June 25

The word of the LORD was precious. - 1 Samuel 3:1.

“Precious|” means valuable, costly, something of worth and importance. The preciousness of a thing is very distinguishable from the truth of it. Nothing can, indeed, be valuable and important that is not true; but a thing may be true without being valuable and important; but here both the truthfulness and the preciousness of the gospel are conjoined. According to the word of the Apostle, “This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners.” This may be inferred not only from the Author, but from the design.

What is the design of the word of God, but the restoration of man from all the effects of moral evil, and placing him in a condition superior to that in which he was originally created? “These things are written,” says the Apostle, “that ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God; and that believing, ye might have life through his name.” Here the mighty questions are answered-What must I do to be saved?” “How shall I come before the Lord, and bow before the High God?” The most precious book in the world to me ought to be that which contains “the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord;” and this volume does contain it. We are commanded to “search the Scriptures,” for in them we think we have eternal life, and they are they which testify of him.

The heathen knew something of the fall: they must have felt the effects of it in the troubles of life-in the uneasiness of conscience-in the discord of their passions-in the dread of futurity-and in what the Apostle Paul calls their “subjection all their life to bondage through fear of death.”-We know that they did try to obtain relief; but they knew nothing of the “balm in Gilead” and the “Physician there;” they were “without Christ,” and therefore they were “without hope, and without God in the world.” O, how precious is one declaration of this book-the testimony of John. “We have known, and believe,” says he, “the love he hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in God, and God in him.” How precious is it to have a standard of doctrine with regard to our belief; so that if we feel perplexities-and perplexities there needs will be on such a subject-we may call in the judgment of God the Father himself. How satisfactory is it to have a rule of duty with regard to our conduct. How wretched we must feel if we had been left to conjecture what God would have us do, and how he would have us walk. But this is not our case; he hath shown us what is good; he has told us what he requires of us; he has furnished us with information, and this information is in proportion to the importance of the thing.

As to matters of moment, here everything is so legibly inscribed, that “he may run that reads it.” Where information is necessary to us, there the light of day is thrown upon the subject; where additional information would only amuse us, and draw us off from the “one thing needful,” there the Scripture becomes silent as death and dark as the grave. And is not this an excellency? Thus the Bible teaches us by what it conceals as well as by what it reveals. Just as Lord Bacon observes, “The shade of the sun on the sun-dial serves to show the hour as well as the sunshine.” And how advantageous is it to have, also, a manual of piety-a vade mecum of devotion, with everything comprised in it that is necessary to life, and in so small a compass that we can carry it conveniently along with us.

Ah, says Solomon, take this book, “bind it about thy neck, write it upon the tablet of thine heart; that where thou goest it may lead thee, and where thou sleepest it may keep thee, and where thou walkest it may walk with thee.”