enlighten our understandings, and to apply the doctrine of the Bible to our hearts, we shall be, even with the word of light and life in our hands, somewhat like blind Bartimeus, sitting amidst the heat of day; or like the withered arm, with invaluable treasure before it." Left to the freedom of his own will, man easily destroyed himself; but omnipotence alone can save him. In physical, as in spiritual things, destruction is easy, and restoration difficult. A child may in an hour burn down an edifice, which it took a hundred men a year to erect. One stroke of the sword may sunder a limb from the body, which all the surgeons on earth cannot restore to its position and its functions. A man may easily take his own life, but no finite power can restore it. The first Adam though earthy could ruin all whom he represented. But the second Adam must needs be the Lord from heaven, as his work was to save the lost. Thus the Church of God has always held. The Savoy Confession well says, "Although the Gospel be the only outward means of revealing Christ and of saving grace, and is, as such, abundantly sufficient thereunto; yet that men, who are dead in trespasses, may be born again, quickened, or regenerated, there is moreover necessary an effectual, irresistible work of the Holy Spirit upon the whole soul, for producing in them a new spiritual life, without which no other means are sufficient for their conversion unto God." Our second birth is the result of the almighty energy of God’s Holy Spirit. Regeneration is no less the fruit of matchless kindness. So teach the Scriptures. "God, who is rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead in sins, has quickened us together with Christ." This is the way the Bible everywhere speaks. It holds no other language. Gurnall well observes that, "It is a greater act of grace, for God to work conversion in a sinner, than to crown that conversion with glory. It is more gracious and condescending in a prince to marry a poor damsel, than having married her to clothe her like a princess. He was free to do the first, or not; but the relation to her pleads strongly for the other. God might have chosen whether he would have given you grace, or not; but, having done this, your relation to him, and his covenant with you in his Son, do oblige him to add more and more, until he has fitted you as a bride for himself in glory." This love of Christ shown in regeneration is exercised in a sovereign way. "Of his own will, he begat us." Those who receive Christ Jesus are "born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man—but of God." The vessels to honor and those to dishonor are made "from the same lump of clay." By nature there is no difference between the elect and the non-elect. Paul was as bloody a persecutor as Domitian. Zaccheus as vile and greedy a worldling, as the rich man, who lifted up his eyes in hell. The thief who cried, ’Lord, remember me,’ was as guilty and criminal as he, who perished, reviling the dying Savior. Manasseh was for half a century wholly corrupt and hardened, covered with sins and crimes, yet he was saved; while the young ruler, who was so amiable as to draw forth the natural affections of Christ, persisted in his covetousness, and perished. This new birth is sometimes called a "translation." As Enoch and Elijah were taken out of this world and borne to heaven, so in its renewal, the soul is "translated out of darkness into the kingdom of God’s dear Son." "Outer darkness" excepted, there is none worse than that, out of which the soul is brought in the day of its turning unto God. The kingdom, into which it is translated, is righteousness, peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Sinful nature is thus slain, while grace is enthroned and sways her peaceful scepter over the will and affections. This new birth we must all undergo—or be forever undone. "All hangs upon this hinge. If this is not done, you are undone--undone eternally. All your profession, civility, privileges, gifts, and duties are ciphers, and signify nothing--unless regeneration is the figure put in front of them." This great change is a passing from death unto life. Nor can that transition ever be made in any other way. Better to have been born a heathen, a beast or a monster, yes, better never to have been born at all—than not to be born again! I have known many to celebrate their birthdays every year; but the day of one’s second birth is far more worthy of annual celebration. Flavel says: "What a distinguishing and seasonable mercy was ushered in by providence in the day of your conversion! It brought you to the means of salvation in a good hour. At that very point of time when the angel troubled the waters you were brought to the pool. John 5:4. Now the accepted day was come, the Spirit was in the ordinance or providence that converted you, and you were set in the way of it. It may be you had heard many hundred sermons before, but nothing would strike until now, because the hour was not come. There were many others under that sermon, that received no such mercy. As there were ’many in Israel with leprosy in the time of Elisha the prophet, yet not one of them was cleansed--only Naaman the Syrian,’ (Luke 4:27) so there were many poor unconverted souls besides you under the word that day, and it may be that unto none of them was salvation sent that day but to you! O blessed providence, that set you in the way of mercy at that time! For consider: 1. Of all mercies, this comes through most and greatest difficulties. Ephesians 1:19-20. 2. This is a spiritual mercy, excelling in dignity of nature all others more than gold excels the dirt under your feet. Revelation 3:18. One such gift is worth thousands of other mercies. 3. This is a mercy immediately flowing out of the fountain of God’s electing love, a mercy never dropped into any but an elect vessel. 1 Thessalonians 1:4-5. 4. This is a mercy that infallibly secures salvation; for as we may argue from conversion to election, looking back; so from conversion to salvation looking forward. Hebrews 6:9. 5. Lastly. This is an eternal mercy—that which will stick by you when father, mother, wife, children, estate, honor, health, and life shall fail you. John 4:14." In due time the regenerate experience their third birth, which is into glory, but of this more hereafter. The first of these births is natural, the second and third are supernatural; the first is carnal, the others arc spiritual; the first inclines to sin ("they go astray so soon as they are born"); the second inclines to holiness ("he who is born of God does not make a practice of sin"); the third forever perfects both holiness and happiness; ("we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is"). Each of these births proves that God is almighty, wise and good. Yet the manner of their occurrence is mysterious to us. The transition from nothing to something, from death to life, from earth to heaven will perhaps ever be somewhat obscure. "You know not the way of the Spirit, nor how the bones grow in the womb of her who is with child." "The wind blows where it wills, and you hear the sound thereof, but can not tell whence it comes, nor where it goes; so is everyone that is born of the Spirit." Each of these births has its sorrows. We come into the world with a cry. We forsake sin and turn to God, mourning as for a first-born son, or as the people wept at Hadadrimmon in the valley of Megiddon, when their good king, Josiah, was slain. We leave this world with a groan. Yet of the righteous it is always true that "the day of one’s death is better than the day of one’s birth." We cannot be too grateful for either of these births; but the pious heart loves to dwell on the first as the beginning of natural life, on the second as the beginning of spiritual life, and on the third as the beginning of everlasting life. Neither of these births is the cause of the other, but God is the author of them all. To him belongs all the glory of our being, of our well-being, of our unfading bliss. In our spiritual regeneratiorn the grace of God—the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—is very illustrious. Redemption devised by God, and purchased by Christ, is in the new birth applied by the Spirit. One of the most admirable effects of divine grace in regeneration is the victory gained over the strongest evil inclinations. Many a time the bitterest foes to the gospel, have by the power of the new birth become the warmest friends of truth and righteousness. As David displayed his prowess by slaying Goliath, so the grace of God gains the victory over champion sins. The jailor at Philippi practiced undeserved cruelty towards his prisoners—but as soon as his heart was changed, he washed their stripes. In particular does the new birth bring a sinner out of himself, and lead him to exalt the Savior, and glorify God with all his powers. So that the soul rests in God, is satisfied with him as its chief good, and glories even in shame and reproach for the advancement of his cause. "All honor to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for it is by his boundless mercy that God has given us the privilege of being born again. Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay!" 1 Peter 1:3-4. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 93: 04.31. SANCIFICATION ======================================================================== SANCTIFICATION It is by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ that the work of purifying our natures is carried on to completion. "Without holiness no man shall see the Lord." Only "the pure in heart shall see God." Holiness in man, is conformity to God. The beginning of sanctification, is regeneration. The measure of sanctification, is the word of God. The author of sanctification, is the Spirit of God. The source of sanctification, is the mediation of Christ. The necessity of sanctification, is laid in God’s spotless holiness and in man’s wicked enmity and utter helplessness. The end of sanctification, is eternal life. "Be holy, for I am holy" never proceeded from a false God. Indeed the heathen never used a word, which to their minds signified what we mean by sanctification. Their holiness was outward, official, ceremonial. Gospel holiness is inward, personal, spiritual—of the heart. It is true of all men that "out of the heart are the issues of life." As is the heart—so is the word, or the deed. As is the motive—so is the man. Men cannot bring themselves to be thankful for an act, however advantageous to them, if they know it was not so designed. But they often feel grateful for kind intentions, which resulted in no good to them. God and holy men often take the desire, for the deed; but God never takes the deed for the desire, and man never does it but through ignorance. Jehovah makes one demand on old and young, prince and peasant, saint and sinner—and that is for holiness of heart. Nor will he relax this demand to save a soul from hell. To abate anything of his requirements would be to deny himself. He always has said and ever must say, "My son, give me your heart!" So reasonable a command ought promptly to be obeyed. The Westminster Assembly give this definition: "Sanctification is a work of God’s grace, whereby those whom God has, before the foundation of the world, chosen to be holy, are, in time, through the powerful operation of his Spirit, applying the death and resurrection of Christ unto them—renewed in the whole man after the image of God; having the seeds of repentance unto life, and all other saving graces, put into their hearts, and those graces so stirred up, increased and strengthened, as that they more and more die unto sin, and rise unto newness of life." The great difference between the two houses which Solomon built was, that he himself dwelt in one, and God in the other. The great difference between a saint and a sinner is, that God inhabits the former, and Satan the latter. To Christians Paul says: "You are the temple of the living God; as God has said, I will dwell in them and walk in them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people." Again, "His Spirit dwells in you." It is indeed astonishing that the tabernacle of God should be "with men," but it is still more marvelous that it should be in men. O the condescending greatness of Jehovah! The Holy Spirit is greatly honored in all the Scriptures. There he is called the Spirit of God, the Spirit of Jehovah, the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit of adoption, the Spirit of wisdom, the Spirit of understanding, the Spirit of counsel, the Spirit of might, the Spirit of knowledge, the Spirit of the fear of the Lord, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of supplication, the Spirit of glory, the Spirit of judgment, the Spirit of promise, the Spirit of prophecy, the Spirit of truth, the Spirit of holiness, the Holy Spirit, the Comforter. He purifies the heart. He stirs us up to fervent prayer. He makes us to hunger and thirst after the knowledge and likeness of God. He abides with the Church forever. He, whose heart is thus inhabited, shall indeed be prepared "unto glory." The influence of the Holy Spirit is necessary to help us on continually. An occasional impulse is not enough. "The ship in full sail keeps on her way; but if the wind—the propelling power is not renewed, she moves slowly, then stops, and then is drifted backward by the tide." The soul needs help from above all the day long. And how delightful it is to find inspired men teaching this doctrine, not in a cold logic, nor in angry disputations, but with raptures of delight. Hear Paul; "We are bound to give thanks always to God for you, brethren, beloved of the Lord, because God has from the beginning chosen you to salvation, through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth." And Peter addresses the people of God as "elect according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through sanctification of the Spirit, unto obedience and sprinkling of the blood of Jesus." So that our fellowship is with the Father and the Son by the Spirit. "It is not the sages, but the saints who are the excellent of the earth." They are "called with a holy calling." The Holy Spirit thoroughly cleanses their natures. The Confession of Scotland thus sums up the leading truths respecting the Spirit of God: "Faith, and the assurance of the same, proceed not from flesh and blood; that is to say, from no natural powers within us; but is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit; Matthew 16:17; John 14:26; John 15:26; and John 16:13; who sanctifies us, and brings us into all truth by his own operation; without whom we would remain forever enemies to God, and ignorant of his Son Christ Jesus. For by nature we are so dead, so blind, and so perverse—that neither can we feel when we are pricked, nor see the light when it shines, nor assent to the will of God when it is revealed—unless the Spirit of the Lord quickens that which is dead, removes the darkness from our minds, and bows our stubborn hearts to the obedience of his blessed will. And so, as we confess that God the Father created us, when we were not, Psalms 100:3; as his Son our Lord Jesus redeemed us, when we were enemies to him, Romans 5:10; so also do we confess, that the Holy Spirit sanctifies and regenerates us, without all respect of any merit, proceeding from us—whether before or after our regeneration. Romans 5:8. To speak this one thing yet in more plain words: as we willingly strip ourselves of all honor and glory of our own creation and redemption, so do we also of our regeneration and sanctification; for of ourselves we are not sufficient to think one good thought; 2 Corinthians 3:5; but he, who has begun the work in us is only he who continues in us the same, (Php 1:6) to the praise and glory of his undeserved grace." Ephesians 1:6. The question is sometimes asked, What is the difference between regeneration and sanctification? The answer is that they are not different in their author—who is the Holy Spirit; nor in the means used—which is God’s truth; nor in the fruit produced—which is conformity to God. They differ only as the completion of a work differs from its commencement. Regeneration is the beginning of sanctification. Sanctification is the carrying out of regeneration to its end. Regeneration is an act of God’s Spirit. Sanctification is a work of God’s Spirit, consequent upon that act. Regeneration is the tender blade. Sanctification is its growth until it is the full-ripe corn. In regeneration we become "new-born babes;" in sanctification we attain the stature of full-grown men in Christ Jesus. Although sanctification is not perfected in this life, yet it is completed at the death of all the saints. Another question of great importance is, What is the difference between justification and sanctification? The answer is that they do not differ in their importance. Both are essential to salvation. Without either we must perish. Indeed God has inseparably joined them together. Christ Jesus is always made sanctification to those, to whom he is made righteousness. Nor do they differ in their source, which is the fiee grace and infinite love of God. We are justified by faith, and our hearts are purified by faith. Faith is the instrument of justification. Faith is the root of sanctification. In justification sin is pardoned, in sanctification it is slain. In justification we obtain forgiveness and acceptance; in sanctification we attain the victory over corruption, and obtain rectitude of nature. Justification is an act of God complete at once and forever. Sanctification is a work of God begun in regeneration, conducted through life and completed at death. Justification is equal and perfect in all Christians; sanctification is not equal in all, nor perfect in any—until they lay aside the flesh. In justification God imputes to us the righteousness of Christ; in sanctification he infuses grace, and enables us to exercise it. Justification always precedes sanctification. Sanctification always comes after justification. A late writer says, "Justification and sanctification DIFFER, 1st. in their causes. Justification comes by the righteousness of Christ; sanctification by the agency of the Holy Spirit. 2nd. In their effects. The effect of justification consists in our external restoration to the favor of God, and the bestowment on us of a covenant title to eternal life; that of sanctification, in the removal of our inbred corruption, and the renewal of the divine image in the soul. 3rd. In their locality. Justification is an act of God, done amid the solemnities of his court in Heaven; sanctification is a work of the Holy Spirit, wrought on the dispositions of our inner man on earth. 4th. In time and degree. Justification lies at the beginning of the Christian life, and, except in its consequences, does not extend beyond it, but is instantaneous and complete upon our first exercise of saving faith. Sanctification begins where justification ends, runs throughout the Christian life, and is partial and progressive, from measure to measure, until it reaches its perfection in glory. In short, justification is God’s act for us, through the righteousness of his Son; sanctification is his work in us, by the power of his Spirit. Justification is our title to Heaven. Sanctification is our education for Heaven. In justification God acts alone; in sanctification he brings us to co-operate with him. To thrust ourselves into the former would rob God of his glory; to keep ourselves out of the latter would perpetuate our incapacity for bliss." So long as churches preserve this distinction clear and entire, its influence for good will be manifest. In some respects men may widely differ on doctrinal points, but if right here, you will find them rallying around the vital truths of Christianity in a manner very pleasing. Justification is never specially referred to the Holy Spirit as its author, but sanctification of the soul is often said to be through the Spirit. Paul does not confound justification and sanctification, nor put one for the other—as some have erroneously supposed, yet it is a blessed truth that these gifts of God are never separated. Whoever has one—has both. The prophet David in Psalms 32:1-2, and the apostle Paul in Romans 8:1, have both clearly taught us that the justified walk after the Spirit. He who would separate things which God has thus joined together, does wickedly; while to distinguish between them is an important duty and of great influence for good. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 94: 04.32. SANCTIFICATION, CONTINUED ======================================================================== SANCTIFICATION, continued. There is a great MYSTERY in sanctification. It is a mystery for the love it displays, for the power it manifests, for the method it employs, and for the work it accomplishes. "We all with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." When Moses looked upon that bright effulgence in the mount, he gradually caught some of the same glory, so that his face shone. When we behold the image of the invisible God, as it is presented in the person and character of Christ, we too are made like it, not indeed by a mere natural effect, but "by the Spirit of the Lord." Likeness to God—alone is holiness. Growth in this likeness—is growth in grace. It is all by Jesus Christ. It is true, that "the best of men are men at the best," and so are far from being perfect as their Father in heaven is perfect. "There is no man who sins not." Yes, "there is not a just man upon earth, that does good, and sins not." But the Christian man is not a willing captive of sin; whereas the unrenewed man rejoices in iniquity. The child of God is becoming more and more like God. The wicked wax worse and worse. The saint longs for God’s salvation. The sinner sleeps not except he has done some mischief. The heart of a believer is the best part about him. If he could have things as he would, he would never sin any more. The life of an unconverted man is not nearly so bad as his heart. He is restrained in many ways from acting out the worst that is in him. The godly man blushes at a sinful thought. The unbeliever loves to have vain thoughts lodge within him. It is the business of a godly man’s life to please God and strive after holiness. It is the business of a sinner’s life to please himself and commit sin. The work of purifying the heart shall be finished in due time, and all the righteous shall be satisfied—when they awake with the likeness of God fully drawn upon their souls. If we are called to be saints, we are not called to serve any but the Lord Christ. Holiness may be out of fashion here, but not in heaven. It is infinitely better to be "a peculiar people, zealous of good works," than "a people laden with iniquity." When a prince was about to travel, he asked his tutor for some maxims, by which to govern his behavior, and received this: "Remember that you are the son of a king!" Let all Christians remember that they are the sons and daughters of the Lord Almighty, and "if sons, then heirs, heirs of God, and joint heirs with Jesus Christ." With what force and point the exhortation comes to such, "Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind." Children of the Highest, never forget that "you cannot serve two masters." "Walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit." "Those who walk after the Spirit, mind the things of the Spirit." If you entertain any view of gospel grace, which encourages you to lead a sinful or even a careless life, you have grossly perverted the gospel. Gospel truth never generates licentiousness. Actual participation in Christ’s righteousness, is always manifested by the possession of his image and temper. It is sad proof of a wicked heart when a professor of Christ’s gospel attempts to live as near as possible to the line separating sin from holiness. Let him shun and abhor evil. Excess in many things is wrong—but no man fears or hates sin too much. So far as we know—sin is the only thing which God hates. There are many filthy reptiles, unclean beasts and venomous serpents from which we instinctively turn away; yet God’s tender mercies are over all of these. He opens his hand and supplies the needs of every living thing. To the end which he proposed in their creation, they are well adapted. But sin is in its own nature and tendency—only evil. God abhors it. It dishonors him, it grieves him, it vexes him. It is the only thing which dishonors and offends him. He is angry with the wicked every day. When one of Christ’s people sins, it is wounding our Savior "in the house of his friends." An alleged work of grace on the heart, which leaves the life wicked—is good for nothing! True holiness is not dormant, but active. It is not merely a negation of evil, but the positiveness of good. For a while, Joseph and Nicodemus may be timid, but when the great question is raised by the crucifixion, we find them open and bold disciples. The fruit of a holy nature is a holy life. Justin Martyr said: "God will admit none into his presence but such as can persuade him by their good works that they love him." If "God’s husbandry" brings forth the same fruits and flowers and plants as grow in the wild mountains of error, how is it better than they? Surely, the fruit of the Spirit—"love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance," are very different and very distinguishable from the works of the flesh. In some measure these graces belong to all who are born from above, and grow with the increase of holiness in their hearts. Nor is there on earth a more interesting sight, than a child of God warring with the flesh, resisting the devil, overcoming the world, working the works of God, fighting the good fight, and laying hold on eternal life. Such "shall do exploits," and at last sit down with Christ on his throne, as he also overcame, and has sat down with his Father on his throne. The great test of personal piety is personal holiness. It is better to have the evidence of a meek, forgiving temper, of a serious, devout spirit, of a tender, grateful heart, of a chaste, pious conversation, of a consistent, holy life, in favor of our acceptance with God, than it would be to have an angel bring down from heaven the book of life, and show us our names written therein. This might astound, it might for a while delight us; but then we would probably soon become presumptuous, or fall into doubts, under the impression that we had been deluded. But a life of holiness is not only in the general reliable, it is in fact infallible evidence that we are God’s people. Nothing can set it aside. "For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age." Titus 2:11-12 Human character is like a web of cloth made up of a great number of small threads, any one of which is not very important or conspicuous, but all together make up the piece. He who thinks a fine border alone, will make his cloth salable or valuable, is deceived. "Patient continuance in well-doing" constitutes the true test of excellence. Public and great occasions may furnish opportunities for wonderful displays of what men can sometimes do; but they will commonly amount to little more than sad failures, unless the grace of God has been sufficient to enable a man to behave wisely in little things. When the world comes in with violence, will it not spoil all our pleasant things, unless there be one stronger still? Who can look without trembling—at a feeble creature, unguarded, unrestrained, unsupported by the grace of God, as the world makes its successive attacks upon him? In the Bay of Fundy, where the tide rises to the height of from forty to sixty feet, and comes in with a tremendous roar, due warning is given. Yet notwithstanding every precaution, many vessels are lost. But when a tide of worldliness rolls in on the soul, its greatest swells are commonly noiseless, give no alarm, and seem to threaten nothing. Divine grace—not human power—must give us the victory over the world! Sometimes our inbred corruptions seem to defy all our vigilance and power. Our foes within us are lively, many and subtle. Then there are principalities and powers, and spiritual wickednesses in high places. These are the terror and the torment of Christians in every age. Who can withstand them? Who shall cause us to triumph over them? None but God. He is mighty. He can make us conquerors and more than conquerors. In the words, "My grace is sufficient for you," is found the last hope of sinking human nature. Our Rock is Christ. There never was any other. Nothing is too hard for him. Whatever side he is on, is sure to conquer. By him holy men of old "subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, waxed valiant in fight, turned to flight the armies of the aliens," etc. What has not divine grace done? No deeds of fortitude or of heroism can compare with the achievements of the saints. Divine grace makes the feeble like David, and the house of David like the angel of God. It is stronger than passion, than the flesh, than the world, than fallen angels, than death and hell. Marvelous is the grace of God in all its displays and in all its effects! "Though you have lied among the pots—yet shall you be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold." O that all, who name the name of Christ, knew what this means: "The Spirit is life because of righteousness." ======================================================================== CHAPTER 95: 04.33. RELATIVE DUTIES ======================================================================== RELATIVE DUTIES A pious minister, in preaching to his people, invariably spoke of the performance of relative duties as a necessary proof of the sincerity of a Christian profession. He was right. Bad parents, bad children, bad husbands, bad wives, bad masters, bad servants, bad rulers, bad subjects—cannot be good Christians. On all these points the Scriptures speak explicitly: "Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Fathers, do not exasperate your children; instead, bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord. Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart. Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men, because you know that the Lord will reward everyone for whatever good he does, whether he is slave or free. And masters, treat your slaves in the same way. Do not threaten them, since you know that he who is both their Master and yours is in heaven, and there is no favoritism with him." Ephesians 6:1-24 This is but a specimen of the stringent and clear teachings of God’s word. Particularly has God put high honor upon the family relation and guarded it at every point. It was formed in paradise, and has been continued ever since with many divine sanctions. The proper duties of it are pointed out in the ten commandments. Jesus Christ personally set an example of domestic subordination in his childhood and youth, and of filial piety when he was dying. It is worthy of note that in the most thoroughly doctrinal epistles of the New Testament, the apostles find room for pressing these duties. Nor is there a more striking difference between heathenism and Christianity, or between the pure and the corrupt forms of Christianity—than in their respective influence on families and on social life in general. The reasons urged in God’s word for the careful performance of relative duties are many, and striking. They are such as these: "For that is right." "That he, who is of the contrary part, may be ashamed, having no evil thing to say of you." "That you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men." "That if any of them do not believe the word, they may be won over without words by the behavior of their wives, when they see the purity and reverence of your lives." "That the name of God and his doctrine be not blasphemed." "That they may adorn the doctrine of God our Savior in all things." "If any provides not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he has denied the faith and is worse than an infidel." Such reasonings cannot be answered, though their force may be evaded. No good man will try to diminish their power over him. The virulence and malignity of communism are seen in nothing more plainly than in its various and violent assaults on the family institution. The folly of the leaders of this dreadful form of wickedness has commonly been made very manifest. The wild confusion, which has reigned over their practical endeavors, has in most cases resulted in speedy disorganization. Order supposes subordination; and without this all attempts to improve men or manners are vain. When one sees the waves dashing against the rock of Gibraltar, he fears not that it will be carried away. So when men foam out their own shame and fury against institutions, which find their necessity in human nature, their sanction in God’s revealed will, and their foundation in his unvarying ordinances, the result is not doubtful. When a spirit, leading men to canvass all opinions and to unsettle everything, first appears in each generation, the timid cry out: "What are we coming to?" The ignorant gaze and gape as though they were about to see wonders. The rash raise a shout and cry, "Here is wisdom." But the wise calmly set themselves to look at the foundations of things, and soon perceive the rock of truth, after which they are no more afraid with any amazement. "Those who attempt to level all distinctions, never equalize." They destroy, but they build not. Domestic happiness requires the elements of truth, justice, consistency, humility, candor, gentleness and kindness from superiors; respect, love, obedience, honor from inferiors; truth, justice, tenderness and brotherly kindness from equals. A family thus regulated will be an emblem of the family named in heaven—an emblem, faint indeed, but clear enough to make a good man say: "It is good to be here." The very last place on earth, where the fires of virtue and piety burn, is the domestic hearth. A profession of religion, when not accompanied by a cheerful and habitual performance of family duties, is worth nothing. Heaven is not a den of outlaws. If we love not our brother whom we have seen, how can we love God whom we have not seen? The merciful shall obtain mercy; the cruel shall reap the fruit of their own doings; the meek shall inherit the earth, but violent men shall not live out half their days. Tyrants and rebels are alike rejected. As truth is always in order to godliness, so it will produce its fruits under all circumstances. The rules for domestic happiness are few and simple. He who runs, may read. Yet how little are they heeded except where impressed by Christian sanctions and inwrought in the soul by the power of God’s Spirit. Then they are mighty. Who can but admire the effects produced in a Christian household by such maxims and precepts as these? 1. Be humble. "Pride only breeds quarrels." 2. "Keep your tongue from evil, and your lips from speaking deceit." 3. Find your own happiness in trying to make others happy. 4. Mind your own business. Be not meddlesome. 5. Beware of a fretful, suspicious, or censorious temper. 6. "Overcome evil with good." "Bless and curse not." 7. "Love one another deeply, from the heart." 8. Do not magnify the trials or afflictions of life. 9. Beware of sloth. There is no greater enemy of peace and happiness. 10. Make it your business to serve God. 11. Keep out of debt. "Owe no man anything." Loans breed bad tempers and harsh dispositions. 12. Keep the ultimate purpose of life in view. This will repress many vain wishes and chasten immoderate desires. 13. Let your prayers be frequent and fervent. 14. Never listen to scandal nor backbiting. 15. Grieve not for things which cannot be helped. 16. Set the Lord always before you. Seek His glory. Do and suffer His will with readiness. Let Christ be all and in all. Trust in the Lord forever. There is something peculiarly pleasing in the manifestations of the grace of Christ in a truly pious family, however poor their condition in life. Hitherto the Lord has gathered a far richer harvest of praise from the dwellings of the poor than from the palaces of kings. Not that humble souls in any rank of life are excluded, but it is so hard for the great to lie down in the dust—that most of them are offended in Christ. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 96: 04.34. TEMPTATION ======================================================================== TEMPTATION Though it is not profane, yet it is foolish to speak lightly of the devil. He is not a sacred person—but he is a dangerous person. Thoughts of levity concerning him are quite out of place. They throw us off our guard, make us secure, lead us to sloth and carelessness—and thus to sin. He who is our adversary, and has slain his thousands and tens of thousands—is never more sure of his prey than when there is least fear of him. He began his work of revolt in heaven, afterwards invaded Eden, assaulted the Son of God himself with the greatest violence and rancor, and will always be busy until he is chained down in the pit. His ways are various. Sometimes he appears as an angel of light. He has cordials for wounded consciences. He speaks much of mercy. He delights in corrupting the truth. His great object is to keep men from embracing Christ. He has much to do with religious men and religious ordinances. He never misses a sermon. He knows that men can go to hell in the pew of a church, as well as in the seat of a theater. If they will rest in ’religious forms’ and be satisfied with the ordinances of God without the God of the ordinances, if they will go about to establish their own righteousness, and not submit to the righteousness of Christ, he will encourage them, and help them to be joyful. He frequents our closets and there practices the same arts. Again, he will turn accuser. He will tell men it is too late to repent, and that it is vain for them to hope for mercy. He will roar like a lion. He delights in terrifying souls from Christ. He would scare all away from the cross. He has no pity. He is wholly malignant and unscrupulous. To dishonor God, destroy souls, fill earth with woe and hell with the damned, is his trade and his delight. The keener the anguish, the more pitiless the remorse and the deeper the guilt of man, the more is Satan gratified. He does all he can to make earth like hell, men like devils, and saints like sinners. He delights in seeing all wickedness raging and rioting on earth. He is the god of the men of this world. He commands and they obey. He is the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that now works in the children of disobedience. His empire is built on usurpation and fraud, cruelty and crime, blood and rebellion. Christ came to destroy the reign of devils, nor will he rest until his enemies are put down. The most terrible blow Satan’s empire ever received was in the death of Christ. In compassing that, Satan missed his mark. The resurrection, ascension to heaven, and session at the right hand of power showed the end of Christ’s death and his Sonship with God. By all these Christ has bruised Satan under him. By pouring out the Holy Spirit, Christ continually weakens the power of the enemy. Satan rages, and hates, and lies, and murders the saints; but his kingdom must fall. The kingdoms of the world shall become the kingdoms of the Lord, and of his Christ. Glorious things are spoken of Zion, and they shall all be fulfilled. Yet these very things awaken the malice of the arch enemy. Finding he cannot rule, he tempts and annoys the children of God. He is their great foe. He studies their tempers, and adapts his temptations to their age, station and inclination. He commonly attacks them in the weakest point. He worries those whom he cannot destroy. If he cannot prevent their getting a crown, he will at least labor that it shall not be a bright one. There is no deeper distress of mind on earth than is sometimes felt by men sorely tempted by thoughts of unbelief, despair, blasphemy, or other sins. A few words of counsel are here offered to the tempted. 1. Resist the devil, and he shall flee from you. Fight on. Be not terrified, nor faint at his assaults. He is not almighty. 2. Do not attempt to out-wit and out-reason your adversary; but like Christ, quote the word of God to him. The metal of that Sword is too high and its edge too keen for him. He hates to hear, "It is written," or "Thus says the Lord." 3. Lay firm hold on the promises made to the tempted, and be strong in the Lord. "He will not allow you to be tempted above that you are able to bear." "With the temptation he will provide a way of escape." The promises, when believed, are fatal to Satan’s suggestions. "My grace is sufficient for you," rendered harmless all the buffetings of Satan in the case of Paul. Know God’s word. Beware of ignorance. 4. Be much on your guard in times of high religious privilege and enjoyment. Pirates let empty vessels pass without molestation, but attack those which are well freighted. "If you come to serve the Lord, prepare yourself for temptation." 5. Be on your guard in the day of fear and sadness. Satan loves to terrify those already affrighted, and to oppress those already sorrowful. Encourage yourself in the Lord your God. 6. "When a Christian is about some notable enterprise for God’s glory, then will Satan lie like a serpent in the way, or as an adder in the path, to bite the horse’s heels that the rider may fall backward." In all new and difficult circumstances, be vigilant. 7. If formerly you have fallen under the power of any evil, take heed that you fall not again. One lapse often paves the way for another. 8. Beware of attempting to comprehend things beyond your reach, to understand things unintelligible, or to know things not revealed. "There are three kinds of straits, wherein Satan attempts to entrap believers—puzzling questions, obscure scriptures, and dark providences." 9. Be humble. Humility is a defense better than all gifts besides. "All temptations are laid in self-righteousness and self-excellency. God pursues you by setting Satan upon you, as Laban pursued Jacob for his images. These must be torn from you—however unwilling you are. These hinder Christ from coming in." Humility cannot be too profound. "With the humble is wisdom." 10. If you have been led astray in the least, hasten your return to God. Stay not away because you have sinned much or little. The message is the same to all who have sinned, "O Israel, return unto the Lord your God; for you have fallen by your iniquity. Take with you words, and turn to the Lord." 11. If you have been able to repel the assaults of the wicked one, be encouraged, but not careless. "Be not high-minded but fear." "Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall." "Satan’s opportunity is a soul off its guard," said Hewitson. "The saint’s sleeping time is the devil’s tempting time," says Gurnall. Haweis says: "As not ignorant of his devices, we should especially beware of security. Let not him who puts on the armor, boast as he who puts it off. When the cold turf covers our head—only then the wicked will cease from troubling, and the weary have perfect rest; but here every step we take we are among lions, and must stand on our watch-tower, fearing always, and working out our salvation with that trembling and care which alone can secure it. A holy fear is the great preservative against falling away. The moment we begin to slumber, our watchful adversary is ready to take advantage against us; but blessed is the man whom his Lord shall find watching, when He comes." 12. Be greatly on your guard in solitude, or when called to perform duty alone, and without the aid and encouragement of others. Watch closely then your thoughts and ways. "Two are better than one; because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow; but woe to him who is alone when he falls; for he has not another to help him up." Ecclesiastes 4:9-10. It seems to have been when Eve was alone, that she was tempted and overcome—and so she was first in the transgression. Satan knew what an advantage solitude would give him in plying the blessed Master with his wicked suggestions when he was in the wilderness. Doubtless our Lord felt this at that time. It is certain he felt his solitude in his last temptation, when "he came unto his disciples, and found them asleep, and said unto Peter, What! could you not watch with me one hour?" 13. When you find yourself quite fascinated with any temporal plans, pursuits or pleasures, set a double guard against temptation. "We should suspect some danger near—where we possess delight." The Bible urges moderation and the suppression of inordinate affection by the most solemn considerations, such as that "the Judge stands at the door." "The Lord is at hand." 14. Be prepared for temptations at all times. Satan invades our most sacred retirements. He follows us everywhere. He is the "lion of the evening." He may assault you even when dying. When the great John Knox was near his end, he lay with his eyes closed for a while, but sighed deeply. Being asked the cause, he said: "I have formerly, during my frail life, sustained many contests and many assaults of Satan, but at present that roaring lion has assailed me most furiously, and put forth all his strength to devour and make an end of me at once. Often before has he placed my sins before my eyes, often tempted me to despair, often attempted to ensnare me by the allurements of the world; but these weapons being broken by the sword of the Spirit, the word of God, he could not prevail. Now he has attacked me in another way. The cunning serpent has labored to persuade me that I have merited heaven and eternal blessedness by the faithful discharge of my ministry. But, blessed be God, who has enabled me to beat down and quench his fiery darts by suggesting to me such passages of Scripture as these: ’What do you have—which you have not received? By the grace of God I am what I am. Not I, but the grace of God in me.’ Being thus vanquished, he left me." 15. Beware of idleness. Be diligent in business. Keep your mind employed in something profitable, and your hands engaged in something lawful. "Our idle days are the devil’s busy ones," says Hall. 16. Our great refuge in temptation is the throne of grace, sprinkled with atoning blood. In vain will we watch unless we pray. In vain will we pray, if we plead any goodness of our own. Let us make mention of Christ’s righteousness, even of his alone. "There are no saving views of God—but in Christ. And there are no gracious views God has of men—but in Christ. If we look on God outside of Christ, we are dazzled with an overwhelming, confounding majesty. If God look on us outside of Christ, he sees hateful and hated sinners." Nothing but the blood of Christ can quench the fire of God’s wrath, the fire of lust, or the fiery darts of Satan! That blood can be found at the throne of grace, and nowhere else. Hold fast also all God’s word says of Christ’s intercession. It is life from the dead to the tempted. "Simon, Simon, Satan has desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat. But I have prayed for you, that your faith fail not." Luke 22:31-32. "Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has gone through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are--yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need." Hebrews 4:14-16. "Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say—Now have come the salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ. For the accuser of our brothers, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been hurled down. They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony; they did not love their lives so much as to shrink from death." Revelation 12:10-11. Are you content, are you resolved to walk in their footsteps? If so, you too shall soon overcome! ======================================================================== CHAPTER 97: 04.35. THE POWER OF DIVINE GRACE TO CONSOLE ======================================================================== THE POWER OF DIVINE GRACE TO CONSOLE The gospel is called the power of God, and the wisdom of God. Nor is it losing any of its efficacy. In the hands of the Holy Spirit it works wonders. The secret of its power is chiefly in its grace. By revealing love it begets love. "Responsibility prevents crimes and makes all attempts against law dangerous." But love goes much further. It never ceases to desire to serve and please. It is ingenious in devising methods of service. It is full of alacrity, life and energy. It never counts the cost, and is patient of endurance; even as "Jacob served seven years for Rachel, and they seemed unto him but a few days, for the love he had to her." It is an honor peculiar to revealed truth, that it converts the soul. It not only converts men; but it also guides and cheers, purifies and elevates their minds. It throws floods of light on the darkness which surrounds us, and makes us sweetly submissive to God’s will and authority. Who does not need such help? There is no sober mind on earth, which, like the sundial, notes only the unclouded hours. We all have our days of darkness. "Man, who is born of a woman, is of few days, and full of trouble." "Who has not lost a friend?" Who has not wept over departed joys, blighted hopes, and darkened prospects? At times nature casts a dark pall over all her face, providence assumes a threatening aspect, fears rise up like mountains in our path, and trouble comes in like waves of the sea, or falls like water-spouts from heaven. At such a time, God’s Spirit can pour light and joy into our hearts, and give us songs in the house of our pilgrimage. But if so, he will put great honor upon the Bible. "Remember the word unto your servant, upon which you have caused me to hope. This is my comfort in my affliction: for your word has quickened me." Psalms 119:49-50. Solid peace to the troubled mind, must be based in the pardon of sin and the favor of God. The gospel calls the poor and needy, the weary and heavy-laden, the sad and sorrowful—and leads them to Christ; and through his blood and righteousness gives comfort, which can be found nowhere else. Even a little divine knowledge firmly believed will do great things for us in the day of calamity, while a soul without acquaintance with God is shut up to misery. Marcus Quintilian was a great orator. He was the friend of Pliny, and received the favor of the emperors. He died at Rome A. D. 60. His great work is his "Institutes of the Orator." The introduction to the sixth book of this treatise relates the loss of his wife and children, and especially the recent death of a promising son. What are his thoughts on an occasion so full of interest? He complains of the "bitterness of fortune," and says that this was "the second wound that was struck deep to afflict me, now a childless father! What then shall I do? or on what shall I any more employ the unhappy talents, which the gods seem to reprove? It was my misfortune to be borne down by a like stroke, when I set about writing the book, which I gave to the public, ’On the Causes of the Corruption of Eloquence.’ Why then did I not cast into the fire that accursed work? Why did not I commit it, with that little unhappy learning I might have, to the flames of the funeral pile kindled so untimely to consume my affections? What good parent would pardon me, if I again engaged in study? Who would not detest my insensibility, if I made any other use of my voice, than to vent complaints against the injustice of the gods, who have made me survive all that was dearest to me in the world; if I did not proclaim aloud that there is no providence in the regulation of human affairs? There reigns a secret envy, jealous of our happiness, which pleases itself in nipping the bud of our hopes. If my life be my crime, it shall also be my punishment. I can brave fortune; it has brought my vexations to their height, and in this I find a doleful but just security." Who can without a shudder of horror read such effusions of rage, pride, sullenness and impiety? A human soul, thus stung, rebellious and maddened, is one of the saddest spectacles ever beheld on earth. A wild bull caught in a net, and filling the forest with his roaring, is a Hebrew emblem of a man thus minded. In the day of calamity how gloomy is heathenism, how cheerless is philosophy! Neither brings any solace to the stricken heart. On the other hand, a little light from heaven is a blessing. JOB, the man of Uz was also a great orator. "Unto him men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at his counsel." After his words "they spoke not again, and they waited for him as for the rain." He was held in the highest veneration. "When the young men saw him, they hid themselves." In his presence "the aged arose and stood up. The princes refrained talking, and laid their hands on their mouth. The nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their jaws." He was also the greatest captain of his age. "He dwelt as king in the army. He broke the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth." He was also a great philanthropist. "When the ear heard him then it blessed him; and when the eye saw him, it gave witness to him; because he delivered the poor that cried, and the fatherless, and him that had none to help him. He caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy; he was eyes to the blind, and feet to the lame. He was a father to the poor: and the cause, which he knew not, he searched out." He was also the richest man in the East. "He washed his steps with butter, and the rock poured him out rivers of oil." For a long time he enjoyed this prosperity and said, "I shall die in my nest, and multiply my days as the sand." "His root was spread out by the waters, and the dew lay all night upon his branch. His glory was fresh in him, and his bow was renewed in his hand." He had seven thousand sheep, three thousand camels, five hundred yoke of oxen, and a great number of servants. He had also ten children—seven sons and three daughters. Yet in one day all were taken from him. He was bereft indeed, and with crushing suddenness. Suspicion instantly wrapped him in her poisoned mantle, and neglect from his servants, and scorn from the abjects speedily followed. "At this, Job got up and tore his robe and shaved his head. Then he fell to the ground in worship and said: ’Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I will depart. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised." Job 1:20-22. It is commonly believed that Job lived before any part of God’s word was written, though not before many important truths had been revealed to the fathers. He had some light, though not the full light of the gospel. He also embraced the truth as far as he knew it. Behold the difference between the proud Roman and the humble Arabian, the former without God in the world, the latter saying, "I will trust him though he slays me." Quintilian lived in the days of Christ and his apostles, and might have heard Paul preach, and might have known the truth as it is in Jesus. In one sentence of his work he is thought by some to have made a scornful allusion to the Christians. Strange that a man should blaspheme his own gods, and yet see no need of a better religion. Without the light of gospel truth, life is without happiness, and death is without hope. A false religion is a horrible engine of torture. But the gospel freely offers precious blessings to all the sons of men, and especially to the children of sorrow. So that all, who heartily embrace it, may even "rejoice in tribulation." How strange it is that any should oppose the spread of the gospel. How can one defend himself from the charge of malignancy, when he would withhold from the wretched of his race, the cup of divine consolations? Let those, who tell of the happiness of the heathen, henceforth keep silence. "Their sorrows shall be multiplied that hasten after another god." "Our God is in heaven and does whatever He pleases. Their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands. They have mouths, but cannot speak, eyes, but cannot see. They have ears, but cannot hear, noses, but cannot smell. They have hands, but cannot feel, feet, but cannot walk. They cannot make a sound with their throats. Those who make them are just like them, as are all who trust in them." Psalms 115:3-8 There is but one only living and true God; and Jesus Christ is his Son. His mediation alone can bring salvation. His word is truth. His blood is the sole efficacious sacrifice for sin. His gospel is glad tidings of great joy to all who hear the joyful sound. Blessed are they, all they, and only they—who have made Jehovah their refuge, and hope and portion. This must be done with the heart. The Holy Spirit must illumine the darkened understanding, else we shall be like the bat and the owl, which see not at noon. The divine Spirit alone can so reveal to us the fullness and excellency of Christ, as to enable us to "glory in tribulation." Oh that all the wretched would come and with joy draw water out of the wells of salvation. Jesus came "to appoint unto them who mourn in Zion, to give them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness." "Hallelujah! My soul, praise the Lord. I will praise the Lord all my life; I will sing to the Lord as long as I live. Do not trust in nobles, in man, who cannot save. When his breath leaves him, he returns to the ground; on that day his plans die. Happy is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his God, the Maker of heaven and earth, the sea and everything in them. He remains faithful forever, executing justice for the exploited and giving food to the hungry. The Lord frees prisoners. The Lord opens the eyes of the blind. The Lord raises up those who are oppressed. The Lord loves the righteous. The Lord protects foreigners and helps the fatherless and the widow, but He frustrates the ways of the wicked. The Lord reigns forever; Zion, your God reigns for all generations. Hallelujah!" Psalms 146:1-10. ======================================================================== CHAPTER 98: 04.36. AFFLICTIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS; SAYINGS; PROMISES ======================================================================== AFFLICTIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS Sayings and Promises It has long excited surprise that God’s people should in all ages quietly bear the ills of life. Sinners have fainted at seeing or hearing of sufferings, in which the godly patiently gloried. The grace of Christ is very delightfully manifested—in taking away the evil of affliction, in giving support under it, in bringing good out of it, and in granting a final victory over it. Perhaps there is on earth no saint, who believes that he could have made his present attainments with less affliction, than has fallen to his lot. Nor is there any godly man, who has fully escaped from any trial, however grievous, who does not look back with gratitude to the mercy manifested both in sending and in sanctifying it to his good. Indeed from the earliest times down to the present, such strange things have been said and done under and after the sorest afflictions, as can be accounted for in no way irrespective of the amazing kindness of the Lord Jesus. Scripture, Church History, and Christian Biography abound in what the wicked commonly esteem paradoxes on this subject. Instead of framing any formal argument, or indulging in any exhortation on the subject, some of these immortal sentences are set down for the use of all concerned. Let us first look at a few found in God’s word: "Shall we receive good at the hand of the Lord, and shall we not receive evil?" —Job. "Our God has punished us less than our iniquities deserve." —Ezra. "I am silent before you; I won’t say a word. For my punishment is from you." "It is good for me that I have been afflicted; that I might learn your statutes." "Before I was afflicted I went astray: but now have I kept your word." —David. "I will look unto the Lord; I will wait for the God of my salvation; my God will hear me." "The Lord does not afflict willingly, nor grieve the children of men." "Why should a living man complain, a man for the punishment of his sins?" —Jeremiah. "Rejoice not against me, O my enemy; when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me." —Micah. "Even though the fig trees have no blossoms, and there are no grapes on the vine; even though the olive crop fails, and the fields lie empty and barren; even though the flocks die in the fields, and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord! I will be joyful in the God of my salvation." —Habakkuk. "All that the Father gives me shall come to me; and him that comes to me I will never cast out." "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you; not as the world gives, give I unto’ you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." —Jesus Christ. "We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to his purpose." "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, works for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." "If we suffer with him, we shall also reign with him." —Paul. The secret of these triumphs of faith is disclosed in two precious passages of Scripture, each of which shows the connection of all these things with Jesus Christ. The first is in Revelation 3:19, where the Son of God says, "As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten." If any word in this sentence should be emphatic, perhaps it is the pronoun, ’I’. The other passage is in Isaiah 43:9 : "In all their suffering he also suffered, and he personally rescued them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them. He lifted them up and carried them through all the years." The grace of Christ always was the stay of the Church. He has chosen his people in the furnace of affliction. In short God fulfills to them those faithful promises, "But now, O Israel, the Lord who created you says—Do not be afraid, for I have ransomed you. I have called you by name; you are mine. When you go through deep waters and great trouble, I will be with you. When you go through rivers of difficulty, you will not drown! When you walk through the fire of oppression, you will not be burned up; the flames will not consume you. For I am the Lord, your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior." Isaiah 43:1-3 "I will not leave you comfortless; I will come to you." John 14:18. "Even the very hairs of your head are all numbered." Luke 12:7. "As your days—so shall your strength be." Deuteronomy 33:25. Not only do we find the Scriptures full of such things as have just been quoted, but even since the close of the sacred canon, the Church of God has been full of precious sayings suited to encourage the most sorrowing. Here is a short and very imperfect selection of such thoughts, given merely as a specimen of the common sentiments of God’s people respecting affliction. It will be readily seen that they are drawn from the word of God. "God had one Son on earth without sin, but never one without affliction."—Augustine. "Afflictions are the theology of Christians."—Luther. "Without adversity grace withers."—Mason. "God may cast down—but he will never cast off true believers."—Case. "Sanctified afflictions are spiritual promotions."—Dodd. "Time is short; so if your cross is heavy, you have not far to carry it."—Anon. "Afflictions are blessings to us, when we can bless God for afflictions."—Dyer. "Christian, has not God taught you, by his word and Spirit, how to read the short-hand of his providence? Do you not know that the saints’ afflictions stand for blessings?"—Gurnall. "No righteous man would, in his right mind, be willing to make an exchange of his sharpest afflictions for a wicked man’s prosperity, with all the circumstances attending it. It cannot therefore be bad with the righteous in the worst condition."—Charnock. "This winter-weather shall be useful to destroy and rot those rank weeds, which the summer of prosperity bred."—Flavel. "The school of the cross is the school of light."—Anon. "God’s people have often been carried to heaven in the fiery chariot of affliction."—Mrs. Savage. "Winter leads the sap down into the roots, while summer calls it up into the branches, and displays it in the blossoms and fruit."—Jay. "The tree of the cross being cast into the waters of affliction, has rendered them wholesome and medicinal."—Owen. "Our departed Christian friends cannot descend to share with us in our sorrows; but by holy contemplation we may daily ascend, and partake with them in their joys."—Howe. "In times of affliction we commonly meet with the sweetest experiences of God’s love."—Bunyan. "As no temporal blessing is good enough to be a sign of eternal election; so no temporal affliction is bad enough to be an evidence of reprobation."—Arrowsmith. "What unthankfulness is it to forget our consolations, and to look only upon matter of grievance—to think so much upon two or three crosses as to forget a hundred blessings."—Sibbes. "Every man has a heaven and a hell. Earth is the sinner’s heaven; his hell is to come. The godly have their hell upon earth, when they are vexed with temptations and afflictions by Satan and his accomplices; their heaven is above in endless happiness. If it be ill with me on earth, it is well that my torment is so short and easy; I cannot be so unreasonable as to expect two heavens."—Hall. "All is well that ends everlastingly well."—Anon. "It is a blessed thing for the afflicted to wait God’s time and determination."—Lightfoot. "When temporal evils are effectual means to promote our everlasting happiness, the amiableness and excellency of the end changes their nature, and makes these calamities that in themselves are intolerable, to become light and easy."—Anon. "Crosses and afflictions are God’s call to examine our hearts and our lives."—Richardson. "Too much honey does turn to gall; and too much joy, even spiritual joy—would make us wantons. Happier a great deal is that man’s case, whose soul by inward desolation is humbled, than he whose heart is through abundance of spiritual delight lifted up and exalted above measure. Better it is sometimes to go down into the pit with him, who beholding darkness, and bewailing the loss of inward joy and consolation, cries from the bottom of the lowest hell—My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? than continually to walk arm in arm with angels, to sit as it were in Abraham’s bosom, and to have no thought, no cogitation, but—I thank my God it is not with me as it is with other men."—Hooker. "Through Christ’s satisfaction for sin, the very nature of affliction is changed, with regard to believers. As death, which was, at first, the wages of sin, is now become a bed of rest (Isaiah 57:2); so afflictions are not the rod of God’s anger, but the gentle corrections of a tender father."—Crisp. "That is always best for us, which is best for our souls."—Phillip Henry. "Afflictions are sent to stir up prayer. If they have that effect, and, when we are afflicted, we pray more, and pray better, than before, we may hope that God will hear our prayer, and give ear to our cry; for the prayer, which, by his providence, he gives occasion for, and which, by his Spirit of grace, he indites, shall not return void."—M. Henry. "If we have the kingdom at last—it is no great matter what we suffer on the way to it."—Manton. "To the poor, humble, and despised believer—the kingdom of heaven exclusively belongs; there his best desires will be eternally satisfied, his tears will be changed for triumphant songs of joy, and his reward will be great in the blessed society of the holy prophets and apostles; and in that of the incarnate Son of God, who passed the same way to his glory."—Thomas Scott. "No cloud can overshadow a true Christian—but his faith may discern a rainbow in it."—Anon. "He, who is prepared in whatever state he is therewith to be content, has learned effectually the art of being happy; and possesses the magic stone, which will change every trial into gold."—Dwight. I have never met with a single instance of adversity which I have not afterwards seen to be for my good."—Anon. "I have never heard a Christian on his deathbed complaining of his afflictions."—Anon. "All the sufferings of the believer are not hell—but they are all the hell he shall suffer."—Mason. "Christians ought neither to expect nor wish to have suffering with Christ, disconnected with their being glorified with him. The former is a preparation for the latter." Romans 8:17.—Hodge. "Oh, what must Christ be in himself, when he sweetens heaven, sweetens Scriptures, sweetens ordinances, sweetens earth, and even sweetens trials!"—John Brown of Haddington. "It is happy for us if we have suffered enough to make us desire a better country, that is a heavenly one; but surely all the painful experiences we have hitherto met with have not been more than sufficient to bring us into this waiting posture."—John Newton. "God denies a Christian nothing—but with a design to give him something better."—Cecil. "If the blessed Jesus, who had no sin of his own, bore the wrath of his heavenly Father for a world of sinners, how willingly ought I to endure all the pain I suffer, if my dying example might be but the means of the salvation of one soul."—David Rice "There is really much more real satisfaction to be found in a crucified world—than in an idolized world."—Witherspoon. One thing is a source of unspeakable comfort to God’s people in all their tribulation. It is that God will in fact never leave them, nor forsake them. Their needs shall be all supplied. That great witness for Christ, Cyprian, says: "Indeed it is impossible that a godly man should be in need of his daily bread. It is expressly promised, ’the Lord will not allow the soul of the righteous to famish.’ And again it is written: ’I have been young, and now am old; yet have I not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed begging bread.’ And our Lord has thus encouraged our dependence upon him in the following words: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ’What shall we eat?’ or ’What shall we drink?’ or ’What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." Matthew 6:25-34 We see that he promises that everything else of this kind and nature shall be added to those who seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness. For since all things are God’s, he who has God will have all things with him, if he on his part be not lacking in his duty to God." Whatever will be to our advantage, if we shall act virtuously, is not only just but benevolent. And if anything more be lacking here it is: "Many are the afflictions of the righteous—but the Lord delivers him out of them all." Psalms 34:19 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 99: 04.37. THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL HOLD ON HIS SAY ======================================================================== THE RIGHTEOUS SHALL HOLD ON HIS WAY The godly have many fears. They know the power, cunning, and malice of their enemies to be great. They are also conscious of much weakness and indwelling corruption. In themselves they have no might. So far as fears lead men to watch and pray in faith and hope—they are useful. But where they beget discouragement, or diminish confidence in God—they are sinful and mischievous. One apprehension of the pious is that sin may regain its dominion over them, and at last all their hopes of heaven be disappointed. They often have great fears about their final perseverance and acceptance. Even when they cannot deny that God has done great things for them, they sometimes fear that yet there may be some deception in their case, and so all their hopes be blasted. To such the truth should be often and clearly presented—that those who have been really born again shall neither totally nor finally fall away from the favor of God and the power of his grace—but shall surely hold on their way unto death, and be forever saved. The assurance of final victory warranted by Scripture is not in any degree built upon natural courage, or firmness, or goodness, or strength of mind, or of resolution. None more readily than the friends of this doctrine admit that "because of the remains of indwelling sin, and moreover, also, because of the temptations of the world and of Satan—the converted could not continue in a gracious state, if they were left to their own strength." Nor is it denied or doubted that truly converted people may be left by God to fall into grievous sins, from which if they were not rescued by pardoning and restoring mercy, they could not be saved. The two memorable cases of David and Peter settle this point. Sin has as fearful a malignity in the case of a child of God, as in that of the openly profane. If it does not utterly and eternally destroy, it is God’s grace that makes the difference between one case and another. The Scriptures thus provide: "If his sons forsake My instruction and do not live by My ordinances, if they dishonor My statutes and do not keep My commandments, then I will call their rebellion to account with the rod, their sin with blows. But I will not withdraw My faithful love from him or betray My faithfulness. I will not violate My covenant or change what My lips have said." Psalms 89:30-34. "Though a godly man falls, he shall not be utterly cast down; for the Lord upholds him with his hand." Psalms 37:24. And yet it is true that all who are justified shall at last be glorified. So the Scriptures clearly teach. "The righteous shall hold on his way, and he who has clean hands shall wax stronger and stronger." Job 17:9. "This God is our God forever and ever; he will be our guide even unto death." Psalms 48:14. "Being confident of this very thing, that he who has begun a good work in you, will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." Php 1:6. "I give unto my sheep eternal life, and they shall never perish, neither shall any pluck them out of my hand. My Father, who gave them to me, is greater than all; and none is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand." John 10:28-29. "Because I live, you shall live also." John 16:19. "Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end." John 13:10. "Although my house be not so with God, yet he has made with me an everlasting covenant, ordered in all things and sure. For this is all my salvation, and all my desire." 2 Samuel 23:5. "The Lord will perfect that which concerns me." Psalms 138:8. "With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on you, says the Lord your Redeemer." Isaiah 54:8. "No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God." 1 John 3:9. "You are kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation." 1 Peter 1:5. "The foundation of God stands sure, having this seal, The Lord knows those who are his." 2 Timothy 2:19. "By one offering he has forever perfected those who are sanctified." Hebrews 10:14. See also John 17:11, John 17:24; Hebrews 7:25, and Hebrews 9:12-15; Luke 22:32. From these and similar passages of Scripture we conclude the certainty of the final salvation of all believers; and we base the doctrine, as the Scriptures do, upon the nature of the covenant of grace, upon the promised aid of God’s Spirit, upon the efficacy of Christ’s blood, upon the prevalency of Christ’s intercession, upon the incorruptible nature of the divine seed within us, and upon the unchangeableness of God’s love and counsels. On this subject there is a very powerful and conclusive species of argument several times resorted to by Paul: "If when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son; much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." Romans 5:10. Again: "He who spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" Romans 8:32. The pious Charnock very forcibly presents the true spirit of such reasoning, when he says: "If God has made you (a great sinner) the object of his mercy, you may be assured of the continuance of his love. He pardoned you when you were an enemy; will he leave you now that you are his friend? He loved you when you had erased out in a great measure his image and picture, which he had set in your soul; will he hate you now, since he has restored that image, and drawn it with fresh colors? He justified you when you were ungodly; and will he cast you off, since he has been at such pains about you, and written in you a counterpart of his own divine nature in the work of grace? Were his affections first moved when you had no grace; and will they not sound louder when you have grace? You had a rich present of his grace sent you when you could not pay for it; and will he not much more give you whatever is needful when you call upon him? He was found of you when you did not seek him; and will he hide himself from you, when you are inquiring after him? God considered before he began with you, what the cost would be, both of merit in Christ, and of grace in you; so that the grace he has given you is not only a mercy to you, but an obligation on himself, since his credit is engaged to complete it. You have more unanswerable arguments to plead before him now, than you once had in his Son, his truth, his promise, his grace, his name, wherein before you had not the least interest. To what purpose has God called you and washed you, if he did not intend to supply you with as much grace as shall bring you to glory? Has God given you Christ—and will he withhold anything else?" God never begins to build without knowing that he is able to finish. Paul’s reasoning from such premises is of precisely the same description. Here it is: "Who can bring an accusation against God’s elect? God is the One who justifies. Who is the one who condemns? Christ Jesus is the One who died, but even more, has been raised; He also is at the right hand of God and intercedes for us. Who can separate us from the love of Christ? Can affliction or anguish or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? As it is written: Because of You we are being put to death all day long; we are counted as sheep to be slaughtered. No, in all these things we are more than victorious through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing will have the power to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord!" Romans 8:33-39. And what an illustrious display of almightiness is here! "Perhaps it is a greater energy of divine power, which keeps the Christian from day to day, from year to year—praying, hoping, running, believing—against all hindrances—which maintains him a living martyr—than that which bears him up for an hour in sacrificing himself at the stake." To be girded with omnipotence will make anyone triumphant. To surround any man with walls of fire will secure to the feeblest safety and deliverance. If Christ dying could procure us a pardon, if Christ rising could secure for us, justification, surely Christ interceding can supply us with strength, Christ reigning can give us the victory, and Christ sitting in judgment can and will give us a final and glorious acquittal. Fairer, stronger reasoning can nowhere be found. "He who has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son of God has not life." 1 John 5:12. Richard Hooker well says: "The faith of God’s people, when it is at the strongest, is but weak; yet even then, when at the weakest, it is so strong, that utterly it never fails, it never perishes altogether, no not in them who think it extinguished in themselves. ’I know whom I have believed.’ I am not ignorant whose precious blood has been shed for me. I have a Shepherd full of kindness, full of love, and full of power: unto him I commit myself. His own finger has engraved this sentence on the tables of my heart: ’Satan has desired to winnow you as wheat, but I have prayed that your faith fail not.’ Therefore the assurance of my hope I will labor to keep as a jewel unto the end, and by labor, through the gracious mediation of his prayer, I shall keep it." Scott, in his Force of Truth, having quoted this paragraph, says: "With such words in my mouth, and such assurance in my heart, I wish to live, and hope to die." Such has long been the doctrine of the church of God. The Synod of Dort records the historical verity concerning this doctrine, in saying: "The spouse of Christ has always most tenderly loved it, as a treasure of inestimable value, and has constantly defended it." Some object to the doctrine: 1. That numerous people make a great show of piety, and by and by fall quite away. This is true; but John (1 John 2:19) explains their conduct: "They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us: but they went out, that they might be made manifest that they were not all of us." 2. Some object that such doctrine renders means unnecessary. But no church so holds the doctrine. The Synod of Dort says that "by hearing, reading, meditation, by exhortations, threatenings, promises, and moreover by the use of the sacraments, God preserves, continues and perfects his work in us." 3. There is therefore no force in the objection that this doctrine teaches that every converted man will be saved, let him live ever so wicked a life. For the doctrine is that a holy heart will produce a holy life, and that God’s grace will maintain within us the love of holiness, and recover us if we fall. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them: I will never stop doing good to them, and I will inspire them to fear me, so that they will never turn away from me. I will rejoice in doing them good and will assuredly plant them in this land with all my heart and soul." Jeremiah 32:40-41. Therefore let us lay fast hold of God’s covenant, and plead with him for full salvation and final victory. Prayer is a necessary means of being preserved unto life eternal. Therefore cry: Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me under the the shadow of your wings. Keep me from the snare laid for me. Keep me from the hour of temptation. Hold me up—and I shall be safe. Preserve you my soul, O my God; save your servant who trusts in you. Make me fit to be a partaker of the inheritance of the saints in light—and in all the trials of life be courageous. Remember that You have said, "I will never leave you, nor forsake you." "And now, all glory to God, who is able to keep you from stumbling, and who will bring you into his glorious presence innocent of sin and with great joy. All glory to him, who alone is God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Yes, glory, majesty, power, and authority belong to him, in the beginning, now, and forevermore. Amen." Jude 1:24-25 ======================================================================== CHAPTER 100: 04.38. THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE ======================================================================== THE BREVITY OF HUMAN LIFE The New York Observer of the 6th of March, 1851, contained obituary notices of ten people, the aggregate of whose ages was more than 885 years. The youngest of the ten was 79 years old. The average of their ages was over 88 years. Of these people, seven were males, and three females. The habits of all are not particularly stated, but so far as they are noticed, they seem to have been simple and temperate. In reflecting on such a record, one of our first thoughts is—How long they lived! The average of their lives surprise us. Such a record shows that in the divine plan respecting human life there has been no considerable change since the days of Moses. The average of human life will probably not be lower until the end of the world. And as these ten people are confessedly rare exceptions to the usual course of things, we have no reason to suppose that the maximum of human life will hereafter be greater than it is at present. The increased virtue of mankind would no doubt considerably raise the average of human life, but the maximum will not materially vary in future ages. But when we compare the present with the first ages of the world, our thoughts take quite a different turn. Adam lived 930 years—or 45 years longer than all the above ten combined. Seth lived 912 years, Enosh 905 years, Kenan 910 years, Mahalalel 895 years, Jared 962 years, Enoch 365 years, Methuselah 969 years, Lamech 777 years, Noah 950 years. The aggregate of the ages of these ten men was 8,575. Had Enoch not been translated until he was as old as the youngest of the other nine, the aggregate of the ages of these ten antediluvians would have been more than ten times as great as that of the ten first mentioned. Compared with the life of man before the flood, how short are our days! If any ask the reason of this change, let them know that it is the sovereign will of God, who holds all second causes and all human affairs under his control. To infer from this difference in human life that we and the men before the flood belong not to the same race, is as illogical as to argue that a child dying a year old is not of the same race with its parents, who live half a century. The whale is said to live a thousand years, the elephant four hundred, the swan two hundred, the terrapin one hundred and fifty, the eagle one hundred, and the donkey eighty. But human life is still shorter. Man has more enemies, dangers stand thicker around him. Seventy years only are appointed to him. Let us not repine at this state of things. As this world ever since the fall of Adam has been under the mediatorial government of Jesus Christ, whatever has been done to the race has been merciful. The abbreviation of human life was unquestionably a kindness to the world. When men lived nearly a thousand years, human wickedness became intolerable. Except when renewed by God’s grace, human nature is the same in all ages; and if the wicked lived nine hundred years, earth would again be like hell. Even now we find blasphemers and murderers in their teens. Men are often deeply practiced in crime, and fearfully hardened in atheism before they have lived out half their days. Some men have committed more murders than they were years old. If men should live as long as the patriarchs before the flood, and wickedness should grow, as it now does, personal hostilities would be dreadful, and family feuds and national quarrels would find no termination. How could the world endure for seven or eight centuries the tread of a ruthless Nero, or an Alexander? In one century the scholars of vice would acquire such proficiency as to make their names dreadful. Though life is short, it is long enough to answer all the highest ends of existence. All people have more time than they profitably employ. Those who waste their lives in vanity and wickedness, have no right to complain of the brevity of their existence. From him, who misuses what is given him, may justly be withheld all further bounties. And the righteous "would not live always." They seek a better country, even a heavenly one. They have a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better than any earthly inheritance. God often takes first, those whom he loves best. Abel left the world, it is thought, at the age of one hundred and twenty years, while his fratricidal brother lived through centuries of guilt and remorse. Enoch seems to have been the most pious of the ten mentioned in Genesis 5:1-32, yet he did not remain on earth half so long as the shortest lived of the other nine. With the world so miserable, it is no loss for the godly to die and go to heaven. Nor can it ever be gain for the ungodly—to live and treasure up wrath by sin. Unless we can lay hold on the gospel truths, it is painful to dwell on the brevity of our earthly existence. Of all people born into the world, one-third do not live two years, and one half do not see seven years. Of the remainder, more than half die before they are forty-five years old. But here and there one lives to be old. The habitable earth and the sea also have become vast grave-yards. If life be so short—let us defer no duty. Let there be a time for everything, and everything in its time. In Christian countries, most men fail by wicked delays. Around that rock lie the bleached bones of myriads, who intended to live to God, but never did. Inch by inch their lives were stolen from them, and at the end all they could say was, "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved." A disposition to put off preparation for death would be greatly strengthened by a knowledge that we had centuries before us. We all know the strong propensity in men to say, "There is time enough yet." Beware of this dangerous practice. The next hour may usher any one of us into eternity. To the godly man, an early death is not an evil. He thereby escapes much suffering. He is taken away from the evil to come. Tacitus, in his life of Agricola, seems pleased that he did not live to see the Senate intimidated by soldiers, courts of law shut up, and rapine and slaughter prevalent. "O Agricola, you are happy, not only by the excellence of your life, but by your opportune death!" Agricola died at the age of fifty-six years. If a heathen could comfort himself for the death of so honored a father-in-law by such a consideration, how much more may we be cheered by knowing that our departed pious friends no more see, or hear, or feel those things—which were they alive—must vex their righteous souls from day to day. Let us not be over anxious for long life. The failure of early hopes, the decline of usefulness, the neglect by one’s children, the memory of past joys, the presence of many pains and infirmities—burden nearly all the very aged. Their senses are blunted, their strength is not firm, their fears have the ascendency, the almond-tree flourishes, the grasshopper is a burden, and desire fails. Our advancing years bring increased responsibility. He, who has lived thirty-five years has had five full years of Sabbaths. He, who is seventy years old, has had ten solid years of holy time. Frequent interviews with distressed souls have painfully impressed the writer’s mind that there are two sins which have a fearful burden and sting in them. The first is the slighting of gospel grace and mercy. The other is the neglect or abuse of holy time. Most dying sinners seem to desire longer time only that they may spend it as they should have done their holy Sabbaths. Let us not waste our time in idle regrets on the shortness of life, but let us work while it is day." "The night comes when no man can work." "It is fine to be zealous, provided the purpose is good, and to be so always and not just when I am with you." Let us do, even a little at a time. Despise not the day of small things. "It is not great talents God blesses, so much as great likeness to Jesus." Holiness is a greater means of usefulness than extraordinary natural gifts, or vast learning. "A heated iron, though blunt, will pierce its way even where a much sharper instrument, if it be cold, cannot penetrate." One of the best models of zeal among fallible men is found in Nehemiah. A perfect pattern was Jesus Christ. The zeal for God’s house consumed him. Live and labor to be not only real Christians, but eminent Christians. Let us not sleep as do others. Heaven or hell will soon receive all that now live. Let your standard be the word of God and the example of Christ. Forget past attainments, and reach after greater things. Live as seeing Him, who is invisible. Never count that you have attained until you have got your crown. "He, who is contented with just enough grace to escape hell and get to heaven, and desires no more, may be sure he has none at all, and is far from the kingdom of God." Be not conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Fight the good fight of faith. One reason, why some have so great a dread of the close of life, is that it is so rarely a theme of meditation. Men, who will not think, cannot understand. Mere thoughts of dying will make no one holy, but they have often led men to seek salvation. I have read of a man, whose conversion was traced to those words so often repeated in Genesis 5:1-32, "AND HE DIED." Live as you may, it will soon be said of you, "and he died." Are you ready for death? The grace of Christ is necessary to enable us to live well and to die well. His death was the death of death, because it was the death of sin. We may confidently plead with the Savior for all needed help. He can make goodness and mercy follow us when living; and glory and honor meet us when dying. His grace can moderate our love of life, and take away our fear of death. He can teach us that this present world is not our rest. He can make us willing to be chastened of the Lord, that we may not be condemned with the world. He can do for us exceeding abundantly above all we can ask or think. He is the good Shepherd. In him we may safely trust and forever rejoice. If this life is short, Christ’s people shall the sooner be with him. ======================================================================== Source: https://sermonindex.net/books/writings-of-william-s-plumer-volume-1/ ========================================================================