September 28

Who remembered us in our low estate. - Psalms 136:23.

LET us contemplate “our low estate.” In doing so, we observe, first, That this is our natural state, but not our original condition. Man was made a little lower than the angels, and God gave him dominion over all his works. What completed his elevation was, that God created him in his own image in righteousness and true holiness; but here is the sad conclusion: -God made man upright, but he soon sought out many inventions. Mankind retain traces of their original grandeur.

Enough is left to convince a man that he is greatness in ruins. His fall is low even in comparison with his present powers, Man is still high in the scale of his capacities, being endowed with reason, conscience, and immortality. The expansion of his capacity and of his improvement is boundless. This is apparent in the knowledge that man can acquire of the arts and sciences; in his skill, in measuring the distances of the stars; in the achievements he is continually making to excite our wonder and admiration; but so much the more degraded does he appear, when we see him, with these capabilities, “earthly, sensual, and devilish.” What a sight for an angel!-an heir of immortality, “led captive by the devil at his will,” and a slave to his own appetites, passions, and vices!

Secondly, Let us consider him in relation to God. A creature never thinking of his Creator, -a child unmindful of his heavenly Father,-a beneficiary who never remembers his Benefactor. God is not in all his thoughts; and, if he ever approaches him, he is repulsed as an unwelcome intruder. He says unto God, Depart from me, “I desire not a knowledge of thy ways.”

Thirdly, Let us view him with regard to mankind. All his fellow-creatures are really his brethren; he is bound by the law of his being, to regard his neighbour as himself. But, alas, how one man is trying to take advantage of the ignorance and weakness of his fellow-man! How frequently is friendship but a mere commerce of advantage! government, a system of intrigue and corruption!-man seeking glory in fields of blood, in desolated houses and demolished towns, in weeping widows and fatherless children!

Fourthly, In relation to inferior creatures. So low has man sunk, that to humble him he is sent to learn wisdom of the beasts that perish. Yea, the Scriptures represent men as being lower than the beasts:- “The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master’s crib, but Israel doth not know, my people doth not consider.”

Fifthly, Let us consider how low is man’s condition with regard to his body. Paul calls it a “vile body.” How numerous its infirmities! How offensive its diseases, requiring all the force of friendship to discharge the common duties of humanity! And then, a few days after it has ceased to breathe, we must hide its shame in the earth; and then Abraham comes to mourn for his once fair and beautiful Sarah, and to weep for her, and says, “Give me possession of a burial-place with you, that I may bury my dead out of my sight.” There is only one state lower, and that is Hell. And man is reduced to this:-

“Buried in sorrow and in sin,

At hell’s dark door we lay.”

Alas! these are not exceptions, as some might suppose, from the general rule. We have not gone to the very dregs of society for our representations. We have the language of God in his word to set forth man’s awful degradation. Here he is represented as being “in a horrible pit, wherein is no water,” as being in the “region of the shadow of death,” as “ready to perish.” And we are told that “the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint;” that “from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is nothing but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores,” and that “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;” “for from within out of the heart of man proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lasciviousness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness; all these evil things come from within and defile the man.”

These views of human nature and of our natural condition, though very mortifying, are true, and not only true, but useful and necessary. They are necessary to explain the scheme of the gospel, and to prepare us for and induce us to seek after the blessedness it is designed to convey.