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  THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL: ILLUSTRATED IN A SERIES OF DISCOURSES
  by Thomas Guthrie
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Thomas Guthrie's discourses on Ezekiel 36:25-27, preached in Edinburgh. From
the defilement of man and the justice of God to the sprinkling of clean water,
the new heart and the indwelling Spirit, in the vivid, image-laden preaching
that filled Free St John's.

  Chapters: 27

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  TABLE OF CONTENTS
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    1. 01. GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL
    2. 02. The Messenger
    3. 03. The Defiler
    4. 04. Man Sinning
    5. 05. Man Suffering
    6. 06. God's punitive Justice
    7. 07. God's Motive in Salvation
    8. 08. Man an Object of Divine Mercy
    9. 09. God glorified in Redemption
    10. 10. The Wisdom and Holiness of God,
    11. 11. The Merry of God illustrated in Salvation
    12. 12. The Benefits flowing from Redemption
    13. 13. Man Justified
    14. 14. Man Justified
    15. 15. Man Convented
    16. 16. The Heart of Stone
    17. 17. The New Heart
    18. 18. IV. By conversion man is ennobled
    19. 19. The Renovator
    20. 20. The New Life
    21. 21. The New Life
    22. 22. Nature, Necessity, and Power of Prayer
    23. 23. III. Prayer must be earnest
    24. 24. IV. Prayer is powerful
    25. 25. V. Prayer is confident
    26. 26. The Blessedness of the Sain's
    27. 27. The Security of the Believer

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  CHAPTER 1: 01. GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL
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ILLUSTRATED IN

A SERIES OF DISCOURSES.

BY THE

REV. THOMAS GUTHRIE, D.D.,

EDINBURGH,

AUTHOR OF "THE INHERITANCE OF THE SAINT," "WAY TO LIFE," "SPEAKING TO THE
HEART," ETC.

New York

E. B. TREAT & COMPANY

Office of THE TREASURY MAGAZINE

947-243 West 23d Street

CONTENTS.

PAGE

I. THE MESSENGER... 1

II. THE DEFILER... 21

III. MAN SINNING... 39

IV. MAN SUFFERING... 55

V. GOD'S PUNITIVE JUSTICE... 73

VI. GOD'S MOTIVE IN SALVATION... 91

VII. MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCY... 107

VIII. GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION... 127

IX. THE WISDOM AND HOLINESS OF GOD ILLUSTRATED IN SALVATION... 139 X. THE
MERCY OF GOD ILLUSTRATED IN SALVATION... 154 XI. THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM
REDEMPTION... 171

XII. MAN JUSTIFIED... 189

XIII. MAN JUSTIFIED THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JESUS CHRIST... 207 XIV. MAN
CONVERTED... 228

XV. THE HEART OF STONE... 247

J34914 vi

CONTENTS.

PAGE

XVI. THE NEW HEART... 264

XVII. THE RENOVATOR... 288

XVIII. THE NEW LIFE... 303

XIX. THE NEW LIFE—continued ... 320

XX. THE NATURE, NECESSITY, AND POWER OF PRAYER... 340 XXI. THE BLESSEDNESS OF
THE SAINTS... 362

XXII. THE SECURITY OF THE BELIEVER... 377

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  CHAPTER 2: 02. The Messenger
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Moreover, the word of the Lord came unto me, saying, Son of man.—

Ezekiel xxxvi. 16, 17.

HAVING scattered over an open field the bones of the human body, bring an
anatomist to the scene.

Conduct him to the valley where Ezekiel stood, with his eye on the skulls and
dismembered skeletons of an unburied host. Observe the man of science how he
fits bone to bone and part to part, till from those scattered members he
constructs a framework, which, apart from our horror at the eyeless sockets
and flesh less form, appears perfectly, divinely beautiful. In hands which
have the patience to collect, and the skill to arrange these materia's, how
perfectly they fit!

bone to bone, and joint to joint, till the whole figure rises to the polished
dome, and the dumb skeleton seems to say, "I am fearfully and wonderfully
made."

Now as with these parts of the human frame, so is it with the doctrines of the
Gospel, in so far as they are intelligible to our understandings. Scattered
over the pages of sacred Scripture, let them also be collected and arranged in
systematic order, and how beautifully they fit! doctrine to doctrine, duty to
duty; till, all connected with each other, all "members one of an other" they
rise up into a form of perfect symmetry, and present that very system which,
with minor differences but substantial unity, is embodied in the confessions,
creeds, and catechisms of Evangelical Christendom. I have said, so far as they
are intelligible to us; for it is ever to be borne in mind, that while the
Gospel has shallows through which a child may wade and walk on his way to
heaven, it has deep, dark, unfathomed pools, which no eye can penetrate, and
where the first step takes a giant beyond his depth.

There is a difference, which even childhood may discern, between the manner in
which the doctrines and duties of the Gospel are set forth in the Word of God,
and their more formal arrangement in our catechisms and confessions. They are
scattered here and there over the face of Scripture, much as the plants of
nature are upon the surface of the globe. There, for example, we meet with
nothing corresponding to the formal order, systematic classification, and
rectangular beds of a botanical garden; on the contrary, the creations of the
vegetable kingdom lie mingled in what, although beautiful, seems to be wild
confusion. Within the limits of the same moor or meadow the naturalist gathers
grasses of many forms, he finds it enamelled with flowers of every hue; and in
those forests which have been planted by the hand of God, and beneath whose
deep shades man still walks in rude and savage freedom, trees of every form
and foliage stand side by side like brothers. With the Sabbath hills around
us, far from the dust and din, the splendor and squalor of the city, we have
sat on a rocky bank, to wonder at the varied and rich profusion with which God
had clothed the scene. Nature, like Joseph, was dressed in a coat of many
colors— sichens, gray, black and yellow, clad the rock; the glossy ivy, like a
child of ambition, had planted its foot on the crag, and, hanging on by a
hundred arms, had climbed to its stormy summit; mosses, of hues surpassing all
the colors of the loom, spread an elastic carpet round the gushing fountain;
the wild thyme lent a bed to the weary, and its perfume to the air; heaths
opened their blushing bosoms to the bee; the primrose, like modesty shrinking
from observation, looked out from its leafy shade; at the foot of the
weathered stone the fern raised its plumes, and on its summit the foxglove
rang his beautiful bells; while the birch bent to kiss the stream, as it ran
away laughing to hide itself in the lake below, or stretched out her arms to
embrace the mountain ash and evergreen pine. By a very slight exercise of
fancy, in such a scene one could see Nature engaged in her adorations, and
hear her singing, "The earth is full of the glory of God." "How manifold are
thy works, Lord God Almighty! in wisdom thou hast made them all."

Now, although over the whole surface of our globe, as in that spot, plants of
all forms and families seem confusedly scattered, amid this apparent disorder
the eye of science discovers a perfect system in the floral kingdom; and just
as—although God has certainly scattered these forms over the face of nature
without apparent arrangement—there is a botanical system, so there is as
certainly a theological system, although its doctrines and duties are not
classified in the Bible according to dogmatic rules. 'Does it not appear from
this circumstance, that God intended his Word to be a subject of study as well
as faith, and that man should find in its saving pages a field for the
exercise of his highest faculties? We are commanded to compare

"spiritual things with spiritual;" we are to "search the Scriptures," to dig
for their treasures, to dive for the pearls. Hence the prayer of David, "Give
me understanding, that I may learn thy commandments."

While the trees and flowers that clothe the fields of nature are scattered
without much apparent order over the wide surface of the earth, still there
are mountain regions lying within the tropics, where, in the course of a
single day, the traveler may find laid out in regular arrangement, every
vegetable form peculiar to every line of latitude between the equator and the
poles. Leaving the palms which cover the mountain's feet, he ascends into the
regions of the olive; from these, to a more temperate climate, where the vine
festoons the trees, or trails its limbs along the naked rock; still ascending,
he next reaches a belt of oaks and chestnuts; from that he passes to heights
shaggy with the hardy pine; by and by, he enters a region where trees are
dwarfed into bushes; rising above that, his foot presses a carpet of lowly
mosses: till, climbing the rocks where only the lichen lives, he leaves all
life beneath him; and now, shivering in the cold, panting in the thin air for
breath, he stands on those dreary elevations, where eternal winter sits on a
throne of snow, and, waving her icy scepter, says to vegetation, "Hither shalt
thou come, and no further." Like some such lofty mountain of the tropics,
there are portions of the Divine Word, where, in a space also of limited
extent—within the short compass of a chapter, or even part of it—the more
prominent doctrines of Salvation are brought into juxtaposition, and set side
by side, almost in systematic order.

This chapter offers to our attention one of the remarkable of these; and in
illustration of that, I remark—

I. That this portion of Scripture, extending onwards from the 16th verse,
presents an epitome or outline of the Gospel.

Its details, with their varied beauties, are here, so to speak, in shade; but
the grand truths of redemption stand boldly up, much as we have seen from sea
the lofty headlands of a dim and distant coast. We are aware that the Mosaic
economy, and many of God's dealings with his ancient people, were but the
shadows of good things to come; and that, when the things are come, as come
they certainly are, you may meet us on the very threshold with this question,
Why look at the shadow when you possess the substance? However valued in his
absence the portrait of a son may be, what mother, when he is folded in her
arms, and she has his living face to look on, turns to the picture? What
artist studies a subject in twilight, when he may see it in the blaze of day?
True—true at least in general. Yet such study has its advantages. It not
seldom happens that a portrait brings to view some shade of expression which
we had not previously observed in the face of the veritable man; and when some
magnificent form of architecture, or the serried ridges and rocky needles of a
mountain, have stood up between us and the last lights of day, we have found,
that although the details, the minor beauties, of fluted columns or frowning
crags were lost in the shades of evening, yet, drawn in sharp and simple
outline against a twilight sky, the effect of the whole was more impressive
then when eyed in the glare of day.

Thus it may be well, occasionally at least, to examine the Gospel in the broad
shadows and strongly defined outlines of an old economy; and through God's
government of his ancient people, to study the motives, the nature, and the
ends of his dealings with ourselves. In this way the passage before us has
peculiar claims upon our attention. Applicable, in the first instance, to the
condition of the Jews, it presents a remarkable summary of Gospel doctrines,
and that in a form approaching at least to systematic order.

In the 17th verse, we have man sinning—"Son of man, when the house of Israel
dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own way, and by their
doings."

In the 18th verse, we have man suffering—"Wherefore I poured my fury upon
them."

In the 21st verse, man appears an object of mercy—"but I had pity."

In the 22d verse, man is an object of free mercy—mercy without merit—"I do not
this for your sakes, O, house of Israel."

In the 24th verse, man's salvation is resolved on—"I will bring you into your
own land."

In the 25th verse, man is justified—"Then will I sprinkle clean water upon
you, and ye shall be clean."

In the 26th and 27th verses, man is renewed and sanctified—"A new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And
I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye
shall keep my judgments, and do them."

In the 28th verse, man is restored to the place and privileges which he
forfeited by his sins—"Ye shall be my people, and I will be your God." "This
land that was desolate, is become like the garden of the Lord." We have our
security for these blessings in the assurance of the 36th verse—"I the Lord
have spoken it, and I will do it;" and the means of obtaining them in the
declaration of the 37th verse—"I will yet for this be enquired of by the house
of Israel, to do it for them."

Such is the wide and interesting field that lies before us. But before
entering upon it, let us consider—

II. The party who is commissioned to deliver God's message.

Who, what is this ambassador of Heaven? An angel? No; but a man. "Son of man,"
says the Lord. In the first verse of this chapter he says—"Son of man,
prophesy unto the mountains." In the 3d verse of the following one he
asks—"Son of man, can these bones live?" Again, in the 9th verse of the same
chapter, he says—"Son of man, prophesy unto the wind." And, still addressing
him by the same title, in the 11th verse, he tells the prophet—"Son of man,
these bones are the whole house of Israel." By this title Ezekiel is so often
addressed, "Son of man," "Son of man," is so constantly sounded both in his
ears and ours, that it forces on our attention this remarkable fact, that God
deals with man through the instrumentality of man, and by men communicates his
will to men. The rain which descends from heaven falls upon the surface of our
earth, sinks through the porous soil, and, flowing along rocky fissures or
veins of sand, is conveyed below ground to the fountain whence it springs.
Now, although out of the earth, that water is not "of the earth, earthy." The
world's deepest well owes its treasures to the skies. So it was with the
revealed will of God. It flowed along human channels, yet its origin was more
than celestial—it was divine. Those waters, at whose springs Faith drinks and
lives, while conveyed to man through the instrumentality of man, had their
source far away in the throne of God; their fountain-head is the Godhead. No
doubt, God could have used other instrumentality. He might have commissioned
angels on his errands of mercy, and spoke at all times, as he did sometimes,
by their lips. With rare exceptions, however, his ambassadors were men. The
patriarchs, prophets, and apostles, by whom in days of old he revealed his
will—those missionaries of heaven—were all sons of man. Now in this
arrangement observe, in the first place—

The kindness of God to man. Who has read the story of Moses without feeling
that it was a great kindness, both to him and his mother, that he had a
mother's bosom to lie on—that God in his providence so arranged matters that
the mother was hired to be the nurse of her son? who else would have treated
the outcast so lovingly and kindly? And I hold it a singular kindness to man
that he is selected to be the instrument of saving his fellow-men. The God of
salvation, the author and finisher of our faith, might have arranged it
otherwise. "Who shall limit the Holy One of Israel?" The field is the world;
and as the husbandman ploughs his fields and sows his seed in spring by the
very hands that bind the sheaves of autumn, God might have sent those angels
to sow the Gospel, who shall descend at judgment to reap the harvest. But
although these blessed and benevolent spirits take a lively interest in the
work, and are sent forth to minister to them that are heirs of
salvation—although watching from on high the progress of the Redeemer's cause,
they rejoice in each new jewel that is added to his crown, and in every new
province that is won for his kingdom; and although there be more joy even in
heaven than on earth when man is saved—a higher joy among these angels "over
one sinner that repenteth than over ninety and nine just persons"—yet theirs
is little more than the pleasure of spectators. Theirs is the joy of those
who, occupying the shore, or crowded on its heights, with eager eyes and
beating heart follow the bold swimmer's movements, and watching his head as it
rises and sinks among the waves, see him near the drowning child, and pluck
its half-drowned prey from the billow; and, still trembling lest strength
should fail him, look on with anxious hearts, till, buffeting his way back, he
reaches the strand, and amid their shouts and sympathies restores her boy to
the arms of a fainting mother.

To man, however, in salvation, it is given to share, not a spectator's but a
Saviour's joy; and with his lips at least to taste the cup for which Jesus
endured the cross and despised the shame. If that parent is happy who snatches
a child from the flood or fire, and the child, thus saved, and twice given
him, becomes doubly dear, what happiness in purity or permanence to be
compared with his, who is a laborer with God in saving souls? Let me invite
you to share in these pleasures, the sweetest, I assure you, out of heaven.
This is a privilege and a pleasure free to all. It is one which kings cannot
purchase, and yet beggars may enjoy; and one also (and what more could be said
of it?) which enhances the joy of heaven. While every saint shall have one
heaven, some shall have more; those who have helped to fill its mansions shall
possess many heavens in one. In proportion to the number they have brought to
Christ, they shall multiply their joys—the joys which eye hath not seen, nor
ear heard, and which entereth not into the heart of man to conceive. In this
arrangement I observe again—

The honor conferred on man. Did Moses occupy a noble position when he stood
aloft on a rock amid the dying Israelites, and there, the central figure of
the camp, on whom all eyes were turned, raised that serpent, to look on which
was life? Nobler still his attitude and office, who, with his foot on this
dying world, lifts up the cross—"Jesus Christ and him crucified"—that,
whosoever looketh and believeth on him, might not perish, but have everlasting
life. Give me the bleeding Saviour, make me the instrument of converting a
single soul, and I grudge not Moses his "piece of brass;" nor envy him the
honor of saving a thousand lives, that are now all quenched in death. Great
honor to the memory of the mighty men who swept like a hurricane through the
camp of the Philistines, and, cleaving their way through opposing foes, drew
the water of Bethlehem for their king; yet, rather than be one of David's
mighty men, it would content me to be one of Christ's humblest, and hold the
cup of life to a pauper's lips. All honor to the prophet who went up to heaven
in a chariot of fire; but nobler still his departure, who, as he ascends to
glory, leaves spiritual sons behind him to weep by the cast-off mantle of his
flesh, and cry, "My father, my father, the chariots of Israel and the horsemen
thereof!" What honors does this world offer? what stars, what jewelled honours
flash on her swelling breast, to be for one moment compared with those which
they win on earth, and wear in heaven, who have turned souls from darkness to
light—from the cursed power of Satan to the living God? Each soul a gem in
their crown, they that have turned many to righteousness shall shine with the
brightness of the firmament, as the stars, for ever and ever. How has the hope
of this touched, as with fire, the preacher's lips, sustained his heart, held
up prayer's weary hands, and proved an ample recompense for those scanty
rewards which God's servants too often received at the hands of men, for the
penury which has embittered, and the hardships which have pressed on their
lot! Their master was rejected and despised of men—a man of sorrows and
acquainted with grief, and the disciple being no better than his Lord, they
have shared in his sufferings. But, if fellow-sufferers, they are fellow-
laborers with Christ—his associates in the noblest work beneath the sun.
Despised as the teacher of the Gospel may be, the apostle raises him to an
eminence from which he may contemplate this world, with all its grandeur and
glory, rolling away into dark oblivion. Viewed in the light of eternity, the
church stands on a loftier elevation than the palace, and the pulpit offers
man a grander position than the throne of empires. To ministers of the Gospel
belongs the high pre-eminence of being able to say, "we are fellow-laborers
with God;" and, with such an associate—in such lofty company, devoting his
life to such a cause—no wonder that Paul confronted a skeptic, sneering,
scoffing world, and bravely said, "I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Christ."

I am anxious that you should understand that the honors that I have spoken of
are not reserved for pulpits. The youth who, finding Sabbath rest in Chris
tian labors, holds his Sabbath-class; the mother, with her children grouped
around her, sweet solemnity sitting in her face, and the Bible resting on her
knee; the friend who deals faithfully with another's soul; any man who kindly
takes a poor sinner by the hand, and seeking to conduct him to the Saviour,
says, "Come with us, and we will do you good;" "Arise, for we have seen the
land, and behold it is very good;" these, not less than ministers of the
Gospel, are fellow-laborers with God. Think not that this noblest work is our
exclusive privilege, nor stand back as if you had neither right nor call to
set to your hand. What although in the church you hold no rank? No more does
the private who wears neither stripes on his arm nor epaulettes on his
shoulder; but although a private, may he not die for the colors which it is
not his privilege to carry? If it is not his business to train recruits, it is
his business, and shall be his reward to enlist them. Now to this office, to
recruit the ranks of the cross, the Gospel calls you—calls all—calls the
meanest soldier in the army of the faith. "The Spirit and the bride say come."
But more than they should call. Where sinners are perishing, where opportunity
offers, where a door is open, where the rule, "Let all things be done decently
and in order," is not outraged and violated—call it preaching if you choose,
but in God's name let hearers preach. Has God gifted any with power to speak
of Christ? Then, with such high interests at stake, from forms which churches,
not their Head—man, not God, has established, we say, "loose him and let him
go." "Let him that heareth say come, and let him that is athirst come; and
whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely."

Thou art a "son of man:" you bear the prophet's title whatsoever otherwise you
may be. Let me call you to the prophet's office. The Master hath need—much
need of you. Thousands, tens of thousands, are dying in their sins. Although
every minister were as a flaming fire in the service of his God, every bishop
were a Latimer, every reformer were a Knox, every preacher were a Whitefield,
every missionary were a Martyn, the work is greater than ministers can
accomplish; and if men will not submit that the interests of nations and the
success of armies shall be sacrificed to routine and forms of office, much
less should these be tolerated where the cause of souls is at stake. I say,
therefore, to every Christian, "the Master hath need" of you. Take a living,
loving interest in souls. Don't leave them to perish. It may be the duty of
others permanently and formally to instruct, but it is yours to enlist. "This
honor have all his saints." And in attempting to engage you in the work at
least of enlisting others, and of recruiting, out of your family, and friends,
and neighborhood, the armies of the faith, I call you to a work in which every
man may bear his share, and one which offers honor as exalted as its pleasures
are pure. It was no honor to Elijah to gird up his loins, and with the storm
at his back to run abreast of the smoking horses of Ahab's chariot.
Considering who the parties were, it had been as meet, I think, that the king
should have run and the prophet ridden. But to run by the chariot where Jesus
sits, his crown on his head, his bow in his hand, and his sword by his thigh;
to employ our feet in offices that have employed angels' wings; to bear the
news of mercy to a dying sinner; and to gather crowds around the Saviour, that
they may strew his path with palms, and swell the song of Hosanna to the Son
of David—for such a work a king might cast off robes and crown.

Yes—I think that he would not demean, but rather dignify his office, who
should descend from a throne where subjects kneel, to bend his knee before God
by a peasant's bed, or leave his palace for a cell, to watch, and weep, and
pray with one whom crime had consigned to death. And, as surely as yon planet
worlds that roll and shine above us draw radiance from the sun around which
they move, so surely shall they shine who spend and are spent in Jesus'
service; they shall share his honors, and shine in his luster. The man,
however lowly his condition, who, some way between his cradle and the tomb,
has converted even one soul to God, has not lived in vain, nor labored for
nought; but has achieved a great work. He may be well content to go down into
the grave by men unpraised, by the world unknown. His works, if they have not
preceded, shall follow him; and needing no tablet raised among mouldering
bones and tombstones, he has a monument to his memory, where there are neither
griefs nor graves, more costly than brass or marble. Others may have filled
the world with the breath of their name; he has helped to fill heaven. Others
may have won an earthly renown; but he who, one himself, has sought to make
others Christians—who, reaching the rock himself, draws another, a perishing
child, brother, friend, neighbor, up—plucked from the flood himself, pulls
another out—who has leaped into the depths that he might rise with a pearl,
and set it lustrous in Jesus' crown—he is the man who shall wear heaven's
brightest honors, and to whom, before all else, the Lord will say, "Well done,
good and faithful servant enter thou into the

THE MESSENGER joy of thy Lord." Weak in yourselves, but strong in God, go
forth on this enterprise, your prayer the wish of Brainerd, "Oh that I were a
flaming fire in the service of my God!" In this arrangement we see, lastly,

The wisdom of God. However highly gifted he may otherwise be, it is a valid
objection to a preacher, that he does not feel what he says; that spoils more
than his oratory. An obscure man rose up to address the French Convention. At
the close of his oration, Mirabeau, the giant genius of the Revolution, turned
round to his neighbor, and eagerly asked, Who is that? The other, who had been
in no way interested by the address, wondered at Mirabeau's curiosity.
Whereupon the latter said, That man will yet act a great part; and, asked to
explain himself, added, he speaks as one who believes every word he says. Much
of pulpit power under God depends on that—admits of that explanation, or one
allied to it. They make others feel who feel themselves. How can he plead for
souls who does not know the value of his own? How can he recommend a Saviour
to others who himself personally despises and rejects him? Unhappy indeed, and
doubly blind those whose leader is as blind as they are; and unhappiest of all
the blind preacher; for while leader and led shall fall into the ditch, he
falls undermost—his the heaviest condemnation, the deepest and most damned
perdition. In possession of such a man—of one who has adopted the church as
other men the law, or army, or navy, as a mere profession, and goes through
the routine of its duties with the coldness of an official—the pulpit seems
filled with the ghastly form of a skeleton, that in its cold and bony fingers
holds a burning lamp.

It is true that a man may impart light to others who does not himself see the
light. It is true that, like a concave speculum cut from a block of ice,
which, concentrating the rays of the sun, kindles touchwood or gunpowder, a
preacher may kindle fire in others, when his own heart is cold as frost. It is
also true that he may stand like a finger-post on a road, where he neither
leads nor follows; and God may thus in his sovereign mercy bless others by one
who is himself unblessed. Yet commonly it happens, that it is what comes from
the heart of preachers that reaches the heart of hearers. Like a ball red hot
from the cannon's mouth, he must burn himself who would set others on fire.
Still, although the ministry of men who are themselves strangers to
piety—although a Judas or Simon Magus in office—is an evil to which the
church, in every age and under every form of government, stands more or less
exposed, it were a poor refuge to seek exemption from such an evil, even in
the ministry of angels; because, while man may not feel what he preaches,
angels could not. How could they? They never felt the stings of conscience;
they never hung over hell's fiery gulf, and saw the narrow ledge they stood on
crumbling away beneath their feet, and sent up to heaven the piercing cry,
"Lord, save me, I perish;" they never felt the power and peace of Jesus'
blood; pursued by a storm of wrath, they never flew to the Rock of Ages, and
folded their wings in the sweet and safe serenity of its welcome clefts; they
never thirsted for salvation; in an agony for pardon, they never felt ready to
give a thousand worlds for one Christ; they never, as we have done, trod the
valley of humiliation, and walked with bleeding feet and weeping eyes its
flinty path; they never knew what it is, between them and their home in
heaven, to see death's gloomy passage, and, more appalling still, a sight
which makes the saint grasp his sword with a firmer hand, and lift up his
shield on high—Satan, the enemy, posted there, and striding across the passage
to dispute the way—never knowing what it is to have been in bondage, having
neither country nor kindred here, how could they preach like Paul? how could
their bosoms burn with this apostolic fire—"I could wish that I myself were
accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh?"

We have somewhere read of a traveler who stood one day beside the cages of
some birds, that, exposed for sale, ruffled their sunny plumage on the wires,
and struggled to be free. A way-worn and sun-browned man, like one returned
from foreign lands, he looked wistfully and sadly on these captives, till
tears started in his eye, and turning round on their owner, he asked the price
of one, paid it in strange gold, and opening the cage set the prisoner free;
and thus and thus he did with captive after captive, till every bird was away,
soaring to the skies and singing on the wings of liberty. The crowd stared and
stood amazed; they thought him mad, till to the question of their curiosity he
replied—"I was once myself a captive; I know the sweets of liberty." And so
they who have experience of guilt, have felt the serpent's bite, the burning
poison in their veins, who on the one hand have felt the sting of conscience,
and on the other the peace of faith, the joys of hope, the love, the light,
the liberty, the life, that are found in Jesus—they, not excepting heaven's
highest angels, are the fittest to preach a Saviour, to plead with man for
God, or plead with God for man. Each Sabbath morning the gates of heaven might
have opened, and, sent by God on a mission worthy of seraphic fire, an angel
might have lighted down upon this sanctuary, and, flying into the pulpit, when
he had folded his wings and used them to vail his glory, he might have taken
up the wondrous theme of salvation and the cross. No angel would leave heaven
to be a king and fill a throne; but, I believe, were it God's will, there is
no angel there but would hold himself honored to be a preacher and fill a
pulpit. Another and very different messenger appears—a frail, dying, sinful
man—one who is bone of your bone, and flesh of your flesh; and if his humanity
made Jesus the better Saviour, it makes his servants the better ambassadors,
that they also are touched with their people's infirmities, and are made in
all points like as they are, and especially in this point, that we cannot add,
"yet without sin."

It is true that in us the instrument which God employs is in itself a humble
one—in itself worthy neither of honor nor respect: the treasure is committed
to earthen vessels, sometimes of the rudest form and the coarsest clay. What
of that? If the letter from a foreign land brings good tidings of his son,
does the father quarrel with the meanness of the paper? While tears of joy and
gratitude drop on the page as he so much as notice it? If the dish offers
safe, a worry meat, a starving man enjoys it none the less that it is not
served up on gold or porcelain. An ointment worthy of the Master's head, and
exhaling odors that fill the house, is as welcome from a sinner's as an
angel's hand—from a vessel of the poorest earth as of the purest alabaster.
Even so will saving truth be to you, if God's people. Without turning him into
an idol, and giving the honor to the servant which is due to the Master, I am
sure you will respect the servant for his Master's sake. Are some of you yet
sinners in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity? Because we are
ourselves sinners, and know what it is to have been captives, we are the
fitter to address you. We know that you are not happy, nor can be happy in
sin; its pleasures perish in the using, and pain in the recollection; and it
is madness, the height of madness—for a man to stake eternity on the chances
of a to-morrow, and purchase sin's short-lived joys at the expense of eternal
happiness. We know that out of Christ, as you have no safety, you can find no
true peace. "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked;" "they are like
the troubled sea which cannot rest;" in storms a raging ocean, and in summer's
serenest day ebbing or flowing, and breaking its billows, like the world's
joys and happiness, on a beach of wrecks and withered weeds. Seek Christ, seek
your peace through him and in him; and, saved yourself—yourself plucked from
the wreck—oh, remember the perishing, and let the first breath and effort of
your new life be spent for others. I give you an example; and in the words
spoken for a fellow-sufferer's life, see what you should do for a fellow-
sinner's soul.

During a heavy storm off the coast of Spain, a dismasted merchantman was
observed by a British frigate drifting before the gale. Every eye and glass
were on her, and a canvas shelter on a deck almost level with the sea
suggested the idea that there yet might be life on board. With all his faults,
no man is more alive to humanity than the rough and hardy mariner; and so the
order instantly sounds to put the ship about, and presently a boat puts off
with instructions to bear down upon the wreck. Away after that drifting hulk
go these gallant men through the swell of a roaring sea; they reach it; they
shout; and now a strange object rolls out of that canvas screen against the
lee shroud of a broken mast. Hauled into the boat, it proves to be the trunk
of a man, bent head and knees together, so dried and shrivelled as to be
hardly felt within the ample clothes, and so light that a mere boy lifted it
on board. It is laid on the deck; in horror and pity the crew gather round it;
it shows signs of life; they draw nearer; it moves, and then mutters—mutters
in a deep, sepulchral voice—“There is another man.” Saved himself, the first
use the saved one made of speech was to seek to save another. Oh! learn that
blessed lesson. Be daily practising it. And so long as in our homes, among our
friends, in this wreck of a world which is drifting down to ruin, there lives
an unconverted one, there is “another man,” let us go to that man, and plead
for Christ; go to Christ and plead for that man; the cry, “Lord save me, I
perish,” changed into one as welcome to a Saviour’s ear, “Lord save them, they
perish.”

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  CHAPTER 3: 03. The Defiler
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Son of man, when the house of Israel dwelt in their own land they defiled it
by their own way, and by their doings.—Ezek. xxxvi. 17.

"THY holy cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness; Jerusalem is a
desolation." So low as this had the fortunes of Israel ebbed, when the words
of my text were penned. Judah was in chains; the people were captives in the
hands of heathen—exiles in the land of Babylon. Jerusalem lay in ruins; the
grass grew long and rank in her deserted streets; an awful silence filled the
temple; the fox looked out of the window, and the foul satyr had her den in
the Holy of Holies. No plough turned a furrow in the field; the vines grew
wild and tangled on the crumbling terraces; nor cock crew, nor dog bayed, nor
flock bleated, nor maid sang, nor shepherd piped, nor smoke curled up from
homestead among the lonely hills. The land was desolate, almost utterly
desolate. She now enjoyed what the love of pleasure and the greed of gain had
denied her; she rested, and had a long Sabbath; while over an expatriated
people, far away beyond the desert, and beside the river, the seventy years'
captivity rolled wearily on. A few pious men, who had in vain tried to stem
the flood-tide of sin which swept the nation on to ruin, were mourning over
the guilt of which captivity was the punishment. Wearying to be home again
they cried, "How long, O Lord, how long? Wilt thou be angry for ever? Shall
thy jealousy burn like fire?" "Be not wroth very sore, O Lord, neither
remember iniquity for ever Behold, see, we beseech thee, we are all thy
people; thy holy cities are a wilderness; Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a
desolation." "Turn us again, Lord God of Hosts, and cause thy face to shine on
us, and so we shall be saved."

So they felt and prayed who were as salt in the putrid mass. The larger
portion, however, as has too often been the case in the visible church, lived
only to dishonor their faith, their creed, their country and their race. Like
many still who go abroad, and in leaving their native land leave behind them
all appearance of pie y, they profaned God's holy name, and gave the scoffer
abundant occasion for this bitter and biting sneer—"These are the people of
the Lord!" In its application to the contemporaries of Ezekiel, the prophet
briefly describes these sad and sinful days, and also refers to that preceding
period of deep and wide degeneracy, when the corruption of kings, princes,
priests and people, had grown so great, that, to use the words of Scripture,
"Their trespass was grown up to the heavens." The patience of God at length
exhausted, as he "drove" the man and woman from the garden, he drove Israel
from a land which their sins had defiled. However much we may abhor their
crimes, it is impossible not to pity the sufferers—in a sense to sympathise
with them. Are we men who, in the case of an invasion, would take a bold
position on the shore, and fight every inch of ground, and when driven back
would take our last stand in our own doorway, nor allow the foot of foe to
pass there but over our dead body? If our bosom burns with any patriotic fire,
if we have the common affections of men for family and friends, it is
impossible to look with insensibility at that bleeding fragment of a nation
gathered for the march to Babylon, amid the blackened and blood-stained ruins
of their capital. What a mournful company! The sick, the bedrid, the blind,
old men tottering forth on the staff of age, and plucking their gray beards
with grief; the skeleton infant hanging on a breast that famine and sorrow
have dried; mothers with terror-stricken children clinging to their sides, or,
worse still, with gentle daughters imploring their protection from these rude
and ruffian soldiers; a few gallant men, the survivors of the fight, wasted by
famine, bleeding from unbandaged wounds, their arms bound, and burning tears
streaming down their cheeks, as they looked on wives and daughters shrieking
and helpless in the arms of brutal passion; how they strain at their bonds!
and bitterly envy their more fortunate companions who lay in the bloody
breach, nor had survived to see the horrors of that day! The piety that abhors
the sins of this people is not incompatible with the pity that sympathises
with their sorrows; and could sit down and weep with Jeremiah, as, seated on a
broken pillar of the temple, desolation around him, and no sound in his ear
but the long, wild wail of the captive band, he wrung his hands, raised them
to heaven, and cried, "Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain
of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my
people." There was a home-leaving, however, in which we feel a nearer
interest. I do not refer to that eventful morning when some of us left a
father's house; and the gates of that happy sanctuary opened, amid tears and
fears and many a kind farewell—and when watched by a father's eye, and
followed by a mother's prayers, we pushed out our bark on the swell of life's
treacherous sea. The turning time of many a young man's history,—the crisis of
his destiny,—that day may have exerted an influence as permanent on our fate
as its impression remains indelible on our memory. I refer to a home-leaving
of far older date; to one, not of personal, nor of national, but of universal
interest. My eye is turned back on the day when our first parents, who had
fallen into sin and forfeited their inheritance, were expelled from man's
first home. And, recollecting the reluctance with which I have seen a heart
broken mother make up her mind to disown the prodigal, and drive him from her
door,—knowing, when with slow and trembling hand she had barred him out, how
it seemed to her as if in that horrid sound she had heard the door of heaven
bolted against him,—and feeling how much provocation we ourselves could
suffer, ere a bleeding heart would consent to turn a child out upon the open
streets, and believing also that our Father in heaven is kinder than the
kindest, and better than the best of us, and that the fondest, fullest heart
is to his, but as the rocky pool,—the lodge of some tiny creature—to the great
ocean which has filled it with a wave, no demonstration of God's abhorrence of
sin (always excepting the cross of Calvary) comes so impressively to our
hearts as his expulsion of our unhappy parents from his own blissful presence
and their sweet home in Eden. When with slow and lingering steps Adam and Eve
came weeping forth from Paradise, and the gate was locked behind them, that
was the bitterst home-leaving the world ever saw. Adam, the federal head of
his family —they came not alone, but are followed by a longer and sadder
procession than went weeping on the way to Babylon: they are followed by a
world in tears. Cast out in them—in them condemned and expatriated—we all
defiled the land wherein we dwelt. In this sense the world sinned in Adam, and
defiled the happy bowers of Eden; and the universality of sin stands firm on
the universality of the sentence, “Death has passed upon all men, for that all
have sinned.”

I. Let us look at man sinning. “Ye have defiled the land.”

Sin is presented here in the aspect of a defilement. But before fixing your
attention on this feature, I may remark, that it offers but one of many
aspects in which sin appears; all alarming, all hateful, all detestable.

As opposed to sin and its consequences, heaven and holiness are pictured forth
in the Bible in colors that glow upon the canvas, through the emblems of every
thing we hold most dear and desirable. Raise your eyes, for example, to the
New Jerusalem. Gold paves its streets, and around them rise walls of jasper.
Earth holds no such city, nor the depths of ocean such pearls as form its
gates; no storms sweep its sea: no winter strips its trees; no thunder shakes
its serene and cloudless sky; the day there never darkens into night; harps
and palms are in the hands, while crowns of glory flash and blaze upon the
heads of its sinless inhabitants. From this distant and stormy orb, as the
dove eyed the ark, faith eyes this glorious vision, and, weary of the strife,
longing to be gone, cries, “Oh that I had the wings of a dove, that I might
fly away and be at rest!” And how difficult would it be to name a noble
figure, a sweet simile, a tender or attractive relationship, in which Jesus is
not set forth to woo a reluctant sinner and cheer a desponding saint! Am I
wounded? He is balm. Am I sick? He is medicine. Am I naked? He is clothing. Am
I poor? He is wealth. Am I hungry? He is bread. Am I thirsty? He is water. Am
I in debt? He is a surety. Am I in darkness! He is a sun. Have I a house to
build? He is a rock. Must I face that black and gathering storm? He is a
anchor sure and steadfast. Am I to be tried? He is an advocate. Is sentence
passed, and am I condemned? He is pardon. To deck him out, and set him forth,
Nature culls her finest flowers, brings her choicest ornaments, and lays these
treasures at his feet. The skies contribute their stars. The sea gives up its
pearls. From fields, and mines, and mountains, Earth brings the tribute of her
gold, and gems, and myrrh, and frankincense; the lily of the valley, the
clustered vine, and the fragrant rose of Sharon. He is "the chiefest among ten
thousand, and altogether lovely;" "in Him dwelleth all the fullness of the
Godhead bodily." I offer him to you—make a free offer of him, and doing so
will challenge you to name a want for which I shall not find a supply in
Christ, something that fits your want as accurately, as the works of a key the
wards of its lock. "A Way he is to lost ones that have strayed;

A Robe he is to such as naked be;

Is any hungry, to all such he is Bread;

Is any weak, in Him how strong is he!

To him that's dead he's Life; to sick men, Health,

Eyes to the blind, and to the poor man Wealth."

Look now at sin; pluck off that painted mask, and turn upon her face the lamp
of the Bible. We start; it reveals a death's head. I stay not to quote texts
descriptive of sin; it is a debt, a burden, a thief, a sickness, a leprosy, a
plague, a poison, a serpent, a sting—every thing that man hates it is; a load
of evils beneath whose most crushing, intolerable pressure, "the whole
creation groaneth." Name me the evil that springs not from this root—the crime
that lies not at this door. Who is the hoary sexton that digs man a grave? Who
is the painted temptress that steals his virtue? Who is the murderess that
destroys his life? Who is the sorceress that first deceives and then damns his
soul?—Sin. Who, with icy breath, blights the sweet blossoms of youth? Who
breaks the hearts of parents? Who brings gray hairs with sorrow to the grave?
Who, by a more hideous metamorphosis than Ovid ever fancied, changes sweet
children into vipers, tender mothers into monsters, and their fathers into
worse than Herods, the murderers of their own innocents?—Sin. Who casts the
apple of discord on home hearths? Who lights the torch of war, and carries it
over happy lands? Who, by divisions in the Church, rends Christ's seamless
robe?—Sin. Who is this Delilah that sings the Nazarite asleep, and delivers
the strength of God into the hands of the uncircumcised? Who, with smiles on
her face, and honied flattery on her tongue, stands in the door to offer the
sacred rites of hospitality, and when suspicion sleeps, pierces our temples
with a nail? What Siren is this, who, seated on a rock by the deadly pool,
smiles to deceive, sings to lure, kisses to betray, and flings her arms around
our neck, to leap with us into perdition?—Sin. Who petrifies the soft and
gentle heart, hurls reason from her throne, and impels sinners, mad as
Gadarene swine, down the precipice, into the lake of fire?—Sin. Who, having
brought the criminal to the gallows, persuades him to refuse a pardon, and
with his own hand to bar the door against the messenger of mercy? What witch
of hell is it, that thus bewitches us?—Sin. Who nailed the Son of God to that
bloody tree? and who, as if it were not a dove descending with the olive, but
a vulture swooping down to devour the dying, vexes, grieves, thwarts, repels,
drives off the Spirit of God? Who is it that makes man in his heart and habits
baser than a beast; and him, who was once but little lower than an angel, but
little better than a devil?—Sin. Sin! Thou art a hateful and horrible thing;
that "abominable thing which God hates." And what wonder? Thou hast insult'd
his Holy Majesty? thou hast bereaved him of beloved children; thou hast
crucified the Son of his infinite love; thou hast vexed his gracious Spirit;
thou hast defied his power; thou hast despised his grace; and, in the body and
blood of Jesus, as if that were a common thing, thou hast trodden under foot
his matchless mercy. Surely, brethren, the wonder of wonders is, that sin is
not that abominable thing which we also hate. But let us leave what is
general, to fix our attention on the view of sin which the text presents. It
is set before us here as a defilement; and I may remark, that it is the only
thing that in the eye of God does deform and defile us. Yet how strange it is,
that some deformity of body shall prove the subject of more parental regrets
and personal mortification than this foul deformity of soul. It is miserable
to think how hearts have grieved, and even eyes, which got their tears surely
for better uses, have wept over the stain of some costly dress, which never
grieved and never wept for a sin-stained soul. What pains are taken, what
costs and cares incurred, to bedeck the body for the house of God, as if that
flimsy finery could conceal or compensate for a foul heart within!

Your manners may have acquired a courtly polish;

your dress may rival the winter's snow; unaccustomed to menial offices, and
sparkling with Indian gems, your hands may bear no stain on them, yet they are
not clean; nay, beneath this graceful exterior may lie concealed more foul
pollution than is covered by a beggar's rags. This son of toil, from whose
very touch your delicacy shrinks, and who, till Sabbath stops the wheels of
business, and with her kind hand wipes the sweat of labor from his brow, never
knows the full comfort of a cleanly habit, may have a heart within, which,
compared with yours, is purity itself.

Beneath this soiled raiment, all unseen by the world's eye, he wears the
"clean linen" of a Redeemer's righteousness. His speech may be rude, his
accent vulgar; but let him open his heart, unbosom its secrets, and from these
there come forth such gracious thoughts, such holy desires, such heavenly
aspirations, such hallowed joys, that it seems as if we had opened some rude
sea-chest, brought by a foreign ship from southern lands, which, full to the
lid with pearls, and gold, and diamonds, loads the air with floating odors of
cassia, and myrrh, and frankincense.

Hypocrite, and dead professor! let us open thy bosom: ful. of all corruption,
how it smells like a charnel-house! We are driven back by the noisome
stench—we hasten to close the door; it is a painted but putrid sepulcher,
whose fair exterior but aggravates the foulness within. It is not what lies
without, but within, that defiles a man. And it is well all should remember,
when you wash on a Sabbath morning, that your soul needs washing in another
laver; and, when your person is decked for church, that you need other
robes—robes fairer than warm spins or shuttles weave, or the wealth of banks
can buy. See that by faith ye put on that righteousness, even that
righteousness of Jesus Christ, in which God sees neither spot, nor stain, nor
any such thing.

II. The nature of this defilement.

It is internal. Like snow drift when it has leveled the churchyard mounds,
and, glistening in the winter sun, lies so pure, and fair, and beautiful above
the dead, who fester and rot below, a very plausible profession, wearing the
semblance of innocence, may conceal from human eyes the foulest heart-
corruption. The grass grows green upon a mountain that holds a volcano in its
bowels. Behind the rosy cheek and soft lustrous eye of beauty, how often does
there lurk a deadly disease, the deadliest of all! Internal, but all the more
dangerous that they are internal, such diseases are the last to be suspected
or believed in by their victims, and the hardest to cure. To other than a
skillful eye, or a mother's anxious look, this fair and graceful form never
wears bloom of higher health, nor moves in more fascinating charms, nor wins
more admiring eyes, than when fell consumption, like a miner working on in
darkness, has penetrated the vital organs, and is quietly sapping the
foundations of life. Like these maladies, sin has its seat within. It is a
disease of the heart, and the worst of all heart-complaints. There may be no
very alarming appearance on the surface; in the conduct that lies exposed to
the eyes of man there may be little offensive to holiness; yet this fair
exterior affords no criterion, no sure or certain test by which to judge of
matters within. Thanks indeed be to God, and praise to his sovereign grace, if
sin does not find unchallenged entrance, and meet a cordial welcome in our
inner man; yet how constant and arduous is the fight which even gracious men
have to maintain against the tendency to secret errors! The old man has been
nailed to the tree, but how difficult to keep him there! How difficult to keep
pollution down, and maintain a current of pure and hallowed desires flowing
through the channels of the heart! In judging ourselves that we be not judged,
beware how you trust to outward appearances. What if it should be with us as
with this calm pool, which seems so clean, nay, with heaven mirrored in its
face, so beautiful? Let some temptation stir up our passions, (and how little
does it need to stir them!) and those pure, pellucid waters now grow foul and
noisome; and, sending forth the most offensive odors, prove what vile
pollution may lie beneath the fairest surface. Think not that the evil is
accidental—that it lies, as some say, in education, in temptation, in external
causes: it is traceable to the heart itself. What more harmless than
temptations—this fiery dart launched by Satan's hand—that flaming arrow from
his bow—if they fell like sparks in water? But alas! they fall like a torch
into a magazine of combustibles. Knowing this, and jealous of themselves, let
God's people watch and pray that they enter not into temptation. To life's
last step, with life's latest breath, be this your prayer, "Lead us not into
temptation, but deliver us from evil." It is another prayer, indeed, that the
sinner has to offer. He has not to seek that his heart may be kept clean, but
made clean; it is not health preserved, but restored, you want; you need not
food, but medicine; a new nature, heart, life: this the prayer that suits your
lips and case: "Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit
within me."

This defilement is universal. Our world is inhabited by various races of
men—different specimens, not different species. The Malay, the Negro, the race
early cradled among Caucasian mountains, and the Red Indians of the New World;
these all differ from each other in the color of the skin, in the contour of
the skull, in the cast and character of their features. Whence came these
different races? The Bible says that "God made of one blood all the families
of the earth." According to its authority they are all sprung of one pair, who
were located in a garden somewhere in the distant east. There, in that central
and elevated region of the old world, man was both made and redeemed; there
the cradle of our race was rocked, and the cross of salvation raised; and,
breaking forth in an eastern region, the lights of knowledge and religion,
learning human and divine, letters, science, and arts have, as by a law of
nature, followed the track of the sun. The origin of these different races is
a question of no small importance, and has formed a battle-ground between the
enemies and defenders of our faith; one long and obstinately contested. If, in
order to account for these different races on the principles of
unchallengeable physiology, it could be proved, that Europe, Africa, and
America must, as well as Asia, have had their parent pairs; if it could be
proved that there must of necessity have been as many Adams as there are races
of men, then it is plain that we must yield up the divine authority of the
Bible, and read the story of Moses as an old-world fable—some fragment of
Egyptian wisdom which he had embalmed in the page of Genesis. Infidelity,
quick to see what would serve her purpose, has attempted to prove this, and
challenged religion to meet her on the field of science. Her challenge has
been accepted. Men-at-arms in the ranks of the faith have taken up the
gauntlet; the battle has been fought, and fought out; and now, to the
confusion and complete discomfiture of the infidel, it stands demonstrated,
that in this question as in others, science is in perfect harmony with
revelation. Dismissing all Adams but one, she demands no more than the Bible
grants, will receive no more than it offers, believe no more than it reveals;
concluding that all these varieties of the human family are, in the providence
of God, and in the hands of an Omnipotence which delights in variety, the
offspring of a single pair. There is one argument which these unhired,
impartial, and independent defenders of our faith—these high-priests of
science—did not, perhaps, feel warranted to employ, but which presents to us
the most convincing evidence of a common origin. It lies where the tests of
chemistry cannot detect it, nor the knife of the anatomist reach it, nor the
eye of the physiognomist discover it, nor the instruments of the phrenologist
measure it. Its place is in the inner man; it lies in the depths of the soul;
and comes out in this remarkable fact, that, although the hues of the skin
differ, and the form of the skull and the features of the face are cast in
different moulds, the features, co

2* lor, and character of the heart are the same in all men

Be he pale-faced or red, tawny or black, Jew, Greek

Scythian, bond or free; whether he be the civilized in habitant of Europe, or
roam a painted savage in American woods, pant beneath the burning line, or,
wrapt in furs, shiver amid the Arctic snows; as in all classes of society, so
in all races of men, to quote the words of the prophet, "the heart is
deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked;" or, in the no less
emphatic language of the Apostle, "the carnal mind is enmity against God." The
pendulum vibrates slower at the equator than the pole; the further north we
push our way over thick-ribbed ice, the clock goes the faster;

but parallels of latitude have no modifying influence on the motions of the
heart. It beats the same in all men; nor, till repaired by grace, does it in
any beat true to God. In Adam all have died—have sinned, and therefore died.
Sin, like our atmosphere, embraces the world. Like death, it is universal; its
empire is coeval and co-extensive with that of the king of terrors. And how
can it be otherwise? If man is the child of unholy parents, how can a clean
thing come out of an unclean? When water of its own accord shall rise above
its fountain, then may Adam's children possess a nature loftier than his own.
The tree is diseased, not at the top, but at the root; and, therefore, no
branch of the human family can by possibility escape being affected by sin. Is
any thing more plain and palpable than this, that if the fountain was
polluted, to whatever quarter of the world the stream of population flowed, it
must have borne pollution in its bosom? Is suffering the sure index of sin?
Then, if there be no country beneath the sun where signs of suffering are not
seen, and its sounds are not heard, sin is every where—is in every man. Be
they dug in Arctic snows, or in the desert sands, there is no land without its
graves; nor, wherever it stands, a city without its cemetery. Be they
monarchies or republics, unaffected by the revolutions that cast down other
dynasties, death reigns in them all—a king of kings. Death sits on the world's
oldest throne. Suffering the stings of conscience, sin and serpent-bitten, man
is condemned by a voice within him; there sits a divinity enthroned in every
man's soul, whose voice is the clear, articulate, and solemn echo of this
judgment, "All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God."

*This evil is incurable.*

Hear the Word of the Lord: "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and take thee
much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me, saith the Lord." Again,
"Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots? Then may ye that
have been accustomed to do evil learn to do well." Again, "Why should ye be
stricken any more, ye will revolt more and more?" Of these solemn and humbling
truths I know no more remarkable illustration than that before us. What effect
had God's judgments on his ancient people? Some children owe their ruin to
excessive indulgence; others are the victims of an extreme severity, which
drives them first to falsehood, and then from that on to other crimes. Thus
mismanagement may be laid at our door; but who will impute error to God, or
challenge the wisdom of his ways? Now, when the scourge was in the hands of a
God all wise, what effect had it on his people? Were they cured by their
afflictions, trials, and years of suffering? Did these arrest the malady? Had
they even the effect of preventing their sinking deeper into sin? By no means.
As always happens in incurable diseases, the patient grew worse instead of
better. "Seducers wax worse and worse." As always happens when life is gone,
the dead grew more and more offensive. The more it shines, and the more it
rains, the thicker the dews of night, and the hotter the sun of day, the
faster the dead tree rots; for those agents in nature which promote the
vegetation and develop the beauty of life, the sounding shower, the silent
dews, the summer heat, have no other effect on death than to hasten its
putridity and decay. And even so, furnishing us with an impressive lesson of
the impotency of all means that are unaccompanied by the divine blessing—was
it with God's ancient people. He sent them servants, and he sent them
sufferings; but, until the Spirit of life descended from on high, their habits
only grew more depraved, their condition more desperate, their profanity more
profane; they but laid themselves more and more open to the charge—"The last
state of that man is worse than the first." Wherever on weary feet they
wandered, they dishonored religion, disgraced the faith; and, instead of
extorting the respect of their oppressors, they exposed both themselves and
their God to contempt. The heathen sneered and said, "These are the people of
the Lord!" and, what is less common, these down-trodden exiles, these debased
and degraded sinners, seem themselves to have felt the desperate character of
their case; they said, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost."

Now, as we may learn from the case of the Jews, the case of every sinner,
apart from divine assistance is a desperate one. This internal and universal
defilement is one which neither sorrows nor sufferings can remove. God, in a
passage which we have already quoted, says, "Though thou wash thee with nitre,
and take thee much soap, yet thine iniquity is marked before me;" sorrows have
no more virtue than soap, tears than nitre here. Trust not, therefore, in any
merely unsanctified afflictions, as if these could permanently and really
change the true character of the heart. I have seen the characters of the
writing remain on paper that the flames had turned into a film of buoyant
coal; I have seen the thread that had been passed through the fire, retain, in
its cold gray ashes, the twist which it had got in spinning; I have found
every shivered splinter of the flint as hard as the unbroken stone: and, let
trials come, in providence, sharp as the fire and ponderous as the crushing
hammer, unless God send with these something else than these, bruised, broken,
bleeding as the heart may be, it remains the same. You may weep for your sins;
and, since all of us have need to seek a more tender conscience, and that this
too cold and callous heart were warmed and softened, sorry should I be to stop
your weeping. Should a mote of dust get into the natural eye, the irritation
induced will weep out the evil; and so, in a way, with sin in a tender and
holy conscience. But tears—an ocean of tears—wash not out the guilt of sin.
All tears are lost that fall not at the feet of Jesus. But even the tears
which bathe a Saviour's feet wash not away our sins. When falling—flowing
fastest, we are to remember that it is not the tears we shed, but the blood he
shed, which is the price of pardon; and that guilty souls are nowhere to be
cleansed but in that bath of blood where the foulest are free to wash and
certain to be cleansed. From its crimson margin a Magdalene and a Manasseh
have gone up to glory; and since their times, succeeding ages have been daily
and more fully proving, that grace is still free, salvation still full, and
that still the blood of Christ cleanseth from all sin.

"There is a fountain filled with blood,

Drawn from Emmanuel's veins,

And sinners plunged beneath that flood

Lose all their guilty stains."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 4: 04. Man Sinning
========================================================================

When the house of Israel dwelt in their own land, they defiled it by their own
way, and by their doings.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 17.

"I HAVE dreamed a dream," said Joseph, "and behold the sun, moon, and eleven
stars made obeisance to me." Our earth was once supposed to occupy a place of
no less honor in creation. Turning daily on its axis, and performing also an
annual revolution round the sun, our globe is in incessant motion; but it was
once believed that its state was one of perfect rest, and that, like the small
pivot on which some great wheel revolves, it formed a center, around which
went rolling the whole machinery of heaven, those suns and planets, both fixed
and wandering stars. This dream of science met a happier fate than Joseph's;
believed in the credulous ages of the world's childhood, it was obstinately
clung to as an article of faith down to no very distant period. It is not so
very long ago since the telescope of Galileo demonstrated that our earth,
whatever the Pope might say, is a satellite of the sun, and but one of many
orbs that roll around him; and he but one of many suns, which, taking millions
of years to complete their circle, revolve about some greater center. At some
period preceding the philosopher's discovery, the throne of Spain is said to
have been occupied by a man who was acute enough to perceive, that if all
these vast systems, suns, planets, and comets, were daily turning round this
earth, then, in making the greater subservient to the less, the Creator of the
universe had constructed a very clumsy and cumbersome piece of mechanism.
History has preserved the profane language of his dissent from the science of
his own day. It was something to the effect, that if God had consulted him
when he made the worlds, they would have been better designed. Far be it from
us, under any perplexity felt in contemplating the mysteries either of
creation or providence, to question the wisdom of God, to cherish a thought so
daring, or utter an expression so profane. In his dealings with us, his way
may be in the sea, and his path in the mighty waters, and his footsteps not
known; "by terrible things in righteousness," he may answer us; let him dash
the cup from our hand, or fill it brimful of "wine of astonishment," we shall
never deem it right to think that God has done wrong. Whatever appearance of
error his ways or works may present, be assured that the defect is not in the
object, but in the spectator, in the eye that sees, not in the thing that is
seen; not in the plans of infinite wisdom, but in the finite and fallible
mind, which has the folly to condemn what it has not the understanding to
comprehend. "Manifold are thy works, Lord God Almighty; in wisdom hast thou
made them all."

Such is the judgment of the Psalmist; and from this no work of God's so
strongly tempts us to dissent as the condition and character of man himself;
and I know no way of so well meeting this temptation as by receiving into our
creed the doctrine of the Fall. If with some we reject this doctrine.—if we
hold that the children are not in any sense implicated in their parents'
sin—then, in the providence of God, and in the

MAN SINNING government of the world, there appears to be nothing

—I shall not say so deficient in wisdom, but so obscure, inscrutable,
painfully and fearfully mysterious, as the position, condition, and character
of man; for, on the supposition that man has never fallen,—that the vessel is
as pure and perfect as when it passed from the potter's hand—these questions
are ever rising, and, dismiss them as we may, are ever returning,—how could a
good God make such a wicked creature? How could a kind God make such an
unhappy creature? How could a wise God make such a foolish creature? How could
a holy God make such a sinful creature? If it is impossible for a pure stream
to be born of a polluted fountain, is it not as impossible to believe that a
crystal fountain can be the parent of a polluted stream? If a clean thing
cannot come out of an unclean, is not the conclusion as fair, as logical, as
inevitable, that an unclean thing cannot come out of a clean?

Now let us shut the Bible—exclude every ray of inspired and celestial light;
we stand in darkness; and yet it seems to me like the dead substance, the
decaying wood, the putrid animal matter which grows luminous through its
decay, and emits in death a phosphorescent light: by the help of man's very
corruption we have light enough to see his fallen, dead, degraded state.
Indeed, I would a thousand times sooner believe, that man made himself what he
is, than that God made him so; for in the one case I should think ill of man
only; in the other I am tempted to blame his Maker. Just think, I pray you, to
what conclusion our reason would conduct us in any analogous case. You see,
for example, a beautiful capital still bearing some of the flowers and foliage
which the chisel of a master had carved upon the marble. It lies prostrate on
the ground, half-buried among weeds and nettles; while beside it the rerises
from its pedestal the headless shaft of a noble pillar. Would you not conclude
at once that its present position, so base, mean, and prostrate, was not its
original position? You would say the lightning must have struck it down; or an
earthquake have shaken it, or some ignorant barbarian had climbed the shaft,
and with rude hand had hurled it to the ground. Well, we look at man, and come
to a similar conclusion. There is something, there is much that is wrong, both
in his state and condition. His mind is carnal, and at enmity with God; the
"imaginations of his heart are only evil continually," so says the Bible. His
body is the seat of disease; his eyes are often swimming in tears; care,
anticipating age, has drawn deep furrows on his brow; he possesses noble
faculties, but, like people of high descent, who have sunk into a low estate
and become menials, they drudge in the service of the meanest passions. He has
an immortal soul, but it is clogged by the infirmities, and imprisoned within
the walls of a "body of death." His life is vanity; he is ever seeking
happiness, but like the child who pursues the horizon, chases the rainbow, or
climbs the hills to catch the silvery moon, he never finds the object of his
search. In some respects,— manifestly made for a sphere higher than he fills,—
he appears to us like a creature of the air which some cruel hand has stripped
of its silken wings. How like he looks to this hapless object which has just
fallen on the pages of a book that we read by the candle on an autumn evening!
it retains the wish, but has lost the power to fly; allured by the taper's
glare, it has brushed the flame, burned its wings, and, dropping with a heavy
fall, it now crawls wingless across the page, and seeks the finger of mercy to
end its misery. Compare man with any of the other creatures of God, and how
directly we come to the conclusion that he is not the creature he came from
his Maker's hands!

Who has not had this borne in upon his mind when his feet carried him forth
into the fields of nature? I pass out among our sylvan scenes; and here, on
the spray of the tasseled broom, there sits and sings a little bird; it fills
the glen with melody; from his throat and throbbing breast he rings out the
sweetest music, as with keen bright eye he now looks up to God and now down on
the bush where his mate sits with wings extended over their unfeathered
nestlings; with songs he cheers her maternal cares, and is then away on busy
wing to cater for mother and her young. Next, I turn my steps to the open
moor; and so soon as the intruder appears on her lonely domain, the lapwing
comes down upon the wind; brave and venturesome she sweeps us with her wing,
and shrieks out her distress as she wheels round and round our head; her brood
are cowering on that naked waste; nor does she rest until our foot is off the
ground, and even then, when the coast is clear, we hear her long, wild
screams, like the beating of a mother's heart when her child is saved; like
the mournful dash of waves upon the shore long after the wind is down. Next I
climb the mountain, when snow-drifts thick from murky heavens, and, like
Satan, taking advantage of a believer's trials, the wily fox is out upon the
hunt; every mother of the flock lies there with her tender lamb behind her;
with her body she screens it from the rudeness of the storm and with her head
to the wind, and expanded nostrils snuffing the distant danger, she lies
ready, the moment her eye catches the stealthy foe, to receive him on her
feet, and die, like a true mother, in her lamb's defence. Such are God's
creatures. The work is unmarred; the workmanship what it came from the Maker's
hand; and away among these old hoary hills, remote from man, his cities, his
sins, his works, his sorrows, we are out of hearing of the groans of creation;
and, but for the corruption we carry with and within us, we could almost
forget the Fall. Stretched on a flowery bank, with the hum of bees, the song
of birds, and the chirp of the merry grasshopper in our ear, heaven serene
above us, and beneath us the placid lake, where every flower and bush and
birch-tree of the rock looks down into the mirror of its own beauty, the
murmur of the waterfall sounds to us, like an echo from the crags of the
Creator's voice, "All is very good."

But let us retrace our steps along the dusty road from the broom where the
little bird sings, and the moor where the lapwing screams her maternal fears,
and the hill where the timid sheep faces the fox to die for her offspring; or
the forest, where the bear with her cubs behind her, offers her shaggy bosom
to the spear. Enter this town. Look at this mother, as we saw her when Sabbath
bells rung worshipers to prayer, and God was calling sinners to the throne of
mercy. Her back is against the church's wall; she has sunk on the cold
pavement; her senses are steeped in drink, and on her lap,—pitiful sight! lies
an emaciated, half-naked infant, with the chill, cold rain soaking its scanty
rags, and lashing its pallid face. Is this God's handiwork? Is this the clay
as it came from the potter's wheel? Was this the shape in which woman came
from her Maker's hand? When Adam woke, was our mother Eve such as this her
daughter? If so, better he had never woke; it had been good for him to be
alone. Nature, to say nothing of religion, revolts from the thought.

Now, it is common enough to call such spectacles brutal; language which is a
libel on creation, and a blasphemy against the Creator. Such scenes are not
brutal. My very argument lies in this, that the brute beasts never present
themselves in such a repulsive and revolting aspect. Under the impulse of
instincts necessary for their well-being, for the due balance of races, and
the general welfare of the world, they may, and indeed must prey upon each
other; but did any man ever find them committing self-destruction? Do they
ever pursue such suicidal conduct? Range the wide fields of nature, travel
from the equator to the poles, rise from the worm that crawls on earth to the
eagle that cleaves the clouds, and where shall you find any thing
corresponding to our scenes of dissipation, or the bloody fields of war?
Suppose, that on his return from Africa, some Park, or Bruce, or Campbell,
were to tell how he had seen the lions of the desert leave their prey, and,
meeting face to face in marshaled bands, amid roars that drowned the thunder,
engage in deadly battle, he would find none so credulous as to believe him;
the world would laugh the traveler and his tale to scorn. But should a thing
so strange and monstrous occur—should we see the cattle, while the air shook
with their bellowings, and the ground trembled beneath their hoofs, rush from
their distant pastures, to form two vast, black, solid columns; and should
these herds, with heads leveled to the charge, dash forward to bury their
horns in each other's bodies, we would proclaim a prodigy, and ask what
madness had seized creation. Well, is not sin the parent of more awful
prodigies? Look here—turn to the horrors of this battle-field. This is no
fancy, but a fact—a bloody, sickening fact. The ground lies thick with the
mangled brave; the air is shaken with the most horrible sounds, every
countenance expresses the passions of a fiend. Humanity flies shrinking from
the scene, and leaves it to rage, revenge, and agony. Fiercer than the
cannon's flash shoot flames of wrath from brother's eyes; they sheathe their
swords in each other's bowels; every stroke makes a widow, and every ringing
volley scatters a hundred orphans on a homeless world. I would sooner believe
that there was no God at all, than that man appears in this scene as he came
from the hand of a benignant Divinity. Man must have fallen; nature, society,
the state of the world, are so many echoes of the voice of Revelation; they
proclaim that man is fallen—that the gold has become dim—that the much fine
gold has perished; and, in words to which we again turn your attention, that
we have defiled the land in which we dwell, by our ways and by our doings.
Now, leaving the subject of Original, to speak of Actual Sin, we remark—

I. Apart from derived sinfulness, we have personal sins to answer for.

Dispose of the doctrine of original sin as you please; suppose that you could
disprove it; when that count of the indictment is canceled, what have you
gained? Enough, more than enough, remains to convict us of guilt, and condemn
all within these walls. You may deny Original, but can any man deny Actual
Sin?

You might as well deny your existence; it sticks to you like your shadow. "If
we should say that we have no sin, we make God a liar, and the truth is not in
us." I say with God, "Come, let us reason together." Do you mean to affirm, on
the one hand, that you have never been guilty of doing what you should not
have done? or, on the other, never guilty of not doing what you should have
done? Lives there a man so happy as to look back on the past and feel no
remorse, or forward to the future and feel no fear! What! is there no page of
your history that you would obliterate—no leaf that, with God's permission you
would tear from the book? Is there no action, nor word, nor wish of days gone
by, that you would not, if you could, recall? To David's prayer, "Lord,
remember not the sins of my youth, nor my transgressions," have you no solemn
and hearty Amen? If you could be carried back to the starting-pest, and leant
again against the cradle, and stood again at your mother's knee, and sat again
at the old school desk, with companions that are now changed, or scattered, or
dead and gone—were you to begin life anew—would you run the self-same course;
would you live over the self-same life? What! is there no speech that you
would unsay? is there no act that you would undo? no Sabbath that you would
spend better? none yet alive, none mouldering in the grave, none now in heaven
or hell, to whom you would bear yourself otherwise than you have done? Are
there none among the dead whose memory stings you, and whose everlasting state
fills you with anxiety? Did you never share in sins that may have proved their
ruin? and never fail in faithfulness that might have saved their souls? Oh! if
every thread of our web were yet to weave, what man would make the future a
faithful,—I will add, fearful copy of the past? I will venture to say that no
man living would; and that the Apostle has universal conscience on his side,
when he says, "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves." Our sins
are more in number than the hairs upon our head; and I know no language nor
attitude so becoming us as those of Ezra, when, rending his mantle, he fell
upon his knees and cried, "Oh, my God, I am ashamed, and blush to lift up my
face to thee; for our iniquities are increased over our heads, and our
trespass is gone up into the heavens."

II. The guilt of these actual sins is our own.

"Hast thou eaten of the tree?" God puts the question, and man replies, "The
woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat."
Adam points an accusing finger at Eve, and turning round to the woman, God
says, "What is this that thou hast done?" She in turn lays the blame on the
serpent, saying, "The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat." And thus and thus
they shift the sin. We have "eaten of the tree;" and,—unless it be to roll the
guilt on Christ,—we attempt in vain to screen ourselves behind another's
back—to lay the burden on any shoulders but our own.

There are strong pleas which the poor heathen may advance in extenuation of
their guilt; and, stepping forward with some confidence to judgment,—may urge
upon a just and merciful as well as holy God.

They may say, we knew no better; no man cared for our souls. Great God! when
thy followers landed on our happy shores, they brought no olive branch or

Bible, but fire, and sword, and slavery; and on the back of those who, bearing
thy name, oppressed us robbed us, enslaved us, and left us to die ignorant of
thy love, we lay our guilt. Let them answer for us; place these Christians at
thy bar; ask them "where is thy brother Abel?" and on their heads, not on
ours, let thy dread justice fall. This wretched, ragged child, the victim of
cruelty and neglect, who leaves hunger and a bed of straw to stand at the bar
of God, may lift up his head at that august tribunal, and stand on his defence
with more certainty both of justice and pity than he has ever met here below.
In cold and nakedness, in hunger and thirst, in rags and ignorance, he was
left to wander our hard streets, and, among all the Christians of this city,
there was not one kind and to guide his naked feet to Sabbath church or infant
school. Poor wretch! the house of God was not for him; and now that he
addresses one who will not refuse to hear him—child of misfortune!—now may he
say, Merciful Lord! my mother taught me to steal, my father taught me to
swear. How could I obey a Bible which I never learned to read? How could I
believe in thee, whom no one taught me to know? Saviour of sinners! condemn me
not; how was I to avoid sins against which I was never warned? I did not know
what I did. Seizing thy cross, I claim the benefit of its dying prayer,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."

What value may be given to these pleas—what weight they may carry at a
tribunal where much will be exacted of those who have got much, and little
asked where little has been given—it is not for us to say. The Judge of all
the earth will do right. But this we know, that we have no such excuse to
plead no such plea to urge in extenuation of one of a thousand of our
offences. Some, indeed, plead their natural proneness to sin; they excuse
themselves to conscience on that ground, or on this, that the temptation
before which they fell, fell on them with the suddenness and vehemence of a
hurricane. The command, however, to watch and pray leaves you without excuse.
You were fully warned, and should have been on the outlook for the white
squall. The sentinel is righteously shot who allows himself to sleep upon his
post. Supposing, however, that the plea were accepted; I repeat, enough, and
more than enough, remains to condemn us, and leaves guilt no refuge out of
Christ. We talk of the strength and suddenness of temptation; but how often
have we sinned designedly, deliberately, repeatedly? We talk of our bias to
sin; but who has not committed sins that he could have avoided—sins which he
could have abstained from, and sins which he did abstain from, when it served
some present purpose to do so? This reeling sot and slave of drunkenness keeps
sober at a communion season; and the swearer, who alleges that he cannot
refrain from oaths, puts a bridle on his tongue in the presence of his
minister. It is useless for the sinner to say that he is swept away by
temptation; "he conceiveth mischief, and he bringeth forth falsehood;" and if
swept away, it is as the suicide, who seeks the river, stands on its brink,
and, leaping in, is swept off to his watery grave. I know that Satan goes
about seeking whom he may devour; but, while he tempts us, how often have we
tempted him? Stealing on unawares, and, like a lion crouching to the leap,
with sudden and unlooked for spring he may cast himself upon us; but how often
have we cast ourselves in his way? We have gone down to Delilah, we have stood
in the way of sinners, we have sinned when we knew that we were sinning; we
have gone where we knew that we were to sin; and, in pursuit of its guilty
pleasures—trampling conscience beneath our feet, and more than that, the body
and blood of Jesus Christ—we have done what the heathen never did, what Sodom
and Gomorrah never did, what Tyre and Sidon never did—we have rejected a
Saviour, and madly refused eternal life. There is hope for us in the blood of
his cross, but none in its prayer. We knew what we did.

Some years ago, on a great public occasion, a distinguished statesman rose up
in the presence of assembled thousands, and, in reply to certain calumnious
and dishonorable charges, raised his hands in the vast assembly, exclaiming,
"These hands are clean." Now, if you or I, or any of our fallen race did
entertain a hope that we could act over this scene before God in judgment, I
could comprehend the calm and unimpassioned indifference with which men sit in
church on successive Sabbaths, eye the cross of Calvary, and listen to the
overtures of mercy. Are these matters with which you have nothing to do? If,
indeed, you have no sins to answer for—if before this world's great assize you
are prepared not only to plead, but to prove your innocence—if conscience
accuses you in nothing, and excuses you in every thing—then sleep on, in God's
name sleep on, and take your rest. But when the heavens over men are clothed
in thunders, and hell yawns beneath their feet, and both God's law and their
own conscience condemn them, such indifference is madness! Beware! play with
no fire; least of all, with fire unquenchable. Play with no edged sword; least
of all, with that which Justice sheathed in a Saviour's bosom. Delay by the
mouth of no pit; least of all, on the brink of a bottomless one, the smoke of
whose torment goeth up for ever and ever. Think of these things. Incalculable
issues are at stake; your everlasting destiny may turn upon this hour.

Do you feel under condemnation? Are you really anxious to be saved? Be not
turned from your purpose by the jeers and taunts of the ungodly. It is a very
common thing with scoffers, and with those who use their religion as a cloak
always worn loosely, nor ever drawn closely round, save, so to speak, in
inclement weather, when distress troubles, or death alarms them; it is no
uncommon thing to eye all men of zealous duty with cold suspicion, and
represent them as either rogues or fools, fanatics or hypocrites. In answer to
the charge of weakness or folly, I think I could produce an array of brilliant
and immortal names—names of men in whom duty has been associated with the
highest intellect, the loftiest genius, the most profound and statesman-like
sagacity—men besides whom most of your scoffers, skeptics, and worldlings were
as dwarfs in the company of giants. Folly! if Christians really such are
chargeable with any folly, it is with that of not being zealous enough—with
that of being, not too much, but too little religious. In the name both of
common sense and religion, I ask, is it possible, if there be a hell, to be
too anxious to escape it? If men are perishing, how can I with my children,
brothers, sisters, friends in the burning, be too anxious to save them? The
man who rises at mirk midnight to quench the flames in a neighbor's house, is
no fool surely; but he who can coolly eat his meals beside the sea or go
singing about his common avocations along the shore, when the wreck is in his
eye, and the roar of the surf and the shrieks of the drowning are in his ear,
he is a fool, or something worse.

As to the insinuation of general hypocrisy, the wretched charge got up against
all religion, when some specious professor stands unmasked before the world,
how absurd it is! Is there no grain in our barn-yards, because there is so
much chaff? Are all patriots—Wallace and the Bruce, Tell, Russel, and
Washington—deceivers and liars, because some men have villainously betrayed
their country? Is there no honor in the British army, because some soldiers,
the sweepings probably of our city streets, have left the lines, and leaped
the trenches, and deserted to the enemy? Is there no integrity among British
merchants, because now and then we hear of a fraudulent bankruptcy? Because
some religious professors prove hypocrites, is therefore all ardent piety
hollow hypocrisy? To reason so, argues either a disordered intellect or a very
depraved heart—is a conclusion, indeed, as contrary to logic as to love. When
were hypocrites ever known to suffer for their principles? Yet is there a
country in Christendom that has not been strewed thick with the ashes and dyed
red with the blood of martyrs? Have not their heads in ghastly rows stood on
our city gates? Two hundred years ago, and the windows of the very houses
still standing round this church were crowded with eager faces, taking their
last look of men who went with firm step and lofty carriage to die for
principle—loving Christ more than their lives, and ready, as one said before
they threw him off—had they as many lives as they had hairs on their head, to
lay them all down for Christ. Religion is an honest thing, and true wisdom.
God working in you, work out therefore your salvation. The way to the refuge
lies open; with the feet of an Azahel haste to Jesus. Once in him, you can
turn on the avenger, saying, I fear thee not; here thou comest, but no
farther; this blood-red line thou canst not pass,—"There is no condemnation
for them who are in Christ Jesus."

Do you see that sin stains your holiest services, defiling head, heart, hands,
feet—the whole man? Haste to the fountain where sins are lost and souls are
cleansed. With its base ingratitude to your heavenly Father—with the wounds it
has inflicted on a most loving Saviour—with the grief it has caused, and the
resistance it has made, to a most gentle and Holy Spirit—with the deep
injuries it has done to your own soul, and souls which, loving, you should
have sought to save—Oh, let sin be your deepest sorrow, your heaviest grief,
the spring of many tears, the burden of many sighs, the occasion of daily
visits to the cross of Calvary.

'Weep not for broad lands lost;

Weep not for fair hopes crossed;

Weep not when limbs wax old;

Weep not when friends grow cold;

Weep not that death must part

Thine and the best-loved heart;

Yet weep—weep all thou can—

Weep weep, because thou art

A sin-denied man.'

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  CHAPTER 5: 05. Man Suffering
========================================================================

Therefore I poured my fury upon them, and I scattered them among the heathen,
and they were dispersed through the countries. According to their way and
according to their doings, I judged them. Ezekiel xxxvi. 18, 19.

It appears a very easy thing to say what a plant or animal is. It is not so.
There are myriads of living creatures that occupy the debatable ground between
the vegetable and animal kingdoms, and naturalists have not yet determined on
which side of the border to assign them a place—whether to rank them among
plants or animals. What is man? You would think it an easy thing to answer
that question; yet I am not sure that, even at this day, we have any correct
definition which—distinguishing him on the one hand from the angelic race and
on the other hand from the higher orders of inferior creatures,—is at once
brief and comprehensive. Now, if we have such difficulty in defining even
ourselves, or those objects that, being patent to the senses, may be made the
subject of searching and prolonged experiment, we need not wonder that, when
we rise above his works to their Maker, from things finite to things infinite,
it should be found much easier to ask than answer the question, "What is God?"
The telescope by which we converse with the stars, the microscope which
unveils the secrets of nature, the crucible of the chemist, the knife of the
anatomist, the reflective faculties of the philosopher, all the common
instruments of science avail not here. On the threshold of that impenetrable
mystery, from out the clouds and darkness that are round about God's throne, a
voice arrests our steps; and the question comes, "Who can by searching find
out God, who can find out the Almighty to perfection?"

Divines, notwithstanding, have ventured on a definition of God; and, according
to the Catechism of the Westminster Assembly, "God is a spirit, infinite,
eternal, and unchangeable, in his being, wisdom, power holiness, justice,
goodness, and truth." A very comprehensive definition, no doubt; yet did it
never strike you as strange, that there is no mention of love here, and that
that is a very remarkable omission?—an omission as remarkable as if a man who
described the firmament were to leave out the sun, or, painting the human
face, made it sightless, and gave no place on the canvas to those beaming eyes
which give life and animation to the features.

Why did an assembly, for piety, learning, and talents, the greatest, perhaps,
that ever met in England, or any where else, give us that catalogue of the
divine attributes, and deny a place among them to love? We think the omission
may be thus explained and illustrated. Take a globe, and observing their
natural order, lay on its surface the colors of the rainbow; gave it a rapid
motion round its axis; and now you no longer see blue, red, yellow, and the
others. As if by magic, the whirling sphere changes into purest white,
presenting to our eyes and understanding a visible proof that the sunbeam is
not a simple, but compound body, woven of various rays, and forming, when
blended into one, what we call light. Now, may it not be, that these divines
make no mention of love (otherwise an unaccountable omission) just because
they held that as all the colors together make light, so all the attributes
acting together make love; and that thus, because God is justice, is wisdom,
is power, is holiness, is goodness, and is truth, God therefore of necessity,
and in the express words of John, "God is love." This is the briefest and best
definition of Divinity, and would have been John's answer to the question,
"What is God?"

It may be said, and is no doubt true, that objects take a color from the eyes
that look at them; all things—sun, and sea, and mountains, look yellow to the
jaundiced eye; all things look gloomy to a gloomy mind; while a cheerful
temper gilds the edges of life's blackest cloud, and flings a path of light
across a sea of danger; contentment sits down to a crust of bread and a cup of
water, and gives God thanks; and the plainest person is beautiful in the eyes
of fond affection. Now it may be thought, to John's loving eye, his heavenly
Father seemed so loving and so lovely, that it was very natural for him to
give the color of his own eyes to this divine object, and say, God is love.
But it is to be remembered, that when he gave this shortest, sweetest
definition of divinity, he was not painting objects only as they appeared to
him; he was a pen in the hand of inspiration;—like the keys of a musical
instrument, he sounded to the movements of another's will, and the touch of
another's finger; and, that—one of the holy men of old, who spake as they were
moved by the Holy Ghost—it was not he, but God himself, who thus described and
defined himself, "God is love." Assuming then that God is love, it may be
asked,

3* how does that harmonize with the text? How is it to be reconciled with
words where God represents himself as pouring down his fury like a thunder-
shower, and scattering his people, in a storm of indignation, as light and
worthless chaff blown away upon the wind. How, it may be asked, does this
consist with God's love and mercy? Now, there is no greater mistake than to
suppose that God, as a God of justice and a God of mercy, stands in antagonism
to himself. It is not mercy, but injustice, which is irreconcilable with
justice. It is cruelty, not justice, that stands opposed to mercy. These
attributes of the Godhead are not contrary the one to the other, as are light
and darkness, fire and water, truth and falsehood, right and wrong. No; like
two streams which unite their waters to form a common river, justice and mercy
are combined in the work of redemption. Like the two cherubims whose wings met
above the ark—like the two devout and holy men who drew the nails from
Christ's body, and bore it to the grave—like the two angels who received it in
charge, and, seated, the one at the head, the other at the feet, kept silent
watch over the precious treasure—justice and mercy are associated in the work
of Christ; they are the supporters of the shield on which the cross is
emblazoned; they sustain the arms of our heavenly Advocate; they form the two
solid and eternal pillars of the Mediator's throne. On Calvary mercy and truth
meet together, righteousness and peace embrace each other. These remarks may
prepare our minds for entering with advantage on the solemn subject of God's
punitive justice; but, ere we open the prison, and look down into the pit, I
would further bespeak your can did and affectionate consideration of this very
affecting and awful subject, by remarking—

I. That God is slow to punish.

"He executeth not judgment speedily against the workers of iniquity." He does
punish; he shall punish; with reverence be it spoken, he must punish. Yet no
hand of clock goes so slow as God's hand of vengeance. Of that, the world,
this city, and this church, are witnesses; each and all, speaker and hearer,
are living witnesses. It is too common to overlook this fact; and, overlooking
the kindness, long-suffering, and warnings which precede the punishment, we
are too apt to give the punishment itself our exclusive attention. We see his
kindness impressed on all his works. Even the lion growls before he leaps, and
before the snake strikes she springs her rattle.

Look, for example, on the catastrophe of the Deluge. We may have our attention
so engrossed by the dread and awful character of this judgment, as to overlook
all that preceded it, and see nothing but these devouring waters.

The waters rise till rivers swell into lakes, and lakes into seas, and along
fertile plains the sea stretches out her arms to seize their flying
population. Still the waters rise; and now, mingled with beasts that terror
has tamed, men climb to the mountain tops, the flood roaring at their heels.
Still the waters rise; and now each summit stands above them like a separate
and sea-girt isle. Still the waters rise; and, crowding closer on the narrow
spaces of their lessening tops, men and beasts fight for standing-room. Still
the thunders roar and the waters rise, till the last survivor of the shrieking
crowd is washed off, and the head of the highest Alp goes down beneath the
wave And now the waters rise no more; God's servant has done his work; he
rests from his labors; and, all land drowned—all life destroyed—an awful
silence reigning, and a shoreless ocean rolling, Death for once has nothing to
do, but ride in triumph on the top of some giant billow, which, meeting no
coast, no continent, no Alp, no Andes, to break upon, sweeps round and round
the world.

We stand aghast at this scene; and, as the corpses of gentle children and
sweet infants are floating by, we exclaim, "Has God forgotten to be
gracious—is his mercy clean gone for ever?" No; assuredly not. Where, then, is
his mercy? Look here; look at this ark which, steered by an invisible hand,
comes dimly through the gloom. That lonely ship on a shoreless sea carries
mercy on board; and within walls that are pitched without and within, she
holds the costliest freight that ever sailed the sea. The germs of the church
are there—the patriarchs of the old world, and the fathers of the new.
Suddenly, amid the awful gloom, as she drifts over that dead and silent sea, a
grating noise is heard; she has grounded on the top of Ararat. The door is
opened; and beneath the sign of the olive branch, they come forth from their
baptismal burial, like life from the dead,—like souls passing from nature into
a state of grace,—like the saints when they shall rise at the summons of the
trumpet to behold a new heaven and a new earth, and to see the sign, which
these "gray fathers" hailed, encircling the head that was crowned with thorns.
Nor is this all. Our Heavenly Father's character is dear to us; and I must
remind you that ere mercy flew, like the dove, to that asylum, she had swept
the world with her wings. Were there but eight, only eight saved? There were
thousands, millions sought. Nor is it justice to God to forget how long a
period of patience, and preaching and warning, and compassion, preceded that
dreadful deluge. Long before the lightning flashed from angry heavens; long
before thunders rolled along dissolving skies; long before the clouds rained
down death; long before the flood and solid pavement of this earth, under the
prodigious agencies at work, broke up, like the deck of a leaking ship, and
the waters rushed from below to meet the waters from above, and sink a guilty
world; long before the time when the ark floated away by tower and town, and
those crowded hill-tops, where frantic groups had clustered, and amid prayers
and curses, and shrieks and shouts, hung out their signals of distress—very
long before this, God had been calling an impenitent world to repentance. Had
they no warning in Noah's preaching? Was there nothing to alarm them in the
very sight of the ark as story rose upon story; and nothing in the sound of
those ceaseless hammers to waken all but the dead? It was not till Mercy's arm
grew weary ringing the warning bell, that, to use the words of my text, God
"poured out his fury" on them. I appeal to the story of this awful judgment.
True, for forty days it rained incessantly, and for one hundred and fifty days
more "the waters prevailed on the earth;" but while the period of God's
justice is reckoned by days, the period of his long-suffering was drawn out
into years; and there was a truce of one hundred and twenty years between the
first stroke of the bell and the first crash of the thunder. Noah grew gray
preaching repentance. The ark stood useless for years, a huge laughing-stock
for the scoffer's wit; it stood till it was covered with the marks of age, and
its builders with the contempt of the world; and many a sneer had these men to
bear, as, pointing to the serene heavens above and an empty ark below, the
question was put, "Where is the promise of his coming?" Most patient God!
Then, as now, thou wert slow to punish--"waiting to be gracious."

As that catastrophe and many other judgments prove--he is slow to anger. God
poured out his fury; but his indignation was the volcano that groans for days
before it discharges the elements of destruction, and pours out its lavas on
the vineyards at its feet. Where, when God's anger has burned hottest, was it
ever known that judgment trod on the heels of sin? A period always intervenes;
room is given for remonstrance on God's part, and repentance upon ours. The
stroke of judgment is indeed, like the stroke of lightning, irresistible,
fatal; it kills--kills in the twinkling of an eye. But the clouds from which
it flashes are slow to gather, and thicken by degrees; and he must be deeply
engaged with the pleasures, or engrossed in the business of the world, whom
the flash and peal surprise. The gathering clouds, the deepening gloom, the
still and sultry air, the awful silence, the big pattering rain-drops--these
reveal his danger to the traveler, and warn him from river, road, or hill, to
the nearest refuge. Heeded or unheeded, many are the warnings you get from
God. He has "no pleasure in the death of the wicked;" he is "not willing that
any should perish, but that all should turn to him and live; and no man ever
yet went to hell, but trampling under foot ten thousand warnings,--ten times
ten thousand mercies. Whatever injustice men may do themselves—however
reckless they may cast away salvation and their souls, I demand justice for
him whose ambassador I am—for these mysteries of salvation of which I am a
steward. No doubt he says, “I poured out my fury upon them;” but when was this
done? Not till divine patience was exhausted, and a succession of servants had
been commissioned to warn, to preach, and plead with them. Remember the words
of a weeping Saviour, as he looked on the city from the top of Olivet—“O,
Jerusalem, Jerusalem, thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which
are sent unto thee, how often would I have gathered thy children together,
even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! Could
language furnish terms more tender or pathetic than these? Or those, in which
God pours forth his affection for this very people—“When Israel was a child,
then I loved him: I taught Ephraim also to go: taking them by their arms, I
drew them with the cords of man, and with bonds of love?” This language
carries us into the tenderest scenes of domestic life; it reminds us of a
mother, who, when telling us how one child had been blighted in the bud, and
how another had strayed from the paths of virtue, and how all the sweet
flowers of her home had withered away, bitterly looked back on departed joys,
and cried, as she wrung her hands in a lonely cottage—“Ah! these were happy
days, when they were children at my knee.” Like a father who hangs over some
unworthy son, and, while his heart is torn by contending emotions, hesitates
what to do—whether once and for ever to dismiss him, or to give him another
trial—it is most touching to see God bending over sinners, and this flood of
melting pathos bursting from his heart-

"How shall I give thee up, Ephraim? how shall I deliver thee, Israel? How
shall I make thee as

Admah, how shall I set thee as Zeboim? Mine heart is turned within me; my
repentings are kindled together. I will not execute the fierceness of mine
anger; I will not return to destroy Ephraim, for I am

God and not man."

Let us do the same justice to our Father in heaven that we would render to an
earthly parent. Would it be doing a father justice to look at him only when
the rod is raised in his hand, and the child is on his knees, and although the
trembling lip, and weeping eyes, and choked utterance of his boy, and a fond
mother's intercession also, all plead with him to spare, he refuses. In this,
how stern he looks! But before you can know that father, or judge his heart
aright, you ought to know how often ere this the offence had been forgiven;
you should have heard with what tender affection he had warned his child; and
above all, you should have stood at the back of his closet door, and listened
when he pleaded with God in his behalf. Justice to him requires, that you
should have seen with what slow and lingering steps he went for the rod, the
trembling of his hand, and how, as the tears fell from his eye, he raised it
to heaven and sought strength to inflict a punishment which, were it to serve
the purpose, he would a hundred times sooner bear than inflict. When,—nursing
his rage for months, and coolly planning the atrocious murder,

—Absalom slew his brother, David was so shocked at this horrible crime, that,
although he permitted him to return to Jerusalem, yet for two whole years he
refused to see him. His son, his eldest son, his favorite son, he would hold
no intercourse with Absalom, nor speak to him, nor look on him. Would it be
justice to David to confine our attention to this? Under that averted eye, and
cold and stern aspect, what a heart! Goaded on by ambition, this guilty son
next aims a blow at his father's life, and falls; then the fountains of the
great deep are opened, and what a flood of feeling! What is it now to David,
his crown is safe, his throne secure? Absalom is dead! "Oh Absalom! my son, my
son Absalom! would God I had died for thee, Oh Absalom, my son, my son!" And,
would we do our heavenly father justice, we must look on Calvary as well as on
Eden. The Son of God indeed does not go up and down heaven weeping, wringing
his hands, and, to the amazement of silent angels, crying, Would God that I
had died for man! A more amazing spectacle is here. He turns his back on
heaven; he leaves the bosom and happy fellowship of his Father, he bares his
own breast to the sword of justice, and in the depths of a love never to be
fathomed, he dies on that accursed tree, "the just for the unjust that we
might be saved!"

Through this vestibule of love, mercy, and long suffering, we have thought it
well to introduce you into the scenes of God's punitive justice. It is on
iron, softened by the glowing fire, that impressions are made and left; and
expecting good only when what is terrible is associated with what is tender,
we have thought it well that you should see at the very outset how slow God is
to smite, how swift to save. Swift fly the wings of mercy. Slow goes the hand
of justice; like the shadow on the sun-dial, ever moving, yet creeping slowly
on, with a motion all but imperceptible. Still let sinners stand in awe. The
hand of justice has not stopped, although imperceptibly, it steadily advances;
by and by, having reached the tenth, eleventh, twelfth hour, the bell strikes.
Then, unless you now flee to Christ, the blow which was so slow to fall, shall
descend on the head of impenitence with accumulated force. Let it never be
forgotten, that although God's patience is lasting, it is not everlasting.

Observe—

II. How he punished his ancient people.

This is furnished to our hand in many portions of Scripture. For example,
"Now, because ye have done all these works, saith the Lord, and I spake unto
you, rising up early and speaking, but ye heard not: and I called you, but ye
answered not; therefore will I do unto this house which is called by my name,
wherein ye trust, and unto the place which I gave to you and to your fathers,
as I have done to Shiloh. And I will cast you out of my sight, as I have cast
out all your brethren, even the whole seed of Abraham. Therefore, pray not
thou for this people, neither lift up cry nor prayer for them, neither make
intercession to me; for I will not hear thee. The carcasses of this people
shall be meat for the fowls of the heaven, and for the beasts of the earth;
and none shall fray them away. Then will I cause to cease from the cities of
Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of
gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the
land shall be desolate. And death shall be chosen rather than life by all the
residue of them that remain of this evil family, which remain in all the
places whither I have driven them, saith the Lord of Hosts. I will surely
consume them, saith the Lord; there shall be no grapes on the vine, nor figs
on the fig tree, and the leaf shall fade; and the things that I have given
them shall pass away from them. The Lord our God hath put us to silence, and
given us water of gall to drink, because we have sinned against the Lord. We
looked for peace, but no good came; and for a time of health, and behold
trouble! The snorting of his horses was heard from Dan; the whole land
trembled at the sound of the neighing of his strong ones: for they are come,
and have devoured the land, and all that is in it—the city, and those that
dwell therein. The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.
I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is
there no physician there? Why, then, is not the health of the daughter of my
people recovered?"

These were the children of Abraham, beloved for the father's sake—the sole
depositories of divine truth—God's chosen people, through whose line and
lineage his Son was to appear. How solemn, then, and how appropriate the
question—"If such things were done in the green tree, what shall be done in
the dry?" Look at Judah sitting amid the ruins of Jerusalem, her temple
without a worshiper, and her streets choked with the dead: look at that bound,
weeping, bleeding remnant of the nation toiling, on its way to Babylon: look
at these broken, peeled, riven boughs; and may I not warn you with the
Apostle—"If God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he spare not
thee." We have seen an ancient mirror from the sepulchers of Egypt, in which,
some three thousand years ago, the swathed and mummied form beside whose dust
it lay looked upon her face, to nurse her vanity, or mourn her deformity. In
the verses quoted we have a mirror well nigh as old, in which the prophet
showed God's ancient people their likeness and their sins; and when I take it
from the dead man's hand, to hold it up before you, do not some of you
recognize, in the features which it presents, those of your own state and
character? Are they not to be seen in such words as these, for instance—"I
spake unto you, rising up early, but ye heard not; I called you, but ye
answered not:" or these—"The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are
not saved." Are none of us the degenerate plants of a noble vine? Are there
none of us who, although trained to respect the Sabbath, have forgotten the
lesson of our childhood? none with a picture of their early days yet fresh in
memory, that exhibits a venerable father bending over the Bible, and, with his
family around him, leading the domestic devotions, who have themselves no
altar in their homes;—who have a house, but no household God? Have none of us
defrauded our children, not of ancestral lands, but of what is infinitely more
valuable, an ancestral piety? On the walls of many a house from which piety
has been expelled may we not read the words—"They did worse than their
fathers?" If we speak thus, it is for your good. We would not arm ourselves
with these harsh thunders of the law, except, in the words of Paul, "to
persuade you by the terrors of the Lord." We have no faith in terror
disassociated from tenderness. Trusting more to the process of drawing than
driving men to Jesus, we pray you to observe that he who is the good is also a
most tender Shepherd. Among the nuns of our native land I have met a shepherd
far from the folds, driving home a lost sheep—one which had “gone astray”—a
creature panting for breath, amazed, alarmed, foot-sore; and when the rocks
around rang loud to the baying of the dogs, I have seen them, whenever it
offered to turn from the path, with open mouth dashing fiercely at its sides,
and thus hounding it home. How differently Jesus brings home his lost ones!
The lost sheep sought and found, he lifts it, tenderly lays it on his
shoulder, and, retracing his steps, returns with joy, and invites his
neighbors to rejoice along with him. The “green pastures” where he feeds his
flock, the rocks under whose grateful shadows they repose in noontide of the
day, the flowery and fragrant banks of the streams where they drink, are
disturbed by no sounds of violence nor voice of terror. Yes; Jesus rules his
flock by love, not by fear; and amid the holy calm of sweet Sabbath mornings,
gentle of countenance, he may be seen at their head, conducting them forth to
pastures sparkling with the dews of heaven, some sweet lamb in his arms, its
mother at his side, and all his flock behind him; his rod their guard, and his
voice their guide. Catching grace from his lips, and tenderness from his
looks, I would speak to you as becomes the servant of such a gentle, lowly,
loving Master. Yet, shall I conceal God’s verity, and ruin men’s souls to
spare their feelings? Shall I sacrifice truth at the shrine of a false
politeness? To hide what Jesus revealed were not to be more tender, but less
faithful than He. If the taste of these days were so degenerate as to frown
down the honest preacher who should pronounce that awful word ‘Hell,’ and
leave him to vacant pews, it were better, far better, that he should be as
"one crying in the wilderness," and getting no response but the echo of empty
walls, than that he should fail in proclaiming "the whole counsel of God."
Apart from your interests, and looking only at my own, how could I otherwise
hold up these hands, and say, "They are clean from the blood of all men?" How
otherwise could the preacher turn from his unhappy head the Bible's closing
curse—"If any man shall take away from the words of this book, God shall take
away his part out of the book of life." Regard to myself, to you—regard to a
gracious God, to a blessed Saviour—regard to all that is precious, solemn,
sacred, eternal—these now compel me, although with trembling hands, to lift
the vail.

If any are living without God, and hope, and Christ, and prayer, I implore
them to look here: turn to this dreadful pit. How it gleams with fire! How it
resounds with woeful groans! Now, when we stand together on its margin, or
rather shrink back with horror, look there, and say, "Who can lie down in
everlasting burnings?"

It is alleged by travelers, that the ostrich, when pursued by its hunters,
will thrust its head into a bush, and, without further attempt either at
flight or resistance, quietly submit to the stroke of death. Men say that,
having thus succeeded in shutting the pursuers out of its own sight, the bird
is stupid enough to fancy that it has shut itself out of theirs, and that the
danger, which it has concealed from its eyes, has ceased to exist. We doubt
that. God makes no mistakes; and, guided as the lower animals are in all their
instincts by infinite Wisdom, I fancy that a more correct knowledge of that
creature would show, that whatever stu pidity there may be in the matter, lies
not in the poor bird, but in man's rash conclusion regarding it. Man trusts to
hopes which fail him: the spider never; she commits her weight to no thread
which she has spun, till she has pulled on it with her arms, and proved its
strength. Misfortune overtakes man unprovided and unprepared for it: not
winter the busy bee. Amid he blaze of gospel light, man misses his road to
heaven: without any light whatever, in the darkest night, the swallows cleave
their way through the pathless air, returning to the window-nook where they
were nestled; and through the depths of ocean the fish steer their course back
to the river where they were spawned. If we would find folly, Solomon tells us
where to seek it:—"Folly," says the wise man, "is bound up in the heart of a
child:" and what is folded up there, like leaves in their bud, blows out in
the deeds and habits of men. This poor bird, which has thrust its head into
the bush, and stands quietly to receive the shot, has been hunted to death.
For hours the cry of its pursuers has rung in its startled ear; for hours
their feet have been on its weary track; it has exhausted strength, and
breath, and craft, and cunning, to escape; and even yet, give it time to
breathe—give it another chance—and it is away with the wind; and with wings
outspread, on rapid feet it spurns the burning sand. It is because escape is
hopeless and death is certain that it has buried its head in that bush, and
shut its eyes to a fate which it cannot avert. To man—rational and responsible
man—belongs the folly of closing his eyes to a fate which he may avert, and
thrusting his head into the bush while escape is possible; and, because he can
put death, and judgment, and eternity out of mind, living as if there were
neither a bed of death nor bar of judgment. Be wise: be men. Look your danger
in the face Anticipate the day when you shall behold a God in judgment and a
world in flames; and now flee to Jesus from the wrath to come. To come! In a
sense wrath has already come. The fire has caught, it has seized your
garments; you are in flames. Oh! away then, and cast yourselves into that
fountain which has power to quench these fires, and cleanse you from all your
sins.

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  CHAPTER 6: 06. God's punitive Justice
========================================================================

Wherefore I poured my fury upon them, and I scattered them among the heathen,
and they were dispersed through the countries: according to their way, and
according to their doings, I judged them.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 18, 19.

THE dank mossy sward is deceitful: its fresh and glossy carpet invites the
traveler to leave the rough moorland track; and, at the first step, horse and
rider are buried in the morass. The sea is deceitful. What rage, what furious
passions sleep in that placid bosom! and how often—as Vice serves her used-up
victims—does she throw the bark that she received into her wanton arms, a
wreck upon the shore. The morning is oft deceitful. With bright promise of a
brilliant day it lures us from home; ere noon the sky begins to thicken, the
sun looks sickly, the sluggish, heavily-laden clouds gather upon the hill-
tops, the landscape all around closes in; the lark drops songless into her
nest; the wind rises, blowing cold and chill; and at length—like adversities
gathering round the grey head of age—tempests, storm, and rain, thicken on the
dying day. The desert is deceitful: it mocks the traveler with its mirage. How
life kindles in his drooping eye, as he sees the playful waves chase each
other to the shore, and the plumes of the palm waving in the watery mirror!
Faint, weary, perishing with thirst, he turns to bathe and drink; and,
exhausting his remaining strength in pursuit of a phantom, finds, unhappy man!
that he has turned to die. Deceitful above sward, or sea, or sky, or enchanted
desert, is the heart of man; nor do I know more marked or melancholy proof of
this than that which our light treatment of such weighty matters as sin and
judgment affords. There is no exaggeration in the prophet's language—"The
heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked." Put a case:—The
flames have broken out in some house, and the fire spreads fast; at midnight
the roll of the drum wakens the sleeping streets—a fearful sound! soon
followed by the hurried yet measured tramp of armed men, and the rush of a
crowd, who, guided by a glare that illumines the sky, and turns night into
ruddy day, pour on the scene of danger; and where the flames, bursting out
from cellar to roof, shed their lurid light on glancing bayonets, strong arms
below are working as for life, and daring men above, ever and anon lost among
clouds of smoke, turn the stream upon the hissing fire. In this stirring
scene, where is the tenant of the house? How is he engaged? They thunder at
the door; they call his name; they rear the ladder against the window; and now
they shout to him to wake, and haste, and flee, leaving house and furniture to
the flames. They listen but no answer. Alas! he has perished? Help has come
too late? No; he lives: he has heard all that horrid din. He smells the smoke;
he feels the floor grow hot, and hotter, beneath his feet; and amid the thick
and suffocating air the man gasps for breath He has heard the cries of kindly
neighbors; the glass of the window, as a strong hand dashes it in, falls at
his feet, and he sees the very ladder resting on its sill. Well; has some
ruffian hand bound him neck and heel, that he does not move? or gagged him,
that he gives back no answer? Not at all. The man is busy, very busy,
ruminating on the question how the fire began; or with some pugnacious
neighbor, as insane as himself, he is engaged in keen discussion about when
and where it first broke out. Incredible! yet incredible as that appears, this
heart is so deceitful, that something less excusable and more incredible still
daily meets us in (what shall I call it?) the folly, the insanity, of
thousands. God has sounded the alarum. Roused from sleep—in some sense
convinced of sin—in some measure awake to danger—the dream of safety broken in
upon—warned that there is no time to spare—with the flames of wrath above,
beneath, around, blocking up all the common avenues of escape—the first, if
not the only question, should be, "Oh, Sirs, what shall I do? Where shall I
turn? Quick; say, this moment say, 'What shall I do to be saved?'" Yet, when
the only question is, how to escape from impending, imminent danger, hours,
days, years, are wasted in inquiries and discussions such as this—How the race
came to be exposed to it. Let theologians settle the metaphysics of the Fall;
their business may be to know how we became sinners; our first business is to
know how we are to be saved. Leave those who have reached the land to settle
how and on what reef the vessel struck; the question with us, who still cling
to the shrouds, or are battling with the surf, is, how to gain yon blessed
shore. In God's name, and by God's help, get the fire put out; and then, when
the flames are quenched, it will be time enough to consider how they were
kindled. Tie the bleeding artery; and when life is saved, settle, if you can,
how it was wounded. When you have plucked the drowning man from the water, and
laid him on the bank, and the color flushes again on his cheek, and the pulse
beats again at his wrist, and speech again returns to these blue and livid
lips, then you may speculate on how he fell into the flood. When, in spite of
Satan, and by God's help, we have wakened some careless one to care about his
soul, it is one of the devil's wiles to distract his attention by such
subjects, and amid the mazes of their inextricable labyrinths to bewilder him,
who should be pressing on to salvation at the top of his speed. I would have
the man who is engaged in such an enterprise to give these questions in the
meanwhile the go-by—for once to apply well, words so often applied ill—"I will
hear thee again on on this matter:" "when I have a more convenient season I
will send for thee." These are profound subjects, worthy of the investigations
of angels and exalted saints. We could not apply to their study the words of
Nehemiah—"I have a great work to do; therefore I can not come down." But in
saving ourselves and others, I am sure that there is enough to do, without
occupying our attention with unsatisfactory speculations on moral evil, and
the entrance of sin into our world. In the first place, few have time or
talent for such studies. In the second place, although we had, we should find
that, like going down into a coal-pit, or the depths of ocean, the further we
descended the darker it grew: we should fare no better than the fallen
intelligences described by Milton:— • Others apart sate on a hill retired,

In thoughts more elevate, and reasoned high

Of Providence, foreknowledge, will, and fate—

Fixed fate, free will foreknowledge absolute—

And found no end, in wandering mases lost.

Of good and evil much they argued there—

Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy."

And in the third place, we may postpone these speculations till we enjoy the
leisure of eternity, and can examine subjects so obscure in the clear light of
heaven. Meanwhile, let it content us to be assured, that the extent of our
knowledge shall correspond to the height of our elevation; and that, as a man,
from the bartisan of some lofty tower, or the summit of some loftier mountain,
commands a wider view and broader landscape, and, in the course of rivers, the
ranges of hills, the outlines and indentations of the coast, obtains a far
more extensive view of objects, and a much clearer conception of their
relative bearings, than he enjoyed in the plain below; so, while some
subjects, like the snowy summits of the Himalayas or Andes, may remain for
ever inaccessible, yet, once raised to heaven, we shall understand many
mysteries, and solve many questions, connected with sin and its sorrows, of
which it is best now to say, "Such knowledge is too high for me; I cannot
attain unto it." A child seated on the shoulders of a giant may see further
than the giant himself; and an infant standing on the top of a mountain very
much further than the giant at its feet: and even so, the lisping babe, whom
Jesus has taken from a mother's bosom to his own, excels in knowledge the
profoundest of philosophers and the greatest of divines. In heaven we shall
see as we are seen—we shall know as we are known: there "the light of the moon
shall be as the light of the sun, and the light of the sun shall be
sevenfold." In considering at greater length the punitive justice of God, I
shall not attempt to offer any full or satisfactory explanation of what is
beyond our understanding. How a wise, holy, good, and gracious God permitted
what he certainly could have prevented—permitted sin to exist at all—is at
present a mystery, and may for ever remain one. With others, I might
contribute some attempts to solve that difficulty; but I believe that, like
all preceding efforts, these would throw no more light on this vast and
mysterious subject than a candle sheds on a widely extended landscape clothed
in mist or wrapped in midnight darkness. Amid these awful and often painful
mysteries, we can only cling to the faith, and cherish an unshaken confidence
in this, that the Judge of all the earth doeth right—that God at least is a
King who can do no wrong. To the man, then, who asks, Why am I born with a
bias to sin? Why has another's hand been permitted to sow germs of evil in me?
Why should I, who was no party to the first covenant, be buried in its ruins?
if the Bible says in reply to the query—"What mean ye, that ye use this
proverb concerning the land of Israel: the fathers have eaten sour grapes, and
the children's teeth are set on edge?" "As I live, saith the Lord God, ye
shall not have occasion any longer to use this proverb in Israel," why, then,
do I suffer for Adam's sin? Why, most virulent of poisons I should this sin
infect the blood of a hundred generations? Why should I suffer for a crime
committed so long ago as six thousand years, and to which I no more consented
than to Cain's murder of Abel, or Herod's massacre of the innocents? To these
questions this is my reply: I shrink from sitting in judgment upon my Judge.
Clouds and darkness are round about Jehovah now; but I am confident that, when
expiring Time cries, "It is finished," and the vail of a present economy is
rent, it shall be seen that righteousness and judgment are the pillars of his
throne—that "there is no unrighteousness with God."

These questions open up an abyss respecting which man's business is to adore,
and not explore; and to them, meanwhile, I have no other answer than the great
Apostle's, "Who art thou, O man! that repliest against thy Maker? Shall the
thing made say to him who made it, why hast thou made me thus?"

But although the permission of sin is a mystery, the fact of its punishment is
no mystery at all; for, while every answer to the question, How did God permit
sin? leaves us unsatisfied, to my mind nothing is plainer than this, that,
whatever was his reason for permitting it to exist, God could not permit it to
exist unpunished. In proof of that, I observe—

I. The truth of God requires the punishment of sin.

"Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and offer him for a
burnt-offering on a mountain that I will tell thee of." Startling
announcement!—so startling, that it is not possible to suppose that the
alarmed, amazed, confounded patriarch received it at once—believed it without
a dreadful struggle. No; there never rung from mailed hand or battle-axe such
a stunning blow. What man, or father, doubts that it made Abraham stagger, and
brought him to his knees? I think I hear him saying, "Take Isaac—take my son,
the son of my love, the son of promise, the miraculous gift of heaven— offer
Isaac for a burnt-offering! Surely I dream.

What a dreadful fancy! Did my ears deceive me?

No: there was a voice; I heard it. It sounded like the voice of God: could it
be so? Was it for this that angels announced his birth? Was it to be thus
rudely shaken off, that the old stock was made to blossom, and this sweet
fruit to grow on a withered tree? Although this trembling hand could plunge
the knife into Isaac's bosom, would it not be most honor to God to conclude
that some demon, with false and wicked mimicry, had borrowed Jehovah's voice
to lure me into a foul and monstrous crime, and, getting me to embrace these
hands in Isaac's blood, by this horrid sacrifice to quench the light of heaven
and the hope of earth—in this sweet bud to crush an un-blown salvation and
unborn Saviour?" Now, whatever room Abraham might have had for doubt—whatever
struggle faith had with unbelief in that father's heart—we have no room nor
pretence to doubt that, however terrible its punishment, God has threatened to
punish sin, and, true to his word, shall pour out his fury on the sinner's
head. Christ is offered; and ye cannot escape, if ye neglect this great
salvation.

Had that truth been written only in one solitary passage—within the whole
compass of the Bible had there been but one line to that effect—we might have
succeeded in persuading ourselves that its sense was mistaken, and its terms
misunderstood. But is it so? Ah! no: there is letter upon letter, "line upon
line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little." God has
recorded his irrevocable resolution, not in one, but in a hundred passages;
and reiterated in a thousand ways the awful sentence—"The soul that sinneth,
it shall die."

Some have fancied that they honor God most when, sinking all other attributes
in mercy—indiscriminating mercy—they represent him as embracing the world in
his arms—and receiving to his bosom with equal affection the sinners that
hate, and the saints that love Him. They cannot claim originality for this
idea: its authorship belongs to the "father of lies." Satan said so before
them. It is the very doctrine that damned this world. The serpent said to the
woman, "Thou shalt not surely die." Do you rest your hope of salvation on such
a baseless fancy? If so, have you seriously considered in what aspect this
theory presents the God for whose honor you profess such tender regard. We
almost shrink from explaining it. You save the creature, but at a price more
costly than was paid for sinners upon the cross of Calvary. Is there something
dearer than life to me?—to God there was something more precious than even the
blood of Jesus. I can part with my life, but not my honor;—and God could part
with his Son, but not with his truth. But let sin go unpunished, either in
person or substitute: this saves the sinner—no doubt of that; but at what
price? You save the creature's life at the expense of the Creator's honor.
Your scheme exalts man; but far more than man is exalted is God degraded. By
this scheme no man is lost; but there is a greater loss—something more awful
happens: the truth of God is lost; his crown loses its topmost jewel, and the
throne of the universe is shaken to its foundations. It is as manifest as
daylight that God's truth and your scheme cannot stand together. "Liar" stands
against either God or you; and, in the words of the Apostle, you "make God a
liar." Nor is that all: my faith has lost the very rock it stood on, and stood
on—as I flattered myself—steadfast, immovable; for, however awful the
threatenings

4* in his Word may be, if God is not true to them, what security have I, or
any man, that he will be true to its gracious promises? The rod which bends in
one direction will prove as supple in another; and, since the truth of a
Heaven stands upon the very same foundation as the truth of a Hell—the one
upon the promise, the other upon the threatening, and both alike upon the
simple word of God—why, then, the scheme which quenches the fears of the
wicked extinguishes the hopes of the just. If he that believeth not shall not
be condemned, farewell—a long and sad farewell—to my happy confidence that he
that believeth shall be saved. I cannot consent that you should pull down my
heaven, to build with its ruins, not a temple to justice, but an asylum for
crime. Away with such a scheme. It is fatal to the peace of God's people. It
is essentially blasphemous and dishonoring to their God. It makes God a liar.
Making him do wrong, how can it be right? making him untrue, it must be itself
untrue. We reject it with horror. It is a snare of the Evil One; and happy
should we be to think that we had helped any of his captives out, and sent
them singing, as on wings of faith they soared away to heaven, "My soul is
escaped as a bird out of the fowler's snare: the snare is broken, and I am
escaped." II. The love of God requires that sin should be punished.

You may start at this. Love requires punishment? Had we said the justice, or
holiness, or purity of God, we, no doubt, should have used an expression less
startling, and more sure to command a ready assent. These attributes present
strong positions, within which it may be admitted that we could entrench this
doctrine

—impregnable to all assaults. On that very account it is that in this brief
discussion we pass these by, and, confident in the strength of our cause,
select, of very purpose, although some may think unwisely, what they deem the
weakest argument and point of defence. Now I find one of the strongest and
most affecting proofs that the impenitent and unbelieving shall not go
unpunished, just in that tenderest of all subjects, the love of God; and I
think that I could close with the man who uses this love to prove that sin
shall go unpunished; and having wrested that weapon from his hand, take off
the head of his argument with his own sword. I say of this love of

God, what David said of Goliath's sword, "there is none like that—give it me."

Lend me your candid attention—open your minds

—and I think it will not be difficult to convince you, that the love of
God—which is a sevenfold shield to the believer—not merely consents to, but
demands, the condemnation, as it aggravates the guilt, of the impenitent. Let
me at once prove and illustrate the point by a piece of plain analogy:—This
city, nay, the whole land, is shaken by the news of some most cruel, bloody,
monstrous crime. Fear seizes hold of the public mind; pale horror sits on all
men's faces;

doors are double barred; and justice lets loose the hounds of law on the track
of the criminal. At length, to the relief and joy of all honest citizens, he
is caught

He is tried, condemned, laid in irons, and waits but the sentence to be
signed. To save or slay—to hang or pardon—is now the question with him whose
prerogative it is to do either; and by what motive is the sovereign impelled
to shut up his bowels of mercy, and sign the warrant for execution? Is it want
of pity? No; the pen is taken with reluctance; it trembles in his hand, and
tears of compassion for this guilty wretch drop on the page he signs. Now it
is not so much abhorrence of the guilty, as love of the innocent, and regard
for their peace, purity, and honor, that dooms this man to die. If he were
pardoned, and his crime allowed to go unpunished, neither man's life nor
woman's virtue were safe; unless this felon dies, the peace and purity of a
thousand happy families lie open to foul attack; and thus, love for those who
have the best claim on a sovereign's protection, requires that the guilty die.
That the community may live in peace, each man sitting beneath his own vine
and fig-tree—that the citizen may feel himself safe in the bosom of his
family—that streets may be safe to walk on—that beds may be safe to lie
in—that our land may be a country fit to live in—crime must be punished. The
magistrate who would reward obedience must punish rebellion; nor can he be a
praise and protection to them that do good, but by making himself a terror to
them that do evil. There are scenes of domestic suffering which present
another, no less convincing, and more touching analogy. I refer to those
distressing cases where natural affection yields to the holiest parental duty;
and where, although she thereby inflicts on her own bosom a wound time never
heals, Love seizes the knife, and, lest the canker should extend to the other
branches, lops off some once pleasant bough from the family tree. It has
happened that, from love and regard to the interest of his other children—to
save them from a brother's contamination—a kind parent has felt constrained to
banish his son, and forbid him a father's a use. 't is sad to think that he
may be lost, the dread of that goes like a knife into the heart; yet, bitter
truth! painful conclusion! it is better that one child be lost than a whole
family be lost. These lambs claim protection from the wolf; he must be driven
forth from the fold; weeping Love herself demands this sacrifice; and, just
because it is most lacerating, most excruciating, to a parent's heart, it is
in such a case the highest and holiest exercise of parental love to bar the
door against a child. There have been parents so weak and foolish as to peril
the morals, the fortunes, the souls of their other children, rather than
punish one; and in consequence of this I have seen sin, like a fever, infect
every member of the family, and vice ferment and spread till it had leavened
the whole lump. Divine Love, however, is no blind Divinity: and that love
being as wise as tender, sinners may rest assured, that out of mere pity to
them, God will neither sacrifice the interests, nor peril the happiness of his
people. Love herself—bleeding, dying, redeeming love—with her own hand will
bar the door of heaven, and from its happy, holy precincts, exclude all that
could hurt or defile. Stern words these! and when Love puts on her armor, to
fight against him, what hope for the man who has compelled her to be his
enemy? Having armed Love against you, where now are you flying? Look at this
scene of judgment. He who died on the cross occupies the throne. Love
incarnate presides at that august tribunal. The print of the nail is on the
very hand which waves away the lost into perdition. The voice which so often
invited the impenitent is that which now condemns and commands them to depart.
Calmly, serenely anticipating that day, Faith says, "It is God that
justifieth; who is he that shall condemn?" But oh! if Jesus Christ condemn,
who shall justify? If He spare not, who shall save? From the wrath of the Lamb
which impenitence has changed into the wrath of a Lion, despair turns away a
face covered with the blackness of darkness, to cry as she wrings her hands,
"The great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" If the
Lamb of God—if the Love of God be our adversary, our case is desperate. Oh!
take warning in Time, that you be not lost for Eternity. "Kiss the Son, lest
he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a
little." "Blessed are all they that put their trust in him."

III. Unless sin is to be awfully punished, the language of Scripture appears
extravagant.

Next to the suffering is the sight of pain to a man of tender feelings: nor,
but for your good, would I ask any one to cast even a hurried glance on those
appalling pictures which the Bible reveals. But if men, for the mere
gratification of taste—if the lovers of the fine arts—crowd to some picture of
the damned—a scene of the last Judgment painted by a master's hand, where
hideous demons torment shrieking victims, and drag the seven deadly Sins down
into the gulf of fire—when, as far as the heavens do the earth, the preacher's
object transcends the painter's, and the salvation of souls the gratification
of taste—when my object is not to please your fancy, but profit your
souls—shall that be condemned in the pulpit which is so much applauded in the
painting? Where the highest interests are at stake, shall I be judged harsh,
and showing no regard to feeling and propriety, because I ask you to turn your
eyes on this spectacle— on a worm that never dieth, and this fire that is
never quenched? Oh! let me beseech, implore you, to read with tears and
prayers those passages of Scripture that reveal the miseries of the lost. Blot
not from your minds what you cannot blot out of the Book of God.

What is so sad—what so strongly and sadly illustrates the wicked deceitfulness
of this heart—as the entertainment which men extract from the solemnities of
judgment? Only think of those, who turn away with ill-disguised distaste from
the very mention of such subjects in the house of God, crowding a brilliant
saloon to hear this same judgment set to music, and listen with loud and
rapturous applauses to the hired musicians, who give a bold (shall I say
profane) imitation of the trumpet that rends the grave, of the thunders that
announce the Judge, the song of adoring angels, the shouts of ransomed saints,
and—for any thing I know—the awful shrieks of the damned! Think of this; think
of criminals leaving the bar to set their sentence to music! When their life
is a matter of hours, and its few remaining sands should be given to prayer
and God's book of mercy, think of men, shut up in a cell, and drawing on its
walls a wretched caricature of their judge, the gallows, the mighty crowd, the
victim turning round on his cord, with eyeballs that protrude beneath the cap,
and limbs convulsed in the very agony of death! The sufferings and misery
which awaits the impenitent and unbelieving, God has painted in most appalling
colors. To save us from them, his Son left the heavens and died on a cross.
When Paul thought of these, he wept like a woman. A dauntless man, who shook
his chain in the face of kings—whose spirit no sufferings could subdue, and
whose heart no dangers could appall—who stood as unmoved amid a thousand
perils as ever rock amid a thousand billows—he could not contemplate these
without the deepest emotion; his tears fell fast and thick upon the page where
he wrote, “of whom I have told you often, and now tell you even weeping, whose
god is their belly, whose end is destruction.”

What horror did David feel at the sight and fate of sinners? With his blind
face turned up to heaven, you see a man approach the edge of an awful
precipice: every step brings him nearer—still nearer, the brink. Now he
reaches it: he stands on the grassy edge. Oh for an arm to reach him—for a
voice to warn him—for a blow to send him staggering back upon the ground! But
he has lifted his foot; it is projected beyond the brink; another moment, a
breath of wind, the least change of balance, and he is whirling twenty fathoms
down. You stop your ears, close your eyes, turn away your head; horror has
taken hold of you. And such were David’s feelings when he contemplated the
sins and fate of the wicked: “Horror hath taken hold upon me, because of the
wicked that forsake thy law: rivers of water run down mine eyes, because they
keep not thy law, O God.” The wrath of God is the key to David’s sorrow, to an
Apostle’s tears, to the bloody mysteries of the Cross. That was the necessity
which drew a Saviour down. Had that wrath been tolerable or terminable, the
sword of Justice had never been dyed with the blood, nor sheathed in the body
of such a noble victim; and if there is a need be for the lightest cross that
lies on a good man’s lot, how great the necessity for that upon which the
Saviour died! God is not willing that you should perish, and by these terrors
of the Lord we would persuade you. Meditate on these words: pray over
them—"Woe to the man that striveth with his Maker!" "Who can lie down in
everlasting burnings?" "The wicked shall be cast into hell, and all the
nations that forget God."

Rather than that you should perish, I would even thus persuade you. Oh! there
are terrors enough in the Bible to make a man's hair stand on end. Surely,
were God but for one moment to let this world hear the weeping and wail of the
lost, that sound, more terrible than Egypt's midnight cry, would rouse the
student at his books, arrest the foot of dancer in the ball, stop armies in
the very fury of the fight, and, calling a sleeping world from their beds,
would bend the most stubborn knees, and extort from all the one loud cry,
"Lord, save me, I perish!" Still it is not terror which is the mighty power of
God. The Gospel, like most medicines for the body, is of a compound nature;
but, whatever else enters into its composition, its curative element is love.
No man yet was ever driven to heaven: he must be drawn to it, and I wish to
draw you. The Gospel has terror in it, no doubt. But it is like our
atmosphere—occasionally riven by the thunder, and illuminated by the fatal
flash—it is at times the path of the stealthy pestilence—charged with elements
of destruction, and impregnated with the seeds of disease; but how much more
is not a great magazine of health, filled with the most harmonious sounds,
fragrant with the sweetest odors, hung with golden drapery, the pathway of
sunbeams, the womb of showers, the feeder of flowing streams, full of God's
goodness, and the fountain of all Earth's life! And, just as in that
atmosphere, which God has wrapped round this world, there is much more health
than sickness, much more food than famine, much more life than death, so in
the Bible there is much more love than terror.

The terror is not only subordinate to love, but subservient to it. God,
indeed, tells us of hell, but it is to persuade us to go to heaven; and, as a
skillful painter fills the background of his picture with his darker colors,
God puts in the smoke of torment and the black clouds of Sinai, to give
brighter prominence to Jesus, the cross of Calvary, and his love to the chief
of sinners. His voice of terror is like the scream of the mother bird when the
hawk is in the sky. She alarms her brood that they may run and hide beneath
her feathers; and as I believe that God had left that mother dumb unless he
had given her wings to cover her little ones, I am sure that He, who is very
"pitiful," and has no pleasure in any creature's pain, had never turned our
eyes to the horrible gulf unless for the voice that cries, "Deliver from going
down to the pit, for I have found a ransom." We had never heard of sin had
there been no Saviour; nor of hell had there been no heaven. "Sufficient for
the day is the evil thereof;" and never had Bible light been flashed before
the eyes of the sleeping felon to wake him from his happy dream, but that he
might see the smiling form of Mercy, and hear her, as she says with pointing
finger, "Behold, I have set before thee an open door."

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  CHAPTER 7: 07. God's Motive in Salvation
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I do this for mine holy name's sake.—Ezekiel xxvi. 22.

THERE is a land lying beneath a burning sky, where the fields are seldom
screened by a cloud, and almost never refreshed by a shower; and yet Egypt—for
it is of it I speak—is as remarkable for the fertile character of its soil as
for the hoar antiquity of its history. At least, it was so in days of old,
when hungry nations were fed by its harvests, and its fields were the
granaries of ancient Rome. Powers so prolific Egypt owed to the Nile—that
river whose associations carry us upward to the beginning of all human
history—upon whose banks, in the sepulchers of forgotten kings, stand the
proudest monuments of human vanity—a river, the very name of which recalls
some of the grandest scenes that have been acted on the stage of time. The
Nile is Egypt; in the course of long ages it has deposited her soil, and by an
annual overflow it maintains her fertility. The limits of that flood are the
limits of life and verdure; and without her Nile—that great artery of
vegetable life—she would be another Sahara—a vast expanse of burning and
barren sands. Humbled as she now is, let this gift of heaven be improved, as
of old, by the skill and industry of her inhabitants, and, vivified by a free
and Christian government, Egypt would rise from the sepulchers of her kings,
and take a place once more in the van of nations. The Truth shall prove her
resurrection. The Gospel shall restore her to life and prosperity; and the day
is coming when that land—rich now only in memories of the past, famous now
only for her temples and gods, her pyramids and dusty tombs, for her throne of
the Pharaohs, for her sacred stream, for the wonders God wrought of old in the
field of Zoan, and, most dear above all to Christian hearts, for the asylum
she opened to an infant Saviour—shall fulfill a noble destiny. Her day
approaches. These prophecies regarding her wait their accomplishment—"The Lord
shall be known in Egypt;" and, "Blessed be Egypt, my people."

From the earliest ages the source of this famous river was regarded with
intensest interest. Whence it sprung, and how its annual flood was swelled,
were the subjects of eager but ungratified curiosity. One traveler after
another had attempted to reach its cradle, and had failed or fallen in the
attempt; and when—forcing his way upwards through many difficulties, and
traveling along its banks, from where, by many mouths, it disgorged its waters
into the sea, till its ample volume had shrunk into the narrowness of a
mountain stream—our hardy countryman at length stood beside the long sought
for fountain, he won for himself, by the achievement, an immortal reputation.
I can fancy the pride with which, first of travelers, he looked on that
mysterious fountain. How sweet its waters tasted! How he enjoyed his triumph,
as he sat down by the cradle of a river, which had fed the millions of
successive generations, and in days long gone by had saved in famine the race
which gave a Redeemer to the world!

Now, what this river, which turns barren sands into the richest soil, is to
Egypt, the Gospel of Jesus

Christ is to the world. It flows through the earth, the "river of the waters
of life." Whether they now bloom in heaven, or are still in the nurseries of
earth, every plant of grace owes to the Gospel its existence and renown.
Observe, however, that—although the parent of those harvests which angels
shall reap and the heavens receive—no more in the case of the Gospel than of
the Nile does the bounty of heaven suspend or supersede human exertions. No;
but on earth's improvement of heaven's bounty the blessings of both are
commonly suspended. "The hand of the diligent maketh rich:" and as it is
according to the industry or indolence of the inhabitants, that the Nile flows
through barren sands, or waters smiling fields, so is it with the Gospel. It
is a blessing only where it is sedulously and prayerfully improved, and when,
like the overflowings of the Nile, which are conducted along their channels to
irrigate its shores, those living waters, through the use of means, are turned
on our hearts and habits. "Not the hearers of the law are just before God, but
the doers of the law shall be justified." Now, if it is interesting to trace a
Nile or Amazon to its source, how much more interesting to a Christian to
explore the stream of eternal life, and trace it upward till we have reached
the fountain. Bruce discovered—or thought he had discovered—the springs of
Egypt's river: he found them away among cloud-capped mountains, at an
elevation of many thousand feet above the plains they watered. Great men have
been born in humble circumstances; but all great rivers boast of their lofty
descent. It is when the traveler has left smiling valleys far beneath him, and
toiling along rugged glens, and, pressing through deep mountain gorges, he at
length reaches the chill shores of an icy sea, that he stands at the source of
the Alpine river, which, cold as the snows that feed it, and a full grown
stream at its birth, rushes out from the caverns of the hollowed glacier. But
with that lofty birth place it is only a humble image of salvation. How high
its source! "He showed me a pure river of wa ter of life, clear as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb." The stream of mercy
flows from the throne of the Eternal; and here we seem to stand by its
mysterious fountain: in contemplating the words of the text, we look upon its
spring—"I do this for mine holy name's sake."

In now entering on the question, What moved God to save man? let us—

I. Attend to the expression, "my name's sake."

This is a most comprehensive term. It indicates much more than what, in common
language, is in volved in a name. No doubt a name may sometimes convey much
meaning. "Adam," for instance, means

"clay;" made of earth, he receives a name that reminds him of his origin.
"Isaac," again, means

"laughter;" and in her son's name God rebuked Sarah for the merriment with
which, when listening with a woman's curiosity behind the door, she heard of
her coming child, and of fruit growing on such an old and withered stock as
she was. "Moses," again, means "drawn from the water;" and his name reminded
him, who was to deliver others, how he himself had been delivered from death.
And in the name

"Jesus," our Lord received a name that revealed his office and anticipated his
work—the angel said,

"Thou shalt call his name Jesus, for he shall save his people from their
sins." Commonly, however, a man's name gives no idea of his properties,
character, history, works, or life, and is nothing more than an appellation
which he receives in infancy, and receives—since the flower is still in the
bud—before his fortune can be told, or his character even guessed at. "What's
in a name?" Its chief end is just to prevent confusion, and distinguish one
person from another.

The name of God, however, as employed by the sacred writers, has many and most
important meanings. In the 20th Psalm, for instance, it embraces all the
attributes of the Godhead. "The name of the God of Jacob defend thee;" that
is—if paraphrased—may his arms be around thee; may his wisdom guide thee; may
his power support thee; the bounty of God supply thy wants; the mercy of God
forgive thy sins; the shield of heaven be over, and all its blessings on thee.
In the days of miracles, again, the name of Jesus carried with it the idea of
his authority, and of the efficacy of his power. Uttered by the lips of faith,
that name was a word of resistless might. It healed disease, shed light on
darkness, and breathed life into cold death; it mastered devils, controlled
the powers of hell, and commanded into immediate obedience the rudest elements
of nature. Like Pharaoh's signet on Joseph's hand, he who used that name in
faith, was for the time gifted with his Master's power; whatever he loosed on
earth was loosed in heaven; and whatever he bound on earth, was bound in
heaven. Standing over a cripple—one impotent from his mother's womb—Peter
looked on his deformity, and said, "In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up
and walk." And, lo! he who had never stood erect till now, bounded from the
earth, and, in the joyful play of new-born faculties, walking, leaping,
dancing, singing, he ushered the Apostles into the astonished temple.
Powerful, like prayer, or any other means of grace, as was this name when used
by faith, yet on the lips of the unbelieving no name more useless; like a
residuum from which the spirit had been evaporated, or a body bereft of life,
it possessed no virtue or power at all. There was no charm in the mere name of
Jesus, either to pour light on a blind man's eyeball, or restore vigor to a
withered limb. See how Sceva's seven sons learn that to their cost! Profaning
this holy name, and employing it in their arts of witchcraft, they use it to
cast out a devil; and—themselves Satan's servants—they find that "Beelzebub
casts not out devils." "Jesus I know, and Paul I know," says the Evil One,
"but who are ye?" Hell disowns their authority; the Demon defies them; he
leaps on them with the fury of a savage beast; and—theirs the fate of the
engineer who is hoised on his own potard—they are driven off, disgraced and
wounded, from the field. Again, in Micah, iv. 5, where it is said, "We will
walk in the name of the Lord," the expression assumes a new meaning, and
indicates the laws, statutes, and commandments of God. Again, in the beautiful
and blessed promise, "In all places where I record my name, there will I come
unto thee and bless thee," the expression bears yet another meaning: it stands
for God's ordinances and worship—rearing, as it were, by the hands of faith, a
holy temple out of the rudest edifice, and converting into heaven-consecrated
churches those rocky fastnesses and lonely moors where our fathers worshiped
in the dark days of old. Contenting ourselves with these illustrations of the
various meanings of this expression in Scripture, I now remark, that here the
"name" of God comprehends every thing, which directly or remotely affects the
divine honor and glory; whatever touches, to use the words of our catechism,
"His titles, attributes, ordinances, word, or works; or any thing whereby God
maketh himself known."

II. We are to understand that the motive which moved God to save man was
regard to his own glory.

"Where is boasting then?" we may ask with the Apostle, and leave him to
answer, "it is excluded." If salvation is not of merit, but of mercy—not of
earth, but heaven—not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will
of man, but of God"—"Not by might nor by power, but my Spirit, saith the Lord
of Hosts," it is beyond all doubt "excluded." Grace glorifies man, no doubt;
but for what purpose? that he may glorify God. It saves man, but saves him
that he may sing, not his own praises, but a Saviour's. It exalts man, but
exalts him, that, like an exhalation, sun-drawn from the ground, and raised to
heaven, each of us may form a sparkling drop in the bow, which encircles the
head that God crowns with glory, and man once crowned with thorns. Even our
Lord himself, although in a sense the "fellow" of his Father, and reckoning it
no robbery to make himself equal with God, kept his eye steadily on that lofty
mark. His Father's, not his own glory, was the burden of Jesus' prayers and
the end of Jesus' sufferings: born for it in a stable, he bled for it on a
cross, and was buried for it in a sepulcher. When, on the solemn eve of his
last and awful sufferings, our champion buckled on his armor for the closing
struggle, ere he joined battle with men, with death, and with him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil, was not this his prayer--"Father, glorify
thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee?" Dutiful Son! Pattern to all
children of filial piety! Thou didst forget thine own sufferings in a
mother's; and was more concerned for thy Father's honor than thine own.

This doctrine, that God saves men for his own glory, is a grand and very
precious truth; yet there is a way of stating it which seems as offensive as
it is unscriptural. Concave mirrors magnify the features nearest to them into
undue and monstrous size; and in common mirrors, ill cast and of uneven
surface, the most beautiful face is distorted into deformity. And, as if their
minds were of such a cast and character, there are some good men who, not
exhibiting Bible truth in its proper harmony and proportions, represent Jesus
Christ in this matter of salvation as affected by no motive whatever but a
regard to his Father's glory, and even God himself as moved only by respect to
his own. Excluding from their view the commiseration and love of God, or
reducing these into very shrunk dimensions, they magnify one doctrine at the
expense of another, and, indeed, go to sever some of the most sacred and
tender ties which bind a believer to his God. Now, it appears to us that this
ill-proportioned theology—the doctrine that the only motive in redemption was
a regard to God's glory—receives no countenance from the Bible. Does not God
"pity us, as a father pitieth his children?" Taught to address Him by the
endearing appellation of Father, Oh what affection, love, and loving-kindness,
are expressed in that tender term! And if, on seeing some earthly father, whom
a child's scream has reached and roused, rush up the blazing stairs, or leap
into the boiling flood, it were wrong, it were cruel, it were a shame, to
suspect him of being destitute of affection—of being moved to this noble act
by no other motive than a regard to his own honor—and by no other voice than
the calm command of duty—how much more wrong were it to harbor such suspicions
of "our Father who is in heaven."

I know that we should approach so high a theme with the greatest reverence,
and that it becomes us to speak on such a subject, and, indeed, on any thing
that touches the secret movements of the Divine mind, with most profound
humility. Yet, reasoning from the form of the shadow to the object which
projects it—from man to God—I would venture to say, that it is with Him as
with us, when we are moved to a single action by the united influence of
various motives. To borrow an example from the place I fill:—The minister,
worthy of his office, appears before his assembled people to preach; and, in
doing so, he is moved by a variety of motives. Love to God, love to Jesus,
love to sinners, love to saints, a regard to God's glory, and regard to man's
good: these, like the air, water, light, heat, electricity, gravitation, which
act together in the process of vegetation, may all combine to form one sermon.
They are present, and act not as conflicting but concurring motives in the
preacher's breast. This difference, however, there always is between us and
God, that although our motives—like the Rhone, which is formed of two rivers,
the one pure as the sky above it, the other turbid and discolored—are ever
mixtures of good and evil, all the emotions of the Divine mind, all the
influences that move God to action, are of the purest nature.

God cherishes, indeed, such respect to his own glory, that, had the salvation
of the world been incompatible with that—this world had been left to perish.
Dreadful thought! How should we adore and extol the wisdom which discovered a
way to harmonize the glory of God, and the good of men. He was moved by regard
to both. It is an imperfect vision that sees but one motive. This lofty
subject resembles those binary stars which look to the naked eye as but one,
but which, brought into the field of the telescope, resolve themselves into
two orbs, rolling in their brightness and beauty around a common center.
Blessed be his holy name! "He so loved the world, that He gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on Him should not perish, but should
have everlasting life." "He commendeth his love to us, in that, while we were
yet sinners, Christ died for us." Never, therefore, let us exalt this doctrine
of the divine glory, at the expense of the divine love. God's love to sinners
is his mightiest, his heart-softening argument; and it were doing Him, his
gospel, and our own souls great injustice, if we should overlook the love that
gives Divinity its name, and which, sending in his Son a Saviour from the
Father's bosom, was eulogized by an Apostle as possessed of a "height, and
depth, and breadth, and length, which passeth knowledge." III. Observe, that
in saving man for his "holy name's sake," or for his own honor and glory, God
exhibits the mercy, holiness, love, and other attributes of the Godhead.

The truth is, that God saves man for much the same reasons as at first he made
him. Why did God make man? What moved God to make him? The ball rolls forward
over the ground, and the ship moves onward through the sea, by virtue of an
external force—the hand projects the one, and the wind, caught in her sails,
impels the other. But no foreign agent imparted an impulse to creating power;
nor did any one command or compel God to make man. It is his prerogative to
command—the creature's duty to obey. Why, then, did He make man? Did He need
to make him? Was it with Him as with some lordly master, who depends for his
comfort on his servants?—as with a king, whose glory lies in the numbers of
his courtiers, or the brilliancy of his court?—as with the greatest general,
who owes his victories to the bravery of his soldiers, and who, whatever his
military skill, would win no battles and wear no laurels without an army at
his back? Assuredly not. "Our goodness extendeth not to Thee;" our wealth
makes God no richer, our praise makes Him no happier. "Hear, O my people, and
I will speak. I will take no bullock out of thy house, or he goat out of thy
fold; for every beast of the forest is mine, and the cattle upon a thousand
hills. I know all the fowls of the mountains and the wild beasts of the field
are mine. If I were hungry, I would not tell thee, for the world is mine, and
the fullness thereof." What moved God, then, to make man? or, to enlarge the
question so as to embrace creation, when there was neither world rolling, nor
sun shining, nor angel singing—when there was neither life nor death, nor
birth nor burial, nor sight nor sound, no wave of ocean breaking, no wing of
angel moving—when, as in a past eternity, God dwelt alone in silent, solemn,
awful, but happy solitude, what moved Him to make creatures at all, or with
these worlds, suns and systems, to garnish the heavens, and people an empty
universe? These are the deep things of God, and it becomes finite and fallible
minds such as ours to approach them modestly. If the fabric of nature, if the
machine of Providence, with its wheels rolling within wheels in many and
complicated parts—if these, and the scheme of redemption, are full of
inscrutable mysteries—how much more the vast mind that designed and executed
them! The meanest of his works are full of Himself, and of mysteries which,
when apprehended, are not comprehended. If I adore divinity in the humble
daisy; and if in the creature, that lives for a day and dances in a sunbeam, I
see the wisdom that made the sun—how can I lay aside the telescope by which I
have held communion with the distant heavens, or the microscope that reveals a
world of wonders in one drop of water, without concluding that, if the works
of God are so wonderful, how much more wonderful his own infinite and eternal
mind? "These are thy glorious works, Parent of good,

Almighty! thine this universal frame,

Thus wondrous fair: thyself how wondrous then

Unspeakable! who sitt'st above these heavens,

To us invisible, or dimly seen

In these thy lowest works; yet these declare

Thy goodness beyond thought, and power divine."

By turning the eye inward, however, on our own mind, we can form some
conception of the divine mind, even as a captive child, born and retained in a
dark dungeon, may learn some notion of the sun from the beam that, streaming
through a chink of the riven wall, travels the gray lonely floor; or even as,
although I had never walked its pebbly shore, nor heard the voice of its
thundering breakers, nor played with its swelling waves, I could still form
some feeble conception of the ocean from a lake, from a pool, from a little
drop of water, even from this sparkling dew-drop, which, born from the womb of
night, and cradled in the bosom of a flower, lies waiting, like a soul under
the sun of righteousness, to be exhaled to heaven.

Look at man, then: be he a poet or a philosopher, a man of mechanical genius
or artistic skill, a statesman or a philanthropist, or, better than all, a man
who glows with piety: we see that his happiness does not lie in indolence, but
in the gratification of his tastes and feelings, and the active exercise of
his faculties. Assume the same to be true of God—a conception which, while it
exalts, endears our Heavenly Father. It presents Him in this most winning and
attractive aspect, that the very happiness of Godhead lies in the forth-
putting—along with other attributes—of his goodness, love, and mercy. Now, we
may be mistaken, and I would not venture to speak dogmatically here; yet this
does appear to shed a ray—a beam, if not a flood of light, on some mysterious
passages in the providence of God. Shores on which man has never landed lie
paved with shells; fields which his foot has never trod are carpeted with
flowers; seas where he has never dived are inlaid with pearls; and caverns
into which he has never mined are radiant with gems of the finest form and the
fairest colors. Well, it may be, and has been asked, for what purpose this
lavish expenditure of skill and beauty on scenes, when there is neither an eye
of intelligence to admire, nor piety to adore the Maker? The poet, lamenting
genius unknown, unpatronized, sinking into an ignoble grave, has sung of
"flowers that waste their sweetness on the desert air;" and up on the
unfrequented shelf of a mountain rock, or rooted in the crevice of an old
castle wall, I have found such a flower, opening its modest beauty to the sun,
and putting to shame the proudest efforts of human skill. Did you never sit
down beside such a flower, and courting its gentle company, ask the question,
Fair creature! for what end were you made, and made so very beautiful? It
certainly does look a waste of power and skill divine. Yet may it not be, that
angels, as they fly by on their missions of mercy, have stayed their wing over
that lowly flower, and hovered there awhile, to admire its colors and adore
its Maker? But whether or no, God himself is there. Invisible, He walks these
unfrequented solitudes, and with ineffable complacency looks on this little
flower as his own mighty work, and as a mirror of his infinite perfections.
"God," it is said, "shall rejoice in his work." "He made all things for
Himself—even the wicked for the day of wrath." The minnow plays in a shallow
pool, and leviathan cleaves the depths of ocean—winged insects sport in a
sunbeam, and winged angels sing before the throne; and whether we fix our eye
on the one or the other, the whole fabric of creation appears to prove that
Jehovah delights in the evolution of his powers, in the display of his wisdom,
love, and goodness; and, just as it is to the delight which God enjoys in the
exercise of them that we owe this beautiful creation, so it is to his delight
in the exercise of his pity, love, and mercy, that we owe salvation, with all
its blessings. Let us be humble and thankful. Man had as little to do with
saving as with making himself: the creation of Eden and the cross of Calvary
are equally the work of God; and Jehovah stands forth before the universe as
not by one tittle less the Saviour than the Creator of the world. To display
his glory in radiant effulgence—to blaze it out on the eyes of delighted and
adoring angels—to evoke the hidden attribute of mercy—to give expression to
his love and pity—God resolved to save, and, in saving man, to turn this world
into a theater for the most affecting tragedy and amazing love.

Salvation is finished. It is offered. Shall it be rejected? Take the good of
it, and give Him the glory. "He is the God of salvation;" "in his name we will
set up our banners." In that ladder whereby faith climbs her way aloft to
heaven, there is not a round that we can call our own. In this ark which, with
open door, offers an asylum in the coming storm, a refuge in the rising
flood—from stem to stern and keel to deck there is neither nail, nor plank,
nor beam, that we can claim as ours. The plan of redemption was the design of
infinite wisdom; its execution was left to dying love; and it is Mercy,
generous Mercy, whose fair form stands in the open door, bidding, entreating,
beseeching you all to come in. Listen to the voice of Jesus, "Come unto me,
all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." And let his
mother teach you how to speak, and learn from angels how to sing. With her—the
casket of a divine jewel, who held the babe yet unborn in her virgin

4*

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL womb—with Mary say, “My soul doth magnify the Lord; my
spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour; for He that is mighty hath done great
things to me, and holy is his name.” Or, hark to the angels’ song I glowing
with seraphic fire, borrow seraphic words; and sing with them, ere they wheel
their bright ranks for upward flight, “Glory to God in the highest; on earth,
peace and good will to men.”

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 8: 08. Man an Object of Divine Mercy
========================================================================

Therefore say unto the house of Israel, I do not this for your sakes, O house
of Israel, but for mine holy name's sake.—Ezekiel xxvi. 22.

WE have seen a sere and yellow leaf, tenacious of its hold, hang on the tree
all the winter through; and there it kept dancing and whirling idly in the
wind, not beautiful or graceful, out of place and season, in humbling contrast
with the young and fresh companions which budding spring had hung around it.
Like that wrinkled and withered thing, some men (who were better in their
graves) hang too long upon this world. They live too long; they die too late,
for themselves at least. Half-dead and half-alive, mind and memory faded,
surviving both their faculties and usefulness, and but mere wrecks of what
once they were, they tax affection, to conceal from strangers' eyes the sad
ravages of time, and do for them the tender office of the ivy, when she kindly
hides beneath her green and glossy mantle the crumbling ruin or old hollow
tree.

It was the happy fate of Moses—and one most singular at his age—neither to
outlive his honor nor usefulness: the day he laid down his leadership saw him
lay down his life: death found him at his post. Palinurus was swept from the
helm. When Heaven saw meet to take Moses, he was one whom the earth and church
would have gladly retained: but the time has arrived when the pilot, who, in
calm and storm, through winter and summer seas, has steered the commonwealth
of Israel for well nigh half a century, is to resign the helm into other
hands. A faithful God calls a faithful servant to his reward and rest He did
not leave them, however, till these weary voyagers were brought within sight
of land, and, indeed, to the mouth of the very haven they had so long desired
and looked to see. The children of Israel have reached the banks of Jordan,
and—grateful sight to eyes weary of these naked mountains and the dead flat
level of barren sands—the people cluster with eager looks on every summit,
and, scattered along the banks, they gaze across the flood on the Land of
Promise. How they feed their eyes, and never weary looking on the verdant
pastures, the golden harvests, the rocks clothed with vines, the swelling
hills crowned with wood, the plains studded with villages and cities teeming
with a population that told how rich the soil, and how well described, the
land as one "full of corn and wine, and flowing with milk and honey." In this
posture of affairs, before he ascends to his rest, Moses summons the tribes of
Israel; and, like the members of a family who gather from their different and
distant homes around a father's death-bed, they come to receive the old man's
blessing, his parting counsels, and last, long farewell.

Propped upon pillows, bending on his staff, panting for breath, speaking in
brief and broken sentences, by those groping hands that felt for Ephraim's and
Manasseh's head betraying the stone-blindness of a great old age, Jacob gave
his blessing to the twelve sons, who all—uncommon fortune in so large a
family—survived their parent, and were themselves the fathers of the living
millions now swarming beneath the eye of Moses. But how different the bearing
and aspect of Moses from that of the hoary patriarch! An old man! if not as
old a man, of age not much short of Jacob's! One hundred and twenty years had
passed on his head, but they had neither blanched his beard nor thinned his
locks, nor drawn a wrinkle or his lofty brow: that eye had lost none of its
fire, nor that arm any of its force, since the day when, striking in for a
brother's cause, he bestrode a prostrate Hebrew, and, parrying the blow of the
Egyptian, gave it back, like a battle-axe, on his head. Nearly the same age as
Jacob, whose bent and venerable appearance, as he entered leaning on Joseph's
arm, led Pharaoh to ask, "How old art thou?" Moses bore himself erect, and
looked the same as on the day, forty years before, when he strode into
Pharaoh's hall, and demanded of an angry king that the Hebrews should go free.
The sun that went down in the evening of summer's longest day, sunk as full
and bright, as if it had set at noon; "his eye was not dim, nor was his
natural strength abated." His life closed amid the rich glories of the noblest
address that grace, genius, patriotism, and piety ever uttered.

Standing on some rocky platform, with his back to the sky, and his face to the
people, Moses delivered an address never forgotten, and that for long ages
continued to sound its trumpet echoes in the ears, and to breathe courage into
the hearts of Israel. He blessed the tribes in succession, and—charged with
inspiration, as a cloud with lightning—he burst forth at the close into these
glowing exclamations—"There is none like unto the God of Jeshurun, who rideth
upon the heavens in thy help; thy shoes shall be iron and brass; and as thy
days, so shall thy strength be. The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath
are the everlasting arms." Jordan gleamed in his eye, and stretching out his
arms to the land across its flood, he cried—"Israel then shall dwell in safety
alone; the fountain of Jacob shall be upon a land of corn and wine; his heaven
shall drop down dew. Happy art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people
saved by the Lord?"—Glorious words to the Hebrews! and most gracious in
Christian eyes. Faith claims them as part of her inheritance, and looking on
that mighty multitude as the dying type of a never-dying church, serves us
heirs of entail to the spiritual blessings which lay concealed beneath the
vail of these earthly promises.

It is not, however, so much of the close as of the commencement of Moses'
speech, that I would speak. Their deliverer from the house of bondage, and
leader of their exodus to the promised land, he was a type of Jesus. That
host, supplied with streams from the flinty rock, guided by the Shekinah, and
fed with manna from the skies, in its grievous bondage and great deliverance,
its Pilgrim wanderings and hard-fought battles, its trials and crowning
triumph, was a type of the Church of Christ. We are undoubtedly heirs of all
its promises; but as we cannot take the sweet and reject the bitter, in
serving ourselves heirs to Israel's promises, we become heirs also to her
chastisements, her guilt and sin, her warnings and rebukes. Now, listen to
Moses as he addressed the very people of whose coming fortunes he spoke such
glorious things:—"Hear, O Israel: Thou art to pass over Jordan this day, to go
in to possess nations greater and mightier than thyself: Not for thy
righteousness, or for the uprightness of thine heart, dost thou go to possess
their land. Understand, therefore, that thou goest not in for your own sakes.
The Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it for thy
righteousness; for thou art a stiff-necked people, and hast been rebellious
against the Lord from the day that I knew you."

If there be a man still on earth, in a situation corresponding to theirs who
stood on the brink of the flood, and saw Canaan's fair fields inviting them to
cross, that man is a dying Christian. With life fast ebbing—his battle fought,
the journey finished, the desert traveled, the world with its rough paths and
vanities behind him, heaven opening its glories to his eye, and death's cold,
dark stream rolling at his feet—he stands on the bank of the river and, ready
to pass on when the High Priest has gone down to divide the flood, he waits
but the summons to go. Well—I repair to the chamber where this good man dies,
and, sitting down beside his bed, I open the Bible, and read these words in
his listening ears, "Thou art to pass Jordan this day. Speak not thou in thine
heart, saying, for my own righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess
the land. Understand, that the Lord giveth thee not this good land for thy
righteousness and uprightness; for thou art stiff-necked, and hast been
rebellious against the Lord." To some, who, taking compassion on our
ignorance, might turn round to tell us, what a good man he had been, what an
example of piety, how bright he had shone, how much the church would lament
his death, and how much the poor would miss his charity, these words would
sound hard and harsh, unseasonable and most uncharitable. But whatever
harshness might appear to others in such an address, this, I am sure, would be
that Christian's humble, prompt, hearty response:— How true! how
characteristic! what a faithful picture! how descriptive alike of my original
unregenerate state, and the many short-comings of my renewed nature! Raising
his dying eye to heaven, and clasping his hands, he hushes into silence the
ill-timed praise of his friends, and repeats as his own, the confession of
Job,—"I have heard of thee with the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth
thee; wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes." He clings like
Peter to the hand of Jesus. Mercy is all his prayer, and mercy all his praise;
hopes of mercy in the future kindle in his eye, and grateful thanks for
mercies in the past employ his latest breath, and dwell on his faltering
tongue. His last conscious look turns away from his own works to fix itself
upon the cross, and the last word that trembles on his quivering lip is,
Jesus!

It were not easy to find a better example of this, than one which is recorded
in the history of England's greatest apostle. When he lay on an expected
deathbed (though God spared him some years longer to the world and church),
his attendants asked John Wesley, what where his hopes for eternity? And
something like this was his reply—For fifty years I have been traveling up and
down this world, amid scorn and hardship, to preach Jesus Christ: and I have
done what in me lay to serve my blessed Master. What he had done, how poor he
lived, how hard he labored, with what holy fire his bosom burned, with what
success he preached, how brilliantly he illustrated the character—"dying, and
behold we live; unknown, and yet well known; poor, yet making many rich;
having nothing, yet possessing all things;'— these things his life and works
attest. They are seen in his church's history, and in the crown he wears in
heaven so bright with a blaze of jewels—the saved through his agency. Yet thus
he spake, "My hopes for eternity? my only hopes rest on Christ;" and as he
confession of his faith, he repeated these words:—

"I the chief of sinners am,

But Jesus died for me."

This confession, so redolent of Wesley's piety, and honorable to his memory,
and the words of Moses to

Israel, are in perfect harmony; and both are in harmony with this great truth
of the text, that God saves sinners, not for their sakes, or out of any regard
what ever to their worth or merits. We have already dwelt at some length on
this truth. Why, then, it may be asked, choose the same text, and expatiate
again on the same theme? If I needed apology or defence for lingering on this
humbling, but most salutary and important subject, I would find it in a high
example. Observe how Moses, in his dying address to Israel, repeats and
repeats, iterates and reiterates, this very truth—"Speak not thou in thine
heart, saying, for my righteousness the Lord hath brought me in to possess
this land; but for the wickedness of these nations the Lord doth drive them
out from before thee." Again—"Not for thy righteousness, or the uprightness of
thine heart, dost thou go to possess their land." Again—"Understand,
therefore, that the Lord thy God giveth thee not this good land to possess it
for thy righteousness, for thou art a stiff-necked people." Again—"Remember,
forget not how thou provokedst the Lord thy God to wrath in the wilderness;
from the day that thou didst depart out of the land of Egypt, until ye came
unto this place, ye have been rebellious against the Lord." Again—"In Horeb ye
provoked the Lord to wrath, so that the Lord was angry with you, to have
destroyed you." Again—"The Lord spake unto me, saying, I have seen this
people, and behold, it is a stiff-necked people; let me alone, that I may
destroy them." And again—"Ye have been rebellious against the Lord from the
day that I knew you." Thus Moses. A master, who charges his servant with some
important message, repeats, and reiterates it in his ear. The teacher, who
communicates some leading rule in grammar to his pupils, or some fundamental
truth in science to his students, comes over it again and again; just as a
carpenter, by repeated blows drives home the nail, and fixes it firm in its
place. For the same end we resume our study of the text. It divides itself
into two branches; first, what does not; secondly, what does move God to save
us.

To the first question our answer is—Not any thing in us; to the second—His
regard to his own holy name. Now, in speaking on the first of these I remark—

I. The doctrine that God is not moved to save man by any merit or excellence
of his, is a truth of the highest importance and consequence to sinners.

This is no doctrine—like our Lord's personal reign, or the question of adult
or infant baptism, or the points of difference between Episcopalians,
Presbyterians, and Independents—in regard to which it is not of vital
importance which side of the controversy we

MAN AN OBJECT OF DIVINE MERCT.

espouse and advocate. This doctrine has a direct and most important bearing on
the salvation of sinners. Like the rough and stern Baptist it prepares the way
for Christ. Man must be emptied of self before he can be filled with grace. We
must be stripped of our rags before we can be clothed with righteousness; we
must be unclothed, that we may be clothed upon; wounded, that we may be
healed; killed, that we may be made alive; buried in disgrace, that we may
rise in grace. These words are as true of the soul as the body—"Sown in
corruption, that we may be raised in incorruption; sown in dishonor, that we
may be raised in glory; sown in weakness, that we may be raised in power." To
borrow an illustration from the surgeon's art, the ill-set bone must be broken
again, that it may be set aright. I would press this truth on your attention,
because a soul filled with self has no room for God; and, like the inn of
Bethlehem, given to lodge meaner guests, a heart full of pride has no chamber,
within which Christ may be born "in us the hope of glory."

To tell man that he has no merit is, no doubt, a humbling statement, and one
that lays the loftiest sinner in the dust. This doctrine is the true leveler,
it puts all men on the same degraded platform before God; sets kings as low as
beggars, and the strictest virtue—virtue which the breath of suspicion never
sullied—with base and brazen-faced iniquity. I admit that, if we had no better
righteousness than our own to rest on, we should do our best to establish its
claims, and mayhap assert the right of decency to say to harlots, publicans,
and sinners, "Stand aside, I am holier than thou." But why cling to that when
we have a better righteousness in our offer? No wonder at all that the
mendicant, whose timid knock has called us to the door, stands there shivering
in filthy rags. Poor wretch! His crimes or misfortunes have reduced him to
these; he has no change of raiment nor choice of clothing; and so,—with none
kind or rich enough to help him,—he must make the best of what he has to robe
his nakedness and protect an emaciated frame from the biting cold. No wonder
also, that the prodigal, having spent all his portion in riotous living, in
such dress—if dress it could be called—sought his father's house; nor any
wonder that his father, so soon as the quick eyes of love espied him from
afar, ran to meet the penitent, fell on his neck, and kissed him in that
ragged and loathsome attire. To say nothing of those who have yearned over
some unworthy child—every father understands that. But how had the wonder of
the story grown, how had son, servants, and neighbors concluded that the
wretched youth had drunk away his senses as well as money, had he so loved his
rags, as to decline to part with them, and, clinging to these wrecks of better
days—these sad memorials of his sin and folly—had he refused to put the foul
rags off, that he might put the fair robe on! He did nothing so foolish; and
why should we? Now since God pronounces our righteousness—observe, not our
wickednesses, but our devotions, our charities, our costliest sacrifices, our
most applauded services—to be "filthy rags," trust not to them. What man in
his senses would think of going to court in rags? Nor think that the
righteousness of the cross was wrought to patch up these; to make up, as some
say, for what is defective and wanting in our own merits. Nor fancy, like some
who would have a Saviour and yet

MAN AN OBJECT OF LIVINE MERCY.

keep their sins, that you may wear the rags beneath this righteousness. Put
them away; not as a dress, which a man lays aside, to be afterwards resumed;
but cast them away, like a beggar who, having got a better attire, flings his
rags into the nearest ditch, and leaves them there in their foulness to
rottenness and decay. God says of the soul which Faith has conducted to
Jesus—"take away the filthy garments from him, Behold I have caused thine
iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment."

If this doctrine is humbling to our pride, it is full of encouragement to a
poor sinner's hope. It lays me down, but it is to lift me up. It throws me on
the ground, that, like Antæus, the giant of fable, I may rise stronger than I
fell. It is not for our sake that we are saved. If Mercy stoops to the lowest
guilt, Oh then there is hope of salvation for me—for a man who has nothing
that he can call his own but misery and sin; I will not sit here to perish;
but following a Manasseh and a Magdalene, a dying thief, and a blood-stained
Saul, I will join the throng that, called from highways and hedges, are
pouring—a ragged crowd—into the marriage supper of the Lamb. Are any among you
holding back, till, by this or that improvement in your habits, you consider
yourselves fit to go to Christ? Fit to go to Christ!—fit to go to Christ you
shall never be, but only by going to him. Your warrant lies in your wants;
your plea for mercy in his merits; your plea for an interest in his merits in
your own demerits. Hear and adopt the prayer of David—"For thine own name's
sake, pardon mine iniquity;" that is his prayer; now what is his plea? "for it
is little,"

"very little," or "less than others?" No. He adds and urges this, "for it is
great."

Was there ever an invalid so senseless as to say, when I am somewhat better,
when this fever burns less fierce, this pulse beats more calm, this running
ulcer has a less loathsome and offensive discharge, I will repair to the
hospital? Yet such is their folly who say, when I am holier, I will go to
Jesus. Go to him as you are; show the physician your wounds, bruises,
putrifying sores—how the whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint. It
is said of the disciples, that "they took in our Lord as he was into the
boat;" now he is to take you in as you are—just as you are. You cannot be made
holy till you go to him? And what hinders you to go and go now? What does he
say? Hear him—"I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
And the worse your case is, the greater, in a sense, is your certainty of
immediate salvation;—yours the hope of the maimed and bleeding soldier whom
kind comrades bear from the deadly trench, and who knows that the worse his
wound, the more sure is he of the surgeon's earliest care; and that from the
very couch, where noblest birth or highest rank lies stretched under some less
serious injury, that man of humanity—image of the great Physician—will turn
away to kneel down by a poor orphan boy, the meanest private—aye, even a
mutilated enemy, in haste to tie up the severed vessels, and stem the tide
that pours his life's blood upon the ground. God help you to say with Paul—"It
is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Jesus Christ came
into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief," and believing that, ery
with David, "Make haste unto me, O God. O Lord, make no tarrying."

II. It is as important for the saint as for the sinner to remember, that he is
not saved through personal merit, or for his own sake.

When age has stiffened its bark and fibres, if you bend a branch into a new
direction, either turn that to the right hand which had grown to the left, or
raise the bough to the skies which had been bent on the ground, it is long
before it loses the tendency to resume its old position. And many years after
its course has been changed, and the art, that conquers nature, has turned its
waters into a new cut, the river needs careful watching; else, when swollen by
winter snows or summer floods, it bursts our barriers, sweeps dyke and bulwark
to the sea, and, in the pride of victory, foams, and roars, and rages, in its
old accustomed channel. Even so, when God has laid hands upon us, and grace
has given our earthly soul a heavenward bent, how prone it is to start back
again! When he that sitteth upon the flood, and turneth the hearts of men like
the rivers of water, hath sent the current of our tastes and feelings in a new
direction, how apt are they, especially in some outburst of sudden temptation
that comes down like a thunder-spout, to flow back into the old and deep-worn
channels of a corrupt nature! Of this, David and Peter are memorable and
dreadful examples. And who, that has endeavored to keep his heart with
diligence, has not felt, and mourned over the tendency to be working out a
righteousness of his own, to be pleased with himself, and, by taking some
satisfaction in his own merits, to undervalue those of Christ. So was it with
that godly man who, on one occasion—most rare achievement!—offered up a prayer
without one wandering thought; and described it as the worst which he had ever
offered, because, as he said, the Devil made him proud of it. So was it also
with the minister, who, upon being told by one—more ready to praise the
preacher than profit by the sermon—that he had delivered an excellent
discourse, replied, "You need not tell me that; Satan told me so before I left
the pulpit." Oh! it were well for the best of us that we could say with Paul,
"we are not ignorant of his devices."

Step into this room, where the greatest Scotchman lies a dying, and see an
example more striking, warning, alarming still. From the iron grasp of kings
and princes, Knox has wrung the rights of Scotland. Ready to contend even unto
the death, he had bearded proud nobles and prouder churchmen; he had stood
under the fire of battle; he had been chained to the galley's oar; he had
occupied the pulpit with a carabine leveled at his fearless head; and to plant
God's truth, and that tree of civil and religious liberty which has struck its
roots so deep in our soil, and under whose shadow we are this day sitting, he
had fought many a hard-fought battle; but his hardest was fought in the
solitude of the night, and amid the quietness of a dying chamber. One morning
his friends enter his apartment. They find him faint and pallid, wearing the
look of one who had passed a troubled night. So he had: he had been fighting,
not sleeping; wrestling, not resting; and it required all God's grace to bring
him off a conqueror. Till daybreak, Jacob wrestled with the Angel of the
Covenant: and that long night Knox had passed wrestling with the Prince of
Darkness. Like Bunyan's pilgrim, he met Apol-lyon in the valley, and their
swords struck fire in the shadow of death. The lion is said to be boldest in
the storm. His roar is never so loud as in the pauses of the thunder, and when
the lightning flashes, brightest are the flashes of his cruel eye; and even so
he, who, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour, often
seizes the hour of nature's distress to assault us with his fiercest
temptations. Satan tempted Job when he was bowed down with grief. Satan
tempted Jesus when he was faint with hunger. Satan tempted Peter when he was
weary with watching and heart-broken with sorrow; and, reserving perhaps his
grand assault on us for times that offer him a great advantage, it was when
Knox was worn out, left alone, his head laid low on a dying pillow, that
Satan, like a roaring lion, leaped upon his bed. Into that room the Enemy had
come; he stands by his bed,—he reminds him that he had been a standard-bearer
of the truth,—a reformer; a bold confessor; a distinguished sufferer; the very
foremost man of his time and country; he attempts to persuade him, that surely
such rare merits deserve the crown. The Christian conquered—but hard put to
it—only conquered through Him that loved him. His shield was the truth of my
text; he had been lost, wrecked at the mouth of the very harbor, had he lost
sight of this beacon,—"I do not this for your sake, but for mine holy name's
sake."

And seeing, as these cases show, there may be such danger lurking—like a snake
among flowers—under our best attainments; seeing that, like the inflammatory
attacks to which those are most liable who are highest fed, whose bones are
most full of marrow, and whose veins are gorged with blood, we may be exposed
to spiritual pride through the very fullness of our graces; seeing that he,
who can twist the Bible into arguments for sin, can use our best works as fuel
to the fires of vanity, let us watch and pray and learn to be humble. Oh, it
is needful for the holiest to remember, that man's best works are bad at the
best; and that, to use the words of Paul, it is "Not by works of righteousness
that we have done, but according to his mercy he hath saved us, through the
washing of regeneration, and the renewing of the Holy Ghost."

III. This doctrine, while it keeps the saint humble will help to make him
holy.

Here—no ornament to park or garden—stands dwarfed, stunted, bark-bound tree.
How am I to develop that dwarfish stem into tall and graceful beauty—to clothe
with blossoms these naked branches, and hang them, till they bend, with
clustered fruit? Change such as that is not to be effected by surface
dressing, or any care bestowed on the upper soil. The remedy must go to the
root. You cannot make that tree grow upwards till you break up the
crust—pulverize the hard subsoil, and give the roots room and way to strike
deeper down;—for, the deeper the root, and the wider spread the fine filaments
of its rootlets, the higher the tree lifts an umbrageous head to heaven, and
spreads out its hundred arms, to catch, in dews, rain-drops, and sunbeams, the
blessings of the sky.

The believer—in respect of character, 'a tree of righteousness of the Lord's
planting,' in respect of strength, "a cedar of Lebanon," in respect of
fruitful ness, an olive, in respect of position, "a palm tree planted in the
courts of God's house," in respect of full supplies of grace, a tree by the
rivers of water "which yieldeth its fruit in its season, and whose leaf doth
not wither"—offers this analogy between grace and nature. As the tree grows
best skyward that grows most downward, the lower the saint grows in humility,
the higher he grows in holiness. The soaring corresponds to the sinking. I
wish you to think little, very little of yourselves; but why? because the less
you think of yourselves, the more will you esteem Christ; and the humbler you
are in your own eyes, the higher you will stand in God's. The guest, who,
coming modestly in, takes the lowest place at the table, is called up to the
seat of honor; and I have always thought, that none are so sure to lie in
Jesus' bosom as those I have seen lying lowest at Jesus' feet. Was it not over
one, who content to be spoken of as "a dog," held herself well served with
crumbs, and asked nothing but the sweepings of the table, that Jesus
pronounced this superlative eulogium—"I have not found such faith; no, not in
Israel." "God exalteth the humble, and abaseth the proud." How important,
therefore, the sentiment of my text? Receive it, "and the loftiness of man
shall be bowed down, and the haughtiness of men shall be made low; and the
Lord alone shall be exalted in that day."

Piety and pride are not less opposed to each other than light and darkness. No
doubt strange things—singular conjunctions—are seen in grace as well as in
nature. Like an ill assorted marriage, you may find a sour and ascetic temper
allied to genuine faith. Eminent piety has stood blushing in sackcloth on a
pillory of shame. The sun of saintship has undergone a dreadful and unlooked
for eclipse. Good and great men have fallen into gross sin, causing God's
people to hang down their heads, and cry, as they wept in secret, "How are the
mighty fallen!" In short, the grace of God has been found in such strange
company as to give occasion for the remark of one, who said, "the grace of God
will live where neither you nor I could live." But, among these anomalies,
amounting sometimes almost to monstrosities, I will venture to say you never
saw—no, nor the church, nor world, nor any eye nor age ever yet saw—a saint
distinguished for his holiness, who was not also remarkable for his humility.
The grandest edifices, the tallest towers, the lofties spires, rest on deep
foundations. The very safety of eminent gifts and pre-eminent graces lies in
their association with deep humility. They were dangerous without it. Great
men need to be good men. Look at this mighty ship—a leviathan on the deep;
with her towering masts, and carrying a cloud of canvas, how she steadies
herself on the waves, and walks erect upon the rolling waters, like a thing of
inherent, self-regulating life! Why—when corn is waving, and trees are
bending, and foaming billows roll before the blast and break in thunders on
the beach, is she not flung on her beam-ends—sent down—foundering into the
deep? Why, because, unseen beneath the surface, a vast, well-ballasted hull
gives her balance, and, taking hold of the water, keeps her steady under a
press of sail, and on the bosom of the swelling sea. Even so, that the saint
may be preserved upright, erect, and kept from falling, God gives him balance
and ballast—giving the man, on whom he has bestowed lofty endowments, the
grace of a proportionate humility.

We have wondered at the lowliness of a man, who stood among his compeers like
Saul among the people—to find him simple, gentle, generous, docile, humble as
a little child—till we found that it was with great men as with great trees.
What giant tree has not giant roots? When the tempest has blown over some such
monarch of the forest, and he lies in death stretched out at his full length
upon the ground, on seeing the mighty roots that fed him—the strong cables
that moored him to the soil—we cease to wonder at his noble stem, and the
broad, leafy, lofty head he raised to heaven, defiant of storms. Even so, when
death has struck down some distinguished saint—whose removal, like that of a
great tree, leaves a vast gap below, and whom, brought down now, as it were,
to our own level, we can measure better when he has fallen than when he
stood—and when the funeral is over, and his repositories are opened, and the
secrets of his heart are unlocked and brought to light, ah! now, in the
profound humility they reveal—in the spectacle of that honored gray head, laid
so low in the dust before God—we see the great roots and strength of his lofty
piety.

Would you be holy? learn to be humble. Would you be humble? take my text, and,
with a pen of iron and the point of a diamond, engrave it upon your heart; or
rather pray—Holy Spirit, fountain of light, and giver of all grace, with thine
own divine finger inscribe it there!

Would you be holy? you must be humble. Would you be humble? Oh! never forget
that the magnet, which drew a Saviour from the skies, was not your merit but
your misery. "Be clothed with humility,"

and ere long you shall exchange the sackcloth for a shining robe. What!
although this grace may impart to your feelings a somber hue? Gray mornings
are the precursors of brightest days; weeping springs are followed by sunny
summers and autumns of richest harvest; and in the spiritual as in the natural
kingdom—'They that sow in tears shall reap in joy.'"

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  CHAPTER 9: 09. God glorified in Redemption
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And I will sanctify my great name which was profaned among the heathen,
&c.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 23. 24.

THE character of a government may be read in the condition of its subjects.
Are they turbulent—in their habits lawless, in their religion superstitious?
with coasts full of harbors, and mountains rich in minerals, with a genial
climate and a productive soil, are they yet clothed in rags, housed in cabins,
steeped to the lips in poverty? These are the certain signs of bad government.
Fields overrun with weeds—fences falling into ruins—the plough rotting in the
flooded furrow—and hungry cattle bellowing on scanty pastures—these are the
sure signs of bad husbandry. And yonder ragged family, who at school hours are
roaming our streets—the unwashed face and tangled hair bespeaking no mother's
kindness—hunger in the hollow eye, and pale, emaciated features—these are the
sure and too common signs of an unhappy parentage. They suggest the picture of
a home at the top of some filthy stair, or in some foul den of a cellar, where
a miserable father, the neglected victim of disease and poverty, lies
stretched upon the floor, or—as is still more likely—where a brutal drunkard
lives, the tyrant of his children, and the terror of his wife. Thus we judge
of a sovereign by his subjects, and thus we see the husbandman in his farm,
and the father in his family. It may be—it were indeed unfair—to apply this
rule to our Faith and its Founder. Yet men have done so, and will do so; and
thus the cause of God and religion is made to suffer grievous injury at the
hand of its nominal friends. By their coldness, their worldliness, their
selfishness, their open sinfulness, the little apparent difference between
them and those who make no profession at all—nay, sometimes, by their glaring
inferiority to the latter in the blow and fruit of the natural
virtues—professing Christians—like venders of a bad coinage, have exposed
genuine piety to suspicion, and inflicted its deepest wounds on the cause of
Christ. Seeing how, in natural graces—kindness of heart—sweetness of
temper—generosity—the common charities of life—mere men of the world lose
nothing by comparison with such professors, how are you to keep the world from
saying, “Ah! your man of religion is no better than others; nay, he is
sometimes worse?” With what frightful prominence does this stand out in the
answer—never to be forgotten answer—of an Indian chief to the missionary who
urged him to be a Christian. The plumed and painted savage drew himself up in
the consciousness of superior rectitude, and, with indignation quivering on
his lip and flashing in his eagle eye, replied, “Christian lie! Christian
cheat! Christian steal!—drink!—murder! Christian has robbed me of my lands and
slain my tribe!” adding, as he turned haughtily on his heel, “the Devil,
Christian! I will be no Christian.” Let such reflections teach us to be
careful how we make a religious profession; but having made it—cost what it
may cost—to be careful in acting up to it. “It is better not to vow, than,
having vowed, not to pay.” These remarks are suggested by the fact already
adverted to in the previous discourses—that the interests of truth and the
name of God suffered in Babylon, in consequence both of the miserable outward
condition and still more miserable moral condition of the people of Israel.
Reduced to bondage, sunk lower still—for, compared to a sinner, how free is a
slave!—they exceeded their masters in crime, and went to greater excess of
riot. The heathen—who overlooked the sins of which their misery was the
righteous punishment—naturally enough concluded, that the God of a people so
wretched and so worthless, must be a weak—perchance a wicked one. Thus God's
name was profaned, and Jehovah himself dishonored, till the time arrived,
when, arising to plead the cause that was his own, God sanctified his great
name in the fortunes of his people, and in the sight of the heathen. Passing
over the special application of these words to the Jews, and looking at them
in their prophetical connection with the scheme of redemption, I now remark—

I. That God might have vindicated his honor and sanctified his name in our
destruction.

He sanctified his name in the emancipation of his ancient people. When by one
blow he struck the fetters from a nation's limbs, baptized them with his
Spirit, gave them favor in the sight of kings, and brought back these weary
exiles, with songs and gladness, to Jerusalem, then God was sanctified in the
midst of all the heathen. His power, wisdom, holiness, and goodness, were
illustrated in the renewed character, joyous homes, and happy fortunes of his
people. Now, God might undoubtedly have sancti

6* fied himself in them otherwise—vindicating his character in such
destruction upon Zion, as he here threatens upon Sidon—"Behold, I am against
thee, O Sidon, and I will be glorified in the midst of thee, and they shall
know that I am the Lord when I shall have executed judgment in her, and shall
be sanctified in her; I will send with her pestilence and blood into her
streets; and they shall know that I am the Lord."

Two methods of glorifying his name are open to God. He is free to choose
either; but by the one or the other way he will exact his full tale of glory
from every man. In Egypt, for instance, he was glorified in the high-handed
destruction of his enemies; and, in the same land, by the high-handed
salvation of his people. In the one case he proved how strong his arm was to
smite, and in the other how strong it was to save. He gave Egypt's king—ere he
was done with him—a terrible answer to his insolent question, "Who is the Lord
that I should serve him?" God was sanctified before Pharaoh, when, hurrying to
the banks of the Nile, and turning pale at the sight, he saw them filled with
blood—blood brimming in every goblet, and blood flowing in every channel. God
was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when he saw the same skies rain ice and
fire. God was again sanctified before Pharaoh, when, startled at midnight by a
nation's wail, and summoned to the bed of his heir and eldest born, he saw
him, stiff and dead—smitten by the angel of death. And God was again
sanctified before Pharaoh, when—as he looked along the watery vista—he saw
Moses come down in the grey of morning to the shore, and watching the last
Hebrew safe on land, stretch his rod out upon the deep, whose waves, roaring
on their prey, now rush from either flank on the power of Egypt, and bury pale
rider and snorting horse—all that bannered army—in their whirling waters. The
sea refused God's enemies a grave. She flung them out upon her shore. Moses
stands over the body of the king; and as he gazes on that glassy eye, which
had lost its haughtiness, and those lips, whose insolence the waters had
washed away, how might he stoop down, and say, Now you know who is the Lord!
Oh! Had the seal of death been broken—removed from these blue, discolored
lips—theirs had been this solemn utterance, "Let the potsherds strive with the
potsherds of the earth; woe to the man that striveth with his Maker."

In like manner, God sanctified his name on the plains of Sodom. He sanctified
it, on the one hand, in the destruction of his enemies, and on the other, in
the salvation of Lot. Ah! then the world ceased to doubt his character, and
perhaps angels ceased to wonder that such wickedness was allowed on earth.

The light of the city's conflagration illuminated his holiness, and his throne
rose up in dread and awful majesty amid the smoking ruins. And how was he
sanctified in that wretched fugitive, who has crossed but half the plain! a
wife, she comes not to a husband's calls—a mother, she stirs not to her
children's piercing cry. Look at that spectral form with head turned on the
burning ruins—a woman, stiffened into stone, with her cold grey eyes staring
large on Sodom, and the surprise—horror—that had seized her soul, as she felt
her warm flesh hardening into stone, carved on these rigid features! "Remember
Lot's wife." She stands there an example of God's power to sanctify his name,
and an awful lesson to the end of time. Deep on the statue's stony brow these
words are engraven—"No man having put his hand to the plough, and looking
back, is fit for the kingdom of God."

Since there are two ways open to God, by either of which he may sanctify his
great name, he might therefore, at the Fall, have vindicated his justice by
swift and unsparing vengeance—by destroying the whole human family. He did so,
in the case of fallen angels. Of these, there was no wreck or remnant saved.
Not one escaped. No ark floated on the waters, to which, —like Noah's dove—a
flying angel pursued by wrath might turn his weary wing. Can it be doubted,
that the measure meted out to fallen angels, God might have meted out to
fallen men?—sanctifying his great name in our ruin, rather than in our
redemption. Now, before I show how he sanctifies himself in the redemption of
his people, let me warn you, that what God might have done with all, he shall
do with some —with all indeed who despise, or refuse, or neglect this great
salvation. Yes; the trees shall burn that will not bear. Be assured, that God
loses nothing in the end. He will make his own use of every man, extracting
glory out of all—even from cumberers of the ground. If you are not good for
fruit, you shall serve for fuel. God is not willing that any should perish;
willing, most willing, rather that the sinner should live, he follows him to
the very gate of hell, crying, "turn ye, turn ye, why will ye die?" Yet be
warned in time; you cannot escape the alternative; this or that you must
choose—to honor God by your active or your passive obedience. God help you,
like Mary, to choose the better part! This day, I set before you "life and
death." Will you do his will in heaven, or suffer it in hell? How terrible the
words! "God hath made all things for himself, yea, even the wicked for the day
of wrath"

II. God sanctifies his name, and glorifies himself in our redemption.

It is easy to destroy—to destroy character, virtue, life, any thing. Falling
with murderous strokes on yon noble tree, the woodman's axe destroys in a few
hours, what it has required centuries to raise. Look at that beautiful gourd,
under whose green and grateful shade the prophet sits! Emblem of all happiness
that has its root in earth, it falls by means as weak as a worm's teeth; the
poisonous cast wind breathes on its leaves, the hot sun glares on them, and
they wither away. An ounce of lead, one inch of steel, a drop distilled from a
serpent's fang, even a grain of sand lodged in the passages of life—any one of
these is fatal. They turn this living, delicate, wondrous fabric into a heap
of undestinguishable dust—a handful of cold, black ashes. In the body man
destroys what God only can make, and in this more precious and immortal soul,
Satan destroys what God only can save. It needs but a devil to ruin the
spirit, but it needs a Divinity to redeem it. It needs but a villian to steal
virtue, it needs a divine power to restore the stolen jewel. How much easier
is it to kill a man than cure him? To be an executioner than a physician? To
sit robed on the bench of justice, and, assuming her fatal cap, to condemn a
poor wretch to die; to draw the bolt and launch a soul into another world; to
stand on the field of battle, and with leveled musket—by a motion of the
finger—to dash a fellow creature into eternity—these are easier than to bless
with one hour's sleep a bed of pain. It is easier to stop this pulse for ever,
than bring down its death gallop to the calm and measured march of health. And
as, in such cases, man's glory is more illustrated by curing than by killing,
so God's glory is more pre-eminent in our redemption than it had been in our
final and everlasting ruin.

Excepting of course the preacher's—for with Paul we magnify our office—of all
earthly employments it appears to me that the physician's is the noblest, and
that of all arts the healing art is the highest, and offers to genius and
benevolence their noblest field. Casting no disparagement on the brave and
gallant spirits who have guarded a country's shores—and some of whom falling
in the ranks of battle have offered noble examples of soldiers, true both to
an earthly crown and a Saviour's cross—yet we know that the aim of a warrior
is ingeniously to invent, and his business effectively to use, instruments of
destruction. His greatest achievements are wrought where deadly wounds are
suffered; his proudest triumphs are won where burning cities blaze over blood-
stained hearths, and, horrible to think of! where fields are fattened with
human gore; his laurels are watered with tears; his course, like the
hurricane, is marked by destruction; and it is his unhappy lot—perhaps the
unhappiest view of arms as a profession—that he cannot conquer foes but at the
sacrifice of friends. Now, in the eye of reason, and of a humanity that weeps
over a suffering world, his is surely the nobler vocation—and, if not more
honored—the more honorable calling who sheds blood, not to kill, but cure; who
wounds not that the wounded may die, but live; and whose genius ransacks earth
and ocean in search of means to save life, to remove deformity, to repair de
cay, to invigorate failing powers, and restore the rose of health to pallid
cheeks. His aim is not to inflict pain, but relieve it—not to destroy a
father, but—standing between him and death—to save his trembling wife from
widowhood, and these little children from an orphan's lot. And if, although
they be wove round no coronet, those are fairer and fresher laurels which are
won by saving than by slaying; if it is a nobler thing to rescue life than
destroy it, even when its destruction is an act of justice; then, on the same
principle, God most glorified himself when revealed in the flesh, and speaking
by his Son, he descended on a guilty world,—this his purpose—"I came not to
judge the world, but to save it,"—and this his character—"The Lord God,
merciful and gracious, long-suffering, and abundant in goodness and truth."
Apart, however, from this general consideration, I remark that the scheme of
redemption is eminently illustrative of the attributes of Jehovah. For
example—

I. His power is glorified in the work of salvation.

Its path is marked, and its pages are crowded with stupendous miracles. At one
time God stays the waves of the sea, at another he stops the wheels of the
sun, and, now reversing the machinery of heaven to confirm his word, he makes
the shadow travel backwards on the dial of Ahaz. Heaven descends to earth, and
its inhabitants walk the stage of a world's redemption. Here one angel speaks
out of a burning bush, and there another leaps on a burning altar, and, with
wing unscorched, ascends to heaven in its flame. Here a prophet, exempted from
the law of death, goes up to glory in a fiery chariot, and there another in
the belly of a whale goes down into the depths of ox. a.

In contradiction of the laws of nature, a body that should have gravitated to
the earth, floats, from the top of Olivet, upward into the ambient air. Across
a lake which frost never bound, and winter never paved with ice, walks a human
form, stepping on from billow to billow. The tenant of the grave becomes its
conqueror, and, laying by its cerements as night-clothes left in bed, he walks
forth on the dewy grass at the break of day; the prisoner has bound his jailer
and carried off the keys. Over Bethlehem's fields, angels with the light of
their wings turn night into day, and shepherds, who watch their flocks, are
regaled by voices of the skies—the song of heaven over a babe, who has a poor
woman for his mother, and a stable for his birth-place. Nor less remarkable,
the deaf are listening to the songs of the dumb, and the blind are gazing on
the dead alive; a dumb beast takes human speech and rebukes the hoary sage;
ravens leave their young to cater in the fields for man; and angels abandon
heaven to hold sentinel watch by the grave of One whom God forsook, his
country rejected, friends repudiated, and none but a thief confessed. And amid
these wonders and thousands more, acted before men's eyes on the stage of
redemption, and all so illustrative of the presence and power of God, the
greatest wonder

—the wonder of wonders—is He that works them;

the Son of a virgin! dust and Divinity! Creator and creature! "the mystery of
godliness, God manifest in the flesh." Truly, "This is the Lord's doing; it is
marvelous in our eyes."

But to glance at the change wrought in redemption on man himself, what amazing
power does it display!

What a glorious combination of benevolence and omnipotence! Punishment is
confessedly easier than reformation. Nothing is more easy than to rid society
of a criminal by the hand of an executioner; but to soften his stony heart, to
get him to fall in love with virtue, to make him an honest, honorable, kind,
and tender man, to guide his erring steps from the paths of crime—ah! that is
another thing. Hence, by men callous of heart, and deaf to the groans of
suffering humanity, the preference given to prisons over schools, to
punishment over prevention. Well, then, since it is confessedly easier—easier,
not better; easier, not in the end cheaper—to punish than reform, I say that
God's power is more illustriously displayed in pardoning one guilty—in
purifying one polluted man, than if the law had been left to take her sternest
course, and our entire family had been buried in the ruins of the fall. We
honor justice when she holds the balance even, and before a land that cries
for blood, brings out the murderer to hang him up in the face of the sun:
"whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed." Yet, like the
Romans, who decreed a crown to him that saved a citizen, we would hold him
worthy of highest honors who brings forth a criminal from his cell, so changed
as to be worthy, not only of being restored to the bosom of society, but of
holding a place in the senate, or some post of dignity beside the throne. That
were an achievement of brilliant renown—a victory over which humanity and
piety would shed tears of joy. To compare small things with great, something
like this—but unspeakably nobler and greater—God works in salvation. For
example—In John Bunyan, he calls the bold leader of village reprobates to
preach the gospel; a blaspheming tinker to become one of

England's famous confessors; and from the gloomy portals of Bedford jail, to
shed forth the luster of his sanctified and resplendent genius to the farther
limits of the world, and adown the whole course of time. From the deck of a
slave ship he summons John Newton to the pulpit; and by hands defiled with
Mammon's most nefarious traffic, he brings them that are bound out of
darkness, and smites adamantine fetters from the slaves of sin. In Paul, the
Apostle of the Gentiles, he converts his Son's bitterest enemy into his
warmest friend. To the man whom a trembling church held most in dread, she
comes to owe, under God, the weightiest obligations. In Paul she has her
boldest champion, her greatest logician, the most gallant of her defenders,
her grandest preacher, the prince of Apostles, the largest contributor to this
imperishable volume. How much better for these three stars to be shining in
heaven, than quenched in the blackness of darkness. Better for the good of
man—better for the glory of God. In them, and in all the sainted throng around
them, has not God more illustriously displayed his power, than if he had
crushed them by the thunders of his vengeance, and buried them in the depths
of hell? The power of Divinity culminates in grace. Oh, that we may become its
monuments, and be built up by the hands of an eternal Spirit, to the glory of
the cross! And why not? Look at these men! Think what they were; behold what
they are! and, addressing your prayers to him whose ear is never heavy that it
cannot hear, nor his hand shortened that it cannot save, be this your earnest,
your urgent cry, "Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord. Awake, as
in the ancient days in the generations of old."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 10: 10. The Wisdom and Holiness of God,
========================================================================

ILLUSTRATED BY SALVATION.

And I will sanctify my great name which ye have profaned.

Ezekiel xxxvi 23.

THE effect of the wind is visible, not the element itself. The clouds scud
across the sky, the trees swing their arms wildly in the air, aerial waves
chase each other in sport across the corn, and the boat, catching the gale in
her flowing sheet, goes dancing over the billows. So—although in a sense
infinitely higher—the Invisible is visible; and in his works we see a God,
who, seeing all, remains himself unseen. He is lost, not in darkness, but in
light; He is a sun that blinds the eye which is turned on its burning disc.
Angels themselves are unable to sustain his glory. They cover their faces with
their wings, and use them, as a man his hand, to screen their eyes from the
ineffable effulgence.

Suppose that we ascend the steps of creation, from matter in its crudest form
to nature's highest and most beautiful arrangements; from the lichen that
clothes a rock to the oak that stands rooted in its crevices; from the dull
coal to the same mineral crystalized in a flashing diamond; from a dew-drop,
lying in the cup of a flower, to the great ocean that lies in the hollow of
its Maker's hand; from a spark that expires in the moment of its birth, to the
sun which has risen and set with unabated splendor on the graves of a hundred
generations; from the instinct of the moth, that flutters round a taper, to
the intellect of an angel, who hovers before the throne; from a grain of sand
to this vast globe; from this world to a creation in extent, perhaps, as much
greater than our planet as it is greater than the grain of sand: As we climb
upwards, step by step, our views of God's glory enlarge. They rise with our
elevation, and expand with the widening prospect. At length we reach a
pinnacle where the whole heavens and earth lie spread out beneath our
feet;—and reach it to fall on our knees, and, catching the strain of adoring
seraphim, to exclaim, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord of Hosts, the whole earth
is full of his glory!"

It is not given to man to discover all the works and ways of God. No; with our
boasted discoveries and pride of science, perhaps these are as little known to
us as the unbroken forest to the microscopic insect, whose life is a day, and
whose world is a leaf—that little decaying leaf, the scene of its most distant
journeys, its country, its cradle, its grave. With what modesty, then, should
the highest intellect bow down and bear itself in presence of its Creator! Let
the patriarch, in language worthy of so high a theme, describe his majesty.
"He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon
nothing. He holdeth back the face of his throne, and spreadeth his cloud upon
it. He hath compassed the waters with bounds, until the day and night come to
an end. The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof; he
divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through
the proud; by his spirit he hath garnished the heavens; his hand hath formed
the crooked serpent; lo, these are parts of his ways; but how little a portion
is heard of him? but the thunder of his power who can understand?" Unbeliever
as he was, the great Laplace echoed these sentiments of Job, in this, one of
his last and not least memorable utterances—"It is the little that we know; it
is the great that remains unknown." And in the confession of his ignorance,
has not a Christian, and still greater philosopher, left us perhaps the finest
illustration of his wisdom? Newton's most brilliant discoveries reflect no
brighter luster on Newton's name than his well known comparison of himself to
a little child—a child who had gathered some few pebbles on the shores of a
vast and unexplored ocean.

Man, however—although comprehending but little of the ways of God—is
privileged to contemplate, and is in himself honored to illustrate, the
noblest of them all. He may be a beggar, but, if grace has made him a new
creature, there is more of God seen beneath his rags than in the sun itself;
nor does that brilliant sky studded thick with stars reveal the glorious
fullness of Divinity that shines in the cross of Calvary and the face of
Jesus. Bethlehem Ephratah was "little among the cities of Judah." Our world
also seems little among the suns and systems of creation—a dark, dim,
insignificant spot; yet the eyes of the universe have been turned on our
planet. It has all the importance spiritually, which physically was attributed
to it, when men supposed it to be the pivot and center of creation.

Man's world is the place in the great universe from which God and his
attributes may be best beheld and studied. It corresponds to that one spot in
a noble temple—lying right beneath the lofty dome—where the spectator,
commanding all the grandest features of the edifice, is instructed to look
around him, if he would see the monument of its architect. For where can we
see God as we behold him on the cross and in the gospel? I scale bartizan or
tower to embrace at one view the map of a mighty city. I climb the sides of
some lofty hill to survey the land that lies in beauty at its feet. And had I
the universe to range over, where should I go to obtain the fullest exhibition
of the Godhead? Would I soar on angel-wings to the heights of heaven to look
on its happiness, and listen to angel's hymns? Would I cleave the darkness,
and—sailing round the edge of the fiery gulf—listen to the wail, and weep over
the misery of the lost? No; turning away alike from these sunny heights and
doleful regions, I would remain in this world of ours; and, traveling to
Palestine, would stand beneath the dome of heaven with my feet on Calvary—on
that consecrated spot, where the cross of salvation rose, and the blood of a
Redeemer fell. Here I find the center of a spiritual universe. Here the hosts
of heaven descended to acquaint themselves with God in Christ; here, in a
completed arch, if I may so speak, locked fast by the key, all the properties
of Divinity meet; here, concentrated as in a burning focus, its varied
attributes blend and shine. We had begun to show how these attributes were
exhibited in the work of redemption; and having illustrated this in the power
of God, we now remark that—

I. The wisdom of God is glorified in redemption.

The British Museum possesses in the Portland Vase one of the finest remains of
ancient art; and it may be remembered how—some years ago—the world of taste
was shocked to hear that this precious relic had been shattered by a maniac's
hand. Without disparaging classic taste or this exquisite example of it, I
venture to say, that there is not a poor worm which we tread upon, nor a sere
leaf, that, like a ruined but reckless man, dances merrily in its fallen state
to the autumn winds, but has superior claims upon our study and admiration.
The child who plucks a lily or rose to pieces, or crushes the fragile form of
a fluttering insect, destroys a work which the highest art could not invent,
nor man's best skilled hand construct. And there was not a leaf quivered on
the trees which stood under the domes of the crystal palace, but eclipsed the
brightest glories of loom or chisel; it had no rival among the triumphs of
invention, which a world went there to see. Yes; in his humblest works, God
infinitely surpasses the highest efforts of created skill. "Wisdom is
justified of her children;" nor shall our God be left without a witness so
long as thunders peal and lightnings flash, and breakers beat upon the shore;
so long as a flower blooms in the field, a fin cleaves the deep, or a wing
cuts the air; so long as glowing suns blaze above, or dying glow-worms shine
below. That man gave the Atheist a crushing answer, who told him that the very
feather with which he penned the words, "There is no God," refuted the
audacious lie. In redemption this wisdom is pre-eminent. That work associates
such amazing wisdom with love, and power, and mercy, that the Saviour of man
is called "the wisdom of God." The Apostle selects the definite article, and
pronounces Christ to be "the power of God and the wisdom of God." Can any
doubt the propriety of the language, who reflects but for a mo ment on what a
hard task wisdom was set—what a difficult problem she was called to solve—when
man was to be saved? She had to forge a key that should unlock the grave; she
had to build a life-boat that should live in a sea of fire; she had to
construct a ladder long enough and strong enough to scale the skies; she was
called on to invent a plan whereby justice might be fully satisfied, and yet
the guilty saved. The highest intelligences had been at fault here—they might
well have asked, who is sufficient for these things? “He saw that there was no
man, and wondered that there was no intercessor.” In such an emergency—for
such a task—wisdom sufficient dwelt only with the Godhead—in him in whom “are
hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” “How shall man be just with
God,” is a mystery insolvable to all but Him in whom the most extraordinary
and apparently conflicting elements have met;—who has a double nature in a
single person—who has a divine Father and human mother, who is the only
begotten of God and first-born of a virgin womb—who, being in one sense dust,
in another sense Divinity, has a nature to satisfy and a nature to suffer.
Now, this wisdom of God in redemption is brought out in no aspect more
strikingly than in the harmony which it has established among what appeared
conflicting attributes. Here is nothing like the prophet’s graphic picture of
a city, where chariots jostle each other on the streets; nor like what happens
even on the spacious ocean, when in the gloom of night bark dashes into bark,
and foundering crews find in their ship a coffin, and in the deep sea their
grave. Harmony, indeed, sits enthroned amid the order of the silent heavens.
Flaming sun, and wandering comet, and rolling planets, move in their orbits
without accident or collision; yet in the harmony established among the
attributes of God, redemption illustrates a higher wisdom. There is one fact,
which brings this out very palpably. With the deepest interests at stake—in
circumstances eminently fitted to sharpen his ingenuity—man never approached,
nor so much as guessed at, the only method of salvation. We can show how near
preceding philosophers have been to the later discoveries of science. For many
centuries before their practical application, China was acquainted with the
properties both of gunpowder and the magnet; and have not we seen one
astronomer get upon the track of a star, and start a thought, by which
another—who pursued it to its ultimate conclusions— has been conducted to the
brilliant discovery? Every one acquainted with the history of science knows
that some of the greatest inventions of the nineteenth century were all but
anticipated at former and even remote periods; another step—but another
step—and the world had possessed them ages before,—and, centuries ago, man
would have steered his way across the sea by the compass needle—yoked the
spirits of fire and water to his triumphant wheels—and sent messages across
oceans and continents on the wings of lightning.

The mystery of godliness, however—God manifest in the flesh—a Daysman such as
the patriarch desired

—with the right hand of Divinity to lay on God, and the left hand of humanity
to lay on man, and thus the

“fellow” and friend of both, to reconcile them—in short, a man to suffer and a
God to satisfy, this was a thought which it never entered the mind of man to
conceive. We find nothing corresponding to this in the creeds and religions of
a heathen world. There is neither glimpse nor glimmering of it in these. Every
way but the right one was thought of. Here, the sinner seeks by his own works
to work out redemption here, by costly sacrifices, he attempts to appease
offended justice; here, in children—whom he offers on the altar, or passes
through the fire to Moloch—he gives the “fruit of his body for the sin of his
soul;” here again—doing less violence to nature—guilty of a crime less
contrary to reason and revolting to humanity, he courts death beneath the
wheels of Juggernaut, and sheds the blood of his body to expiate the guilt of
his soul. These were the sands on which man built his house. These were the
straws drowning men caught at. There never entered into other mind than God’s
a plan, or shadow of a plan, by which sweet Mercy might be espoused to stern
Justice, and God—in the luster of untarnished holiness and the majesty of a
vindicated law—might appear, as he appears in Jesus, the “just and yet the
justifier of the ungodly.” II. The holiness of God is glorified in redemption.

The eyes are moved by the heart, as the hands of a time-piece are turned by
the internal machinery. We turn them to what the heart loves, and from what
the heart loathes. The most emphatic expression of dislike is a silent one—the
closed eyes and averted head. Such an attitude as I can fancy Zedekiah’s to
have been, when they brought out his sons to slay them in their father’s
presence. And “to wound him that God had smitten,” to add a crushing weight to
his captivity and chains, to imprint a spectacle on his memory, that should
haunt him like a horrid specter, when sight was quenched and hope for ever
gone, his barbarous enemies put the sons to death before they put out the
father's eyes. When you have in fancy imagined yourself in that father's
place, imagining how, when you had implored them to begin with you, and save
you this horrid sight, and they had refused the favor of these burning irons,
how you would have closed your eyes, and turned shuddering away, you will be
able in some measure to appreciate the abhorrence with which a holy God
regards iniquity. Hear the prophet—"Thou art of purer eyes than to behold
evil, and canst not look on iniquity."

Nothing might appear more strongly to express the holiness of God than this
language, "Thou canst not look on iniquity;" and yet his hatred of sin is,
beyond doubt, much more fully expressed by the very way in which he saves the
sinner; more fully expressed in redemption, than if, executing relentless
vengeance, with an eye that knew no pity, and with a hand that would not
spare, he had made an utter end of sinners—such an end that, to borrow the
language of the prophet, "there was none that moved the wing, or opened the
mouth, or peeped." What man, what father, has not felt so on reading the story
of the Roman judge? Had that stern patriot condemned common criminals enough
to make the scaffolds of justice and the gutters of Rome run red with blood,
that wholesale slaughter had been a weak expression of his abhorrence of
crime, compared with the death of this solitary youth. When the culprit—his
own child, the infant he had carried in his arms, his once sweet and beautiful
boy, the child of his tenderest affections, who had wound himself round a
father's heart—rose and received the immolating sentence at a father's lips,
oh! that iron man offered the costliest sacrifice man ever made at the shrine
of justice, and earned for Roman virtue a proverbial fame.

But that is nothing to the spectacle which redemption offers. Over what are
these angels hovering? On what do they bend a gaze so fixed, so intent, so
full of awe and wonder? Sons of the morning! they had sung in their joy over a
new-born world. Attendants at the birth of earth! they now hail with intenser
wonder, and praise in loftier strains, the birth in a stable, the appearance
of a babe in Bethlehem. They had seen suns blazing into light; they had seen
world-start into being, and watched them as, receiving their first impulse
from the Creator's hand, they rolled away into the far realm of space; but
never had they followed world or sun with such interest as they follow the
weary steps of this Traveler from his humble cradle to the cross of Calvary.
What draws all their eyes to that sacred spot? what keeps them gazing or it
with looks of such solemn interest? The Son of God dies beneath his Father's
hand. Innocence bleeds for guilt; divine innocence for human guilt; a
spectacle at which, in the mysterious language of the Apocalypse, "There was
silence in heaven." On the night Daniel passed in the lion's den the Persian
would hear no music;—nor flute, nor harp, nor psaltery, nor dulcimer, woke the
echoes of his palace; the daughters of music were all brought low. God's Son
is dying on the tree. I can fancy that during these dread hours there was no
music in heaven—there was an awful pause; silent every harp, hushed the voice
of song; and when all is over, and the cry, "It is finished," has been heard,
and the last quiver has passed from Jesus' lips, I can fancy how these angels
broke the awful silence, and, turning round to the throne, with new, deeper,
holier reverence, exclaimed, "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty."

This holiness, so glorified in redemption, appears still more plainly, when we
consider how the eyes of Love both multiply and magnify beauties; and,
overlooking all defects, reconcile us even to deformity. How beautifully,
tenderly, touchingly, affection clings to an idiot child! and with what
ingenuity does Love palliate in our children faults which are tolerable and
tolerated in no one else. She flings a broad mantle over the shame of child
and parent, brother, sister, and friend. See how Eli—a too indulgent
parent—tolerates crimes in his sons, which it is only doing this holy man
justice to believe, he would have died rather than have himself committed.
Now, in our judgment, the holiness of God shines very conspicuously in this,
that, even when sin was associated with his beloved Son, it appeared none the
less vile in his eyes; perhaps viler, fouler, still more loathsome,—just as
the churchyard mould, flung by the sexton from a grave upon winter's fresh
fallen snow, looks the blacker for the contrast, Love would have spared the
pains of a beloved Son, but it is met and mastered by God's hatred of sin. He
looks on our sins as laid on Christ, and still he hates them with a perfect
hatred, turning on him, that bare them on his own body on the tree, an
unmitigated vengeance. To reach sin—to kill sin—he passes the sword through
the bosom of his well-beloved Son; and if he did not spare even his own Son
when he took our sins upon him, oh! what holiness in God! Whom will he spare?
What will he spare? What a startling alarum is rung from Calvary in the ears
of a drowsy world! With your eye on the cross, within sight of its agonies,
within sound of its groans, I ask the question, and I wait for an answer, If
he did not spare his own Son, how shall he spare the impenitent and
unbelieving? "If they do these things in a green tree, what shall be done in
the dry?"

III. The justice of God is glorified in redemption.

The prophet is perplexed. He strains his eye to penetrate a mystery. He says
to God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil;" but then, as one unable
to reconcile the character of God with the dealings of his providence, he
asks, "Wherefore lookest thou upon them that deal treacherously, and holdest
thy tongue when the wicked devoureth the man that is more righteous than he?"
Now, although—as that question implies—clouds and darkness are round about
Jehovah's throne, whatever shadow present events may appear to cast upon his
justice, and to whatever trials, as in the wrongs of a Joseph or David, faith
may be put, in believing that there is a just God upon earth, his justice is
as conspicuous in redemption as the cross which illustrated it. Sinners,
indeed, are pardoned, but then, their sins are punished; the guilty are
acquitted, but then, their guilt is condemned; the sinner lives, but then, the
surety dies; the debtor is discharged, not, however, till the debt is paid.
Dying, "the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God," Jesus
satisfies for us; and, as we have seen a discharged account pierced by a nail,
and hung to gather cobwebs on the dusty wall, he who paid our debt, nor left
us one farthing to pay, has taken the i nandwriting that was against us and
nailed it to his cross.

And now, I say, that justice is not only satisfied, but more than satisfied.
She is better pleased to have her debtors free in heaven, than locked up in
hell. It must be so. Is it better for the creditor to hold the money in his
purse than the man that owed it in a prison? What man of common humanity or
common sense does not esteem himself happier to have the debt paid, than the
miserable debtor rotting in jail? Observe, I pray you, that in regard to the
lost, and her claims upon them, justice, in a sense, is never satisfied. The
pains of hell do not, can not exhaust the penalty. Dreadful sentence!
Banishment for life, for life eternal, from the blissful presence of God.
Mysterious debt! A debt ever paying, yet never paid. No wonder, in one sense,
that Jesus died to save. The calamity is so incalculably tremendous, that the
occasion was worthy of the interposition of God, and the salvation is most
worthy of our grateful and instant acceptance. Embrace it; for no length of
suffering discharges this debt—a truth established by the fact that the debtor
is never discharged. Justice is never satisfied; and it is plain therefore, to
say nothing of his mercy, that God's justice is more illustriously glorified,
and more fully satisfied through the satisfaction rendered by our substitute,
than it could have been by our everlasting sufferings. Nor is that all. It is
a mean and vulgar error to suppose that the only office of justice is to
punish. She has higher and more pleasing functions. Sternly, indeed, she
stands by the gallows tree; and, when she has drawn the bolt and launched her
victim into eternity, she leaves the scene, sorrowing it may be, yet
satisfied. It is a melancholy satisfaction. From that revolting spectacle,
turn to this hall of assembled nobles. Amid the brilliant, flashing, gorgeous,
magnificence of the scene, all eyes are fixed on one man. He comes red with
the blood of a hundred battles, and crowned with the trophies of a hundred
victories; he comes at the summons of a sovereign whose crown he has saved; he
comes to receive the thanks of a country, grateful for his defence of its
shores. Justice presides in that assembly. She was satisfied on the scaffold,
here she is more than satisfied; pleasure and triumph light up her eye, as,
with lavish hand, she dispenses titles and rewards, and on a head, so often
covered by the God of battles, she places a laurel crown.

In fact, it is her noblest function to reward merit, to crown the brows of
virtue or of valor, and send suspected innocence back to the world amid the
plaudits, and flushed with the triumph of an honorable acquittal. Justice did
a stern but righteous act, when she hung up Haman in the face of the sun, and
before the eyes of the city—a warning to all tyrants, and a terror to all
sycophants; yet it was a loftier and a happier exercise of her functions to
call the Jew from obscurity, to marshal him along the crowded streets with a
crest-fallen enemy walking at his stirrup, and royal heralds going before to
blow his fame, and ever and anon to cry, "Thus shall it be done to the man
whom the king delighteth to honor." Even so, shall the justice of God be
glorified when heads, now lying in the grave, are crowned with honor.
Believer! lift up thy drooping head. Thou shalt lift it up in glory from the
dust. "He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins. In consideration of a
Redeemer's righteousness, God shall crown thee, in the righteousness that is
on thee, reward the work of his Son; and in the righteousness that is in thee,
approve the work of his Spirit. The august assembly of the skies shall be a
spectacle of glorified justice. In the Head with its members all exalted, the
Captain and every soldier crowned, Jesus shall receive the full payment of His
wages, and justice shall reward a Saviour in the saved. "He shall see of the
travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied."

T*

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  CHAPTER 11: 11. The Merry of God illustrated in Salvation
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And I will sanctify my great name, which ye have profaned.

Ezekiel xxxvi. 23

GRADUAL development appears to be the law of nature, or, to speak more
correctly, the method of the divine government. The day does not rush into
light, nor blaze upon a dazzled world with the flash of an explosion; but the
sky brightens over-head, and the various features of the landscape grow more
and more distinct below, as the first streaks of morning are developing into a
perfect day. Nature never moves abruptly—by starts and sudden impulses;—the
day bursts not into light, neither do the birds into song, nor buds into leaf,
nor flowers into full-blown beauty. From her grave she comes forth at the
voice of spring, but not all of a sudden, like the sepulchred Lazarus, at the
call of Jesus. The season advances with a steady march—by gradual and graceful
steps From the first notes that break the long winter silence, till groves are
ringing with songs; from the first bud which looks out on departing storms,
till woods are robed in their varied foliage; from the first sweet
flower—welcome harbinger of spring—that hangs its white bell beside the
lingering snow, till gardens and meadows bloom, and earth offers incense to
her God from a thousand censers; from summer's first ripe fruit, till autumn
sheaves fall to the reaper's song, and

GOD GLORIFIED IN REDEMPTION tends are bare, and stackyards are full, and every
farm keeps "harvest home"—all is progressive.

Man himself presents no exception to this law. The cradle is shorter than the
coffin; infancy outshoots its dress; the stammering tongue grows eloquent; the
tottering foot follows the chase, or stands balanced on the rocking mast; and
those feeble arms, which now clasp a mother's neck, shall ere long battle with
difficulties, subdue the rugged soil, or lay groaning forests low.

Our minds also grow with our bodies. They open like a flower-bud; memory,
fancy, reason, reflection, lie folded up in an infant's soul like the leaves
of an unblown rose. Bathed by night in dews, and by day with light, these open
out to show their colors and shed their fragrance; so those expand under the
tender influences of a mother's culture, and the dawning light of truth.

The law that reigns paramount in the worlds of matter and mind—universal as
that of gravitation—extends itself into the spiritual kingdom. The God of
nature is the God of grace, and as he acts outside the church, he acts within
it. In the first place, the gospel system itself was gradually developed. The
Bible was once a very little book. It grew by degrees to its present size;
and, as in a house, stone is laid on stone, and story built upon story, so
book was added to book—history to history—prophecy to prophecy—gospel to
gospel—and one epistle to another, till the hands of John laid on the
copestone, and, standing on the pinnacle of this sacred edifice, he pronounced
God's wide and withering curse on all who should impair its integrity. The
temple, in which "the Lord of the temple" appeared, took forty years to
complete, but the written word was a work of two thousand, and the revealed
word of not less than twice two thousand years. It was a long way between
Paradise and Patmos; and a protracted dawn from the first streak of morning
that rose on the Fall, till the sun introduced the perfect day. A period of at
least four thousand years elapsed between the curse of Eden and the cross of
Calvary.

In the second place, while the truth was thus slowly developed and let in by
degrees on a benighted world, the effect of that truth on a benighted soul is
also gradual. No man starts up into a finished Christian. The very best come
from their graves, like Lazarus, "clothed in grave clothes"—not like Jesus,
who left his death dress behind him; and in our remaining corruptions, all,
alas! carry some of these cerements about with them, nor drop them but at the
door of heaven. The Christian is an example of gradual development. When our
growth is quickest, how slow it is! As, from some fresh stain we wash our
hands in the blood of Jesus; as, from the field of daily conflict we retire at
evening to seek the healing of the balm of Gilead; as, with David, we eye some
eminence from which we have fallen, or, looking back on some former period,
measure the little progress we have made—how often are we constrained to ask
in disappointment, "When shall I be holy?" How often are we constrained to cry
in prayer, "How long, O Lord, how long?" At times it looks as if the dawn
would never brighten into day. We almost fear that our fate shall have its
emblem in some unhappy flower, which—withered by frost, or the home of a
worm—never blows at all; but dies like an unborn infant, whose coffin is a
mother's womb. This shall not happen with any child of grace. God will perform
all things for his people, and perfect what concerneth them. Still, although
He who has begun a good work in them will carry it on to the day of the Lord
Jesus, all the figures of Scripture indicate a gradual progress. The believer
is a babe who grows "to the stature of a perfect man in Christ," and "the path
of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the
perfect day."

These laws of development have their limit in creation. They affect not God.
He has made no progress. There was room for none. His maturity, eternally as
well as divinely perfect, knows neither growth nor age. His wisdom, knowledge,
goodness, love, justice, truth, and mercy, were always—millions of ages
ago—were what they are now. Knowing no growth, he can suffer no decay. It is
the sun which rises that sets; but it is the peculiar attribute of Divinity to
be "the same yesterday, to day, and for ever." His being is as an infinite
ocean, that holds within its bosom all that lives and is, that has neither
shore nor bottom, beginning nor end, ebb nor flow, calm nor tempest; which no
changes alter, nor tributaries supply; and which, affected neither by tide nor
time, has been, is, and ever shall be full. How adorable is God! He is great,
and greatly to be feared. The attributes of God, however, have been gradually
revealed to the knowledge of his intelligent creatures, and their light has
risen on the universe like daybreak upon our planet. For example, when he
created angels, suns, and worlds, God, in the first instance, displayed his
being, wisdom, power, holiness, and goodness. Then came the first Fall. Its
scene was laid in heaven, where a part of the angelic host committed sin; and
this event called forth the exhibition of another attribute, or—to speak with
more propriety—a new display of justice. Punitive justice was now revealed.
She unsheathed her glittering sword, and it fell in vengeance on the workers
of iniquity and sheared their glory from angel's heads.

Time rolled on; how long we know not. At length our world was created—or
rather brought into its present form—and became the scene of our parents'
probation. Sin came; death trod on the heels of sin; for, as the Apostle
tells, "Sin entered into the world, and death by sin, and so death passed upon
all men, for that all have sinned." Now the culprits stand trembling before
their Maker, nor is there an angel who looks on, but expects to see the sword
once more unsheathed, and hear the thunders, that shook thrones and
principalities in heaven, roll, and peal, and crash among the hills of earth.
At this awful moment—at that eventful crisis—how unexpected the voice which
came from the most excellent majesty—"Deliver from going down to the pit; I
have found a ransom." To the surprise of angels, from out the light that vails
the throne, a beautiful form steps forth, and Mercy, arresting the uplifted
arm, turns its weapon from man on her own bared, spotless, loving bosom. In
the Son of God about to become incarnate, she says—"Lo! I come to do thy will,
O God." Ready both to satisfy and suffer for them, Jesus interposes for his
elect as he did for his disciples, when, stepping in between them and the
armed band, he said—"I am he; let these go their way." This brings us now to
remark—

I. The mercy of God is glorified in redemption.

To do justice to God, to the Saviour, and to our subject, we must be careful
not to confound pity with mercy. This is no example of a distinction without a
difference. Some time ago, upon a cold winter day, we passed the door of a
humble abode. A venerable old woman stood in the open door-way, with a very
wretched, ragged child before her. With one hand she offered a piece of
bread—sharing her food with a poverty sorer than her own—while the other held
up a bowl of milk to the lips of the sad, shivering, emaciated creature; and
had you seen the benevolence that beamed in her aged face as she gazed on the
orphan partaking of her bounty, you would have gone and done likewise—won over
to humanity by such a lovely and living picture of the truth that charity is
twice blessed—blest in those that give, and blest in those that get. Now,
however beautiful that scene was to the eye of humanity, it was not a display
of mercy. Not mercy but pity moved that kind hand and gentle breast; and there
the aged matron stood, an example of what is not uncommon among the poor—lofty
charity in lowly life. Take another example:—A man builds an asylum for the
destitute—a harbor of refuge for the wrecks of fortune. This may be an
honorable monument to his memory—it may be, perhaps, but a monument of his
vanity; but, whether it be erected for the benefit of the poor, or to gratify
the craving for posthumous fame, it is not a temple of mercy. The wandering
mendicant, into whose hand you drop your money, as he begs his way on to a
grave, where, with his head sheltered beneath the sod, he shall feel neither
cold nor hunger, appeals to your compassion, not to your mercy. He has done
you no wrong—he has not stolen your goods, nor traduced your character, nor
inflicted injury on your person, nor in any way whatever disturbed your peace;
and so it is but pity that is expressed in the charity which shares her bread
with the hungry, and spares a corner of an ample cloak to cover the nakedness
of the poor.

Mercy is a higher attribute—an act of mercy is a far nobler achievement. She
sits enthroned among the divine Graces. On her heavenly wings man rises to his
loftiest elevation, and makes his nearest approach and similitude to God. This
distinction between compassion and mercy is clearly enunciated in the sacred
Scriptures. We are told that "like as a father pitieth his children, so the
Lord pitieth them that fear him;" but the Lord is merciful to them that fear
him not. Not only did he so love the world as to give up his Son to die for
it, but he commended his love to us, in that, while we were yet sinners,
Christ died for us. We pity simple suffering; but let pity and love be
extended to guilty suffering, and you have now the very element of mercy.
Mercy is the forgiveness of an injury; mercy is the pardon of a sinner.
Smiling when justice frowns, and extending her favors out and beyond those who
are merely without merit, she bestows them on those who are full of demerit.

Leaving the priest and Levite to walk on in their cold and heartless
indifference, look at this good Samaritan, as, bending over a bleeding form,
he binds the wounds of a man whom robbers have assaulted, and whom these
hypocrites have left to die. There, pity kneels beside suffering humanity,
bears a brother's burden, and is afflicted in all his afflictions. Now from
that beautiful spectacle turn to Calvary and the cross on which Jesus dies.
Here,—herself wounded, and bleeding,—Mercy hangs over a wicked world, and with
her tears sheds blessings on the head of murderers—"Father, forgive them; they
know not what they do." In fine, the objects of pity are sufferers who have
been unfortunate; the objects of mercy are sufferers who have been guilty. And
now understanding mercy to be the forgiveness of a wrong, the pardon of a
sinner, the kindness of the injured to the injurer, where, as in
redemption—where, indeed, but in redemption—is this crowning attribute of the
God-head to be seen? save for redemption, this fairest jewel in the crown of
heaven had been concealed—unknown as a pearl still shelled in depths of ocean,
or any diamond that still lies bedded in the dark mines of earth.

Guilty man embraced within her arms, how visible is mercy now! Where can we
turn our eyes but she meets them? Pointing to the pit of perdition, do you
say, look there! Well, we look there. We see mercy there: not mercy enjoyed,
but mercy rejected. Turning with horror from the sight, do we look up? In
every saint, robed in righteousness and reigning in glory, we behold a
monument of mercy, and exclaim with David, "Thy mercy, O Lord, is in the
heavens." And as to this guilty world, are not the arms of mercy around it?
They preserve it and sustain it. Every sinner is a monument of sparing, and
every believer is a monument of saving mercy. God's people in their creeds,
catechisms, and confessions may differ in their mode of expressing some points
of faith, but in this confession all concur—these words each and all
adopt—"Great is thy mercy toward me, thou hast delivered my soul from the
lowest hell." There is mercy above the ground, aye, and beneath it. There is
mercy in the very grave. You may see her form, and hear her sweetly singing on
a believer's tomb. To that quiet harbor God has brought many a dear one before
the storm burst. There, earth, like a gentle mother, has wrapped her mantle
round a tender child; and, when the tempest was beating upon their own heads,
have not many been thankful that some, whom they loved, were now beyond its
reach—sleeping quietly in the peaceful grave. Yes! and to believers themselves
there is the kindest mercy in the grave. How can they doubt it? Were I the
tenant of an old, crumbling cottage, through whose chinks and rents the cold
rain was dripping, and frosty winds blew, it were, I think, a kindness to pull
down this crazy building and build me a palace in its room. Quarrel not with
death's rude hand. It pulls to pieces this frail tabernacle, that, on the day
when mortal shall assume immortality, mercy may raise for me from its wreck,
"a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens."

In short, on every thing I read the words, "The earth, O Lord, is full of thy
mercy." Mercies arrive on the wings of every hour; mercies supply our table;
mercies flow in life's brimming cup. They fall in every shower, and shine in
every sunbeam. They lie as thick around man's tent, as desert manna in the
days of old. Here, mercy runs to meet the returning prodigal, and opens her
arms to fold him to her bosom. Here, she pleads with sinners, and pronounces
pardon over the chief of them. Here, she weeps with sufferers, and dries the
tear upon sorrow's cheek. And here, eyeing the storm, she launches her life-
boat through foaming breakers, and pulls for the wreck where souls are
perishing. It is her blessed hand which rings the Sabbath bell, and her voice
which, on savage shores or from Christian pulpits, proclaims a Saviour for the
lost. None she despises; she despairs of none; and, not to be scared away by
foulest sin, she stands by its guilty bed, and, bending down to death's dull
ear—when the twelfth hour is just about to strike—she looks into the glassy
eye and cries, Believe, O believe, only believe, "whosoever believeth in the
Lord Jesus shall not perish, but have everlasting life."

II. In redemption, God is glorified in the complete discomfiture of all his
and our enemies.

He is glorified by Satan's defeat.

God made man in his own image, and put him on probation. But was he, could he,
be indifferent to the issue? Assuredly not; for, although he does not will the
death of guilt, he must, in a sense, have willed the triumph of innocence.
What father ever saw his son leave for the field of battle, and did not follow
him with wishes for his success? When the Spartan widow laced on the armor of
her boy, and, kissing his cheek, sent him away to the fight, in handing him
his father's shield, she bade him return with it or on it—dead, or a
conqueror—in honorable life or not less honorable death. And I cannot but
believe that the life and honor of our first parents were as dear to
God—dearer, dearer far, than ever son's to mother; for, such was his love,
that, even in our guilt he commended his love to us by giving up his Son to
die for us.

Well; the hour of conflict came, and with it God's enemy and man's—the
Adversary, the Devil, the Evil

One, Satan, Prince of Darkness, the Power and Potentate of Hell. A poor
drowning man will seize the swimmer's limb, clasp his arms, nor relax the
death-grasp, till, after a brief struggle, they go down together. Thus it has
often happened, most pitifully and miserably, that the perishing has, in his
unwise attempts to save himself, been the death of a generous friend. But
there is in sin a deep and damnable malignity, which, without any hope of
personal advantage, prompts the sinner to seize all within his grasp. That he
may drag others down into the same perdition with himself, he lays siege to
honesty to conquer it, to virtue to corrupt it; and hence the danger of
ungodly associates;—"A companion of fools shall be destroyed." It was this
evil principle which we see every day at work, that carried havoc into Eden;
yet not this alone. Besides the inherent hatred that sin bears to holiness,
Satan was smarting under his wounds, and, with a fire as unquenchable as that
of his own hell, he burned to be avenged. Was there not a vacant throne in
heaven? Had it not once been his? and still been his, but that God had hurled
him into perdition? God was his enemy, and he was God's; he would be revenged;
he would defeat his purposes; cross, thwart, disappoint him; and wreak his
vengeance on God in the only way within a creature's reach—he would wound a
father's heart through the sides of his children.

Placed on probation, man looked, lusted, ate, sinned, and fell. Satan
triumphed. With the ruins of Eden around him, he stood above the grave of
human hopes, and, as it seemed also, of heaven's intentions. He contemplated
with proud satisfaction the triumph of his malignant subtilty. As he wrung the
first tears from human eyes, I can fancy how he taunted his weeping victims
with the question—"Where is now thy God?" Pharaoh, ere God had done with him,
and he with God, got his question answered—"Who is the Lord, that I should
obey his voice?" And the Devil got his answered, too. When the fullness of
time has come, in a son of that woman Satan meets her God, to find in him not
a match only, but a Master.

When his vessel has broken in the storm, and Ajax stands unsheltered on a rock
in mid-ocean, he is represented as in anger with the gods, shaking his
clenched hand at heaven. In Eden, for a time at least, Satan stands in a
different and prouder position; he has conquered; he has won the victory; who
shall pluck it from his grasp? He tramples on earth, and laughs at heaven.
Although on a grander scale, and involving much grander issues, the scene
reminds us of the day when—with the Philistines clustered on this mountain,
and Israel on that—there stalked out into the narrow valley, Goliath, the
pride of Gath, a moving tower, terrible to look on, in height six cubits and a
span. High above his dancing plume, the giant shakes a spear, shafted like a
weaver's beam, and thunders up this challenge to the trembling host—"Am not I
a Philistine? I defy the armies of Israel this day. Give me a man that we may
fight together."

So Satan stood, in bold defiance and unchallenged possession of the field; and
now God might have left man to reap the full harvest of his sin and folly—to
drink the cup which his own hands had filled. In the words of Scripture, He
had entered into "a covenant with death;" he had been at an "agreement with
hell;"—let him reap as he has sowed. But what then?

Why, Satan then would at least have seemed to have the advantage—would have
seemed to be a match for God; and have boasted ability and skill enough, by
his own wiles, to thwart the purposes of eternal wisdom. In that event, all
men should have perished; but in that event, would Jehovah's power have stood
out as unchallengeable, or his glory as clear, as at this day? No. God had
another end in view in permitting this temporary triumph. Why does he permit
it?

Observe yon skillful wrestler! He embraces his antagonist, and, with athletic
power, lifting him from the ground, he holds him aloft; ah! but he raises, to
dash him back on the earth with a more crushing fall. So fared it with the
Evil One. God permits him to scale the walls, to carry the citadel by assault,
and to plant for a time his defiant standard on the battlements of this world.
He does this, that from his proud eminence he may hurl him into a deeper hell;
and, angels rejoicing in man's salvation, and devils discomfited in their
leader's defeat—both friends and foes—might be constrained to say, "Hast thou
an arm like God, or canst thou thunder with a voice like his?" From this,
believer! when providences are of darkest, and thou canst not trace the
footsteps of thy God, learn to place unquestioning confidence in his ways and
wisdom.

While God is glorified by Satan's defeat, he is glorified also by the very
time and manner of it.

You ask, why did four thousand years elapse between the promise and the
promised One? I may reply, by asking you, why does this accomplished racer,
who stands abreast of his competitor, not start along with him? Why, lingering
by the starting post, does he give his opponent a long advantage? and then,
springing forward on the feet of the wind, approach him, pass him, leave him
lagging far behind? Why, but to prove more plainly his own superiority, and
embitter the bitterness of an antagonist's defeat. Or, we may ask you, why,
when the news of his friend's illness was carried to Galilee, did our Lord
tarry there, nor, hurrying through Samaria, hasten to the relief of Lazarus?
He does not even arrive just when the breath has left, and ere the form of him
he loved is yet stiff and cold in death. He leaves Lazarus to die. He leaves
Lazarus to be buried. He leaves Lazarus to lie four days rotting in the grave.
Why this strange delay? why, but that at the door of the dead man's tomb he
might stand forth, not only the conqueror of death, but Lord also of the
grave.

On the alarm of war, the news fly through the land, beacon fires are blazing
on every hill and headland, and before one hostile foot has touched the soil,
hurrying from shepherd's hut and peasant's cottage, lonely glens and crowded
cities, freemen line the beach to fight a country's enemies on a country's
shores. In the great battle of redemption there is no such haste. Not for four
days, nor even four years, but for the long period of four thousand years,
Satan is left in all but undisputed possession of his conquest. God leaves him
ample time to entrench himself; to found, to strengthen, to establish, to
extend his kingdom. And why? but that a Redeemer's power might be the more
apparent in its ignominious and total overthrow. And in this, Christ glorified
himself; just as we should do, were we to leave the sapling in possession of
the soil until it grew into a tree, and then, bending on it more than a
giant's strength, should lay its head, and pride, and glory, in the dust. As a
Redeemer, Jesus

Christ was to show himself to be the "Power" as well as the "Wisdom" of God.
This is the manner of redemption. And may I not take occasion from it to tell
the oldest, hardest, most hoary sinner, to hope, and turn to God? He has left
you long; He has left you till now; He has left you amid the infirmities of
years to grow stronger in sin. Despair not! nor think that he has shut the
door of mercy! What if he has left you so long, just to show how he can save
at the very uttermost,—call at the eleventh hour,—and by the breath of his
Spirit cause "dry bones" to live.

God is not only glorified in Satan's defeat, and also in the time and manner
of it, but pre-eminently glorified in the instrument of it.

He was no veteran, the giant's match in years, experience, stature, or
strength, who defeated Goliath. When the battle between the two nations was
fought by their respective champions, fire flew not from opposing swords, nor
were spears shivered on opposing shields; the valley shook not beneath the
tread and collision of two giants; nor did victory hang in the balance, and
anxious partisans endure the agony of suspense on confronting mountains, while
the air resounded with the clash of arms, and blood gushed from gaping wounds.
Never to appearance were there two men more unequally matched. When the lines
of Israel opened, and a youth, a beardless lad, clad in a shepherd's dress,
with no weapon but a sling, and no confidence but God in heaven, stepped forth
to measure his strength with the giant, loud laughed the Philistine, and wit
ran merrily through his countrymen's ranks. Ere one brief hour had run its
course, they wept that laughed, and they laughed that wept. He who guides the
sun in his path in heaven, guided the stone as, winged with death, and winged
by prayer, it shot from the whirling sling. It sung from the shepherd's hand;
sank into the giant's brow; he reels, he staggers—and his armor making a
mighty clash—he measures his long length upon the ground. Bounding like a
young lion, David leaps upon his prey, and, leaving a headless carcass to feed
the vultures, he returns to the ranks of shouting countrymen—in this hand, the
giant's sword, in that other, his gory head. Old men bless the lad, and young
men envy him, and happy mothers and laughing maidens sing his fame; and ere
that day's sun has set, there is music, and dancing, and feasting in the homes
of Israel.

That bright day was but the type of a brighter still, on which God glorified
himself, mortified and scattered his enemies, and restored a fallen house to
more than its ancient honors. Man falls; the world is lost; Satan triumphs.
How does God pluck the victory from his hands? He might have discharged
thunderbolts on his head; he might have overwhelmed this enemy by sending down
upon him legions of embattled angels. It is not so. He meets him, matches him,
masters him by a solitary Man. Beneath the heel of a Man of sorrows he crushes
the serpent's head. A Son of man is the Saviour of man; a brother rises up in
our house to redeem his brethren; a Conqueror appears in the conquered family.
Out of the mouth of a Suckling—by One nursed on a woman's bosom, and carried
in a woman's arms—he ordaineth strength. Never was the tide of battle so
strangely, so completely, so triumphantly turned. The Babe of a cradle wears
the crown of the universe; and by One who died, God destroys "death, and him
that had the power of death, that is, the devil."

"Give thanks then unto the Lord, for he is good; for his mercy endureth for
ever. Oh give thanks unto the God of Gods; for his mercy endureth for ever. Oh
give thanks unto the Lord of Lords; for his mercy endureth for ever; who
remembered us in our low estate, and hath redeemed us from our enemies. Oh
give thanks unto the God of heaven, for his mercy endureth for ever."

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  CHAPTER 12: 12. The Benefits flowing from Redemption
========================================================================

I will take you from among the heathen, and gather you out of all countries,
and bring you into your own land.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 24

MEN'S chief end is to glorify God; and God's chief end is to glorify himself.
While that is an end worthy of the great Creator, it goes greatly to enlarge
our interest in his works, and enhance their value in our eyes. That end gives
loftiness to the humblest of them. When I know that for his own glory he
paints each flower, gives the fish its silver scales, and sends forth the
beetle armed in mail of gold, his creatures rise in my esteem. It may look a
sickly fancy, but one almost feels reluctant to destroy the humblest flower or
insect, lest we should silence one of the ten thousand voices which form the
choir of nature, and swell the praises of nature's God. Is there a child whose
heart does not warm towards him who praises an earthly father, or speaks
honorably of the good man's memory? Now, the very same feeling inclines a
child of God to love all the works that do his Father honor; and of all men he
cannot fail to enjoy the most exquisite pleasure in the beauties of nature,
who carries to her fields a pious spirit, and sees his Father mirrored in them
all; hears his praise sung in the voices of groves, or pealed in the roar of
thunder. Such was the spirit of one—a venerable patriarch—who shed on a very
humble station the luster of bril liant graces. When the storm sent others in
haste to their homes, he was wont to leave his own, and to stand with upturned
face, raised eye, and with his gray head uncovered, to watch the flash, and
listen to the music of the roaring thunder. How fine his reply to those who
expressed their wonder at his aspect and attitude—"It's my Father's voice, and
I like well to hear it." What a sublime example of the perfect love that
casteth out fear! "Happy is that people that is in such a case, yea happy is
that people whose God is the Lord."

Now, as it ennobles nature—so that the sun shines more bright, and the flowers
look more beautiful, and there is a grander majesty in the rolling sea—when we
know that God does all things for his own glory, it greatly enhances the
preciousness of salvation to know, that in the kingdom of grace also he has
the same end in view. If God saves—not because we deserve mercy—but that his
own great mercy may be illustrated in saving, and then there is hope for
me—Yes, although thou wert an adulterer, a thief, a murderer, the vile wretch
who spit in Jesus' face, the ruffian who forced the thorny crown deep into his
bleeding brow, although thou wert that very soldier who buried the lance in
Jesus' side, and just returning from Calvary, with the blood of Christ's heart
red on the spear head, I would stop thee in thy way to say, there is hope for
thee. Oh, this has inspired with hope souls which had otherwise despaired, and
gilded the edges of guilt's darkest cloud. In circumstances where we would
have been dumb—opening not the mouth—when called to the dying bed of vilest,
lowest sin, it has unsealed our lips, and lent wings to prayer. Of the
preacher, whose walk lies among the most wretched, hopeless, and abandoned,
this truth says, since God saves for his own glory, haste, "loose him, and let
him go"—go to offer Christ

(as I do to-day) to the chief of sinners; like a sunbeam passing undefiled
through the foulest atmosphere, go in thy heavenly purity where the basest of
thy race is perishing, nor shrink from this loathsome guilt, but with Jesus'
pity and Jesus' tears lift up her dying head, and in the mercy of God in

Christ, let her drink this wine of love out of its cup of gold. If the worse a
patient is, if the fiercer his fever burns, if the deeper his wound has
penetrated, so much the greater is the glory of the physician who cures him;
then the worse a sinner is, the greater Christ's glory when he saves him. But
for this, that God in every case saves men, not out of regard to their merit,
but his own glory, what could sustain the faith of him who, in preaching the
gospel to unconverted men, has to run his horses on a rock, and ploughs there
with oxen; to sow the seed of God's blessed word under the most unfavorable
circumstances; to write sermons for dead men, and preach them to dry bones.
Nothing but faith in this could carry us to the top of Carmel, not seven, but
seventy times seven, to look out over the sea of God's mercy for the cloud of
blessing, and wait till it rise, and spread over the heavens, and discharge
its treasures on a barren land. "Seeing we have this ministry we faint not."

Having already attempted to show how God glorifies himself in redemption, we
shall now address ourselves to the subject-matter of the text, where we are
taught that redemption brings good to man as well as glory to God. And it
appears from the text—

I In carrying out the work of redemption, God will call his people out of the
world. "I will take you from among the heathen."

By nature his people are no better than other people. They were no better till
grace made them so. The Apostle settles the point by the question, "Who maketh
thee to differ from another?" and the confession, "By the grace of God I am
what I am." And our Lord teaches the same doctrine in these brief but
expressive parables—"Two women are grinding at the mill; one is taken, and
another left." "Two men are in one field; the one is taken, and the other
left." "Two men are in one bed; one is taken, and another left." Christ states
the truth, and how often does Providence supply the commentary? Here are two
children; they were born of one mother; nestled in one bosom; rocked in one
cradle; baptized in one font; they were reared under the same roof; grew up
under the same training; sat under the same ministry; and in death not
divided, they are sleeping together in the same grave. But the one is taken,
and the other left. This, a child of God, ascends to heaven; the other, alas!
is lost. Who dare challenge the justice of God? Mysterious subject! He will
have mercy on whom he will have mercy. The wind bloweth where it listeth, and
thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and
whither it goeth; so is every one that is born of the Spirit. The truth is,
that by nature this world is sunk in sin, and all men are in a sense
idolaters. In the days of old, it is said that Egypt had more gods than men.
Elsewhere than in Egypt, every where, as the Bible says, "there be lords many
and gods many." The Hindoo reckons his divinities by thousand and tens of
thousands; but the world has a larger Pantheon—as many gods as it has objects,
be they innocent of guilty, which usurp the place of Jehovah, and de throne
him in the creature's heart. Nor are men less idolaters if drunkards, though
they pour out no libation to Bacchus—the god of wine; nor less idolaters, if
impure, that they burn no incense at the shrine of Venus; nor less idolaters,
if lovers of wealth, that they do not mold their gold into an image of Plutus,
and, giving a shrine to what lies hoarded in their coffers, offer it their
morning and evening prayers. He has been an idolater, who, rebelling against
Providence, follows the hearse of a coffined god; he made an idol of wife or
child; and now, when the robber of our homes has stolen them away, and bears
them off to the grave, the feelings of that man's heart may be expressed in
Micah's complaint to the Danite robbers, "Ye have taken away my gods which I
made, and what have I more? and what is this that ye say unto me, What aileth
thee?" Since man, therefore, in his natural state, is—although not in fact—in
spirit as much an idolater as the pagans of any heathen land, may it not be
justly said of all who have been converted by the grace of God, that he has
"taken them from among the heathen?" II. The power of divine grace is
strikingly displayed in this effectual calling.

It is a remarkable fact, that while the baser metals are often diffused
through the body of the rocks, gold and silver lie in veins—collected together
in distinct metallic masses. They are in the rocks, but not of the rocks. Some
believe that there was a time, long gone by, when—like the other metals—these
lay in intimate union with the mass of rock, until, by virtue of some
mysterious electric agency, their scattered atoms were put in motion, and,
being made to pass through the solid stone, were aggregated in those shining
veins, where they now lie to the miner's hand Gold and silver are the emblems
of God's people And as by some power in nature God has separated these emblems
from the base and common earths, even so by the power of his grace he will
separate all his chosen from a reprobate and rejected world. They shall come
at his call; He will "say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not
back; bring my sons from afar, and my daughters from the ends of the earth."
The corruption of nature, circumstances of temptation, an evil world, the
hostility of hell, all interpose between his purpose and the objects of his
mercy. The difficulties in the way tower up into a mountain! Fear not. God
will make up the number of his chosen ones. "Who art thou, O great mountain,
before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain." His grace shall prove sufficient
for the work. No doubt it has a great work to do. Think from what an
abominable life and from what abandoned company God calls some to grace on
earth and glory in heaven. Look at this Manasseh or at that Magdalene. How
different their Sabbaths now from what once they were! How different their
society now from the associates with whom once, in mad and frantic dance, they
went whirling round the mouth of the burning pit! Another, and another, and
another plunge into the abyss, and they drown the lost one's perishing cry in
louder music; and in giddier whirl they dance on, as little deterred by the
fate of their fellows, as the in sects that on an autumn evening dash one upon
another into the flame of our candle. Ah, when God's saints look down from
their elevation into the depths where grace descended and found them, and from
whence it raised them, they are not satisfied to sing, "He raiseth up the poor
out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dung-hill, to set them
among princes, and to make them inherit the thrones of glory;" they tune their
harp-strings to a higher strain. Lost in wonder, love, and praise, they are
ready to adopt the words which a humble-minded but eminent Christian insisted
should be engraved upon her tomb-tone—"How great is thy mercy toward me."
"Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell?" It is in a state of deep
ungodliness—without God, without the love of God, without the holiness that
shall see God, without true purity of heart or peace of conscience—that grace
finds all it saves. Such is not the judgment of the world. And I do not deny
but that many are very lovely in the bloom and beauty of natural virtue—so
beautiful, that we cannot help loving them. Is there sin in that? No for Jesus
loved the young ruler who yet refused to follow him. But then, with much that
is attractive in the graces of the natural man, they have the same nature, and
lie under the same condemnation, as a world that liveth in wickedness, and
lieth under sentence of death. An old writer has said that "man in his natural
state is half a devil and half a beast." How wonderful the grace which changes
such a monster into the image of God, and converts the basest metal into the
purest gold! It is indeed amazing to see what grace will do, and where grace
will grow; in what unlikely places God

8* has his people, and out of what unlikely circumstances he calls them. I
have seen a tree crowning the summit of a naked rock; and there it stood—in
search of food sending its roots out over the bare stone, and down into every
cranny—securely anchored by these moorings to the stormy crag. We have
wondered how it grew up there, amid such rough nursing, how it could have
survived many a wintry blast, and where, indeed, it found food or footing.
Yet, like one familiar with hardship and adversities, it has grown and lived;
it has kept its feet when the pride of the valley has bent to the storm; and,
like brave men, who think not of yielding, but nail their colors to the mast,
it has maintained its proud position, and kept its green flag waving on
nature's topmost battlements.

More wonderful than this, however, is it to see where the grace of God will
live and grow. Tender exotic! plant brought from a more genial clime! one
would suppose that it would require the kindliest nursing and most propitious
circumstances; yet look here—A Daniel is bred for God, and for the bravest
services in his cause, in no pious home of Israel; he grows in saintship amid
the impurities and effeminacy of a heathen palace. Paul was a persecutor, and
is called to be a preacher—was a murderer, and becomes a martyr; once, no
pharisee so proud, now no publican so humble. Like those fabled monsters,
which, sailing on broad and scaly wings, descended on their helpless prey with
streams of fire issuing from their formidable mouths, he set off for Damascus,
"breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord."
Jesus descended in person to meet this formidable persecutor, and selected him
for his chiefest apostle. He bids him wash the blood of Stephen from his
hands, and go preach the gospel. And where afterwards has this very man some
of his most devoted friends? where, but in Cæsar's household. What can more
strikingly express the power of all-sufficient grace than the words of John
Newton? One asked him whether he thought the heathen could be converted. "I
have never doubted," he said, "that God could convert the heathen, since he
converted me."

"Never despair" should be the motto of the Christian; and how should it keep
hope alive under the darkest and most desponding circumstances, to see God
calling grace out of the foulest sin? Look at this cold creeping worm! Playful
childhood shrinks shuddering from its touch; yet a few weeks, and with merry
laugh and flying feet, that same childhood, over flowery meadow is hunting an
insect that never lights upon the ground, but—flitting in painted beauty from
flower to flower—drinks nectar from their cups, and sleeps the summer night
away in the bosom of their perfumes. If that is the same boy, this is no less
the self-same creature. Change most wonderful! yet but a dull, earthly emblem
of the divine transformation wrought on those, who are "transformed by the
renewing of their minds." Gracious, glorious change! Have you felt it? May it
be felt by all of us! You have it here in this woman, who, grieved in her
mind, lies a-weeping at the feet of Jesus. She was a sinner. Her condition had
been the basest; her bread the bitterest; her company the worst: She is
casting off her vile, sinful slough. She leaves it. She rises a new creature.
The beauty of the Lord is on her; and now, with wings of faith and love wide
outspread, she follows her Lord to heaven. How encouraging the wonders of
converting grace! Let us despair of none—neither of ourselves nor any one
else.

III. God will make up the number of his people. "I will gather you out of all
countries." There are some gatherings in this world which are largely alloyed
with pain. Christmas or some birthday season comes round, summoning the
members of a scattered family. The circle is again formed; but, like that of
men who have been standing under fire, and closing up their ranks, how is it
contracted from former years! There are well-remembered faces, and voices, and
forms, that are missing here; and the family group, which looks down from the
picture, is larger than the living company met at table. Some are dead and
gone—"Joseph is not, and Simeon is not;" and a dark cloud hangs on a mother's
brow, for on the cheek of yet another her anxious eye, quick to see, discovers
an ominous spot that threatens to "take Benjamin away."

There is a gathering, also, when, at the close of a hard-fought day, the roll
of the regiment is called, and to familiar names there comes back no answer.
How small the band who meet at night compared with the morning muster! As the
day wore on, and the ranks grew thinner, and the "red line" grew less and
less, they came back from each charge like a wave broken on an iron shore, and
every shock they stood, and charge which they repelled, left broad gaps to
fill. And so, now when the fight is over, and the broken hosts muster on the
field, to many a gallant man in vain the trumpet sounds, or war-pipe blows the
gathering of the clan. Alas, for the day! They shall

THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 181 answer no trumpet but that which
calls a world to judgment.

When daylight breaks on the shore of the shipwreck, there is also a mustering
and reckoning of numbers. There, a mother clasps and kisses the living babe
which the waves had plucked from her arms, and she never thought more to see;
and here, a true brother cheers the boy whom he held in a grasp strong as
death, while, with the other hand buffeting the billows, he bore him safely to
the beach. But others, less fortunate, are wringing their hands in the
wildness of their grief. Distracted mothers cry, "Where is my child?" Some,
with the dead on their knees, sit stunned by sorrow; frightful to look upon
speechless, tearless, motionless, as if turned into stone; while others, wild,
raving, frantic, stand on the shores of the devouring sea, and, stamping on
its sands, demand back their dead.

These are mournful musterings; and in striking contrast to them is this
gathering on Melita's shore:—It was a frightful storm; the coast unknown; the
ship grounds in deep water, with nigh three hundred souls on board; the night
before, the boats had been cut adrift, and now not a boat—if boats could live
in such a swell—to save them. The swimmers, who strip and plunge into the sea,
may perchance reach the shore, but none else shall cheat the deep of its prey.
Yet, when there is not another head among the billows—when the last survivor
has climbed the beach—they muster; and soldiers, sailors, and prisoners—all
are there. Paul got their lives, and not one has gone amissing. "Some on
boards, and some on broken pieces of the ship; but, by whatever way it came to
pass, it did come to pass, as the narrative tells—

"they escaped all safe to land."

Even so shall it be with those of whom Jesus says,

"I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. My Father that
gave them me is greater than all, and no man is able to pluck them out of my

Father's hand." Happy those who sail in the ship, and have embarked in the
same cause with Christ.

What they have committed to him, he will keep until the great day. And when
all earthly schemes are foundered, and life itself becomes a wreck—plunging us
amid the billows of eternity's shore—and this old world itself is broken up
like a worn out and stranded ship—then, at the last day's muster, all who are

Christ's shall be there, not one of them shall be amissing; sooner or later,
all shall reach the heavenly coast. "The Lord knoweth them that are his;" and

"all that his Father hath given him he shall keep."

But my text tells us not only that He will gather his people, but gather them
"out of all countries." Let those mark that, who, indulging an extravagant
patriotism, or in the narrow spirit of bigotry, allow themselves to "limit the
Holy One of Israel," and are ready to say with the Jews of old, "We are the
people of the Lord; the temple of the Lord are we." "We have

Abraham to our father." Alas! we are all too prone to think that we stand
allied to Jesus in closer relationship than others, even as Benjamin to Joseph
others may be brothers, ours is a closer brotherhood;

we are not only father's but mother's sons. Now, we are patriotic enough to
hope much for our country— for a land like ours, which has been crimsoned with
precious blood, consecrated by prayers, and whose almost every mountain, as
Rutherfurd said, "has been flowered with martyrs." We sympathise, also, with
domestic affection; and the hope that families—so dear to us as our own—shall
rise from the place of many graves to dwell together in the house of many
mansions. Still, heaven, like the starry firmament which encompasses our
globe, is as near other countries as our own. God has people where we look not
for them, and know not of them. A hundred prophets are secreted in Obadiah's
cave; and when Elijah, wrapped in his mantle, stands before the God of the
storm and calm, and the "still small voice," complaining, "they have slain thy
prophets, and I, even I only am left,' he is surprised to be told of seven
thousand in Israel, as true men as he, who have not bowed the knee to Baal. We
may be astonished to miss some in heaven whom we calculated on meeting there,
we shall be astonished to see some there whom we never expected. The gospel
belongs to no country, but to all. Every sea is not paved with pearl shells;
nor does every soil grow vines and palms, nor does every mine sparkle with
gems, nor do the streams of every land roll their waters over golden sands.
These symbols of grace have a narrow range; but not grace herself. She owns no
lines of latitude or longitude. All climates are one to her. She wears no
party badge; and belongs neither to class nor color. She takes no objection to
a negro's skin. He, whom his white oppressor refused to worship with, eat
with, sail with, or dwell with on earth, shall dwell, and worship, and reign
where his master may never be; and when—as may often happen—the white skin is
shut out, and the black man, now and for ever free, passes in at the celestial
gate, it shall furnish but another illustration of the truth, that salvation
is "not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of
God."

With this truth, as by a zone of love, elastic enough to be stretched round
the globe, we would bind mankind together. Let it awaken in Christian hearts
an interest and an affection for every land. Humanity rejoices with piety in
the prospects that it opens. The distant natives of the Poles and Equator
shall be associated in heaven; they who have never met on earth shall meet
there; and they who never could agree on earth shall agree there; the desire
of our hearts shall be accomplished there; and there those who, scowled at by
bigots, and pitied by many as amiable visionaries, have sought a closer union
among God's children here, shall have their fondest wishes gratified. From the
dreadful wars that now shake the earth, and the hardly less painful battle-
fields of churches, it is a pleasant change to contemplate this general
assembly, where—Jesus himself presiding—the representatives of all nations,
tribes, languages, sects, and parties, are met to sing the jubilee of
universal peace, and celebrate the funeral of all their differences. Over that
grave no tears are shed; beside it no pale mourners stand; all quarrels and
controversies, with their weapons of war, are now for ever buried—buried
without fear of resurrection, and above it heaven rises, a temple dedicated to
eternal concord, "whose builder and maker is God." Dishonored often in the
present time by their quarrels, and always by their separation, Jesus shall
then be glorified in all his saints. It is the dust and the rust which the
liquid mercury has contracted that impair the beauty of its luster, and
prevent the union of its divided globules. And what is it but earthly con

THE BENEFITS FLOWING FROM REDEMPTION. 185 taminations and unworthy passions
that keep true Christians apart. From these let them be purified by the genial
fires of love, or the sharp fires of suffering, and union will follow—follow
as when the purified globules of quicksilver, brought into contact, run into
each other's embraces to form one shining and brilliant mass. May God give his
divine Spirit of love and unity for such a blessed end—a consummation so
devoutly to be wished for. The prophecy fulfilled which foretells such an
union, then, the redeemed of the cross, and elect of God, shall make up a
countless company, one which no man can number—multitudes and myriads—offering
such a contrast to the handful who follow the steps of the Man of sorrows,
that we shall hear these words no more—"Ye are a little flock."

"He cometh, he cometh to judge the earth;" and how? after what manner? in what
royal state? "Behold he cometh with clouds"—clouds, that on their nearer
approach to earth, when the general mass shall resolve itself into individual
objects, may be found to consist of innumerable hosts of winged and shining
angels. On that great occasion, the saints—countless as the atoms that float
in the vapors of the sky, or the drops that fall in its showers—shall also
form, to use Paul's expression, "a cloud of witnesses." Already they form a
cloud in heaven; and to the eye of faith it is as those nebulous spots, which,
by their great distance, shine only with a faint luminosity far away in the
depths of the starry firmament, but which, under the eye and instruments of
the astronomer, are resolved into a countless aggregate of burning suns.

IV. We are assured that God will bring all his peo ple to glory, by the fact
that his own honor, as well as their welfare, is concerned in the matter.

In that lay the salvation of ancient Israel. "How long will this people
provoke me? I will smite them with the pestilence, and disinherit them; and I
will make of thee a greater nation and mightier than they." Thus spake the
Lord to Moses, and how did he reply? He had certainly a great temptation to
make no reply and let things take their course, since the issue would bring
him and his such great advantage. Type of the Saviour, he flung himself
between justice and her culprits. He ventures to remonstrate with God. He sets
himself to show, that the destruction of Israel—although the just punishment
of their sins—might militate against God's declarative honor, and expose it to
suspicion; and that, therefore, although he could not spare them for their
sakes, he should spare them for his own. Moses was concerned for the fate of
his countrymen. Like a true patriot, he declined to rise on their ruins; but
more deeply concerned still for the honor of God, he takes courage to reply,
"Then the Egyptian shall hear it, and they will tell it to the inhabitants of
this land. Now if thou shalt kill all this people as one man, then the nations
which have heard of thee will speak, saying, Because the Lord was not able to
bring this people into the land which he sware unto them, therefore he had
slain them in the wilderness." As it was then, so is it now. God's honor, and
truth, and covenant, are all concerned—are, so to speak, compromised to make
good the promise, that he will bring his redeemed to glory. It is, indeed, no
easy work to bring believers safe to glory. When I think of the sins to be
forgiven, and the difficulties to be overcome, the wonder seems not that few
get to heaven, but that any get there. We have read of voyages, where for
nights the sailors enjoyed no sleep, and for days saw no sun. Lying at one
time becalmed beneath a fiery sky, at another time shivering amid fields of
ice; with sunken rocks around them, and treacherous currents sweeping them on
dangerous reefs; exposed to sudden squalls, long, dark nights, and fearful
tempests, the wonder was that their battered ship ever reached the port. I
select a case of recent occurrence. Some while ago a vessel entered one of our
western harbors, and the town poured out to see. Well they might. It had left
the American shore with a large, able-bodied crew. They have hardly lost sight
of land when the pestilence boards them; victim falls after victim; another
and another is committed to the deep, as from deck to deck, and yard to yard
she pursues her prey; nor does she spread her wings to leave that ill-fated
ship, till she has left but two to work it over the broad waters of a wintry
sea. And when, with Providence at the helm, these two men, worn by work and
watching to ghastly skeletons, have brought their ship to land, and now kiss
once more wives and little ones they never thought more to see, and step once
more on a green earth they never more hoped to touch, men run to see the
sight, and hear the adventures of a voyage brought against such dreadful odds
to such a happy issue. Yet there is never a bark drops anchor in heaven, nor a
weary voyager steps out on its celestial strand, but is a still greater
wonder. Save for the assurance that what God hath begun He will finish—that
what concerns his people He will perfect—Oh, how often would our hope of final
blessedness altogether expire.

Well might David say, "I had fainted unless I had believed." And knowing what
we know, and feeling what we feel, how entirely may we acquiesce in the old
remark, that the greatest wonder we shall see in heaven, shall be to see
ourselves there.

Yet let Christians take comfort. Your good and God's glory ever run in the
same direction. They are the parallel rails on which the chariot of salvation
rolls. They shall bring you to the Jerusalem above. To compare small things
with great, our journey there, with its dangers and changes, has sometimes
appeared to me like that of a passenger to our own city. On these iron roads
he now travels along rich and fertile plains; now, at a dangerous and dizzy
height he flies across intervening valleys; now, he rushes through a narrow
gorge cut in the solid rock, with nothing seen but heaven; now, boring into
the earth, he dashes into some gaping cavern, for a while losing sight even of
heaven itself, and then again he sweeps forth and on in sunshine, till at
length the domes, and towers, and temples of the city burst on his view. And,
these close at hand, he concludes his journey by passing through an emblem of
death. He enters a gloomy arch, advances in darkness through a place of
graves, and then, of a sudden, emerges into day, to feast his eyes on the
glorious scenery, and receive the congratulations of waiting friends, as he
finds himself safe "in the midst of the city."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 13: 13. Man Justified
========================================================================

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all
your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.—

Ezekiel xxxvi. 25.

IN the earliest peopled regions of the world, there still stand some ancient
monuments, bold in plan, and colossal in dimensions, defying both time and
change. Raised, as these rude structures were, in the very infancy of art, and
ere the giant arms of machinery had grown into their present strength, they
are objects of deep interest, both to the architect and antiquary. How came
these great stones there? By what means or machinery did man, in days so rude,
raise such ponderous masses?

Science has questions as inexplicable to put regarding the works of nature. We
climb a mountain range, and, standing on its apex, see valley and plain
stretching far away to meet the ocean, that lies, gleaming, like a silver
border, on the dim and distant horizon. After expatiating on the beauties of
the scene around us, our eye turns downwards, and lights on a very
extraordinary object—a shell—a plant—a zoophite, whose proper habitat is the
low sea-shore—or, lower still, down in the dark depths of ocean—embedded in
the rock. How came it here? what business has it here? We find, in fact, that,
although now raised some thousand feet above the sea, the platform on which we
stand had once been an ocean's bed. And he would be a stupid man, in whose
mind the question would not rise, what agent, of tremendous power was that,
which, upheaving the crust of earth, has turned the floor of a sea, where
corals grew, and fish swam, into a mountain crag whereon eagles build their
nests.

In the Providence which determines the lot of man, history presents subjects
not less interesting. It is a curious thing how a sea shell came to be
embedded in the summit of a mountain crag. It is even a curious thing to watch
the progress of a worm, as it climbs up tree or wall to the place of its
apparent death and beautiful resurrection. It is still more interesting to see
a man fighting, toiling, tearing his way up from the bottom, to the sunny but
often cold and stormy pinnacles of society; so that, perhaps, when dead, he,
whose birth a cottage saw, lies in state within a palace. There are all manner
of ways by which men rise in the world. Some, flung up by national
convulsions, rise like the fire stones shot from a volcano's mouth; they flare
for a little, and then are lost in night. Some, like sea-weed or an empty
shell, are thrown up by the wave of popular agitation, only by its reflux to
be swept back again into oblivion. Some rise in times of trouble and of
turmoil, like the dust and light straws of the whirlwind; the lighter they are
the more sure are they to rise. Some ascend by the foul and slippery path of
crime, rising on other men's shoulders, and building dishonest fortunes on
honest men's ruin. While some,—being amid all the mysteries of Providence,
witnesses that there is a just God upon earth,—illustrate the adage of the
world, "Honesty is the best policy," and the still better saying of Scripture,
"Godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now
is, and of that which is to come." But there is no rising so interesting to
study, or by those who are fired with a holy ambition, so blessed to emulate,
as that of a sinner into a saint—of a soul to glory. That man, however, enjoys
one of the charms of history, and reads one of the strangest chapters in the
book of Providence, who traces the successive steps by which great actors in
the theatre of this world have mounted to fame and fortune out of the deepest
obscurity.

To us there are inquiries of greater interest than any of these. Few rise from
cottages to be kings—nor are such giddy elevations desirable; most men fall
and are crushed before they reach the top of their ambition, and the few who
have reached it have learned that "uncasy lies the head that wears a crown."
It is of little moment to me, how this base-born but brave peasant reached a
throne; but to me it is every thing to know how this sinner became a saint,
and from being the slave of Satan and very drudge of sin rose to a crown in
heaven—to be a king and priest to God. If I am engrossed with the momentous
interests of eternity, and have not yet made my calling sure, but am still
lying in the anxieties and darkness of spiritual distress, it will be of
little importance to me, how the shell, which once lay in the depths of ocean,
has been raised into the light and regions of the sunny air, but to me it is
every thing to know, how I, lying buried beneath the wrath of God, can be
raised to the sunshine of his peace and favor. To me the question is of the
highest importance, which the elder put to John, when, pointing to the
multitude whom no man can number, "who stood before the throne and before the
Lamb, clothed with white robes. and palms in their hands," he said, "who are
these, and whence came they?" I am deeply interested to know by what means
these, each one—originally like myself—a being of sin and guilt, escaped the
wrath of God, and rose to such lofty favor? Recognizing in that company, one,
and another, and yet another—who were the chief of sinners, I take heart to
say, if they got up there, why should not I? The door that was wide enough and
high enough for them, can not be too strait or low for me. These questions, in
other words, how does God save the sinner? and what am I to do to be
saved?—questions, the most important which you can ask, or I can attempt to
answer, are those at which, in the progress of these discourses, we are now
arrived.

I intend, God helping me, to set forth the means by which He who is most
willing to save sinners, accomcomplishes his generous and gracious purpose. I
am now to show you that famous breach by which the soldiers of the cross, led
on by their Captain, with banners flying and sword in hand, have taken the
kingdom, and, trampling under foot the body of sin, have entered into glory
with holy violence. We are now to look upon that famous ladder which the hand
of God has let down from heaven, and by which Abel, and Adam, and Enoch, and
Noah, and Abraham, and Jacob, and Daniel, and Peter, and Paul, and the Marys,
and Dorcas, and Phoebe—martyrs and confessors, prophets and saints—pressing on
each other's heels, have scaled the walls of glory, and entered into
possession of the celestial city. And now, as the angel who had blown the coal
and baked the bread beside the lonely sleeper—for such things angels will do
for saints—woke Elijah and said to him, "rise and eat;" MAN JUSTIFIRD.

with this ladder within your reach—you at its foot, and heaven at its top—I
say, rise and climb. What meanest thou, O sleeper? What do you sleeping there?
The slightest turn, and you roll over into the pit, on whose dreadful edge
sinners make their bed Rouse up, look up, rise and climb; God helping you by
faith, lay hold of Him who says—"I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life."

In entering on the subject of a sinner's justification, I remark—

I. God's people are not chosen because they are holy.

They are chosen that they may become holy, not because they have become so. It
is after God elects that God justifies, as it is after he has justified that
he sanctifies. This appears—stands out—most visibly in the very terms of the
text, "then will I sprinkle clean water upon you." Do not, I pray you, suppose
that we disparage holiness. In the doctrines of grace holiness holds a most
important place; a place so important—so prominent and conspicuous—that the
notion, once current, that the doctrine of a free salvation through the mercy
of God and the merits of Christ alone is unfavorable to the interests of
morality, can only be ascribed to the malice of the natural heart, or the
grossest ignorance. These doctrines set forth the love of Christ as a
believer's great motive power, and it might be a sufficient refutation of the
calumny to quote the glowing exclamation of the poet—

"Thou bleeding Lamb!

The best morality is love of Thee."

But what place in the scheme of grace do we assign

THE GOSPEL IN RZEEIEL.

to holiness? what language do we hold regarding it? We say that without
holiness no man shall see God. Could more be asked or said than that? We say
so to all men—to the sovereign on his throne we say, Without holiness thou
shalt never wear a crown in heaven; to the minister in his pulpit we say,
Without holiness thou shalt never minister before the Throne—thou mayst save
others, but shalt be thyself a castaway; to the communicant at the Lord's
table we say, Without holiness thou shalt never sit at the marriage supper of
the Lamb; thou mayst drink of the juice of the grape—but shalt never drink the
new wine of his "Father's kingdom;" we say to all, "If any man have not the
spirit of Christ, he is none of his." You may have his name; but that is worth
nothing; unless with the name you have the nature of Him who was holy,
harmless, and undefiled. Grace may make you his; but whatever you may become,
you are not so now, unless there be germinating in you the mind of Him who was
holiness in the flesh—incarnate virtue. We ever echo the exhortation of the
Apostle, "Be careful to maintain good works." This is surely no lax or immoral
creed. So far from holding good works cheap, we say that by them God is
glorified, by them faith is justified, and, by them on the great day of
judgment shall every man be tried. You are not to be justified by your works,
but you are to be tried by them. The rule of that day shall be this—"the tree
is known by his fruit."

'Every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down and cast into the
fire.' Are any of you, then, living in sin—known, habitual, cherished sin—and
yet in hope? Oh, how great is your mistake! You may be saved from your sins,
you cannot be saved in your sins. One sin, even one! is the "dead fly, that
maketh the apothecary's ointment to stink;" is the leak, however small and
concealed from the public eye, which, if not stopped, fills and sinks the
ship. Men talk of poverty, misfortune, disease, bereavement, as evils! There
is no radical evil in this world but sin; if you still persist in calling
other things evils, remember sin is their mother—these her hateful progeny. No
sin, no suffering; no sin, no sorrow; no sin, no sting, no death, no grave, no
hell. We change the saying of Paul, and, so changed, apply to sins what he
spoke of the sailors. He said of the seamen, Except these abide in the ship ye
cannot be saved. To prevail on you to abandon and cast your sins—these
Jonahs—overboard, we say, If these abide ye cannot be saved.

Now, while maintaining, to the utmost, that holiness is essential to
salvation, we nevertheless regard it as of the highest importance that
holiness should have a right and not a wrong place in our system. Should
earthquakes shake the ground, or even rude storms the air, that pyramid must
stand unsafely which, according to the poet,

"Like an inverted cone,

Wants the proper base to stand upon."

That body would be a monster in nature, hideous of aspect, and happily of
brief existence, which should have its organs and members so misplaced, that
the hands should occupy the place of the feet, and whose heart should beat in
the cavity of the brain. The fruitfulness, beauty, the very life of a tree,
depends not only on its having roots and branches, but on these members being
placed in their natural order.

Let a tree be planted upside down—the roots in the air and the branches in the
earth—and I need not ask how much fruit it would yield, nor how many seasons
the unhappy plant would survive such barbarous and plundering treatment.

Well, if it be of such consequence in these things not to depart from the
order established in nature, it is of no less consequence not to depart from
the order established in the kingdom of grace? It is not enough that men hold
right doctrines,—nay in a sense hold all the doctrines. The right doctrines
must be in the right places. Your astronomy may include all the bodies that
enter into our solar system, but if it give a satellite the imperial position
of the sun, your system passes into inextricable confusion. The machine may
have all its parts, but, if the great wheel that moves them, or the balance-
wheel that regulates them, revolve on any shaft but its own, the entire
mechanism stops, or flies round in furious and destructive disorder. Even so,
although all the doctrines of the gospel be present in our creed, we may
commit a great, a dangerous—possibly a fatal mistake—by any mal-arrangement
that would put these out of their proper place. And such is their mistake who
build election upon holiness—not holiness upon election, who regard good
works, not as the result, but the cause of God's mercy; and who, mistaking the
root for the fruit, think that God adopts men because they are holy; when, in
point of fact, he makes them holy, just because he has adopted them. This,
believe me, is not an example of the nice and fine distinctions which
theologians sometimes spin, nor of the matters about which bigots may contend,
but good men need give themselves no trouble. Some small things have great
effects. A slight wedge of wood or small pebble lying upon the slip, prevents
the vessel from being launched on the bosom of a tide that swells to receive
her in its arms. The full tide of love flows in Jesus' heart, his bosom is
open to receive the sinner, every thing conspires to his salvation, and yet in
such happy circumstances, we have seen the notion, that a man must be holy
before he goes to Christ, arrest a soul that had already moved, advanced, got
some way in its course, and as we thought, was off for heaven. This is a
delusion of the enemy of souls. I believe it to be a common wile of Satan.
When conscience gets so uneasy, that for all the devil's rocking it won't
sleep, and men grow anxious about their eternal interests, and will be out of
the "City of Destruction," it is no uncommon thing with him to send them away
in a wrong direction. Would you make yourselves more pure and more penitent,
that you may have some right to divine mercy? You are trying to weave ropes of
sand, and he who has set you to a task so impracticable knows well that you
will by and i ye abandon it in despair; and then, perhaps, returning to your
old favorite sins, like a drunkard to his cup after a season of sobriety, you
will furnish another illustration of the saying—"The last state of that man is
worse than the first." With God's help I would endeavor to disabuse your minds
of such an error. For that purpose, let me borrow an illustration from an
asylum, which, in the form of a ragged school, opens its loving arms to the
outcast, like the Gospel which it teaches, and seeks to train up to God and
glory the poor children whom its piety and pity adopts. On entering these
blessed doors,—the gate of hope to many,—your attention is caught by a child,
who is supported there by the bounty of some generous Christian. The boy now
can spell his way through a bible—once a sealed book to him; he knows now,
and, in tones fitted to melt any heart, he sweetly sings of a Saviour, of whom
once he knew not even the name. These little hands are now skillful to weave
the net or ply the shuttle which once were alert only to steal, or held out in
their pitiful emaciation to plead for charity; and there is such sharp
intelligence in that bright eye, and such an open air of honesty in his
beaming face, and such attention to cleanliness appears in his dress and
person, and such buoyancy in his whole bearing, as if hope hailed a brighter
future for that poor child, that these bespeak your favor. But do you conclude
that they were the child's passport to this asylum? Do you suppose, that when
he wandered, an outcast upon the winter streets, shoeless among the snow,
shivering in the cold, it was what now so interests you that caught the eye of
pity, or that to these habits and accomplishments, learned under a parental
roof, the child owed his adoption? How great your mistake. This were, indeed,
to turn things upside down. He was adopted, not for the sake of these, but
notwithstanding the want of them. It was the very want of them, which, if I
may so speak, carried his election. It was his wretchedness that saved him. It
was his very misery—when he stood there with beggary on his back and hunger in
his looks, cold, naked, wicked, wretched—which pleaded for him, and, with more
power than eloquence, melted men's hearts and gained his cause. The clean
hands, and rosy cheek, and lighted eye, and decent habits, and arts and
knowledge, and all which now wins our regard are the consequences of his
adoption, and never were nor could be its cause.

Even so is it with holy habits and a holy heart in the matter of redemption—

"Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,"

says God. Blessed truth! Glad tidings, indeed, to sinners! for, since God
chooses his people, not because they are holy, but to make them so, who may
not be chosen? and who should not hope? To my eye hope, in that truth, bends
her bright bow on life's blackest cloud, and sends a beam of light down into
the guiltiest heart.

II. In redemption, the saved are not justified by themselves, but by God.

This is no recondite truth—one which we need to dig or dive for. The pearl
lies in the dark depths of the sea, but gold commonly lies near the surface of
the earth. Like the precious ore gleaming from the naked rock, this truth
shines on the face of my text;

a child's eye can catch it there, and a child's mind comprehend it. For how is
a sinner made clean? but through the application of what is here called clean
water; and by whom, according to the text, is that water applied? It is
applied to the sinner, but not by the sinner.

Elisha remained in his house, nor accompanied

Naaman to the banks of Jordan. Commanded by the prophet to wash, and—when
pride was ready to revolt from so mean a remedy—persuaded by his servants that
it were a foolish thing not to try so small a remedy for so great a cure, the
Syrian descended into the water; and, going down a leper, rose at the seventh
dip with a skin fresh as a new born child's.

A type of salvation in one respect, that case is not so in another. It is not
so in this, that Naaman bathed himself;—the sinner does not. Here, as in the
sacrament of baptism, there are two parties. The baptized and the baptizer are
not one. Whether that ordinance be administered to infant or adult, the water
is applied by another's hand; and, as no man baptizes, so no man saves
himself, no man justifies himself, no man ever sprinkled himself with that
atoning blood, which we shall show to be symbolized by this "clean water." The
bloody baptism is administered by the hand which kindled the sun, stretched
out the curtain of the heavens, and sustains the universe. To God, as Author
and Finisher of our faith, the whole glory of salvation belongs; for, observe
how he says in my text—"I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be
clean."

Job inquires, "How should man be just with God?" A great question—one in which
we have the deepest interest—one for which the Gospel was revealed, and the
cross of Calvary raised to answer—and one to which our own merits and works
furnish no satisfactory solution. It is natural, most natural, for us to trust
in these. I do not deny it. Observe what happens when the cry rises at sea—"A
man overboard!" You rush to the side of the vessel; you watch the place where
the rising air-bells and boiling deep tell that he has gone down. After some
moments of breathless anxiety, you see his head emerge from the wave. Now,
that man is no swimmer—he has never learned to breast the billows; yet, with
the first breath he draws, he begins to beat the water; with violent efforts
he attempts to shake off the grasp of death, and, by the play of limbs and
arms, to keep his head from sinking. His struggles may only exhaust his
strength, and sink him all the sooner, nevertheless, that drowning wretch
makes instinctive and convulsive efforts to save himself. So, when first
brought to feel that we are perishing—when the horrible conviction rushes into
our mind that we are lost, and we feel ourselves going down under a load of
guilt into the depths of wrath, our first effort, also, is to save ourselves.
Like a drowning man, who clutches at straws and twigs, we seize on any thing,
however worthless, that promises salvation. Thus, alas! many toil and spend
weary, painful, unprofitable days in attempting to establish a righteousness
of their own, and to find in the deeds of the law protection from its curse.

There was a time, no doubt, when man had his fortunes in his own hand; but
that time is gone—our power passed away with our purity. Impotence has
followed the loss of innocence, and we have nothing now left us but a wretched
pride. Amid the changes which this world presents, I have seen a man who had
known better days—who had been nursed in luxury, and reared in the lap of
fullness—outlive his fortune, and sink into the baseness and meanness of the
deepest poverty. It seems to be in such circumstances with men as with plants.
Naturalists say that it is much more difficult to get a mountain plant to
accommodate itself to a low locality, than to get one, which by birth belongs
to the valleys, to live and thrive at a lofty elevation. So, there seems
nothing more difficult to men than to descend gracefully, and for those who
have been accustomed to a high position in society to reconcile themselves to
a humble one. And thus I have seen such an one as I have described, when he
had lost his wealth, retain in his vanity what he should first have parted 9*
with, and continue proud even when he had become poor. So is it with us in our
low and lost estate. Spiritually poor, we are spiritually proud—saying, “I am
rich and increased in goods, and have need of nothing,” while we are
“wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” Even when we are in
some degree sensible of our poverty, and know we can not pay, we are yet like
the unjust steward, ashamed to beg. With a pride that assorts ill with the
rags we wear, we will not stoop to stand at God’s door, poor mendicants, who
ask for mercy. We will work out our own salvation—nor be beholden to another.
Nor, sometimes, if not always, till the sinner learns, by prolonged and
painful trials, that he can not be his own saviour, does this proud heart of
ours allow us to stand suppliants at the gate of Mercy—our plea for pardon not
our own merits,—nothing, nothing whatever but Jesus’ merits and our own
misery. Yet thus and there we must stand if we would be saved. Jesus is the
Saviour of the lost, and of none but the lost. Now, to bring us down to this
conviction, and to draw from our lips the cry, “Lord save me, I perish,” God
in mercy often leaves those, whom he calls, to try their hand at working out
their own salvation, and of the rubbish and untempered mortar of their own
works and vows to build up a righteousness of their own. They toil and labor
at the Babel tower—a tower to reach to heaven. It rises imposingly. It grows
lofty, and looks strong; until some day, conscience awakens, and there follows
an earthquake of the soul which shakes it to its foundation: or some sudden
gust of temptation strikes it, and lays the labor of years in ruins upon the
ground. This ruin proves their redemption: for—first step in a right
direction—they at least come to feel, that, notwithstanding their utmost
efforts to live holily, holy they are not.

God deals with them as Jesus did on Galilee with Simon Peter. Impetuous, self-
satisfied, puffed up with vanity, Peter will walk the sea to show off his
power and prove his superiority to the other disciples. His Master lets him
try it. Jesus bids him come; not that he may drown Simon, but drown Simon's
pride. Boldly he ventures on the water. He begins to walk; but, alarmed at his
new position as he rises and falls with the swell of the waves, he begins to
fear, and, like a cause which is lost for want of courage, he begins to
sink—lower and lower still he sinks, till the cold water rises to his heart,
and kisses his drowning lip. Painful but profitable lesson! His danger and
failure have taught him his weakness; terror masters shame, and, stretching
out his arms to Christ, he cries, "Lord, save me, I perish." Now, to this
state, and this very confession, all who are to be saved must first be
brought. "I perish," is a saving word. "I perish," like the cry of the child
in the natal chamber, is the first utterance of a new existence. He who raises
his eyes to heaven to cry, "I perish," "Lord, save me, I perish," has planted
his foot on the first round of the ladder that raises man from earth to
heaven. Have you got your foot there? from lips pale with terror, have you
ever cried "Lord, save me, I perish." This confession and this petition will,
sooner or later, rise to God from every man, who, through the influence of
God's grace and spirit, is intelligently, seriously, resolutely, bent on
salvation. We say so, because no man ever yet tried to live without sinning
and succeeded. Who that ever tried it has not killed? Who has not found, that
it were as easy for a man of mortal mold and weight to walk the water, as to
walk this world one day without sin? Oh, has not He who is angry with the
wicked every day, reason to be angry every day with the best of us? "In many
things we offend"

Imagine not by your vows, and engagements, and promises, and resolutions, to
restrain the corruption of your nature—to bind the limbs of "the old man."
That "old man," although old, is ever young. To him age brings no infirmities.
He grows in strength with increase of years. Vulnerable to no weapon but the
"Sword of the Spirit," and, entrenched within your heart, he is immortal till
you pierce him there. This terrible "old man" laughs at your strongest bonds,
and snaps them on his giant arms, as Samson in the days of old the green
withes of the Philistines.

Time is precious, and you waste it in attempting to work out a righteousness
of your own. In you I see a negro, black and tawny, seated by a running
stream, a laughing stock to some, an object of pity to others, who labors and
toils to wash himself white, and remove the dark pigment of his skin. Rise up,
throw soap and nitre into the stream, and, turning your back on these, go,
seek the blood that cleanseth from all sin. Are you engaged in the attempt to
work out a righteousness of your own? Leave that loom. Are the gossamer
threads of your own vows and promises ever snapping in your hand, and breaking
at every throw of the shuttle? The robe of righteousness, a raiment meet for
thy soul, and approved of by God, was never woven there. It was wrought upon
the cross; and of color more enduring than Tyrian purple, it is dyed red in
the blood of Calvary.

Come away, and come to Jesus. Come as you are. There is neither time nor need
for delay. Imagine not that you have to do what Joseph did before he was
ushered into Pharaoh's presence. The Hebrew lies immured in a foul and lonely
dungeon, when to a thundering at the gate, and the cry of "a message from the
palace!" the ponderous bolts are drawn. The door is thrown open, and, guided
by the jailer, the royal messengers hurry along the dreary passages and enter
Joseph's dungeon. Pale, sad, disconsolate, far from his father and a father's
love, a slave, a captive, neglected in dress and person, the Hebrew lies
before them. They strike the fetters from his limbs, and hurry him off, for
Pharaoh with royal impatience frets and grieves till his dream is read; and
yet, with all their haste, Joseph is not ushered into the presence of royalty
till the marks of the prison are removed, and in attire and appearance he is
made like one who is fit to walk the floor of a palace, and stand before a
king. We are told that "he shaved himself, and changed his raiment, and came
in unto Pharaoh." I have to tell the sinner that, although he lies in a deeper
and darker dungeon, although he is covered with fouler and filthier rags, and
although the presence of Jesus is infinitely more august, and venerable, and
exalted, than that of any mortal king, he stands in no need of preparatory
holiness, of even one short hour's delay. You have neither to change a rag,
nor remove a stain. He is ready to receive you as you are. Come then as you
are. Here, this hour, the bridegroom stands by the marriage altar. It is not
your wealth nor your beauty which has won his heart

He loves you; he has shed his blood to wash you; at great cost he has
purchased the wedding garment, a robe of righteousness, and the crown of
glory. The romance which relates how a peasant maid was united to a great
prince, and the turn in fortune's wheel which gave the honors of a queen to
some female slave;

these but dimly shadow what thy fate might be.

Why, when Christ seeks you, should you hang back?

He is ready to espouse you to himself in the marriage bonds of an eternal
covenant—"The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed, but my
kindness shall not depart, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed,
saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee."

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  CHAPTER 14: 14. Man Justified
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THROUGH THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF JESUS CHRIST.

Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean.

Ezekiel xxvi. 25.

THE dinner was to prepare, the rooms were to be made ready, there were
servants to direct, and guests to accommodate; there was the character of the
house to maintain, and its whole machinery to keep oiled and in good working
order—with these things Martha was busy. Not only busy, but, like many others,
she was so intently engrossed with household cares, that, in a tone which had
the sound of a gentle rebuke, our Lord said, “Martha, thou art cumbered about
many things; but one thing is needful.” That observation applies as much to
men as to women; more so, perhaps.

Furnished with clasping tendrils, and strong by the attachments which they
form, the woodbine and ivy wind their arms round the tree, embrace it closely,
and rising to its lofty boughs, and clinging to its rough bark, they give
ornament and beauty—a vesture of soft green spangled with flowers—in return
for the support they get. Like these, woman, with her strong and warm
affections—gentle, loving, confiding—is prone to attach herself to a nature
stronger than her own, and to lean on it for support. And, whether it be that
she is from this peculiar disposition less op

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL posed to the faith which looks to another's
righteousness and leans on another's strength, certain it is there is more
religion among women than men. If, on account of the elevation and high
position which it has given her in Christian countries, woman owes most to
religion, religion in turn owes most to her. You tell me that "by woman came
sin?" I know it; but I set off this against the fact—by woman came the
Saviour. Jesus was a virgin's child. And, more than that, in those days when
he walked this world, women were his trustiest, kindest friends. Whoever
betrayed, denied, deserted him—they never did. The nearest to his cross, and
earliest at his sepulcher, they were faithful when others were faithless, and
gave early promise of that devotedness to his cause, which their sex in all
ages have honorably and pre-eminently displayed. Go through our Christian
households, and I will venture to say, that you will find more women than men,
more wives than husbands, more sisters than brothers, who are living under the
influence of religion. Many more children are to be found, who refer their
earliest, deepest religious impressions to a mother's than to a father's
piety.

But, be we men or women, "One thing is needful." Yet how sad and strange it
is, that this one needful thing, which, for that very reason, should be the
most, is often the least sought after; which, for that very reason, should be
the first, is often the last sought after; and sometimes, alas! never sought
after at all. It is the brightest feature in man's sad and sinful lot, that
while amid the business and anxieties, and toils, and cares, and keen
competitions of a world, which has so many blanks and so few prizes, there is,
after all, but one thing needful. And especially blessed is t, that the only
thing we really need is the only thing we are sure to get. Sought in
sincerity, it was never sought in vain. Other gifts may be asked and refused;
but it is true of this as of nothing else whatever, "Ask and ye shall receive,
seek and ye shall find, knock and it shall be opened to you."

Need I say that the one thing needful is salvation—that it must be that—can be
nothing else than that To a man, the conscious possessor of a never-dying
soul, who is burdened with a heavy load of guilt, and who, in an eternity
which he is nearing every hour, describes a throne of rigid and righteous
judgment, Oh, what has this wide world to offer comparable to salvation? What
profit would it be to me, though I gained it all, if I lost my soul? All those
other things which we seek, all that we toil and travail for, all for which we
daily fret and vex ourselves, nay, all for which some are fools enough to
barter away their souls, compared to this are but mere spangles and tinsel,
dross and dust—bubbles colored with rainbow hues that break at a touch, and,
bursting, smart the eyes of the child who blows them. When a man lies
stretched out on a bed of death, ah! he sees objects then in their due
proportions. From that point of view the highest objects of earthly ambition,
the loftiest pinnacles of wealth, of power, of fame, dwindle down into
littleness, and look as far beneath salvation as the loftiest Alp beneath the
sun. Yet, strange to tell—incredible, did we not know it to be true—many, as
if there was neither God in heaven, nor fire in hell, nor soul in man, feel no
anxiety about the matter. They live and die like the beasts that perish. Is it
otherwise with you? Anxious about what alone is worth your anxiety, are you
pressing on the preacher the jailer's question, "Oh, sir, what shall I do to
be saved?"

That great question—the greatest of all questions—is one which admits of a
very short and intelligible answer. Capable of being much expanded, it can yet
be brought within a very narrow compass. The river, which there flows between
distant banks, and yonder expands itself out into a lake, reflecting on its
mirror-face the bright heavens above and the dark hills around, is here
brought—where its foaming waters flash past, loud as thunder, and quick as
lightning, or creep suilenly along at the bottom of the deep, dark
gorge—within narrow bounds; bounds so narrow, that with nerve enough, by one
brave leap from rock to rock, I could clear its breadth. Even so all the wide
expanse of doctrines to be believed, and duties to be done, which might be
expatiated over in reply to the question, What shall I do to be saved? is
contracted, compressed, comprehended in the Apostle's brief speech, "Believe
in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved." Bring out from the dust of
six thousand years the old covenant of Eden, and on that soiled and torn
banner, you read the fading motto, "Do and live." But what read we on the
folds of this banner, which, defiant of hell and the world, waves above
Calvary, and under which believers march to crowns and victory? The eye of a
sinner's hope kindles at the sight of another and better motto; for there,
inscribed in the blood of Jesus, like red letters on a snow-white ground, we
read, "Believe and live." Salvation is the one thing needful for man, and
faith is the one thing needful for salvation.

Like other things, however, that are one in the aggregate, this one thing
consists of many parts. My nand, for instance, is one, yet it has five
fingers. This body is one, yet it has many organs. The Nile or Ganges is one
river, but one which is fed by many tributaries, and disgorges its waters into
the sea by the channels of many mouths. A tree is one vegetable form, but one
that has many roots below, and many branches above; and even so, to leave the
other figures, and select the last, is that "Tree of Life," which has Christ
for its root, and for its fruit holiness and heaven. I have seen a tree which,
after rising in a single stem, divided itself into two great boughs, which,
stretched out to the air and light, and dews and heat, were afterwards divided
and subdivided into innumerable branches. So with redemption. The subject
presents itself to our eye under two grand divisions. First, the remission or
pardon of sin; and secondly, the renovation of the soul. While salvation is
the one thing needful, the two things needful to it are sin pardoned and the
soul renewed. For, suppose that your sins were pardoned, but that your heart
remained in its corruption, the door of heaven remains shut; because, "Without
holiness no man shall see the Lord." Then, again, although your hearts were
renewed, unless your sins also were pardoned, that door stands shut; because
of the sentence, "The soul that sinneth shall die." The door of heaven, like
that of some treasure-chest or gate of citadel, guarded with jealous care, is
thus barred by two strong bolts; "There shall in no wise enter into it any
thing that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh abomination, or maketh a lie
but they which are written in the Lamb's book of life." Both bolts must be
drawn before we can enter; we must be pardoned as well as renewed, and renewed
as well as pardoned.

Leaving the renovation of the soul to be afterwards considered, I resume my
observations on the pardon of sin, and justification of the sinner, as
expressed and promised in these words: "I will sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean." Having endeavored to prove, first, that God's people
are not chosen because they are holy, but that they may become so; and,
secondly, that man does not justify himself, but is justified by God, I now
remark—

III. That we are not justified or cleansed from the guilt of sin through the
administration or efficacy of any outward ordinance. "I will sprinkle clean
water upon you, and you shall be clean."

Now, since the cleansing is accomplished through the application of water—and
water sprinkled—surely, some may say, this refers to baptism. The element used
in that ordinance is water, and the common method of using it is by
sprinkling. And seeing that God says, "I will sprinkle clean water upon you,
and ye shall be clean;" and by that, certainly, means that he will cleanse his
people from sin; and seeing that he thus appears to connect the forgiveness of
sin with the sprinkling of water, is there not something—if not much—in these
words, favorable to the views of those who maintain that baptism, when duly
administered, removes original sin, and confers on its recipients the grace of
regeneration? No; nothing of the kind, as we shall prove.

Three hundred years ago, our church, with an open Bible on her banner, and
this motto, "Search the Scriptures," on its scroll, marched out from the gates
of Rome. Did they come clean out of Babylon? Experience shows, that it is much
easier to leave our mother country than drop our mother tongue. Across the
seas which they sail, and to the lands which they settle on, the emigrants
carry their prejudices, passions, and even superstitions. They people the
glens and valleys of the new world with the fairies that dance on the green,
and the specters that walk by night among the haunted ruins of the old
country. So I fear that, on departing from the Church of Rome, we carried into
our Protestantism—as was not unnatural—some of her ancient superstitions; just
as our fathers carried into their practice some of her intolerant principles.
We can not approve of their intolerance, yet it admits of an apology. They had
been suckled by the wolf, and it was no great wonder that, with the milk of
the wolf, they should have imbibed something of her nature.

It is not the privilege and happiness of man to pass through his changes like
the Saviour. When Jesus rose, a conqueror from the grave, he left the dead-
clothes behind him; but look at this apparition, from which sisters and
friends shrink back. Some scream with terror, and all afraid to touch him,
they leave him to stand in the dark mouth of his grave, till the word is
given, "Loose him, and let him go." Lazarus comes forth alive, but he is bound
hand and foot; he leaves the sepulcher, but with his grave-clothes on. And
prone, as we of Scotland are, to boast that our fathers, with Knox at their
head, came forth from Rome with less of her old superstitions about them than
most other churches, to what else than some lingering remains of popery can we
ascribe the extreme anxiety which some parents show to have baptism
administered to a dying child? Does not this look very like a rag of the old
faith? It smells of the sepulcher.

Summoned once, and in haste, to the dying bed of a mother, who was anxious to
see her child baptized ere she herself expired, I found that with her I could
sympathize. The last act of sinking life—the last effort of her throbbing
heart—was to give her infant to God. With her dying arms she laid the new-born
lamb on the Shepherd's bosom, and as the babe slept, unconscious of the
affecting scene, it received a double baptism. Ere the water was sprinkled by
our hands on its face, the mother had breathed her last. She left the babe
motherless, to be baptized by the water that fell from our agitated hand and
by the big bitter tears that rolled down on its sweet face from a father's
cheeks. There was sorrow—bitter sorrow there; beside that dead mother deep
solemnity, but no superstition; and if there was a mother's weakness in the
wish, it was one which we felt it no sin to sympathize with and comply with.
But sympathize with those we can not, who, when death has stamped his seal on
an infant's brow, hurry off for a minister that he may baptize the dying. I
cannot believe that there is any virtue in water to save its soul. I recoil
with horror from the thought that a God of mercy would suspend its salvation
on a mere outward ordinance. Is there not reason to suspect that at the root
of this anxious and unnecessary haste, there lies some lurking feeling that
baptism—if not essential—is at least serviceable to salvation, and has some
connection, near or remote, with regeneration and the remission of sins?

Now, with all respect and due regard to the feelings of others, so far as they
are conscientious, we can not look upon such notions as else than the rags of
an old superstition. We acknowledge no authority in these matters but the word
of God. And there I can see no foundation for the idea, that baptism and
salvation—baptism and regeneration—are necessarily linked together, or are in
any respect inseparably connected. Were it so, baptism were the highest,
holiest ordinance in the universe of God. Had it been so, it is not reasonable
to suppose that our Lord would have left a rite of such transcendent
importance to be administered in every case by inferiors—by the hands of his
servants. Were baptism thus identified with regeneration and the “new
creature,” would the Apostle Paul, who gloried in preaching, have spoken of it
as an inferior ordinance? He declared with manifest satisfaction that he had
not been sent to baptize but to preach; and, leaving the administration of the
rite to his inferiors, he even thanked God that he had baptized none of them.
Then, do the cases, for instance, of Simon Magus and the Ethiopian give any
sanction to this theory of baptismal power? Assuredly not.

Look at Simon Magus! He was baptized by apostolic hands; and in his case the
ordinance, beyond all doubt and controversy, was duly administered. Does his
conduct warrant us to believe that his sins were pardoned, or his heart
renewed? By no means. On the contrary, this man is declared, on apostolic
authority—by the voice of Simon Peter himself, to be still, although baptized
by that Apostle’s hands, “In the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”
Shocked to find a baptized man, offering with money to buy the Holy Ghost,
Peter, bursting with indignation, said, “Thy money perish with thee, because
thou hast thought that the gift of God may be purchased with money. Thou hast
neither part nor lot in this matter;

for thy heart is not right in the sight of God. Repent, therefore, of this thy
wickedness, and pray God if perhaps the thought of thine heart may be forgiven
thee, for I perceive that thou art in the gall of bitterness and the bond of
iniquity." Surely it is much more reasonable to believe that Simon Magus,
although baptized, was not regenerated, than to believe that an inspired
Apostle would speak in such terms of a regenerate man. How could he be
regenerate when we hear heaven itself pronouncing him by the lips of its
messenger to be still "in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity."

Look next at the Ethiopian eunuch. Was he not baptized and regenerate? True;
but observe that that order should be reversed; he was regenerate and
baptized—regenerate before he was baptized—not born again in his baptism, but
born again before it. Why did Philip baptize him? He granted him baptism,
because he believed with all his heart. But can a man believe till he is
renewed! In other words, can a dead man move, or cry, or wish, or walk? This
stifled shriek, this awful sound within the coffin, these struggles to force
up the lid and throw off the cerements, prove that the dead has come to
life—that he has passed "from death to life." And did not the Ethiopian give
proof of spiritual life previous to his baptism? Ere he had left the chariot,
ere his feet had been dipped in the stream, ere one drop of its water had
fallen on his bended head, the Spirit of the living God had fallen on his
heart. Hear the narrative:—"And, as they went on their way, they came unto a
certain water; and the eunuch said, See, here is water; what doth hinder me to
be baptized? and Philip said, If thou believest with all thine heart, thou
mayest." And he answered and said, "I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of
God." These cases are not reconcilable with the notion that baptism has any
necessary connection with the forgiveness of sin, and the renewing of the Holy
Ghost. They prove that baptism and regeneration do not, and can not stand to
each other in the relation of cause and effect. Otherwise, the case of the
Ethiopian were an illustration of what the world never saw—would be an example
of what were a contradiction and an absurdity—of something far more wonderful
than a miracle—of such an impossibility as a son older than his father, or as
a thunder-peal that preceded the flash in which it originated—of, in short, an
effect in the order of time preceding its own cause.

Besides, does not the sad and melancholy history, alas! of thousands prove
that the outward ordinance is often administered without any corresponding
administration of renewing grace? The altar and the offering are there, but no
fire descends from heaven on the sacrifice. Grant that in our case, and in
that of any other such church as ours, the cause of the failure is to be found
in our lack of apostolic succession; grant that in our case the water, if not
actually polluted by unconsecrated hands, is deprived of all its virtue by the
channel through which it flows; grant that we have no commission to baptize,
and that therefore what we do in such holy offices is null and void; grant the
relevancy of all these allegations (each and all of which we deny)—is it not
an undeniable and melancholy fact, that the lives of persons in all
churches—even of the most transcendental in their claims—demonstrate that many
are baptized with water who have never been baptized with the Holy

Ghost. The question, therefore, that we would urge on your most serious
consideration, does not concern the sign, but the thing signified. If you have
got the living element, I care little, or, rather, nothing, through what
church, or by what channel it may flow. Have you got the grace of God? In the
words of an apostle, "Have ye received the Holy Ghost?"

IV. We are justified, or cleansed from the guilt of sin by the blood of
Christ. "Without the shedding of blood there is no remission;" and none we may
add, without its application.

Where do we find this doctrine in the text? By what process of spiritual
chemistry can this truth be extracted from it? There is water, and clean
water, and sprinkling of water, it may be said, but no word of blood; there is
neither sign nor spot of blood upon the page. True; so it looks at first
sight; but without the hand of Moses we shall see this water turned into
blood. It may appear difficult, without Moses' rod, to repeat the miracle of
Egypt; yet this is plain, that here, as elsewhere, water is but the sign of
spiritual blessings. And a most expressive symbol we shall find it, if we but
think of the important part that this element plays in the economy of nature.
It covers more than two thirds of the entire globe; it is universally diffused
through the ambient air; by the clouds it forms it tempers the force of a
fiery sun; it drapes the heavens with curtains of the most gorgeous colors,
dyed in the rosy tints of morn, or in evening's golden hues; and it fills the
floating reservoirs of the sky, to descend, when burst by lightning, or
breaking by their own weight in refreshing showers on the thirsty ground. The
circulation of water is to the world what that of blood is to the body, and
that of grace to the soul. It is its life. Withdraw it, and all that lives
would die; forests, fields, beasts, man himself would die. This world would
become one vast grave. Water constitutes as much the life as the beauty of the
landscape. It is true both in a spiritual and in an earthly sense, that the
world lives because heaven weeps over it. It was Christ's choicest figure of
himself, when, turning on his own person the eyes of thousands, as on a
perennial fountain—one never sealed by winter's frost, nor dried by summer
suns—free, full, patent to all, he stood up on the last and great day of the
feast, and cried, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." And in
case any of you should be thirsting for eternal life, let me say, that thus
Jesus now addresses us. Would God, he were as precious to us as water in the
sight of him who is dying of thirst! With blood-shot eyes, his throat black as
coal, his tongue cleaving to the roof of his mouth, the desert reeling round
him, Oh! what will the traveler not give for one cup of water? Fill it with
water, he will give it back to you filled, twice, ten times over with gold.
Would to God that our thirst for Jesus Christ were as ardent; that in like
manner He were all our salvation, and all our desire.

The property of water, however, to which reference is made here, is a
different one from any of these. It is not the property by which it sustains
or revives life, yet it is one for which this element is as well known, and as
universally used. All the world wash with water, as well as drink water; and
the reference here is to that solvent power, by virtue of which water
dissolves impurities—turning white what is black, and cleansing whatever is
foul. It stands here, therefore, the figure of that which cleanses. The object
to be cleansed is the soul; the defilement to be cleansed away is sin; and we
now, therefore, address ourselves to the all-important question—Of what is
this water the figure? The key to the question lies in the epithet clean
water. Let us analyse this water. It is not water in the state in which it
descends from the skies, or flows in rivers, or may be drawn from a common
well; for, observe, it is not said, then will I sprinkle water, but "clean
water on you, and ye shall be clean." The water is such as the Jews understood
by clean water—not free from impurity, and in itself clean, but water that
maketh clean—in the words of the ceremonial law, "water of purifying." This
was prepared according to a divinely appointed ritual. Look how it was
prepared, and you shall see it reddening and changing into blood.

Gathering the lowing herds from their different pastures, they sought up and
down among them, till a red heifer was found—red from horn to hoof, and
mottled by no other color—one all red, and on whose free neck yoke had never
been. Separated from the herd, she is led by priestly procession, accompanied
by the people outside the camp; and there, struck by a mortal blow, she falls
under the hands of the priest. As the blood gushes to the knife, he catches it
in his hand, and seven times casts it in a bloody shower towards the
tabernacle. So soon as the victim is dead, it is heaved on the burning pile,
and, while the smoke of the sacrifice floats away to heaven, horn and hoof,
skin, flesh, and bone, are all reduced to ashes. These ashes, carefully
collected, are mixed with pure water in a pure vessel—and that water is the
clean water of my text. See now how plainly—when understood aright—this
expression refers to a vicarious sacrifice, and the merits of an atoning
death. What was that heifer? Spotless and separated from the herd, she is a
type of Him who was without spot or blemish, holy, harmless, undefiled, and
separate from sinners. With neck on which yoke had never lain, she is a type
of Him, who said, “The prince of this world cometh, and he hath nothing in
me.” Red in color, she is a type of Him, whose feet were dipped in the blood
of his enemies, and, as seen coming from Bozrah, was “red in his apparel,
traveling in the greatness of his might.” And what is this public procession,
which conducts the heifer without the camp, but a figure of the march to
Calvary? And what is her bloody death, but a type of that which Je-us suffered
amid the agonies of the cross? And what are these fires that burn so fiercely,
and consume the victim, but a faint image of the wrath of God, under which his
soul was “withered like grass?” And what was the water mingled with this
heifer’s ashes, but a type of the righteousness, which, imputed and applied to
sinners, makes sinners just? For, as the Jew on whom that water was sprinkled
became ceremonially clean, so guilt of original and actual sin—all guilt is
removed from him (much the happier man) whom God sprinkles with the blood of
Calvary—and to whom sovereign mercy imputes the merits of a Saviour’s
sacrifice.

Let me further illustrate this. There was another method of preparing this
clean water, which, although in some respects different, was the same in this,
that it also implied the death of a vicarious sacrifice. The eper, a mass of
sores from crown to heel, a banished man—banished from city, synagogue, the
dwellings of men, and the house of God—the victim of a loathsome disease,
which made his presence an offense to others, and his life a burden to
himself, was a hideous, doleful, revolting emblem of a sinner. Now let us see
how—when God was pleased to cure him—his ceremonial uncleanness was removed.
On the happy occasion, which was to restore him to the arms of his wife, the
sweet society of his children, the brotherhood of men, and the presence of
God—two living birds were taken. They must be doves or turtles—the gentlest of
all God's creatures, and therefore the more fitting emblems of his Son. They
are held over a vessel, already filled with running water. One is slain. The
blood, as it flows over the snowy plumage of the fluttering bird, falls into
the water; and that, dyed by the crimson stream, now becomes "water of
purifying"—the clean water of the text. With this sacred lavation the priest
sprinkles the man who had been a leper, and now ceremonially clean, that
blessed moment he is folded in the embrace of his wife; kisses his children,
and walks with them, a happy man, at the head of a happy family, into the
house of God.

But there were two birds. We have seen one disposed of. What has become of the
other? With beating heart it is still a prisoner in the hands of the priest;
and the close of this ceremonial offers us a beautiful and most vivid picture
of the removal of guilt. The living bird, type of a sinner to whom a Saviour's
merits are to be imputed, is dipped head, feet, wings, and feathers—plunged
overhead—into the blood-dyed water. It is "baptized unto death." And, brought
out before the people—all crimsoned with blood—the priest opens his
consecrated hand, and restores the captive to liberty. Image of a pardoned one
on his path to glory, it spreads out its wings, and, beating the air with
rapid and rejoicing strokes, flies away to its forest or rocky home.

You will now understand the nature of this clean water; and cannot fail, I
think, to see, that although clothed in a Jewish dress, justification by faith
in the righteousness of Jesus—that paramount article of our creed which Luther
called the test of a falling or standing church—is the doctrine of my text.
Thus understood, my text sheds, we think, a valuable light on one of the most
prominent, and best known and most important passages in the word of God. When
Nicodemus, not yet prepared to confess Christ before the world, muffled
himself up in his cloak, and, stealing forth under the cloud of night, sought
an interview with our Lord, Jesus said to him—“Except a man be born again, he
cannot see the Kingdom of God,” adding, by way of explanation, the no less
memorable words—“Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit he cannot see
the Kingdom of God.” Now, as commonly understood, these words refer only to
the renewing of the Holy Ghost. It is generally thought that the water there
is but an emblem of the Spirit, and that our Lord just meant to say—“Except a
man’s soul is purified by the Spirit’s regenerating influence, as his body is
by water, he cannot be an heir of grace and an heir of heaven.

We venture to think, that on that occasion, and in these words, our Lord
preached the Gospel more fully Turn the light of my text upon them, read them
in connection with it, understand by the water of Christ’s address the water
of my text, and his language to

Nicodemus expands into a full Gospel. If the water in his address meant only
the Holy Spirit, he told a truth, but not the whole truth. Are not more than
regenerating influences needed, that a man may enter the kingdom of heaven?
For that end, is not the blood of the Saviour as necessary as the renewing of
the Holy Ghost? But let our Lord, in speaking to Nicodemus—who as a Jew would
at once catch the allusion—have an eye to the clean water of the ceremonial
law; let the water there refer, like the water here, to an atoning sacrifice,
and the Gospel in that celebrated passage shines forth in its effulgent
radiance. Our Lord tells him what I preach, and pray you to ponder on, that
except you are washed in his blood, as well as renewed by his Spirit, you
cannot see the Kingdom of God.

The doctrine of my text, and, indeed, of all Scripture is, that nothing saves
but blood. In that, as in other senses, "the life is in the blood." There may
be the sprinkling of water, but without the shedding and sprinkling of blood,
there is no remission—no remission, though the water fall from the holiest
hand, and be itself the purest that ever dripped from mossy well or mountain
spring. It is what came from the bosom of the upper heavens, of which that
visible firmament is but the starry floor, that takes sin away. It is not the
tears that fall from weeping heavens, but those that fell from Jesus' eyes; it
is not the rain that drops from dissolving clouds, but the blood that dropped
from a wounded Saviour; it is not what falls when lightnings flash, and
thunders roll along shaking skies, but what fell when the sword of justice was
flashed in his dying eye, and the law pealed its loudest thunders on his
bleeding head—it is that which brings peace and pardon to the guilty soul, and
fills to the brim this crimson fountain, which is opened for all uncleanness.

"I," not my ordinances, not baptism, nor the supper, nor preaching, nor
prayer, not these, but "I," says Jesus, "am the way." Not a way, but the way.
There is but one way. Let me warn you, that although there is but one way of
getting to heaven, there are two ways of missing it; and what—at first seems
strange—these two ways go off in opposite directions; the one to this side and
the other to that. Yet, as one man traveling due westward, and another due
eastward, at the same rate of so many miles a day, would meet again face to
face somewhere on the opposite side of the globe, beneath our feet, the
travelers by the two opposite paths I speak of meet again—meet in perdition.
This doctrine of salvation by the blood and righteousness of Christ will—God
blessing and enabling you to believe it—guard you against both errors—on this
side against presumption, and on that against despair. Some—and of these the
Pharisee is a type—believed that they are not sinners; or, if sinners, that
God is not angry with them, and will not punish them. What an exposure of the
delusion is that cross! The Son of God dies there. Unless he dies, your sin is
not forgiven. Others—and of these Iscariot is the type—turning away from God,
believe that he is so angry with them that he will not pardon. They look on
God as a stern, austere, vindictive, and implacable Divinity; in whom the
hatred of sin, like a roaring whirlpool, has swallowed up all other
feelings—in whom the love, kindness, and pity of the Father is lost in the
sternness of the Judge. And so—nor any wonder when such is their belief—they
shun God, they hate God, they try to shut him out from their thoughts and wish
—how vain the wish!—that there were no God at all. But where, let me ask, do
we find this implacable God? If I ascend into heaven, he is not there; there
God sits enthroned, the father of a happy family—like an effulgent sun,
pouring gladness and glory upon all. I return to this earth—go up and down the
world—seek him, but he is not here; I can not find a trace or footprint of him
here. I see God's sun shining without distinction on the evil and the good,
and his rain falling with the same affluent abundance on the fields of the
just and the unjust. Fields, forests, mountains, smiling valleys, and sunny
seas, are not more full of creatures than of happiness; and from the deep bass
of ocean to the ringing carol of the lark, nature forms one choir, and chants
her hymns to God. I open the Bible, but he is not here. Gift of our heavenly
Father, dying legacy of an incarnate Son, revelation of a kind and winning
Spirit! love shines on thy every page, and in thy very name thy loving mercy
is proclaimed—Gospel, glad tidings, good tidings, of good. Of this God, this
appalling specter, whom Despair eyes with a dark and horrid scowl, Heaven
says, he is not in me; Earth says, he is not in me; the Bible says, he is not
in me.

Where is he, then? With head averted, hair standing on end, and stony horror
in her looks, Despair points to the pit, saying—look there! What have you to
say to that? In the first place, I have certainly not to say that that hell is
but the dream which haunts a guilty conscience—nor yet to deny that the e is a
hell. No: nor, further, to conceal it although I could. It were no kindness to
spread a covering over the pit that is the cunning hunter's business; and the
business of him who hunts the world for souls. It is an

22.

awful thought, that pit; it is an awful reality, that pit; it is an awful
abode, that pit; and this is an awful declaration, "The wicked shall be cast
into hell, and all the nations that fear not God." But over against these
stern declarations, and between the pit and you, a high red cross is standing.
Mercy descends from heaven, lights upon its summit, and preaches hope to
despair, pardon to guilt, salvation to the lost. Free as the winds that fan
her cheek, free as the sunbeams that shine on her golden tresses, she invites
all to come, opens her arms to embrace the world, and in a voice that rings
like a silver trumpet, cries, "O, Earth, Earth, Earth, hear the word of the
Lord." A beautiful vision! Her eye, so pitiful, swims in tears as she looks on
poor sinners, and, not willing that any should perish, she bids you read on
that cross, where it is written, not in letters of gold, but blood, this
greatest oath—these blessed words:—"As I live, saith the Lord, I have no
pleasure in the death of the wicked." As I live, says God, I have no pleasure
in the death of the wicked. By my cross and agony, by this thorny crown and
bloody tree, as I die, says Jesus, I have no pleasure in the death of the
wicked. Holy Spirit! Dove of heaven! hovering over us, staying, lingering,
refusing to be driven away, thou sayest, as I now plead, entreat, implore, "I
have no pleasure in the death of the wicked."

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  CHAPTER 15: 15. Man Convented
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A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an
heart of flesh.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 26.

It is a happy thing that baptism is not the door of heaven;—happy for
millions, who, dying in earliest infancy, never pass that way. Dying
unbaptized, we hold that they die not on that account unsaved; for whoever
dare hang God's mercy on any outward rite, we do not, and although we believe
that this interesting ordinance is also, when engaged in with faith, an
eminently blessed one, we dare not. Thousands go to heaven without baptism.
Thousands, alas! perish with it. Heaven is greatly made up of little
children—sweet buds that have never blown, or which death has plucked from a
mother's bosom to lay on his own cold breast, just when they were expanding,
flower-like, from the sheath, and opening their engaging beauties in the
budding time and spring of life. "Of such is the kingdom of heaven." How sweet
these words by the cradle of a dying infant! They fall like balm drops on our
bleeding heart, when we watch the ebbing of that young life, as wave after
wave breaks feebler, and the sinking breath gets lower and lower, till with a
gentle sigh, and a passing quiver of the lip, our child now leaves its body,
lying like an angel asleep, and ascends to the beatitudes of heaven and the
bosom of God. Indeed, it may be that God does with his heavenly garden as we
do with our own gardens. He may chiefly stock it from nurseries, and select
for transplanting what is yet in its young and tender age—flowers before they
have bloomed, and trees ere they begin to bear.

In the words of the Westminster Catechism, "Baptism is a sacrament, wherein
the washing with water in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy
Ghost, doth signify and seal our ingrafting into Christ, and partaking of the
benefits of the covenant of grace, and our engagement to be the Lord's."
Baptism attaches us to the visible church; admits to that, and is its door of
entrance; but, while it unites to the body of professing believers, it does
not of necessity form any living attachment between us and the Saviour. Let us
see what is done in these ordinances.

Years ago a man stood up in the house of God, and in his arms there lay a
sleeping child. Dipping his hand into a laver, the minister sprinkled some
drops on the infant's face, and over the unconscious creature pronounced the
names of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. That child was you. By hands, now
moldering in the grave, your father then tied you—so to speak—to Christ. Well,
time rolls on, and infants grow into children, children shoot up into youths,
and youths change into bearded men; and then there comes another day. A table
is spread in the house of God. Like the shroud in which kind women swathed his
sacred body, a linen cloth covers the memorials of Christ's death. The broken
body is uncovered, the commemoration begins; and, amid the stillness of that
solemn scene, with thoughtful countenance, a man leaves his seat, and taking
the bread, and raising the wine-cup in his hand, he dedicates him self to the
Saviour. That man again is you. And now awake, not asleep, conscious of what
is done, not passive but active now, with your own hands you cast another knot
upon the cord by which your father years ago bound you to Jesus. You are now
tied—doubly tied—yet it does not follow that you are yet engrafted into him.

I have seen a branch tied to the bleeding tree, for the purpose of being
engrafted into its wounded body, and that thus both might be one. Yet no
incorporation had followed; there was no living union. Spring came singing,
and with her fingers opened all the buds; and summer came, with her dewy
nights and sunny days, and brought out all the flowers; and brown autumn came
to shake the trees and reap the fields, and with dances and mirth to hold
"harvest home;" but that unhappy branch bore no fruit, nor flower, nor even
leaf. Just held on by dead clay and rotting cords, it stuck to the living
tree—a withered and unsightly thing. So alas! is it with many; "having a name
to live they are dead." They have no faith; they want that bond of living
union between the graft and what it is grafted on—between the sinner and the
Saviour. And, therefore, in quitting this part of our subject for another, let
me ask, "believest thou;" and if thou dost not, O, let me urge you to pray
with the man in the Gospel, "Lord, help mine unbelief?"

Do you say, I cannot believe? In one sense, that is true; in another, it is
not. It is not true in the same sense as it is true—that a man who has no eyes
in his head—nothing but empty sockets—can not see. All men are born with
faith. Faith is as natural to a man as grief, or love, or anger. One of the
earliest flowers that springs up in the soul—it smiles on a mother from her
infant's cradle; and living on through the rudest storms of life, it never
dies till the hour of death. On the face of a child which has been left for a
little time with strangers, and may be caressed with their kisses, and courted
with their smiles, and fondled, and dandled in their arms, I have seen a cloud
gathering, and growing darker, till at length it burst in cries of terror and
a shower of tears. The mother returns; and when the babe holds out its little
arms to her, I see in these the arms of faith; and when, like a believer
restored to the bosom of his God, it is nestling in a mother's embrace, and
the cloud passes from its brow, and its tears are changed into smiles, and its
terror into calm serenity, we behold the principle of faith in play. This is
one of its earliest, and—so far as nature is concerned—one of its most
beautiful developments. So natural, indeed, is it for us to confide, and
trust, and believe, that a child believes whatever it is told, until
experience shakes its confidence in human veracity. Its eye is caught by the
beauty of some flower, or it gazes up with wonder on the starry heavens;—with
that inquisitiveness which in childhood, active as a bee, is ever on the wing,
it is curious to know who made them, and would believe you if you said you
made them yourself. Such is the faith which nature gives it in a father, that
it never doubts his word. It believes all he says, and is content to believe
where it is not able to comprehend. For this, as well as other reasons, our
Lord presented, in a child, the living model of a Christian. He left Abraham,
father of the faithful, to his repose in heaven; he left Samuel, undisturbed,
to enjoy the quiet rest of his grave; he allowed Moses and Elias,

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL after their brief visit, to return to the skies, and
wing their way back to glory. For a pattern of faith, he took a boy from his
mother's side, and, setting him up, in his gentle, blushing, shrinking
modesty, before the great assembly, he said, "Whosoever shall not receive the
kingdom of God as a little child, shall in no wise enter therein."

Paul said, "When I was a child I spake as a child, I thought as a child; but
when I became a man, I put away childish things;" but no man ever thought of
leaving the faith of childhood with its rattle and its toys. Faith is, in
fact, the soul and life of friendship. What is a friend, but one whom I can
trust, one who, I believe, will mingle his tears with mine, and whose support
I reckon on when my back is at the wall? Without faith in each other's
friendship, kindness, and honesty, this world would be turned into a Bedouin
desert; men would become Ishmaelites;—my hand against every man, and every
man's hand against me. Faith is the marriage tie; the guardian angel of
conjugal felicity; the jeweled zone that binds society together; the power,
mightier than steam, or wind, or water, that moves all the wheels of commerce.
Unless man could trust his fellow-man, business would come to a dead stand;
the whole machinery of the world would stop; our busy streets would bear crops
of grass; and, though winds blew and tides flowed as before, rotting ships
would fall to pieces in our silent and deserted harbors.

Leaving the busy city for rural scenes, or setting your foot on board ship,
and pushing out upon the heaving ocean, you find faith ploughing the fields of
both—faith in the laws of nature, in the ordinances of Providence. When the
air has still a frosty breath, and, although cleared of winter snow, the earth
is cold and—looks dead as a corpse disrobed of its shroud—it shows neither
flower nor leaf, nor sign of life, the husbandman, notwithstanding, yokes his
team and drives the ploughshare through its breasts. With confidence in his
step, liberality in his hand, and hope in his eye, he scatters the seed far
and wide on the bosom of the ground. He is a believer; a believer in
Providence—in the laws and procession of the seasons. He has faith; not saving
faith indeed, but still true faith. He believes that out of these frosty skies
gentle zephyrs shall blow, and soft showers shall fall, and summer beams shall
shine; and, looking along the vista of time, he sees golden corn waving thick
upon these empty fields, and hears in this silent scene the joy of light
hearts ringing in the laugh and song of the reapers. His ploughing and his
sowing are acts of genuine faith; and, as he strides across the field with his
sowing sheet around him, he is an example of one, who, with his eye, as well
as his foot, on earth, "Walks by faith, not by sight."

Then again, sailing as much as sowing is an act of faith. In this rough and
weather-beaten mariner, on board whose ship we are dashing through the thick
gloom of a starless night, and over the waves of a pathless ocean, I see faith
standing at the helm. That man has faith in the needle; and believing that the
heart of an angel is not more true to God than this needle to the north, he
presses forward over the watery waste in a voyage, that may with perfect truth
be called a voyage of faith. Would to God we had as strong a faith in our
Bible! Would to God that our trembling hearts pointed as true to Jesus, as his
needle in all weathers, and on all seas, to the distant pole! What we want
divine grace to do, is not so much to give us faith, as to give to the
principle or faculty of faith, which we have by nature, a right, holy,
heavenward direction; to convert it into faith in things eternal. The faith
that sees an unseen world—a faith just as strong in the revelations of the
Bible as in the ordinary laws of nature, this is what we need. Let it be
sought in earnest, persevering prayer. It is "the gift of God." Saving faith
has God for its author, the Spirit for its agent, Christ for its object, grace
for its root, holiness for its fruit, and heaven for its reward. Accepting the
righteousness of Christ, it makes us just; and seeing every sin pardoned, all
guilt removed, God smiling, and heaven opening to receive us, it is the spring
of a peace of mind which is worth more than the wealth of worlds, which
passeth all understanding. May God help us to the confession and the prayer,
"Lord I believe, help thou mine unbelief."

We have already stated that while salvation was the one thing needful, there
were two things needful for salvation. Having considered the first of these,
namely, the remission of sin and justification of the sinner, we now enter on
the second, namely, the renovation of the soul as enunciated in the words, "A
new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you, and I
will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart
of flesh." And we remark—

I. This is a great change. Not that all men think so. Once on a time, for
instance, we wandered into a church in this city. The preacher read these
words for his text, "Except a man be born again, he can not see the kingdom of
God." And just as at the fords of Jordan, they knew a man's country by the way
he sounded Shibboleth, so you will never fail to know a man's creed by the way
in which he handles such a passage as that. The preacher read his text; and
then, as it were, sat down by the cradle, where his charge was sleeping, to
rock them over into a deeper slumber. The text, forsooth, was an oriental
figure! a hyperbole! pointing to an outward change. No more was needed. In the
strong and highly figurative language which eastern nations indulge in, it
described the change undergone by the man who abandons a wild and wicked life
for habits of decency, honesty, and temperance. Far be it from me to speak
lightly of temperance societies, or of any scheme, indeed, that aims at the
dignity and elevation of man; yet, according to the preacher, our Lord's
language meant nothing more than the change which these institutions are of
themselves able to accomplish—a change of habits without any gracious change
of heart. Did a drunkard become sober? he was born again; a libertine pure? or
thief honest? or liar true? he was born again! In short, such was the style
and character of the discourse, that if a poor, hungry soul had gone there for
bread, he could have got nothing—carried away nothing—but a stone; and instead
of a fish, we saw the serpent's coil, and heard her hiss. The preacher taught
that these words were applicable only to the scum and off-scourings of the
city—the dregs of society—those poor, depraved, degraded creatures, who,
weighed down by a load of poverty and ignorance and guilt, have sunk to the
bottom, and to our shame are left to lie there in distressing and dreadful
pollution. So far as any congregation of decent, welldressed, sober, honest,
reputable professors of religion were concerned, that truth had no bearing on
them; our Lord - although he assuredly found in Nicodemus one of this class--
did not speak of them; they, happy mortals! had no need to be born again.

You cannot fancy any two things more opposed to each other than that doctrine
and ours. We believe that the purest, gentlest, loveliest, most amiable
creature that blesses fond parents, and adorns earth's happiest home -one of
nature's fairest flowers-stands as much in need of a new birth as the vilest
outcast who walks these streets-the lost one, whose name is never mentioned
but by broken hearts and in wrestling prayers to God. The best of mankind are
so bad that all have need to be born again; so bad, that the change promised
in the text, and insisted on by our Saviour, can not be a surface or
superficial matter.-any mere defilement of the skin which nitre and soap may
remove. Words have no meaning unless this change is a radical reform-a change
great in its character, and lasting in its consequences-a change, which,
affecting not the habits only, but the heart, both reaches downward into the
deepest recesses of the soul, and stretches forward into the ages of eternity.

Now, I am afraid that some-dreaming, as they slumber, that they have been born
again, and so are safe, because their conduct is changed, and because, so far
as their mere habits are concerned, they are better than once they were-have
gone to sleep before this work is even begun. Beware of rash conclusions of
such momentous importance. Have we not seen passions, like the fire upon the
hearth, burn out and die for want of fuel? Have we not seen the course of
vice, like a worn out machine, stop from the decays of nature—from the mere
wear and tear of its materials. Virtue is cheap; vice is costly; and, proving
a heavy tax upon the purse, destructive of health, and damaging to character,
we have seen self-interest turn a man from the indulgence of his strongest
vices. Old age cools hot blood. Successive bereavements will in a way break
the heart, and some deep disappointment may wean those, who have the keenest
appetite for its pleasures, from the gayeties and vanities of the world. And,
as in Roman Catholic countries, many a cowled monk, and many a veiled nun,
enters convent or monastery more from feelings of disappointment than
devotion; so, when hopes are blasted and pride is mortified, and ambition has
missed her mark, you may get sick of the world. Alas! all who bid adieu to the
ball-room and theater, and giddy round of fashion, do not leave the circle of
their enchantments for the closet, for the sanctuary, for fields of Christian
benevolence. As by sleight of hand and necromantic trick, Egypt's magicians
produced a set of mimic miracles, that were clever counterfeits of those which
God wrought by the hand of Moses, may not other causes than true love of
holiness or godly hatred of sin work such an outward, as bears some
considerable likeness to a saving change? In matters of religion, beware of
confounding an almost with an altogether Christian. So far as it goes, any
change for the better is good. We hail it with hope. It is good so far as it
goes, and good so long as it lasts; but Oh, let us not fall into the fatal
mistake of confounding an outward reformation with that divine, inward eternal
transformation which is wrought by the Spirit and promised in the words, "A
new heart also will I give you."

Leaving the nature of this change to be afterwards considered, let me attempt
meanwhile to show that this is a great change. In illustration of the truth,
look, I pray you, to the symbols under which it is presented in the Word of
God.

It is a birth.

When an infant leaves the womb—that darksome dwelling, where it has passed the
first stage of its existence,—although the same creature, it may be said to be
a new creature, and to enter on a new being. How great the change from that
living sepulcher, where it lay entombed, nor saw, nor heard, nor breathed, nor
loved, nor feared, nor took any more interest than the dead in all that was
happening around it! Alive, yet how like death its state has been Having eyes,
it saw not, and ears it heard not, and feet it walked not, and hands it
handled not, and affections it felt not. Its state was a strange and
mysterious mingling of the characters of life and death When the windows of
its senses are thrown open, and streams of knowledge come rushing in on its
young and wondering soul, and its eyes follow the light, and with its restless
hands it is acquainting itself with matter, and sounds are entering its ears,
amid whose mingled din it soon learns to distinguish the sweet tones of one
tender voice—its mother's, and it loves, and is loved, and lies nestling in
dreamy slumbers on her bosom, or sweetly smiles in her smiling face—how great
the change! Now, just because the change wrought on the soul in conversion is
also great, and introduces its subject into a new and delightful existence, it
borrows a name from that change. That is the first, this is the second birth;
aye, and infinitely the better of the two. Better! because in that a son of
man is born but for the grave, whereas in this a son of God is born for glory.
Better! because the march of these little feet is along a rough path between a
cradle and a coffin; whereas, the way of grace however full of trials, toil,
and battle, is from the pangs of birth onward and upward to a crown in heaven.
Happy for you if you are heaven-born and heaven-bound. It may be that a stormy
life lies before you; but let storms rage and tempests roar—however rude the
gale or high the rolling billows—a heaven-born passenger in a heaven-bound
bark, you cannot miss the haven. "There remaineth a rest to the people of
God."

This change is a resurrection. A resurrection is a great change. Go to the
churchyard. Go where death shall one day carry you, whether you will or not.
"Come," said the angels, "see the place where the Lord lay." Come, let us see
the place where we ourselves shall lie, and look at man as we ourselves shall
be. Take him in any of his stages of decay. Look at this compressed line of
mod, that by its color marks itself out as different from the neighboring
clay; it is black earth, and retains no apparent vestige of organization. What
resemblance does it bear to a man? None. Yet gather it together and give it to
the chemist; he analyzes it, and pronounces this unctuous dust to have been
once a human creature. It may have been a beauty, who with alarm saw the roses
fading on her cheek, and age tracing wrinkles on her ivory brow, and mixing in
gray hairs with her raven locks. It may have been a beggar, who, tired of his
cold and hungry pilgrimage, laid his head gladly in the lap of mother earth,
and ended his weary wanderings here. It may have been a king, who was dragged
from amid his guards to the tomb, and sullenly yielded to the sway of a
monarch mightier than himself. Or, look here at these yellow relics of
mortality which the grave-digger—familiar with his trade—treats with such
irreverent contempt. Look at these preachers of humility—at this moldering
skull, the deserted palace of a soul, within which high intellect once sat
enthroned—at those fleshless cheeks, once blooming with smiles and roses—at
that skeleton hand, which may once have grasped the helm of public affairs, or
swayed the passions of capricious multitudes, or held up the cross from sacred
pulpits to the eyes of dying men—at those moldering limbs, which piety may
have bent to God—and at these hollow sockets—now the nest of slimy worms—where
glances of love have melted, and looks of fire have flashed.

Turning away your head with horror and humiliation, to think that you shall
lie where they are—and be as they are—you say, Alas! what a change is there!
Ah! but Faith steps forward, plants a triumphant foot on the black grave's
edge, and silencing my fears, dispelling my gloom, and reconciling me to that
lowly bed, she lifts her cheerful voice, and exclaims, True! but what a change
shall be there! Looking through her eyes, I see the spell broken. I see that
dust once more animate. And when the blast of the trumpet—penetrating the
caves of the rocks, and felt down in the depths of ocean—pierces the car of
death in this dark, and cold, and lonely bed, where I have lowered a coffin,
and left the dear form and sweet face of some loved one, mortality shall rise
in form immortal, more beautiful than love ever fancied, or poet sang. How
great the change, when these moldering bones, which children look at with
fear, and grown men with solemn sadness, shall rise instinct with life! Think
of this handful of brown dust springing up into a form like that on which Adam
gazed with mute astonishment, when for the first time he caught the image of
himself mirrored in a glassy pool of Paradise; or better still, in a form such
as, when awakening from his slumber, he saw with wondering, admiring eyes, in
the lovely woman that lay by his side on their bed of love and flowers. And
now, because the change which conversion works on the soul is also
inexpressibly great, it borrows a name from that mighty change; that, a
resurrection of the body from the grave, this, a resurrection of the soul from
sin. In this "we pass from death to life"—in this we are "created anew in
Jesus Christ." "We rise with Him," says the Apostle, "to newness of life."

The greatness of the change is set forth in the symbolical representation of
it in the next chapter. Seized by the hand of the Spirit, Ezekiel is borne
aloft, carried away through the air, and set down in a lonely valley among the
hills of a distant land. This valley seems to have been, at some former
period, the scene of a great battle. There hosts had sustained the charge of
hosts, and crowns were perhaps staked and won. The peace of these solitudes
had been rudely broken by the shrieks of the wounded, the wild shouts of the
victors, the clash of arms, and the savage roar of battle. It was silent now.
The tide that swept over it had left it strewed with wrecks; the dead had
moldered unburied where they fell; the skull rattled in the cloven helmet; the
sword of the warrior lay rusting beside his skeleton, and the handle was still
in the relaxed grasp of the bony fingers. On these unburied corpses the "birds
of the air had summered," and "the wild beasts of the field had wintered." The
rain had washed, and the sun had bleached them;—they were white and dry. In
these grim and ghasty skeletons doleful picture of death lay stretched out
before the prophet; and while he surveyed the scene, there was neither sign
nor sound of life, but, it may be, the croak of the raven, or the howl of the
famished wolf, or the echo of his own solitary footfall. Such was the scene
Ezekiel was contemplating when a voice made him start. It came from the skies,
charged with this strange question, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

We stay not to relate all that happened and was done. It serves our purpose to
say, that after the prophet had preached to the bones, he prayed to Him who—to
dead bones, dead bodies, dead hearts, dead souls, dead families, and dead
churches—is "the Resurrection and the Life." Ezekiel's was the prayer of
faith—and it had its answer. How encouraging to us, when on our knees, that
answer! We feel as if Aaron and Hur sat at our side, and held up our weary
arms Ezekiel, after preaching, prayed; and there came from heaven a living and
life-giving breath. It blows down the valley; and as it kisses the icy lips of
the dead and stirs their hair, and fans their faces, man after man springs to
his feet, till the field which Ezekiel found covered with ghastly skeletons is
crowded with mighty army—all armed for battle and war—the marshaled host of
God.

That was a great change, and not less great the work of grace in conversion.
While the prophet is gazing with astonished eye on this martial array, where,
amid trumpet echoes, spears are gleaming, and plumes are dancing, as, bold in
aspect and stout for war, the serried ranks march on, mark what the Lord
said:—"Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel; behold they say,
Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost." Now, is not this the very
judgment—the very sentence—which the sinner often pronounces on his own case
when his eyes are first opened, and he sees himself lost and undone? What is
the house of Israel here but a type of God's chosen people? In Israel we see
our state by nature; a state of death; a state in which we are "dead in
trespasses and sins." On this account Satan would have us yield to despair. He
says that for such sinners there is no help—no hope. It is he who speaks in
the complaint, "Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost." Yes, it is he, the
father of lies, the enemy of souls. Yield not even to a doubt, for here "he
that doubteth is damned;" but mark God's gracious answer to that unbelieving,
dark, desponding complaint—"Thus saith the Lord God; behold, O my people, I
will open your graves, and I will put my spirit within you, and ye shall
live."

Hereafter, we will enter particularly into the nature of this great change;
meanwhile, let me ask, Have you any experience of it? I neither ask when, nor
where, nor how you felt its first impressions. On these subjects the
experience of saints is very different. Some can tell the time of it—giving
day and date, the hour, the providence, the place, the text, the preacher, and
all the circumstances associated with their conversion. They can show the
arrow, which, shot from some bow drawn at a venture, pierced the joints of
their armor, and quivered in their heart. They can show the pebble from the
brook, that, slung, it may be, by a youthful hand, but directed of God, was
buried in the forehead of their giant sin. They can show the word that
penetrated their soul, and—in some truths of Scripture—the salve that healed
the sore, the balm that stanched the blood, and the bandage that Christ's own
kind hand wrapped on the bleeding wound. Able to trace the steps and whole
progress of their conversion—its most minute and interesting details—they can
say with David, "Come and hear, all ye that fear God, and I will declare what
he hath done for my soul."

It is not so, however, with all, or, perhaps, with most. Some, so to speak,
are still-born; they were unconscious of their change; they did not know when
or how it happened; for a while at least, they gave hardly a sign of life.
With many the dawn of grace is, in more respects than one, like the dawn of
day. We turn our face to the east, and our back to the setting stars, to note
the very moment of the birth of morning; yet how hard it is to tell when and
where the first faint, cold, steel-gray gleam appears. It is so with many in
regard to their spiritual dawn,—with the breaking of an eternal day,—with
their first emotions of desire, and of alarm, as with that faint and feeble
streak, which brightened, and widened, and spread, till it blazed into a
brilliant sky.

The great matter, about which to be anxious, is not the time, nor place, nor
mode of the change, but the fact itself. Has this change taken place in you?
Are you other than once you were? Rather than be what once you were, would you
prefer not being at all? Would you prefer annihilation to your old corruption?
Some, alas! change to the worse, giving themselves up

MAN CONVERTED to sins, which once they would have blushed to mention. Dead to
all sense of shame, breaking loose from the innocence of their childhood,
casting off the comely habits and pious practices of a paternal home, they
plunge into excess of riot; and, borne on by the impetus they have acquired in
the descent, like one running down hill who can not stop although he would,
when they reach the mouth of the pit they are borne over into perdition. They
change, but, like "Seducers," they "wax worse and worse." The night grows
darker and darker; the edge of conscience duller and duller; the process of
petrification goes on in their heart, till it acquires the hardness of stone;
and, wallowing in the mire of the lowest sensuality, they can make a boast of
sins—sins, in regard to which, on the day when they left their father's roof,
with his blessing on their head, and a mother's warm tears on their cheek,
they would have said with feelings of indignant abhorrence—"Is thy servant a
dog that he should do such a thing." What a melancholy change!

In blessed and beautiful contrast to a metamorphosis so sad, has the change in
you taken an opposite direction? Can you say, I am not what once I was,—but
better, godlier, holier! Happy are you! Happy, although, afraid of
presumption, and in the blushing modesty of a spiritual childhood, you can
venture no further than one who was urged to say whether she had been
converted? How modest, yet how satisfactory her reply! That, she answered, I
cannot—that I dare not say; but there is a change somewhere; either I am
changed, or the world is changed. If you can say so, it is well. Such an
answer leaves no room for painful doubts. Our little child—watching with
curious eye the apparent motion of objects—calls out in ecstasy, and bids us
see how hedge and house are flying past our carriage. It is not these that
move, nor is it the fixed and firm shore, with its trees and fields, and boats
at anchor, and harbors and headlands, that is gliding by the cabin windows.
That is an illusion of the eye. The motion is not in them but us And if the
world is growing less in your eye, it shows that you are retreating from it,
rising above it, and ascending in the arms of grace to higher regions; and if
the fashion of this world, to our eye, seems passing away, it is because we
ourselves are passing—passing and pressing on in the way to heaven. Sin never
changes. And if what was once lovely looks loathsome now—if what was once
desired is detested now, if what was once sought we now shun and shrink from,
it is not because sin is changed, but—blessed be God, and praise be to his
grace—we are changed. Our eyes are opened; the scales have dropt from them;
and the solution of the problem may be found in the blind man's
answer—"Whereas I was blind, now I see."

i

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  CHAPTER 16: 16. The Heart of Stone
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A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 26.

THERE is a mine of sound sense in the adage of an old divine, "seriousness is
the greatest wisdom, temperance the most efficient physic, and a good
conscience the very best estate." Early habits of self-restraint, total
abstinence from all excess, diligence in business, attention to our duties,
and that tranquility of mind which piety breeds, and which those enjoy who are
at peace with God,—these, we confidently affirm, would do more to abate
disease than all our physicians, much more to feed the hungry, and clothe the
naked, than our Poor Laws and charitable institutions, and very much more than
any Acts of Parliament to promote the comforts of the people, and preserve the
liberties of the commonwealth. The older we grow, and the more our observation
enlarges, the deeper grows our conviction, that "godliness is profitable unto
all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to
come."

One of the most remarkable instances of the truth, which it was ever our good
fortune to see, presented itself in the immediate vicinity of this church. A
weary day had passed in visiting a degraded neighborhood. The scenes were sad,
sickening, repulsive. Famine, fever, want, squalid nakedness, moral and
physical impurities, drunkenness, death, and the devil were all reigning
there. Those only who have known the sickness and sinking of heart which the
miseries of such scenes produce, especially when aggravated by a close and
foul atmosphere, can imagine the gratification and surprise with which, on
opening a door, we stepped into a comfortable apartment. Its white washed
walls were hung round with prints; the furniture shone like a looking-glass;
and a bright fire was dancing merrily over a clean hearth-stone. It was an
oasis in the desert. And we well remember, ere question was asked or answered,
of saying to ourselves, "Surely the fear of God is in this place; this must be
the house of a church-going family." It proved to be so. A blind man dwelt
there. It was a home where squalid poverty might have been excused. And from
it we carried away with us a lively sense of the temporal advantages of piety;
and felt inclined to chalk these words on the blind man's door, as a lesson to
his neighbors—"The fear of the Lord, that is wisdom; and to depart from evil
is understanding."

Suppose—and we suppose nothing impossible, nor in coming days improbable, for
the promise waits fulfillment, "a nation shall be born in a day"—suppose,
then, that in the plentitude of divine grace, God should bend an eye of pity
on the wretched inhabitants of our immediate neighborhood, and pour down his
Spirit on them in showers from heaven. At present, with a few bright
exceptions, they are the votaries and victims of dissipation—I say votaries
and victims, because vice is such a damning thing, that he who begins by
ministering at her altar always ends by becoming the sacrifice. Around us
thousands live who never enter a house of God. Their children, unless they are
fortunate enough to die early, are reared in ignorance, vice, and crime; and
by habits of intemperance, many of them have reduced themselves to pinching
hunger, ill-relieved by the uncertain supplies of charity, and the most
squalid wretchedness. Now, suppose that God were pleased to send life to these
"dry bones,"— that from lip to lip, and house to house, the cry were passing,
"Oh, sirs, what shall I do to be saved?"— that the last shilling that vice had
left, were spent for the purchase of a Bible; that, like water by men parched
in the desert, and dying of thirst, God's word were bought, borrowed, or
begged, and that, rising to the summons of the Sabbath bell, these streets,
where only a solitary worshiper may now be seen, were filled with the
unaccustomed spectacle of a ragged crowd pouring into the houses of God;—how
soon would their common aspect change? A few weeks, and we should hardly
recognize them.

Save these picturesque and old-fashioned tenements, the blue heavens above,
that rocky citadel with its frowning batteries, yonder noble arm of the sea,
and the same green fields, rich valleys and romantic crags, of the everlasting
hills around us, all old things else would have passed away. Prisons, that now
complain of crowded cells, would be found too large; and many churches, cold
now with empty pews, would be found too small. The smoldering fever would,
like an unfed fire, go out for want of fuel; and rank church-yards would grow
green at Christmas, for lack of their too-frequent burials. The brutal
features of dissipation would give place to an expression of intelligence and
humanity; roses would blow on childhood's pallid cheek, and mother's smiles
would chase the sadness from many a poor, sallow, infant face. Then, under

11* the patronage of religion, and the sign of the Bible, the craft of the
honest mechanic, and the trade of the useful merchant would flourish, while
the panderer to vice would fall into unpitied bankruptcy, and the voice of a
virtuous people would tell him to shut shop and begone. Furniture would crowd
these empty rooms; the rags, through whose loopholes poverty stared out upon a
pitying world, would change into decent attire. Piety, descending like an
angel from the skies, would come to these dwellings with a prophet's blessing;
beneath her celestial feet happiness would spring up like summer flowers;
plenty would pour her horn into the lap of poverty; there would be meal in
every household barrel, and oil in every widow's cruse. Underneath the benign
and blessed influences of religion, this wilderness would be glad; our city
Ishmaelites would change into Israelites, and these moral deserts would
rejoice and blossom like the rose. "Even so, come, Lord Jesus; come quickly."

The truth is, the world's great want is the want of religion. Perhaps men want
more equal laws, more liberal institutions, and through their happy influence,
better and more stable governments. The greatest want of nations is, however,
that without which liberty has no solid pedestal to stand on—a genuine, mass-
pervading piety. To drop all reference to foreign countries, I am sure that he
who attempts to cure our own social maladies, independently of this best and
most sanatory element, may be a philanthropist, but is not a philosopher. We
had almost said he is a fool. He is an idle schemer, who would fain make
bricks without straw, and heal the waters of Jericho without the prophet's
salt. His theories are as baseless and unsolid as if they conceived of man as
a creature without a soul—of the solar system as without its central sun—of
the universe without its God. But while religion is thus the mortar that binds
society together,—while the poor man may remember to his comfort, that if he
leave his family no inheritance but his prayers and the priceless legacy of a
godly example, he leaves them rich indeed—while an education of domestic piety
is better than all Greek and Roman lore,—and while godliness is the most
stable basis on which to erect an earthly fortune,—I pray you to observe that
the change promised in the text does not necessarily imply any temporal
advantage—any improvement either in our bodily condition or worldly
circumstances. We live in a world of mysteries. We sometimes see religion
languishing neglected on a bed of sickness; and piety, in other cases than
that of Lazarus, may be found clad in rags and covered with sores, sitting a
beggar at the rich man's gate. The change is on the man within. The change is
on the tenant, not the tenement; on the heart, not the body; on our
circumstances, not so much in this life as in the life to come. If by faith in
Christ you come to God, I can not promise for him that he will pour health
into your veins or money into your purse. But he will endow you with
infinitely better gifts. Hear what he promises in the text—"A new heart also
will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and I will take away
the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh."

Having already illustrated the greatness of this change, I now proceed to
examine its nature; and remark—

I. The old heart is taken away, and a new one put in its place.

The head was justly considered by the ancients to be the residence of the
intellectual faculties, where the soul sat enthroned, as in a palace—presiding
over all. On the other hand, they regarded the affections as having dwelling
in the heart—that other great organ of our system. Within the breast, love and
hatred, grief and joy, aversion and desire, generosity, jealousy, pity,
revenge, were supposed to dwell; and thus (to dismiss the metaphor), that
substitution of one heart for another which is promised in the text, just
implies an entire change in the character and current of our affections. Now,
a change may be simply a reform, or, extending farther, it may pass into a
revolution. The spiritual change, which we call conversion, is not a mere
reform. It is a revolution—a mighty revolution, if aught was ever worthy of
that name—a revolution greater than the tomes of profane history, or any old
monuments of stone or of brass record. It changes the heart, the habits, the
eternal destiny of an immortal being. On the banner, borne in triumph at the
head of this movement, I read the words that doom old things to ruin,
"Overturn, Overturn, Overturn." For the old mischievous laws which it repeals,
it introduces a new code of statutes; it changes the reigning dynasty,
wrenches the scepter from a usurpér's hand, and, banishing him forth of the
kingdom, in restoring the throne to God, restores it to its rightful monarch.

The Gospel is indisputably revolutionary;—there can be no doubt of the fact.
The old charge brought against its preachers is true. "These that have turned
the world upside down, are come hither also."

The world requires to be turned upside down. Like a boat capsized in a squall,
and floating keel uppermost in the sea, with men drowning around it, the world
has been turned upside down already; and to be set right, it must just be
turned upside down again. If the order which God established has been reversed
by sin—if in our hearts and habits time has assumed the place of eternity—the
body of the soul—earth of heaven, and self of God;—if that is first which
should be last, and that last which should be first,—if that is uppermost
which should be undermost, and that undermost which should be uppermost, then
happy the homes and the hearts of which, in reference to the entrance of God's
Word, Spirit, and converting grace, it can be said, "These that have turned
the world upside down, are come hither also."

Where, it may be asked, lies the inevitable necessity for a change so
pervadingly elementary, so radical, so revolutionary? such an inward and total
change? We must seek for that necessity in the records of a distant past. It
lies in an old event—in the Fall. By reason of that great crime and sad
calamity, the condition of our hearts has become naturally so bad—in reference
at least to spiritual objects and interests—as not to admit of repair. We
understand how this may be true of a house. The tenement may have fallen into
such utter decay, so many cracks may gape in its bulged and tottering walls,
the timbers may be so moth-eaten, the foundations so shaken, post, pillar, and
lintel so moldered away, that nothing remains but to pull it down level with
the ground, and on its old site to erect a new and stately edifice. Or—to vary
the illustration—a watch, which has slipped through careless fingers, and
crashed on the pavement, may be so shattered as to have its works damaged
beyond repair. It passes the skill of the most accomplished mechanic to mend
them. He must clean out the shell, take away the old works, and substitute new
machinery. In that case, although wheels, axles, levers, move within the old
casements, the watch, in fact, is new; even so, when converted, although there
is no loss of personal identity suffered, he who gets a new heart becomes, in
a sense, a new man: to use the Apostle's words, "He is, in Christ, a new
creature."

It is no doubt true that there are many, and some very serious injuries which
admit of repair. A steady, honest, enterprising merchant may repair a bankrupt
fortune; a sagacious statesman may solder a broken crown; a physician may
patch up a worn-out constitution; even some Mary Magdalene, returning to the
paths of virtue, may repair that most fragile of all things—a woman's
character; and, with time and God's grace given me, I will undertake to heal a
broken heart. In the divine government we see the most remarkable provision
made for the reparation of those injuries to which his creatures are exposed.
The bark grows on the peeled surface of an old elm or oak, so as in time to
obliterate the letters that friendship or fond love has carved. From the lips
of the gaping wound a liquid flesh is poured, which, receiving nerves and
blood-vessels into its substance, solidifies, and at length fills up the
breach. From its shattered surfaces, the broken limb discharges a fluid bone—a
living cement—which, growing solid, restores the continuity of the shaft, and
gives the sufferer a leg or arm, strong as before. In some of the lower
animals, indeed, this power of reparation is equal to the task, not only of
repairing a broken, but of ever.

restoring a lost member. With such renovating powers has God endowed certain
creatures, that, if by accident or otherwise, the writhing worm, for example,
is divided, the headless portion not only survives such a formidable lesion,
but, strange to see! produces and puts on a new head; and offers us an example
of animal life, which, besides being fortified against the most formidable
injuries, is actually multiplied by division—"How marvelous are thy works,
Lord God Almighty!"

There are many striking and very interesting analogies between grace and
nature. But there is no analogy between these cases and the case before us. So
far as man's natural and inherent powers are concerned, his heart sustained an
irreparable injury by the Fall. Sin is a disease which our constitution has no
power to throw off; and which no human skill can remove. The preacher is here
assisted by none of that "healing power of nature" which is the physician's
best ally. Not only so, but God himself—with whom in a sense all things are
possible, and to whom nothing is too hard—does not attempt its repair. In the
work of conversion, it is not an old heart which is to be mended, but a new
one which is to be given. In any attempt to patch up the old garment, the new
cloth is lost, and the rent gapes but wider. On the old, frail, musty bottle,
heaven wastes not her costly wine. The truth is, man does not admit of being
repaired; and the more we become acquainted with our hearts, the more ready
shall we be to describe their desperate and deplorable condition in the words
of Holy Scripture—"The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately
wicked." The first thing, therefore, which you, who are seeking the kingdom of
God and his righteousness, have need to seek, is what God promises in the
text, and David pleads for in this prayer—"Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and renew a right spirit within me."

Let me press this truth upon your thoughtful attention. May God impress it
upon your hearts! A lively and profound sense of it is of the highest
importance. To feel our need of a new heart, and to feel that this old one
will not mend nor make better, is, in fact, the first step in salvation; and
the deeper our impression of the reality of the truth, the more diligently
shall we labor, and the more earnestly shall we pray to be renewed day by day.
It is a conviction that will secure our cordial assent to the memorable
saying, with which one of England's greatest men, her bravest and noblest
spirits, closed an illustrious career on the scaffold of an ungrateful
country. When Sir Walter Raleigh had laid his head upon the block, he was
asked by the executioner whether it lay right. Whereupon, with the calmness of
a hero, and the faith of a Christian he returned an answer—the power of which
we all shall feel, when our own head is tossing and turning on death's uneasy
pillow—"It matters little, my friend, how the head lies, provided the heart is
right."

Now, as the view of the old heart, given in my text, is eminently calculated,
with the divine blessing, to show us how much we need a new one, let us
consider—

II. The view which our text gives of the natural heart.

It is a heart of stone. "I will take the stony heart out of your flesh." We
shall best understand the meaning of this figure, in its application to the
heart, by considering, in a popular point of view, some of the characteristic
properties of a stone.

A stone is cold. Coldness is characteristic of a stone. The lapidary, using
his tongue to test the temperature, can, by that simple means, tell whether
the seeming jewel is paste, or a real gem; and when our eye has been deceived
by the skill of the painter, the sense of touch has informed us, that what
seemed marble was only wood. It is a common saying, "As cold as a stone." But
what stone so cold as that in man's breast? Cold is the bed of the houseless,
who lies stretched on the wintry pavement, and cold the cell within whose dank
stone walls the shivering prisoner is immured; but colder far by nature is
this heart of ours to God and Christ. We are born lovers of pleasure rather
than lovers of God. God is not an object of our love, nor do we make any
return to Jesus for his warm and fond affection. Blessed Lord! he had many a
cold lodging on this ungrateful earth; his couch was oft the open field, where
his locks were wet with the dews of night; drenched with the spray of the sea,
and the lashing rain, his weary frame found sleep on the hard benches of a
fisher's boat; yet on these he lay not on so cold a bed as he would find in
the dark, dreary chambers of an unrenewed heart. Sin has quenched a fire that
once burned bright and holy there, and has left nothing now on that chill
hearth, but embers and ashes—cold as death. "The carnal mind is enmity against
God; is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be."

A stone is hard. Fire melts wax, but not stone; water softens clay, but not
stone; a hammer bends the stubborn iron, but not stone. Stone resists these
influences; and, emblem of a heart crushed, but not sanctified by affliction,
it may be shattered into fragments, or ground to powder, yet its atoms are as
hard as ever. It is with the dust of diamonds that the diamond is cut. We have
stood on a sea rock, when every billow, swung on by the tempest, broke against
it with the roar of artillery, and shot up a shower of snowy spray; we have
looked to the crag, on whose bald brows the storm was bursting, and wondered
how these could have braved for so many thousand years the war and wear of
elements; and yet there is more cause to be surprised at what a man's heart
will stand. He sits in the church under a series of affecting sermons,—or a
succession of affecting providences like great sea waves breaking over him;
and he is unshaken, at least unaltered, and to all but Divine grace
unalterable. He can be saved; but he can only be saved, because there is
nothing impossible to God. Sitting there, so hard, so cold, he reminds us of a
mountain crag, cut by nature's fantastic hand into the features of a man,
which looks out with cold and stony eye upon the gathering tempest, prepared,
as it has already weathered a thousand storms, to weather a thousand more.

The man who remains unmoved under a ministry of mercy, who is insensible to at
once the most appalling and appealing lessons of providence, who fears no more
than a rock the thunders and lightnings that play round his brow, and feels no
more than a rock the influences that fall like summer sunbeams from the face
and cross of Jesus, is manifestly beyond all human power. I would despair of
his salvation, but for the omnipotence and benevolence of God; and, because I
know that he, who of the stones of the street could raise up children to
Abraham, can turn that heart of stone into a heart of flesh. What need here of
the Spirit of God! Oh! there is an obstinacy, an obduracy, a strength of
resistance, an impenetrability to impression in the unconverted, before which
man, however anxious to save, is utterly powerless. In dealing with such a
case, we seem to hear the voice of God addressing us in his words to
Job—"Canst thou draw out leviathan with a hook? or his tongue with a cord
which thou lettest down? Canst thou put a hook into his nose, or bore his jaw
through with a thorn? Wilt thou take him for a servant? Wilt thou play with
him as a bird? or wilt thou bind him for thy maidens? His scales are his
pride; joined one to another they stick together that they cannot be sundered.
His eyes are like the eyelids of the morning. Out of his mouth go burning
lamps, and sparks of fire leap out. The sword of him that layeth at him can
not hold; the spear, the dart, nor the habergeon. He esteemeth iron as straw,
and brass as rotten wood. Darts are counted as stubble; he laugheth at the
shaking of a spear. He maketh the deep to boil like a pot; he maketh the sea
like a pot of ointment; he maketh a path to shine after him; one would think
the deep to be hoary. His heart is as firm as a stone, yea, as hard as a piece
of the nether mill-stone."

A stone is dead. It has no vitality, no feeling, no power of motion. It lies
where it is laid. The tombstone above and the dead man below undergo no
change, other than that both, by a slower or speedier decay, are moldering
into dust. In that hall of nobles the marble forms of departed greatness look
down unmoved upon scenes where once they themselves played a distinguished
part, and are, alike unmoved, whether their statesmanship be reviled or
praised. In this statue—however skillful the sculptor's imitation—there is no
life; no speech breaks from these mute lips; the limbs seem instinct with
power, yet they never leave their pedestal; no fire flashes in the dull, gray
eyes, nor passions burn within the stony breast. The stone is deaf, and dumb,
and dead. In grief's wild and frantic outbursts affection may address the form
of one deeply loved, and for ever lamented. Speak to it, it returns no answer;
weep to it, it sheds no tears, image of a lost and loved one, it feels not the
grief that itself can move. Now, how many sit in the house of God as unmoved?
Careless as mere spectators who have no concern in what takes place before
them, they take no interest in any thing that was done on Calvary! Is it not
sad to think that more tears are shed in playhouses than in churches; and that
by those who call themselves Christians, the new novel is sought more eagerly,
and devoured more greedily than the New Testament? What a deplorable account
of the human heart! One would think it is of stones, and yet it is of living
men, too like, alas! to many of ourselves—these words are spoken—"Having eyes,
they see not; having ears, they hear not; neither do they understand."

We have described a stone as cold, hard, dead. Is this, some may ask, a fair
and just picture of the human heart? The question is a fair one, and deserves
a frank answer. I should hinder a cause I desire to help, and do injustice to
divine truth, were I to answer that question by simply affirming, that the
picture is a true portrait of the natural heart in all its sentiments and
emotions. Human nature is bad enough without exaggerating its evils. There is
no need to exaggerate them. In one sense, they do not admit of exaggeration.
And, if we dared, instead of exaggerating, we should be happy to excuse them,
and to our mother nature, render the kind and filial office of casting a cloak
upon her shame.

We know as well as others do, and would ever remember, that although man be
dead to gracious affections, until sin has had "its perfect work," he is not
dead to many tender and lovely emotions of nature. Many beauties are lingering
about this ruin—the engaging, but melancholy vestiges of its former glory. We
freely admit, that, so far as regards father and mother, wife and children,
brother and sister, and the beloved friends of our social circles, an
unrenewed heart may be the warm nest of kindliest affections. There can be no
doubt, I think, that the Christian will prove the best father, the best
husband, the best wife, the best master, the best servant, the best citizen,
the truest, trustiest friend. Nay, for their pith and truth, notwithstanding
their homeliness, I will venture to quote the words of Rowland Hill, who said,
"I would give nothing for the Christianity of a man whose very dog and cat
were not the better of his religion." Still, it is no treason against the
Gospel to believe that one, yet unhappily a stranger to the grace of God, may
be endowed with many most pleasant and lovely virtues.

Away among the rough moors, by the banks of tumbling river, or the skirts of
green wood, or on sloping acclivity, or steep hill-side, we have gathered,
remote from gardens and the care of men, bunches of wild flowers, which,
although very perishing, were exquisitely beautiful, and steeped in fragrant
odors; and such as these are some men and women, who have never yet been
transplanted from a state of nature into a state of grace. There is no sin in
loving them

In the young ruler who declined to take up his cross and follow Christ, was
not there so much that was amiable, gentle, lovely, that Jesus' own heart was
drawn to him? It is said that he "loved him;" and the emotions of a Saviour's
bosom cannot be wrong in mine. Nor is his a rare phenomenon—a solitary case.
We have seen men who made no great profession of religion, who certainly were
not pious, but who were yet so kind, tender, affectionate, generous, large-
hearted, and open-handed, that it was impossible not to love them. Nature
never asked our permission.

Whether we would or not, we felt drawn to them, as

Jesus was to the amiable youth who refused to follow him. And as we have
rooted up from the moor some wild flower to blow and shed its fragrance in a
sweeter than its native home, have we not longed to do the same with these
fine specimens of the natural man?

Transplanted by grace into the garden of the Lord, baptized with the dews of
heaven, converted to the faith, they would be flowers fit to form a wreath for
the brow that men wreathed with thorns. I am compelled to acknowledge that I
have known some, whom even charity could not reckon among true Christians,
who, yet in point of natural virtues, put Christians to shame. In some
beautiful traits they were more like

Jesus than not a few of his real disciples.

Let there be no mistake, then; when I speak of the heart as a stone, I am
looking at it as it looks on God, a Saviour, salvation, and eternity. However
distressing it is (and it is most distressing) to think that persons otherwise
most lovely and of most loving hearts are so cold and callous to the claims of
Jesus, yet, so far as divine love to sinners, and so far as the kindnesses of
saving mercy are concerned, I am convinced that among the rocks which beat
back the roaring sea—up in the crags where dews, and rain, and bright sunbeams
fall—down in earth's darkest and deepest mines, there lies bedded no stone
colder, harder, less impressible, more impenetrable, than an unrenewed heart.
Does unbelief suggest the question, Why, then, preach to the unconverted? as
well preach to stones? as well knock with thy hand upon a door which is locked
on a coffin and a corpse? In a sense, true; and altogether true, but for the
promise—"Lo I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." That promise
is the soul of hope and the life of preaching. It forbids despair. And should
coward ministers, yielding to despair, hold their tongues, and pulpits all be
silent, Christ still were preached. Strange evangelists would start up in
these streets to break this awful, unbelieving silence. Asked by an envious
priesthood to silence the hosannas of the multitude, Jesus turned on them and
said, "I tell you, that if these should hold their peace, the stones would
immediately cry out." Thus assured, not only of our children, not only of our
people, not only of the dead womb of Sarah, but of the very stones of the
street, that "God can raise up children to Abraham," despair we cannot feel,
and dumb we cannot be. He who shall raise the dead in church-yards can waken
the dead in churches. Therefore we expect conversions and in hope offer Christ
to the chief of sinners, be seeching you, "Be ye reconciled to God."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 17: 17. The New Heart
========================================================================

A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you; and
I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an
heart of flesh.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 26.

As in a machine where the parts all fit each other, and, bathed in oil, move
without din or discord, the most perfect harmony reigns throughout the kingdom
of grace. Jesus Christ is the "wisdom," as well as the "power" of God; nor in
this kingdom is any thing found corresponding to the anomalies and
incongruities of the world lying without. There we sometimes see a high
station disgraced by a man of low habits; while others are doomed to an
inferior condition, who would shine like gilded ornaments on the very
pinnacles of society. That beautiful congruity in Christ's kingdom is secured
by those who are the objects of saving mercy being so renewed and sanctified
that their nature is in harmony with their position, and the man within
corresponds to all without.

Observe how this property of new runs through the whole economy of grace. When
Mercy first rose upon this world, an attribute of Divinity appeared which was
new to the eyes of men and angels. Again, the Saviour was born of a virgin;
and He who came forth from a womb where no child had been previously
conceived, was sepulchred in a tomb where no man had been previously interred.
The Infant had a new birth-place, the Crucified had a new burial-place.

THE NEW HEART

Again, Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, the author of a new testament,
the founder of a new faith. Again, the redeemed receive a new name; they sing
a new song; their home is not to be in the Old, but in the New Jerusalem,
where they shall dwell on a new earth, and walk in glory beneath a new heaven.
Now it were surely strange, when all things else are new, if they themselves
were not to partake of this general renovation. Nor strange only, for such a
change is indispensable. A new name without a new nature were an imposture. It
were not more an untruth to call a lion a lamb, or the rapacious vulture by
the name of the gentle dove, than to give the title of sons of God to the
venomous seed of the Serpent.

Then, again, unless man received a new nature, how could he sing the new song?
The raven, perched on the rock, where she whets her bloody beak, and
impatiently watches the dying struggles of some unhappy lamb, cannot tune her
croaking voice to the rich, mellow music of a thrush; and, since it is out of
the abundance of the heart that the mouth speaketh, how could a sinner take up
the strain and sing the song of saints? Besides, unless a man were a new
creature, he were out of place in the new creation. In circumstances neither
adapted to his nature, nor fitted to minister to his happiness, a sinner in
heaven would find himself as much out of his element as a finny inhabitant of
the deep, or a sightless burrower in the soil, beside an eagle, soaring in the
sky, or surveying her wide domain from the mountain crag.

In the works of God we see nothing more beautiful than the divine skill with
which he suits his creatures to their condition. He gives wings to birds, fins
to fishes, sails to the thistle-seed, a lamp to light the glowworm, great
roots to moor the cedar, and to the aspiring ivy her thousand hands to climb
the wall. Nor is the wisdom so conspicuous in nature, less remarkable and
adorable in the kingdom of grace. He forms a holy people for a holy
heaven—fits heaven for them, and hem for heaven. And calling up his Son to
prepare the mansions for their tenants, and sending down his Spirit to prepare
the tenants for their mansions, he thus establishes a perfect harmony between
the new creature and the new creation.

You cannot have two hearts beating in the same bosom, else you would be, not a
man, but a monster. Therefore, the very first thing to be done, in order to
make things new, is just to take that which is old out of the way. And the
taking away of the old heart is, after all, but a preparatory process. It is a
means, but not the end. For—strange as it may at first sound—he is not
religious who is without sin. A dead man is without sin; and he is sinless,
who lies buried in dreamless slumber, so long as his eyes are sealed. Now, God
requires more than a negative religion. Piety, like fire, light, electricity,
magnetism, is an active, not a passive element; it has a positive, not merely
a negative existence. For how is pure and undefiled religion defined? "Pure
religion and undefiled is to visit the fatherless and widows in their
affliction." And on whom does Jesus pronounce his beatitude? "If ye know these
things, happy are ye if ye do them." And what is the sum of practical
piety—the most portable form in which you can put an answer to Saul's
question, "Lord, what wouldst thou have me to do?" What but this, "Depart from
evil, and do good." Therefore, while God promises to take the stony heart out
of our flesh, he promises more. In taking away one heart, he engages to supply
us with another; and to this further change and onward stage in the process of
redemption, I now proceed to turn your attention: and, by way of general
observation, I remark--

I. Our affections are engaged in religion.

An oak--not as it stands choked up in the crowded wood, with room neither to
spread nor breathe, but as it stands in the open field--swelling out below
where it anchors its roots in the ground, and swelling out above where it
stretches its arms into the air, presents us with the most perfect form of
firmness, self-support, stout and sturdy independence. So perfectly formed,
indeed is the monarch of the forest to stand alone, and fight its own battles
with the elements, that the architect of the Bell Rock Lighthouse is said to
have borrowed his idea of its form from God in nature, and that, copying the
work of a Divine Architect, he took the trunk of the oak as the model of a
building which was to stand the blast of the storm, and the swell of winter
seas.

In striking contrast with this tree, there are plants --some of them of the
richest perfume and fairest beauty--such as the passion-flower, the ivy, the
clematis, and the woodbine, which can not stand alone. They have neither pith
nor fiber to maintain themselves erect.

Yet these are not doomed to the base fate of being trodden in the dust by the
hoof of every passing beast, and have their beauty soiled in the mire. Types
of one whom God has called by his grace, and beautified with salvation, who is
strong in weakness, and rises to the highest honors of heaven, these plants
may overtop the tallest oak, and, holding on by the ever lasting rocks, they
have laughed at the storm which laid his proud head in the dust. This strength
they have, and these honors they win, by help of the tendrils, the arms, those
instruments of attachment with which God has kindly furnished them. These
plants are formed to attach themselves to other objects; it is their nature to
do so. If they get hold of one noble and lofty, they rise to the height of its
nobility; if of a mean one—some rotten stake or shattered wall—they embrace
the ruin, and, like a true friend, share its fate; and we have seen, when they
had no other object on which to fix themselves, how—like a selfish man, who is
the object of his own affections, and has a heart no bigger than his coffin,
just large enough to hold himself—they would embrace themselves, and lie
basely on the ground locked in forced embarrassment in their own arms.

It is with man as with these. What their tendrils are to them, our affections
are to us. Ambition aims at independence; and men fancy, that when they have
accumulated such or such a fortune, obtained such or such a place, arrived at
such or such an age, they shall be independent. Independent! what folly! man
was never made to be self-supporting, and self satisfying. Even when his home
was Eden, and he enjoyed the full favors of a benignant God, the Lord said—"It
is not good for man to be alone."

We are constituted with affections, of which we can no more divest ourselves
than of our skin. Be the object which we love noble or base, good or bad,
generous or selfish, holy or sinful, belonging to earth or to heaven, some
object we must love. It were as easy for a man to live without breathing, as
to live without loving. It is not more natural for fire to burn.

or light to shine, than for man to love. And the commandment, "Love not the
world, neither the things that are in the world," had been utterly
impracticable and impossible, save in conjunction with the other commandment,
"Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and soul, and mind." It
is with man's soul as with this plant which is creeping on the earth; to
upbraid it for its baseness, to reproach it for the mean objects around which
its tendrils are entwined, will never make it stand erect; you can not raise
it unless you present some lofty object to which it may cling. It is with our
hearts as with vessels; you can not empty them of one element without
admitting or substituting another in its place. And just as I can empty a
vessel filled with air or with oil by pouring water into it, because water is
the heavier fluid, or as I can empty a vessel of water by pouring quicksilver
into it, because the specific gravity of mercury is greatly in excess of that
of water, so the only way by which you can empty my heart of the world, and
the love of the world, is by filling it with the love of God. This is the
divine process and science of the Gospel. The Gospel is accommodated to our
nature; its light is adapted to our darkness; its mercy to our misery; its
pardon to our guilt; its sanctification to our impurity; its comforts to our
griefs; and in substituting the love of Christ for the love of sin, in giving
us an object to love, it meets our constitution, and satisfies the strongest
cravings of our nature. It engages our affections, and, in taking away an old
heart, supplies its place with a new one and a better.

II. Consider now the new heart—"A new heart also will I give you."

We have said enough in a preceding discourse to show that we are not to look
for evidence of the new heart in the natural affections. Religion does not
bestow these. We are born with them. We have some of them in common with the
brutes that perish; and they may be found flourishing in all their beauty in
those who are strangers to the love of God. To them, as to all things else,
indeed, which are his gifts, sin is antagonistic and injurious. Let sin ripen,
so as to have "its perfect work," and it acts like a cancer on man's best
affections. It first indurates, then deadens, and at length destroys. Sinners
are essentially selfish; and—as we see exemplified every day—the more men grow
in sin, they grow the more heartless, and hesitate less to sacrifice the
tenderest feelings and best interests of others to their own base and brutal
gratifications. There is a picture in the book of Romans, painted by the hand
of a master, which is more appalling and affecting than any which Roman
artists have hung on the walls of Rome. Here it is, a full-length portrait of
sinners drawn by the hand of Paul, in these vivid and terrible colors:—"God
gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not
convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness,
covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity;
whisperers, backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters; inventors
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without understanding, covenant
breakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful." What a dark and
dreadful picture of humanity! Behold the monster into which sin, when fully
developed turns the sweetest child. What an abominable thing is sin! Like God,
may we hate it with a perfect hatred!

Observe, that although the state of the natural affections does not furnish
any certain evidence of conversion, it is the glory of piety that these are
strengthened, elevated, sanctified by the change. The lover of God will be the
kindest, best, wisest lover of his fellow-creatures. The heart that has room
in it for God, grows so large, that it finds room for all God's train, for all
that he loves, and for all that he has made; so that the church, with all its
denominations of true Christians, the world, with all its perishing sinners,
nay—all the worlds which he has created, find orbit-room to move, as in an
expansive universe, within the capacious enlargement of a believer's heart.
For while the love of sin acts as an astringent—contracting the dimensions of
the natural heart, shutting and shriveling it up—the love of God expands and
enlarges its capacity. Piety quickens the pulse of love, warms and strengthens
our heart, and sends forth fuller streams of natural affection toward all that
have a claim on us, just as a strong and healthy heart sends tides of blood
along the elastic arteries to every extremity of the body.

This new heart, however, mainly consists in a change of the affections as they
regard spiritual objects. Without again traveling over ground which we have
already surveyed, just look at the heart and feelings of an unconverted man.
His mind being carnal, is enmity or hatred against God. This may be latent—not
at first sight apparent, nor suspected—but how soon does it appear when put to
the proof? Fairly tried, it comes out like those unseen elements which
chemical tests reveal. Let God, for instance, by his providences or laws,
thwart the wishes or cross the propensities of our unrenewed nature—let there
be a collision between His will and ours—and the latent enmity flashes out
like latent fire when the cold black flint is struck with steel.

The Apostle pronounces men to be by nature lovers of pleasure more than lovers
of God; and is it not a fact that the services of religion are so contrary to
all our natural tastes, that we are prone to say of them, as of that day which
brings down heaven to earth—"It is a weariness; when will it be over?" The
affections of the natural man are like the branches of what are called weeping
trees—they droop to the earth, and sweep the ground; harmless or deleterious,
they are all directed earthward. This world is his god; his heaven is on
earth; the paradise he seeks is here; his ten commandments are the opinions of
men, his sins are his pleasures; his prayers are a task; his sabbaths are his
longest, weariest days; and, although no sheeted ghosts rise at midnight and
walk the church-yard to scare him, he has, in thoughts of God, of judgment, of
eternity, specters that haunt him, and to escape from which he will fly into
the arms of sin.

Now, if you have received a new heart, this state is past, or is passing. Your
affections are not dried or frozen up; they are as warm, or rather warmer than
ever—still flowing, only flowing toward different objects, and in a different
channel. In obedience to a divine impulse, their course is not only in a
different, but in a contrary direction; for the grace of God works such a
complete change of feeling, that what was once hated you now love, and what
was once loved you now loathe; you fly from what once you courted, and pursue
what you once shunned.

For example. Did you not once, like Adam in the garden, hide yourself from
God? Like Jacob, when about to encounter an angry brother, did you not once
tremble at the prospect of meeting God? How did you fret under the yoke of his
law? In those who bore his image, how did you revile, and shun, and hate him?
You could not banish him from the universe, but how did you try to banish the
thought of him from your thoughts, and so put him and keep him out of your
mind, that it might be that black, cold, empty, dark, dead, atheistic spot of
this creation, where God should not be? Believers! Oh what a blessed
revolution has grace wrought? Praise ye the Lord. Although our attainments
come far short of David's, and the love of our bosoms may burn with a dimmer
and feebler flame, and we should therefore perhaps pitch the expression of our
feelings on a lower key, let the Psalmist express for us the language of a
renewed heart—"Oh how love I thy law! it is my meditation all the day. Thy
testimonies are better to me than thousands of gold and silver. Like as the
hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God. My
soul thirsteth for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear
before God. One thing have I desired of the Lord, that will I seek after, that
I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life. I love the Lord
because he hath heard my prayer and the voice of my supplication. Bless the
Lord, ye his angels, that excel in strength. Bless the Lord, all ye his hosts.
Bless the Lord, all his works. Bless the Lord, O my soul. Let every thing that
hath breath praise the Lord. Praise ye the Lord."

12*

III. In conversion God gives a new spirit.

Conversion does not bestow new faculties. It does not turn a weak man into a
philosopher. Yet, along with our affections, the temper, the will, the
judgment partake of this great and holy change. Thus, while the heart ceases
to be dead, the head, illuminated by a light within, ceases to be dark; the
understanding is enlightened; the will is renewed; and our whole temper is
sweetened and sanctified by the Spirit of God. To consider these in their
order, I remark—

By this change the understanding and judgment are enlightened. Sin is the
greatest folly, and the sinner the greatest fool in the world. There is no
such madness in the most fitful lunacy. Think of a man risking eternity and
his everlasting happiness on the uncertain chance of surviving another year.
Think of a man purchasing a momentary pleasure at the cost of endless pain.
Think of a dying man living as if he were never to die. Is there a convert to
God who looks back upon his unconverted state, and does not say with David,
"Lord, I was as a beast before thee."

Now conversion not only restores God to the heart, but reason also to her
throne. Time and eternity are now seen in their just proportions—in their
right relative dimensions; the one in its littleness, and the other in its
greatness. When the light of heaven rises on the soul, what grand discoveries
does she make—of the exceeding evil of sin, of the holiness of the divine law,
of the infinite purity of divine justice, of the grace and greatness of divine
love. On Sinai's summit and on Calvary's cross, what new, sublime, affecting
scenes open on her astonished eyes! She now, as by one convulsive bound, leaps
to the conclusion that salvation is the one thing needful, and that if a man
will give all he hath for the life that now is, much more should he part with
all for the life to come. The Saviour and Satan, the soul and body, holiness
and sin, have competing claims. Between these reason now holds the balance
even, and man finds, in the visit of converting grace, what the demoniac found
in Jesus' advent. The man whose dwelling was among the tombs, whom no chains
could bind, is seated at the feet of Jesus, "clothed, and in his right mind."

By this change the will is renewed. Bad men are worse, and good men are better
than they appear. In conversion the will is so changed and sanctified, that
although a pious man is in some respects less, in other respects he is more
holy than the world gives him credit for. The attainments of a believer are
always beneath his aims; his desires are nobler than his deeds; his wishes are
holier than his works. Give other men their will—full swing to their
passions—and they would be worse than they are; give that to him, and he would
be better than he is. And if you have experienced the gracious change, it will
be your daily grief that you are not what you not only know you should be, but
what you wish to be. To be complaining with Paul, "When I would do good, evil
is present with me; that which I would I do not, and what I would not, that I
do," is one of the best evidences of a gracious, saving change.

Children of God! let not your souls be cast down. This struggle between the
new will and the old man—painful and prolonged although it be—proves beyond
all doubt the advent of the Holy Spirit. Until the Saviour appeared there was
no sword drawn, nor blood shed in Bethlehem, nor murderous decree issued
against its innocents—they slept safely in their mothers' bosoms, Herod
enjoyed his security and pleasure, and Rachel rose not from her grave to weep
for her children because they were not. Christ's coming rouses all the devil
in the soul. The fruits of holy peace are reaped with swords on the fields of
war; and this struggle within your breast proves that grace, even in its
infancy a cradled Saviour, is engaged in strangling the old Serpent. When the
shadow of calamity falls on many homes, and the tidings of victory come with
sad news to many a family, and the brave are lying thick in the deadly breach,
men comfort us by saying, that there are things worse than war. That is
emphatically true of this holy war. Rejoice that the peace of death is gone.

By conversion the temper and disposition are changed and sanctified.
Christians are occasionally to be found with a tone of mind and a temper as
little calculated to recommend their faith as to promote their happiness. I
believe that there are cases in which this is due to a deranged condition of
the nervous system, or the presence of disease in some other vital organ.
These unhappy persons are more deserving of our pity than our censure. This is
not only the judgment of Christian charity, but of sound philosophy, and is a
conclusion to which we are conducted in studying the union between mind and
body, and the manner in which they act and re-act upon each other. So long as
grace dwells in a "vile body," which is the seat of frequent disorder and many
diseases—these infirmities of temper admit no more, perhaps, of being entirely
removed, than a defect of speech, or any physical deformity. The good temper
for which some take credit, may be the result of good health and a well
developed frame

—a physical more than a moral virtue; and an ill temper, springing from bad
health, or an imperfect organization, may be a physical rather than a moral
defect—giving its victim a claim on our charity and forbearance. But,
admitting this apology for the unhappy tone and temper of some pious men, the
true

Christian will bitterly bewail his defect, and, regretting his infirmity more
than others do a deformity, he will carefully guard and earnestly pray against
it.

Considering it as a thorn in his flesh, a messenger of

Satan sent to buffet him, it will often send him to his knees in prayer to
God, that the grace which conquers nature may be made "sufficient for him."

Those, however, who have no such plea to urge in palliation of a suspicious,
sour, discontented, irritable temperament, have good ground to suspect their
Christianity. Grace sweetens where it sanctifies. In the name of God and
Christianity, what has Christ to do with Belial? What has grace to do with
that avaricious, envious, malignant, implacable disposition, which is utterly
opposed to the genius of the Gospel and the Spirit that was in Jesus Christ?
Am I told that his disciples sought fire from heaven to consume their enemies?
Am I told that, with the intolerance of bigotry, and a narrowness of mind
still too common, they thought to silence those whom they regarded as rivals?
Am I told that, set on fire of an earthly ambition, they blazed out into
unseemly quarrels with each other? Am I told that, even on the solemn eve of a
Saviour's sufferings, when their tears should have quenched all unhallowed
fires, they strove for the highest place in the kingdom? Am I told how harshly
they silenced the cries, and rebuked the im portunity of suffering, and how
haughtily these proud fishermen bore themselves to the mothers and babes of
Israel? True; but this temper passed away. Their Master cast out the unclean
spirit. Pentecost baptized them with another nature. With the peace of Jesus
they received his gentle, generous, gracious, loving, forbearing, forgiving
temper. These Elisbas entered on their work-clothed in the mantle of their
ascended Master. Had it been otherwise—had they not been made of love, as well
as messengers of love—had the love they preached not breathed in every tone,
and beamed in every look—had they not illustrated in their practice the genius
of the Gospel, their mission had been a signal failure; they had never opened
the hearts of men; they had never made their way in a resistant world—never
conquered it. Just as it is not with stubborn but pliant iron that locks are
picked, the hearts of sinners are to be opened only by those who bring a
Christ-like gentleness to the work: and who are ready, with Paul's large,
loving, kind, and generous disposition, to be all things to all men, if so be
that they may win some. Never had the disciples gone forth "conquering and to
conquer," had they brought their old bigoted, quarrelsome, unsanctified temper
to the mission. They might have died for Christianity, but she had died with
them; and, bound to their stake, and expiring in their ashes, she had been
entombed in the sepulcher of her first and last apostles.

I pray you to cultivate the temper that was in Jesus Christ. Is he like a
follower of the Lamb who is raging like a roaring lion? Is he like a pardoned
criminal who sits moping with a cloud upon his brow? Is he like an heir of
heaven, like a man destined to a

THE NEW HEART crown, who is vexed and fretted with some petty loss? Is he like
one in whose bosom the Dove of heaven is nestling, who is full of all manner
of bile and bitterness? Oh, let the same mind be in you that was in Jesus. A
kind, catholic, gentle, loving temper is one of the most winning features of
religion; and by its silent and softening influence you will do more real
service to Christianity than by the loudest professions, or the exhibition of
a cold and skeleton orthodoxy. Let it appear in you, that it is with the
believer under the influences of the Spirit as with fruit ripened beneath the
genial influences of heaven's dews and sunbeams. At first hard, it grows soft;
at first sour, it becomes sweet; at first green, it assumes in time a rich and
mellow color; at first adhering tenaciously to the tree, when it becomes ripe,
it is ready to drop at the slightest touch. So with the man who is ripening
for heaven. His affections and temper grow sweet, soft, mellow, loose from
earth and earthly things. He comes away readily to the hand of death, and
leaves the world without a wrench.

IV. In conversion God gives a heart of flesh. "I will give you a heart of
flesh."

Near by a stone—a mass of rock that had fallen from the overhanging crag—which
had some wild flowers growing in its fissures, and on its top the fox-glove,
with its spike of beautiful but deadly flowers, we once came upon an adder as
it lay in ribbon coil, basking on the sunny ground. At our approach the
reptile stirred, uncoiled itself, and raising its venomous head, with eyes
like burning coals, it shook its cloven tongue, and, hissing, gave signs of
battle. At tacked, it retreated; and, making for that gray stone,

THE GOSPEL IN KZEKIEL.

wormed itself into a hole in its side. Its nest and home were there. And in
looking on that shattered rock—fallen from its primeval elevation—with its
flowery but fatal charms, the home and nest of the adder, where nothing grew
but poisoned beauty, and nothing dwelt but a poisoned brood, it seemed to us
an emblem of that heart which the text describes as a stone, which experience
proves is a habitation of devils, and which the prophet pronounces to be
desperately wicked. I have already explained why the heart is described as a
stone. It is cold as a stone; hard as a stone; dead and insensible as a stone.
Now, as by the term "flesh" we understand qualities the very opposite of
these, I therefore remark that—

In conversion a man gets a warm heart.

Let us restrict ourselves to a single example. When faith receives the
Saviour, how does the heart warm to Jesus Christ! There is music in his name.
"His name is as an ointment poured forth." All the old indifference to his
cause, his people, and the interests of his kingdom, has passed away; and now
these have the warmest place in a believer's bosom, and are the objects of its
strongest and tenderest affections. The only place, alas! that religion has in
the hearts of many is a burial-place; but the believer can say with Paul,
"Christ liveth in me." Nor is his heart like the cottage of Bethany, favored
only with occasional visits. Jesus abides there in the double character of
guest and master—its most loving and best loved inmate; and there is a
difference as great between that heart as it is, and that heart as it was, as
between the warm bosom where the Infant slept or smiled in Mary's arms and the
dark, cold sepulcher where weeping followers laid and left the Crucified.

Is there such a heart in you? Do you appreciate Christ's matchless
excellences? Having cast away every sin to embrace him, do you set him above
your chiefest joy? Would you leave father, mother, wife, children, to follow
him, with bleeding feet, over life's roughest path? Rather than part with him,
would you part with a thousand worlds? Were he now on earth, would you leave a
throne to stoop and tie his latchet? If I might so speak, would you be proud
to carry his shoes? Then, indeed, you have got the new, warm heart of flesh.
The new love of Christ, and the old love of the world, may still meet in
opposing currents; but in the war and strife of these antagonistic principles,
the celestial shall overpower the terrestrial, as, at the river's mouth, I
have seen the ocean tide, when it came rolling in with a thousand billows at
its back, fill all the channel, carry all before its conquering swell, dam up
the flesh water of the land, and drive it back with resistless power.

In conversion a man gets a soft heart.

As "flesh," it is soft and sensitive. It is flesh, and can be wounded or
healed. It is flesh, and feels alike the kiss of kindness and the rod of
correction. It is flesh; and no longer a stone, hard, obdurate, impenetrable
to the genial influences of heaven. A hard block of ice, it has yielded to the
beams of the sun, and been melted into flowing water. How are you moved now,
stirred now, quickened now, sanctified now, by truths once felt no more than
dews falling out of starry heavens, in soft silence, upon rugged rock

The heart of grace is endowed with a delicate sensibility, and vibrates to the
slightest touch of a Saviour's fingers. How does the truth of God affect it
now! A stone no longer, it melts under the heavenly fire—a stone no longer, it
bends beneath the hammer of the word; no longer like the rugged rock, on which
rains and sunbeams were wasted, it receives the impression of God's power, and
retains the footprints of his presence. Like the flowers that close their eyes
at night, but waken at the voice of morning, like the earth that gapes in
summer drought, the new heart opens to receive the bounties of grace and the
gifts of heaven. Have you experienced such a change? In proof and evidence of
its reality, is David's language yours—"I have stretched out my hands unto
thee. My soul thirsteth after thee as a thirsty land?"

In conversion a man gets a living heart.

The perfection of this life is death—it is to be dead to sin, but alive to
righteousness, alive to Christ, alive to every thing which touches his honor,
and crown, and kingdom. With Christ living in his heart, the believer feels
that now he is not himself—not his own; and, as another's, the grand object of
his life is to live to Christ. He reckons him an object worth living for, had
he a thousand lives to live; worth dying for, had he a thousand deaths to die.
He says with Paul, "I am crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live." In the
highest sense alive, he is dead—dead to things he was once alive to; and he
wishes that he were more dead to them—thoroughly dead. He wishes that he could
look on the seductions of the world, and sin's voluptuous charms, with the
cold, unmoved stare of death, and that these had no more power to kindle a
desire in him, than in the icy bosom of a corpse. "Understandest thou what
thou readest?"

It is a mark of grace, that the believer, in his progress heavenward, grows
more and more alive to the claims of Jesus. If you "know the love of Christ,"
his is the latest name you will desire to utter; his is the latest thought you
will desire to form; upon Him you will fix your last look on earth; upon Him
your first in heaven. When memory is oblivious of all other objects,—when all
that attracted the natural eye is wrapped in the mists of death,—when the
tongue is cleaving to the roof of our mouth, and speech is gone, and sight is
gone, and hearing gone, and the right hand, lying powerless by our side, has
lost its cunning, Jesus! then may we remember Thee! If the shadows of death
are to be thrown in deepest darkness on the valley, when we are passing along
it to glory, may it be ours to die like that saint, beside whose bed wife and
children once stood, weeping over the wreck of faded faculties, and a blank,
departed memory. One had asked him, "Father, do you remember me?" and received
no answer; and another, and another, but still no answer. And then, all making
way for the venerable companion of a long and loving pilgrimage—the tender
partner of many a past joy and sorrow—his wife, draws near. She bends over
him, and as her tears fall thick upon his face, she cries, "Do you not
remember me?" A stare—but it is vacant. There is no soul in that filmy eye;
and the seal of death lies upon these lips. The sun is down, and life's brief
twilight is darkening fast into a starless night

At this moment one, calm enough to remember how the love of Christ's spouse is
"strong as death"—a love that "many waters cannot quench"—stooped to his ear,
and said, "Do you remember Jesus Christ?" The word was no sooner uttered than
it seemed to recall the spirit, hovering for a moment, ere it took wing to
heaven. Touched as by an electric influence, the heart beat once more to the
name of Jesus; the features, fixed in death, relax; the countenance, dark in
death, flushes up like the last gleam of day; and, with a smile in which the
soul passed away to glory, he replied, "Remember Jesus Christ! dear Jesus
Christ! he is all my salvation, and all my desire."

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  CHAPTER 18: 18. IV. By conversion man is ennobled
========================================================================

Infidelity regards man as little better than an animated statue, living clay,
a superior animal. She sees no jewel of immortality flashing in this earthly
casket. According to her, our future being is a brilliant but baseless dream
of the present; death, an everlasting sleep; and that dark, low, loathsome
grave our eternal sepulcher.

Vice, again, looks on man as an animal formed for the indulgence of brutal
appetites. She sees no divinity in his intellect, nor pure feelings, nor lofty
aspirations worthy of cultivation for the coming state. Her foul finger never
points him to the skies. She leaves powers and feelings which might have been
trained to heaven to trail upon the ground; to be soiled and trodden in the
mire, or to entwine themselves around the basest objects. In virtuous shame,
in modesty, purity, integrity, gentleness, natural affection, she blights with
her poisonous breath whatever vestiges of beauty have survived the Fall; and
when she has done her perfect work, she leaves man a wreck, a wretch, an
object of loathing, not only to God and angels, but—lowest and deepest of all
degradation—an object of contempt and loathing to himself.

While infidelity regards man as a mere animal, to be dissolved at death into
ashes and air, and vice changes man into a brute or devil, Mammon enslaves
him. She makes him a serf, and condemns him to be a gold-digger for life in
the mines. She puts her collar on his neck, and locks it; and bending his head
to the soil, and bathing his brow in sweat, she says, Toil. Toil, Toil; as if
this creature, originally made in the image of God, this dethroned and exiled
monarch, to save whom the Son of God descended from the skies, and bled on
Calvary, were a living machine, constructed of sinew, bone, and muscle, and
made for no higher end than to work to live, and live to work.

Contrast with these the benign aspect in which the Gospel looks on man.
Religion descends from heaven to break our chains. She alone raises me from
degradation, and bids me lift my drooping head, and look up to heaven. Yes; it
is that very Gospel which by some is supposed to present such dark, degrading,
gloomy views of man and his destiny, which lifts me from the dust and the
dung-hill to set me among princes—on a level with angels—in a sense above
them. To say nothing of the divine nobility grace imparts to a soul which is
stamped anew with the likeness and image of God, how sacred and venerable does
even this body appear in the eye of piety! No longer a form of animated dust;
no longer the subject of passions shared in common with the brutes no longer
the drudge and slave of Mammon, the once "vile body" rises into a temple of
the Holy Ghost. Vile in one sense it may be; yet what, although it be covered
with sores? what, although it be clothed in rags? what, although, in unseemly
decrepitude, it want its fair proportions? that poor, pale, sickly, shattered
form is the casket of a precious jewel. This mean and crumbling tabernacle
lodges a guest nobler than palaces may boast of; angels hover around its
walls; the Spirit of God dwells within it. What an incentive to holiness, to
purity of life and conduct, lies in the fact that the body of a saint is the
temple of God!—a truer, nobler temple than that which Solomon dedicated by his
prayers, and Jesus consecrated by his presence. In Popish cathedral, where the
light streamed through painted window, and the organ pealed along lofty
aisles, and candles gleamed on golden cups and silver crosses, and incense
floated in fragrant clouds, we have seen the blinded worshiper uncover his
head, drop reverently on his knees, and raise his awe-struck eye on the
imposing spectacle; we have seen him kiss the marble floor, and knew that
sooner would he be smitten dead upon that floor than be guilty of defiling it.
How does this devotee rebuke us! We wonder at his superstition; how may be
wonder at our profanity! Can we look on the lowly veneration he expresses for
an edifice which has been erected by some dead man's genius, which holds but
some image of a deified Virgin, or bones of a canonized saint, and
which—proudly as it raises its cathedral towers—time shall one day cast to the
ground, and bury in the dust; can we, I say, look on that, and, if sensible to
rebuke, not feel reproved by the spectacle? In how much more respect, in how
much holier veneration should we hold this body? The shrine of immortality,
and a temple dedicated to the Son of God, it is consecrated by the presence of
the Spirit—a living temple, over whose porch the eye of piety reads what the
finger of inspiration has written—"If any man defile the temple of God, him
shall God destroy; for the temple of God is holy, which temple ye are."

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  CHAPTER 19: 19. The Renovator
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And I will put my spirit within you.—Ezekiel xxvi. 97.

"THERE are three that bear record in heaven: the Father, the Son, and the Holy
Ghost." They form the mystery of one Godhead, and act in harmony. As might be
expected, the divine record represents these three Persons as all connected
with, and co-operating in creation. With the honors of a work, usually
ascribed to the Father, Paul crowns the Son. Mark what he says of the Son—"By
him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth,
whether they be thrones or dominions, or principalities or powers;" and
speaking elsewhere of God, he says—"He, who at sundry times, and in divers
manners spake to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken
unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he
made the worlds." Now, as to the third person, or Holy Spirit, we discover
indications of his existence even in the Mosaic record of creation. He appears
in the earliest epochs of time, and amid those sublime and magnificent
spectacles with which the Bible opens. The curtain rises upon the first act of
creating power, and, through the enveloping shroud of darkness, we see the
earth—a shapeless mass, crude and chaotic. It is a world in embryo. "The earth
was without form and void." Yet at this early period, when there was neither
golden cloud nor blue sky, nor green land, nor silver sea; when no waves broke
upon the shore, and there were no shores for waves to break on; when no
mountains rose to greet the morning sun, and there was no sun to shine on
them; when no wing of bird was cleaving the silent air, nor fin of fish the
waters; when- like the rude and various materials from which an architect
intends to rear the fabric he has designed- the elements of fire, air, earth,
and water, lay mingled in strange confusion, through the darkness that lies on
the face of the deep, we discover some mighty presence. He is moving and at
work. It is the Spirit of God. He presides at the birth of time. He is evoking
order from confusion, forming the world in the womb of eternity and preparing
a theater for scenes and events of surpassing grandeur. Concerning that early
period of creation, Moses has recorded this important fact- 'The Spirit of God
moved on the face of the waters.' In this glorious creation, therefore-in this
beautiful world, and the starry skies that rose over it-we behold the mighty
monuments of his presence and power. He sprung the arch of this crystal dome,
and studded it over with these gems of light. Listen to the magnificent hymn
of the Patriarch- 'He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and
hangeth the earth upon nothing. He holdeth back the face of his throne, and
spreadeth his cloud upon it; he hath compassed the waters with bounds, and
divideth the sea with his power. By his Spirit he hath garnished the heavens.'
In the temple of nature, therefore, as in that of grace, we adore a Godhead-
the Three in One; and see Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, the presiding and co-
equal authors of a first creation. But let us come to man. The pillar is
finished, and wants nothing but its capital; the house, built and furnished,
now waits its tenant. He is about to be formed who is to be not merely a work,
nor a servant, but a son of God; a mirror in which Divinity may complacently
contemplate itself; a being who is to exhibit what, amid their bright and
beautiful forms, neither sun, nor sea, nor earth could boast of—an image of
God. The crown of creation is to be topped with its brightest gem. This
province of the divine empire is to be provided with a king, who, wielding a
delegated scepter, shall exercise dominion "over the fish of the sea, the
fowls of the air, the cattle, and the creeping things." It is a great
occasion. And, as was worthy of it, the three persons of the Godhead appear.
God fashions the plastic clay into the form of man, and molds those features
which, given by his hand, have descended to us;—bending over the prostrate and
inanimate statue, he breathes into its hollow nostrils the element of life;
rushing in, this mysterious power sets its organs into play, and, as the heart
begins to beat, and the current of the blood to flow, man opens his eyes in
life and on the world; but, ere this crowning act—ere, by this greatest act he
closes the drama of creation—addressing the Son on this hand and the Spirit
upon that, the Father saith, "Let us make man in our image." In many respects,
the new creation corresponds with that old one—the Paradise Regained with the
Paradise Lost. Man is the subject of both; his good and the divine glory are
the ends of both; devils are the enemies, and angels are the allies of both;
the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are the authors of both. Now while the first
chapter of Genesis—raising a portion of the vail which hangs upon the
mysteries of creation—shows us the Holy Spirit as an active agent in that
work, my text introduces the same divine person, as discharging functions as
important in the more exalted and enduring work of a new creation. The Father
decrees redemption; the Son procures it, the Holy Spirit applies it. For that
purpose this promise is both given and fulfilled—"I will put my Spirit within
you." In illustration of the doctrine, I remark--

I. The Holy Spirit is the great agent in conversion and sanctification.

Man cannot be saved unless elected, nor elected without the Father; nor saved
unless redeemed, nor redeemed without the Son; nor saved unless converted, nor
converted without the Spirit. Do you ask why? Is there not a fountain opened
to the house of David, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, for sin and for
uncleanness? Is it not true that whosoever seeks salvation there, may wash and
shall be clean? Most true. Jesus has filled that fountain with blood, and,
once bathed there, the foulest become white as snow. Blessed truth! that
fountain is free to all; free as air, free as light, free as the waves of
ocean, where man, who parcels out God's earth, and forbids other foot than his
own to tread on it, claims no exclusive property—where the beggar may go in to
bathe abreast of a king.

What need I more, then? you may ask. We require much more. Our necessities are
those of the cripple—of that man who, for thirty years, sat uncured by
Bethesda's pool, nor took his anxious eye off the water as he waited for its
first stir and ruffle. The healing of that pool was regulated by a law, and it
was this. Like an electric battery, which to one and the first touch
discharges all its fluid, this pool cured but one at a time, and he got its
benefit who first stepped in after the angel's descent. Who ever his disease
might be, he was cured. Was he dumb? he sung. Was he lame? he leaped. Was he a
cripple? he shouldered his crutch, and walked. And why had this man sat out
these weary years unhealed? Had the vision tarried, and was it the rare advent
of the angel to this pool which suggested the figure, "Like angels' visits,
few and far between?" Had these waters not been agitated at all for that long
period of thirty years? Often. Many a time this cripple had seen the sudden
spring, and heard the loud plunge, as some neighbor flashed into the water;
and as the cured left the scene, many a time had he followed them with envious
eyes. Many a time had he witnessed proofs of the healing power—the lame man
bounding away like a deer, the song of the dumb ringing out his joy, and
pallid sickness standing on the brim of the glassy pool, and—as she
contemplated herself in its mirror—smiling to see the light of her beaming
eyes, and fresh roses blooming upon her wasted cheek. Poor man! why was he not
cured as well as others? He was im potent, powerless; he could not go down
unassisted; and—one of the friendless poor, as he told Jesus—"he had no one to
help him in." Even so, although seated by the fountain, where sins are lost
and sinners washed, we need some one, so to speak, to help us in. In the words
of Paul, we are "without strength;" and it is to help us to seek, to believe
in, to love—in one word, to embrace the Saviour—that God puts his Spirit
within us. For this end he fulfills the promise "My grace shall be sufficient
for thee, and my strength made perfect in weakness."

In a preceding discourse, we compared the change wrought in conversion to the
removal of old, shattered machinery, and the supplying of its place with a new
mechanism. But what is mere machinery? Just what the new heart were without
the Spirit of God Besides the machinery, we must have a moving power. Of what
use would be the machinery which is to be moved, without a force adequate to
move it? Without a main-spring within the clock, however complete all its
wheels, pinions, pivots, and axles, these hands would stand on the face of
time, nor advance one step over the numbered hours. So were it with the
renewed soul without the Spirit of God to set its powers in motion, bring them
into play, and impart to them a true and heavenward character. For this
purpose God fulfills the promise, "I will put my Spirit within you."

In order to illustrate this, and with God's blessing fix it in your heart, let
me avail myself of the element which gives a name to the Spirit, and which our
Saviour selects as his emblem—"The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou
hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, nor whither it
goeth, so is every one that is born of the Spirit."

Here is a noble ship. what further does she need to move her? Her masts are
all in; and her canvas is all shaken out; yet no ripple runs by her side, nor
foam flashes from her bows, and she has no motion but what she receives from
the alternate swell and sinking of the wave. Her machinery is complete. The
forests have masted her; in many a broad yard of canvas a hundred looms have
given her wings; her anchor has been weighed to the rude sea chant the needle
trembles on her deck; with his eye on that friend—unlike worldly friends—as
true in storm as in calm, the helmsman stands impatient by the wheel; and
when, as men bound to a distant shore, the crew have said farewell to wives
and children, why lies she there over the self-same ground—rising with the
flowing, and falling with the ebbing tide? The cause is plain. They want a
wind to raise that drooping pennon, and fill these empty sails.

They look to heaven—and so they may—the skies only can help them here. At
length their prayer is heard; the pennon flutters at the mast head;

spirits of the air sing aloft upon the yards; the sails swell; the wind
whistles through the rattling cordage; and now, like a steed, touched by the
rider's spur, she starts, bounds forward, plunges through the waves,
and—heaven's wind her moving power— she is off, and away, amid blessings and
prayers, to the land she is bound and chartered for. Even so, although heaven-
born, heaven-called, heaven-bound, endowed with a new heart, new mind, new
will, we stand in the same need of celestial influences—of the grace and
Spirit of God. That heart, mind, and will, are the machinery, he is the moving
power;

these the instruments, and he the agent.

This heavenly gift neither circumscribes nor supersedes our own exertions.
These gracious influences descend not to set us idle, any more than the breeze
blows to send the sailor to his hammock and rock him over in the arms of
sleep. On the contrary, long away, and wearying to be home, his eye often
turned homeward across the water's waste, he shakes out every yard of canvas
on the bending mast, and works the harder to gain the full advantage of
propitious winds. It should be so with us. May it be so with us! The more full
the gifts and divine breathings of the Spirit, the busier let us be—busier in
the use of prayer, of sacraments, of the Bible, and of all those ordinances
through which the Spirit works, and impels souls onward and homeward in a
heavenly course.

Were God, provoked by our indifference, to withdraw or withhold his Spirit,
would it not be with the best of us as in a dead calm at sea? No progress
would be, or could be made; or rather, with the run of the tide against us—the
tendencies of a depraved nature and a wicked world working the other
way—instead of gaining ground, we should lose the ground already gained, and
drift astern. The Bible says, "Remember Lot's wife." Here we say, Remember
David. With what full sail he is bearing on to heaven! how far ahead he has
shot of his countrymen and contemporaries! But he enters into temptation;
yields to it; falls into sin; the Spirit is withdrawn, and, although finally
saved, how nearly is he lost! What a fearful backsliding! what an awful
warning! and, yet—an example most encouraging to a penitent backslider—see how
God fulfills the promise, "I will heal thy backsliding and love thee freely."
Let me now urge on you the advantage and duty of improving to the utmost every
season of heavenly visitation. There are seasons more favorable and full of
grace than others. In this there is nothing surprising, but much that is in
harmony with the common dispensations of Providence. Does not the success of
the farmer, seaman, merchant, of men in many

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIRI.

other circumstances, chiefly depend on their seizing opportunities, which come
and go like showers—which flow and ebb like the tides of ocean? The sea is not
always full. Twice a day she deserts her shores, and leaves the vessels high
and dry upon the beach; so that they who would sail must wait and watch, and
take the tide; and larger ships can only get afloat, or, if afloat, get across
the bar and into harbor, when, through a favorable conjunction of celestial
influences, the sea swells in stream or spring tides beyond her common bounds.
The seaman has his spring tides; the husbandman has his spring time, and those
showers, and soft winds, and sunny hours, on the prompt and diligent
improvement of which the state of his barn and barn yards depends.

"Let it be," said the Lord to David and his men of war, when—lying in ambush,
and expecting divine assistance—they waited for the signal of battle, "let it
be, when thou hearest the sound of going on the tops of the mulberry trees,
that thou shalt bestir thyself." Such a signal, like the feet of the angelic
host marching over the tops of the trees, heaven may vouchsafe to us in some
holy desire, emotion, thought, which, if yielded to and improved, may lead to
heaven; but neglected, rejected, or repelled, may leave us to perish in hell.
In these, which occasionally come to the most careless sinner, you hear the
Spirit moving—in them you hear the Spirit calling. Improve them.

If improved, who can tell but it may be with you as with one well known to us.
She was a fair enough professor, yet had been living a careless, godless,
Christless life. She awoke one morning, and, most strange and unaccountable!
her waking feeling was a strong desire to pray. She wondered. It was early
dawn, and what more natural than that she should say, there is time
enough—meanwhile “a little more sleep, a little more slumber, a little more
folding of the hands to sleep?” As she was sinking back again into
unconsciousness, suddenly, with the brightness and power of lightning, a
thought flashed into her mind, filling her with alarm—this desire may have
come from God; this may be the hour of my destiny—this, the tide of salvation,
which, if neglected, may never return. She rose, and flung herself on her
knees. The chamber was changed into a Peniel, and when the morning sun looked
in at her window, he found her wrestling with God in prayer; and, like one
from a sepulcher, she came forth that day at the call of Jesus to follow him
henceforth, and in her future life to walk this world with God.

II. God’s Spirit is not only given to his people, but dwells in them. “I will
put my Spirit within you.”

The communication between spirits, otherwise than through the medium of
matter, and our bodily organs, is so great a mystery, that we are not prepared
to say how far unconverted men may or may not be “possessed of the devil.” Of
many a wretched slave of vice, on whom tears, and prayers, and expostulations,
and rewards, and punishments, have all been tried, and tried in vain, it may
be said without exaggeration, “He is grievously tormented of a devil.” There
are incidents and expressions also in the Word of God, which invest the
subject of demoniacal possession with a painful and very alarming interest. On
one occasion Peter endeavors to dissuade his Master from the cross, and stands
between him and the salvation of the lost whereupon, as if he saw the devil
looking through

12*

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKYEL.

a disciple's eyes, and heard his speech in a disciple's tongue, Jesus turned
on Peter, saying—"Get thee behind me, Satan." Again, when Judas received the
sop, it is said that "Satan entered into him," and immediately—as the ship
turns to the helm, when a new hand steps on board, and taking it changes her
course—he left the supper table, to do his Master's business. Again, Paul
speaks of a "fellowship with devils," a "cup of devils," and a "devil's
table." Who knows but that those terrible spectacles of possession, where the
bodies of unhappy men were seized, inhabited, tormented by unclean spirits,
may have been visible emblems of the unclean and unconverted heart? When God
left man at the Fall, and abandoned that heart which had once been his holy
and happy home, it became a vacant, empty house for Satan to occupy; and, like
bands of robbers, who haunt some ruined castle, where power and grandeur and
rank once resided, many devils may be secretly lurking in the dark chambers of
this desolate and dismantled palace. We have sometimes thought that we saw the
fittest emblem of man's fallen state, in the ruins of an old church. Now
deserted, desecrated, defiled, what a change is there! Save in the ivy, that
like pity clings to the crumbling wall—sustaining and vailing its decay—and in
some sweet wild flower rooted in window sill, or gaping rent, beauty and life
are gone. Yet there, once on a time, many a beautiful babe was baptized to
God; there holy words were spoken; holy vows were taken, and holy communions
held. There are eyes in glory that turn with interest to that lonely spot—God
and man often met within these roofless walls; "This and that man was born
there." But now the only sounds are the sighing of the wind.

or the roar of the storm—the hoot of the owl, or the hiss of the serpent; nor
life is found there now, but in the brood of the night bird, which has its
nest among the ruins above, or in the worms that fatten upon the dead in their
cold graves below. "The glory is departed." And once a shrine of God, but now
a deserted sanctuary, may we not write "Ichabod" on the heart? The ruin
resounds with the echoes which the ear of fancy hears muttering among the
desolate heaps of Babylon—"Fallen, fallen, fallen!"

Whatever habitation the prince of darkness may have within unconverted men—and
however, also, holding for a time some footing even in God's people, he may
raise up within them those thoughts of blasphemy, and desires of sin, which
come as unbidden as they are unwelcome—the saints of God enjoy a blessed
possession. Not the angels, but the Spirit of God inhabits them. Heaven has
descended into their bosoms, and their bodies are become a holy temple. God
now in very truth not only dwells "with man," but in man. "I will put my
Spirit within you." He is enshrined within them; and as the soul dwells in the
body, God dwells in the soul. "Know ye not," says an apostle, "that ye are the
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" Thus—although in a
subordinate sense—the members resemble their crowned and exalted head; their
bodies, like his own, are a temple, and the heart of the believer is the
happy, honored shrine of him whom the heaven of heavens cannot contain.
Speaking of the man that loves him, our Lord said, "We will come unto him."
This promise is one which he fulfills in the daily communications of his word
and Spirit. Earth has no lovers who meet so often as Jesus and his bride. The
lowliest and poorest Christian God honors with daily visits. He comes at the
time of prayer; he occupies the mercy-seat at the stated hour of worship; and
into the closet where the good man goes, he goes along with him. He is
closeted there with God; and comes forth like a warrior from his tent,
inspired with courage, and armed for the battle of life. Happy man! he sleeps
at night in God's arms; happy man! in every trial he weeps on God's bosom!
happy man! although his fare be but a crust of bread and cup of water, he
dines every day at heaven's royal table.

Contented, not coveting the luxuries which wealth commands, he has bread to
eat and company to keep the world knows not of; and, although he be the
poorest of God's poor ones, there are none of the great ones of this earth,
who, with their privileged and prized access to court, move in such high
society. Could you see the angels who wing their flight to this straw-thatched
cottage—the telegraph of prayer, that, with extended lines stretched up to the
throne, is ever working—the messages that go up, and the answers that come
down—Jesus himself descending to bow his kingly head at that lowly door, with
"Peace to this house" on his lips, gifts in his hand, love beaming in his eye
and burning in his bosom, you would not wonder how the poor pious man can
suffer so many hardships, and yet live so contented. Pitying the poverty of
riches, the meanness of rank, the littleness of greatness—envying no man his
high acquaintances, coveting no man's large estates—all he needs is to wear
his honors meekly; with a rank higher than kings possess or kings can bestow,
with a patent of nobility that never can be forfeited, all he needs is to be
"clothed with humility;" while he opens his heart and invites his Lord to come
in, all he needs is to do that with the modesty of the man who said, "I am not
worthy that thou shouldst enter beneath my roof."

Here, however—as also in those words of Christ, to which I have referred—God
not only promises to visit his people, but by his Spirit to abide with them.
"I will put my Spirit within you." "Happy is that people whose God is the
Lord." For who or what else abides? Not our parents or pastors; the arms that
embraced us are moldering in the grave, and on the lips that taught us
knowledge the dust of death lies thick. Our health may not abide; there is a
griefless, graveless land, where "the inhabitant never says that he is sick;"
but faith lifts her eye to heaven, and seeks it yonder—not here. Our wealth
may not abide; and so one who, better than many, remembered its uncertainty,
when remonstrated with for giving lavishly to the cause of Christ, replied,
"Riches take to themselves wings and flee away; and I think it best to clip
them." Our children may not abide; the earth sounds hollow to the foot—it is
so full of graves. Ah! how few gardens are there where death has not left his
foot prints, when he came to steal away some of our sweetest flowers. Few are
the trees standing on this earth, from which he has not lopped off some goodly
boughs. In this world, have I not seen one and another stand bleak and
branchless; and Oh, how blessed for the father who has laid the last survivor
in the dust, and returns from that saddest funeral to find God waiting for him
in his desolate home! When the believer is alone,—God in his Holy Spirit
abiding with him,—he is not alone. How happy, yet how strange a man he is!
Those paradoxes by which Paul describes him—"Unknown, and yet well known;
dying, and behold we live; sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; poor, yet making
many rich; having nothing, and yet possessing all things"—admit of important
additions. Kill him, and he lives; bury him, and he rises; exalt him, and he
is humbled; humble him, and he is exalted; curse him, and he prays for you;
hate him, and he loves you; an orphan, he clings to a living father; a widow,
she sleeps on the bosom of a living husband. "A father of the fatherless, and
a judge of the widow is God in his holy habitation." Piety sits on a husband
or father's grave, confident in that living relationship, and calm beneath the
protection of him who says—"You shall not afflict any widow or fatherless
child. If thou afflict them in any wise, and they cry unto me, I will surely
hear their cry. And my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill you with the
sword; and your wives shall be widows, and your children shall be fatherless."
Let a believer never count himself desolate. Let others never call him so. If
thy heart is right, it matters not how mean thy house may be; God shall abide
with thee there on earth, till thou leavest this earth to abide with him in
heaven.

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 20: 20. The New Life
========================================================================

I W.

cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do them.—Ezekiel
xxxvi. 27.

The Divine Being has established certain laws—some of a physical, others of a
moral nature. And it is as impossible to violate with impunity a moral as a
physical law; although the consequences in the former case may be more remote,
and the suffering may not follow so closely on the heels of the sin. Solomon
asks, “Can a man take fire into his bosom, and not be burned?” “Can he touch
pitch, and not be defiled?” You at once answer no. He who walks into the fire
shall certainly be burned; he who falls into the water shall certainly be
drowned; and if any man were mad enough to pitch himself over a lofty
bartizan, he lights not on the ground like a winged bird or angel—he shall
certainly be crushed to pieces. Not only so, but a passive as well as active
violation of nature’s laws is followed by suffering. He who resists her demand
for sleep—he who turns a deaf ear to the calls of hunger—he who denies his
body the rest and refreshment that nature needs, must die. Now, no less
certainly shall he suffer who neglects or violates those moral laws which have
been established by the decree of God. It may seem a strange, and even foolish
thing to assert, but it is not the less true, that it is safer to touch fire
than sin, and safer in a sense to drink off a cup of poison, than quaff the
cup of devils. A man stands a better chance of escape who violates a physical
than a moral law. This is difficult to be believed. And why? Just because, in
the breach of moral laws, judgment does not, as in the breach of physical
laws, follow speedily on the transgression, nor succeed it as the peal
thunders on the flash. Yet it is not more strange than true; and true, for
this plain, satisfactory, and unanswerable reason, that he who made the laws
which govern the physical world, may modify, may change, may even altogether
repeal them. He has already done so. Iron is heavier than water; yet did not
the iron axe swim like a cork at the prophet's bidding? Did not the unstable
element of sea stand up in walls of solid crystal, till the host passed over?
Did naked foot, when bathed in morning dew, ever feel the green grass cooler
than those three Hebrews, when, on the floor of the burning furnace, they trod
at once beneath their feet a tyrant's power and the red hot coals of fire?
Fire may not burn, and water may not drown. He who gave their laws to these
elements may alter them as he sees meet; but that moral law, which is a
transcript of his own mind and will, is, and must be unchangeable as himself.
Be sure, therefore, that you can not sin with impunity. Be sure that your sin
will find you out. Be sure that what you sow you shall reap. Be sure, that
although the cloud is long of gathering, it shall one day explode. Be sure
that sin and sorrow are linked together by an adamantine chain—a chain durable
and eternal as that which binds the creature to the throne of God. When,
therefore, Satan, the flesh, or the world solicit, remember, that if your
weakness yields, you are more certain of suffering, than you would be of
burning the finger which you thrust into the fire. Sin is the fire that a man
can not take into his bosom, and not be burned.

Do you ask, by way of objection, do not God's people escape suffering—commit
sin, and yet escape the penalty? True. But their exemption from future
punishment forms no exception to this rule. In their case, indeed, the debtor
escapes, but then the creditor is paid. The sufferings from which they are
exempted were endured by their substitute, and in a suffering Saviour their
sins were punished. "He bore our griefs, and carried our sorrows. The
chastisement of our peace was upon him, and with his stripes we are healed."

Entertaining these views, we ought not to be suspected of losing sight of the
dignity and claims of the moral law in our faith in a crucified Saviour. That
holy law was not buried in Jesus' sepulcher nor left behind with the grave-
clothes in the tomb. We no longer hope, indeed, to be saved by the law yet we
hold with the Apostle—hold as strongly as any can do—that "the law is holy,
and the commandment holy, just, and good," and that these moral laws which
were enshrined in the ark of Moses, and most awfully illustrated on the cross
of Christ, have lost none of their authority. They remain to this day as
imperative as those which regulate the tides, direct the procession of
seasons, or steer the planets through the realms of space. Obedience to the
law has indeed ceased to be the condition of salvation; it is well it is so.
Otherwise, who should have been saved? "If thou, Lord, shouldst mark
iniquities, O Lord, who shall stand?" "Enter not into judgment with thy
servant, for in thy sight shall no man living be just fied." The law is not
now the gate of life; yet although it has ceased to be the gate, it has not
ceased, and never shall cease, to be the rule of life. We preach, indeed, a
free and full salvation; and we glory in the theme. We say that the greatest
law-breaker may be saved; the foulest sinner washed white as snow; the basest
of the base, the vilest of the vile, exalted to a throne in heaven; and that
as no obedience rendered to the law since the fall of Adam can open heaven to
fallen man, so since the death of Christ no disobedience can shut its gates
against him. We say with Paul, "It is a faithful saying, and worthy of all
acceptation, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, of whom I
am chief." Blessed be God, the law, so stern-like in a sinner's eyes, no
longer carries the keys of heaven. Purchased by his blood, they are in the
custody of him who is very pitiful and of great mercy, and who—never turning a
deaf ear to the cry of human distress—cheers the expiring hours of guilt, and
said even to a thief, "To-day thou shalt be with me in paradise." "Do we then
make void the law through faith?" as Paul asks. Some have done so. Wild and
wicked fanatics have risen to trouble the church, and bring a gospel of grace
into contempt. They have asserted that it has set them free from the
obligation of these holy commandments, and granted to believers a plenary
indulgence to commit all manner of iniquity. From such licentious and immoral
doctrines, from doctrines not less calculated to dissolve society than to
dishonor the church of Christ, child of God! shrink with holy abhorrence; this
your language,

"My soul, come not thou into their secret; unto their assembly, mine honor, be
not thou united."

I know that Paul says, "We are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein
we were held;" but are we delivered that we may sin? Assuredly not. On the
contrary, we are delivered that we may serve God; serve him better, serve him
holier; serve him, as Paul also says, "in the newness of the spirit, and not
in the oldness of the letter." Addressing us not with the voice of Sinai's
thunders, but in the melting and mightier tones of a Redeemer's love, the
Gospel lays this injunction upon all, "Be careful to maintain good works."
These, although not always the believer's attainment, will always be his aim.
Committing to his heart, and enshrining there those tables which Moses, in
honor of their excellence, deposited in the tabernacle's holiest shrine, he
will say, "O how I love thy law, O Lord;" and he will pray that God would
fulfill to him this gracious promise of the text—"I will cause them to walk in
my statutes, and they shall keep my judgments and do them." In now addressing
ourselves to the subject of that new life, which the believer lives in
obedience to the law of God, I remark—

I. It is a willing obedience.

Many movements take place in the universe independent of any will but that of
God. The sap ascends the tree, the planets revolve round the sun, the stars
rise and set in the heavens, the tides flow and ebb upon our shores, and
nature walks in God's statutes, keeping his judgments, and doing them, moved
to obedience by no will but his. So soon, however, as, leaving inanimate
matter below, we ascend into those regions

THE GOSPEL IN FZEKIEL.

where mind, or even instinct and matter are united, we discover a beautiful
and benevolent law, by virtue of which God at once secures the happiness and
provides for the welfare of his creatures. He so orders it that their will is
in perfect harmony with their work;

their inclinations with their interests; and their instincts with the
functions which they are call'd on to perform. The bee constructs its cell,
the bird weaves her nest, the eagle among the crags above teaches her brood to
fly, and in cairn or cave below, the fox suckles her young; and these are all
labors of love— labors to which they bring a willing heart. Thus their
happiness lies in their work. And to ascend even into heaven, this is no doubt
the secret of its felicity;

for as the law of gravity extends itself to the most distant stars, so that
that which rounds a tear-drop gives its shape to every sun, I have no doubt
that this law of divine power and benignity reaches the highest and holiest
existences. The will and work of angels are in perfect harmony; therefore an
angel's duty is an angel's delight.

Observe, also, how, when God changes the condition of his creatures, he
accommodates their will to the change. Take, for example, that insect to which

I have elsewhere alluded. It comes from the egg a creeping worm; it is bred in
corruption; it crawls on the ground; its aliment is the coarsest fare. In time
it undergoes its wonderful metamorphosis. The wriggling caterpillar becomes a
winged and painted butterfly; and at this change, with its old skin it casts
off its old habits and instincts. Now, it has a will as well as wings to fly.
And with its bed the bosom of a flower, its food the honied nectar, its home
the sunny air, and new instincts animating its frame, its will plays in
harmony with its work. The change within corresponds to the change without. It
spurns the ground; and, as you may gather from its merry, mazy dance, the
creature is happy, and delights in the new duties which it is called to
perform. Even so it is in that change which grace works in sinners. The nature
of the redeemed is so accommodated to the state of redemption, their wishes
are so fitted to their wants, their hopes to their prospects, their
aspirations to their honors, and their will to their work, that they would be
less content to return to polluted pleasures than this beautiful creature to
be stripped of its silken wings, and condemned to pass its days amid the old,
foul garbage, its former food. With such a will and nature as they now
possess, their old life would be misery—would be hell. Would not the reclaimed
prodigal, rather than leave his father's table, bosom, and love, for the
company of harlots and the husks of swine troughs, embrace death and go to his
grave? Even so God's people would rather not be at all, than be what once they
were. Hence, on the one hand, their unhappiness in sin; and, on the other,
their enjoyment in God's service; hence David's longing for the place of
ordinances; hence the beauty of a Sabbath scene, and the music of Sabbath
bells, and the answer of their hearts to the welcome sound, "I was glad when
they said unto me, Let us go unto the house of the Lord." Are you unconverted?
Let this teach you what most you need. To men who are strangers to the
happiness to be found in piety, and have their will set contrary to the law of
God, religion seems, and can not but seem, a very sad, demure, miserable
thing. Oh! it appears a weary thing to be singing psalms!

—they would sing songs rather; a dull book the Bible—a most uninteresting task
to be poring over these pages—they would prefer a novel or a newspaper. Rather
than sit at the communion table, they would be guests where the board groans
with luxuries, bowls flow with wine, peals of laughter follow the bright
flashes of wit, and thoughtless joy dances away the hours. Earth's short
Sabbaths seem long and are weary; and it is a mystery which they can not
fathom, how, when they go to heaven (and who is not hoping to get there?),
they are to pass an endless Sabbath of psalms, and songs, and such listless
services.

No wonder, if this is your state, that piety has no charms for you. Without
the clean heart and the right spirit, your attempts to obey the law must be as
unpleasant as they are unprofitable. It is hard to row against the tide, hard
to swim against the stream, but harder still, under no impulse but the lash of
a guilty conscience, and the terrors of a coming judgment, to attempt
conformity to the will of God. And, admitting your conformity to be much
greater than it is, what possible value can it have in the eyes of God? If
even we would rather do the work ourselves, or want the work altogether, than
have it done for us by a sullen, sulky servant—what pleasure can God have in
your slavish service? I would not be served by a slave; nor will Jesus Christ.
His arguments are not whips—his reasons are not blows—his servants do not walk
and work in fetters. He is the beloved sovereign of a people who are free,
devoted to his interests, and ready to die for his crown. He measures the
value of services not so much by the work done, as by the willingness to do
it. They serve that wait. Then, as the Apostle says, 'Let there be first a
willing mind, and it is accepted according to that a man hath, and not
according to that he hath not."

In short, the union between the Saviour and the soul, like the marriage of
Isaac and Rebecca, stands on a cordial assent. "Peradventure," said Eleazer to
his master, "peradventure the woman will not be willing to follow me." "Then,"
said Abraham, "if the woman be not willing to follow thee, thou shalt be clear
from this my oath." On this condition,

Eleazer sets off to woo and win a wife for Isaac. He arrives at Nachor; he is
introduced to Laban, and the scene in that house at Nachor excites in us these
two wishes.

First, Would to God that those who hold a higher commission, and are stewards
of the mysteries of the

Gospel, were as intent on their office, as this steward on his. Laban presses
his hospitality upon him; the savory meat appeals to his hunger; he has had a
long journey, and it is reasonable surely that he take some rest, get the dust
of the road washed from his feet, and refresh exhausted nature before he
enters upon business! No—Pattern of fidelity! He says—"I will not eat until I
have told mine errand." And would to God, also, that he who dealt with
Rebecca's heart, would persuade sinners to accept a better offer— backed by
tokens of better love—and give us, as am bassadors for Christ in his love
suit, that maiden's ready answer. Isaac had sent a far way for her. She saw
his messenger; he stood before her, covered with the dust, and embrowned with
the sun of the desert.

She saw Isaac's love in these sparkling gems—the golden tokens of his
affection. Her heart was won.

Fair and lovely pattern of faith! Whom she had not seen she loved; she walked
by faith, not by sight;

and paying a last visit to a mother's grave, forgetting "her father's house
and her own people," the companions of her youth, and the sweet home of her
early days, she turned round to her brother, and to his question—"Wilt thou go
with this man?" with maiden modesty, but masculine firmness, she replied, "I
will go."

II. This is a progressive obedience.

To "walk," is expressive of progress in grace. Walking is an act, and one not
acquired in a day; for the power to walk is not ours, in the same sense, as
the power to breathe. We are born with the one power, but born without the
other. Like every other habit, walking becomes so easy by use, that we are
unconscious of any effort; yet step into the nursery, and you see that this
art, acquired by labor, is the reward of continuous, conquering perseverance.
In fact, our erect attitude and progressive motion over the ground—simple as
they seem—are achieved by means of most delicate and dexterous balancing. The
marble statue does not stand erect without foreign support; and you have no
sooner raised a dead man, and set him up on his feet, than he falls at yours,
a heap of loathsome mortality.

In beauty and splendor, the figure of my text may yield to other images,
expressive of a believer's progress—such as that of a seed dropped into the
soil, where, striking down a delicate fiber, and sending up a green and tender
shoot, it first rises into a seedling, which the finger of an infant could
crush, but which grows, after a hundred summers have come and gone, into a
robust and lofty tree, that, with its roots moored in the rock, lifts a proud
head on high, and defies the storm. Or, such as that furnished by the birth
and growth of day, from the first faint streak of dawn—when the face of morn
blushes, as it were, to look on the crimes of earth—to the moment when the sun
rises to bathe mountains, plain, and sea, in a golden flood of light. In so
far, however, as the setting forth of one prominent and important feature of a
believer's progress is concerned, the figure of my text yields the palm to
none—nay, is perhaps superior to any. Other images convey the idea of
progress, but this, of progress accomplished by unwearied exertion—progress,
the triumph of an intelligent mind, and the reward of a determined will. To
explain this special point, let me borrow an illustration from our Lord, when
he took a little child, and, presenting the blushing boy to the wondering
assembly, said, Masters of Israel, doctors of the temple, priests of the
altar, chiefs of the Sanhedrim, behold this pattern; "whosoever would enter
the kingdom of heaven must be as this little child." In this image God's
people find comfort and encouragement.

Does the infant who is learning to walk abandon the attempt, or yield to
despair, because its first efforts are so feeble, and so often fail of
success? If not, why then should we despond, because, in attempting to walk in
God's ways, we often stumble, and not seldom fall? We—many of us, at least—are
but babes in Christ; and he no more gives up hope of his people because they
fall, than the fond mother her hope and confidence that this infant, who is
now creeping across the floor, shall one day stand erect in the beauty of its
form, balanced on firm feet, and with free and perfect command of all its
limbs. And why, then, should we despond? Every man was once a babe Samson
himself—the mighty Nazarite who burst asunder new-spun ropes like flax touched
with fire—who, with more than a giant's strength, wrenched the gates of Gaza
from the city's port, and, heaving them on his back, climbed the steep
acclivity—was once a feeble, wailing infant, who could barely carry his own
head erect, and hesitated to venture from a mother's knee. The believer takes
a law of God, and tries to walk in it—he tries to resist a temptation to which
he has often yielded—he fixes his eye on Jesus, and, fired with a holy
ambition, attempts to imitate him. He fails. Repeated attempts and repeated
failures cast him into despondency. He lies where he fell. He gives himself up
to dark and distressing doubts. Satan takes advantage of his failure, and
insinuates that he has never been converted—that his religious impressions are
a delusion—that his fair profession has been a vile hypocrisy. In such
distressing circumstances, our children become our teachers. God ordains
strength out of the mouth of babes, and the lesson of the nursery is
invaluable. Learning in that school that walking is a progressive and not a
sudden attainment, I get heart to say with David, "Why art thou cast down, my
soul, and why art thou disquieted within me?" That to my soul, and this to the
devil, who stands brandishing his sword over me, when I am lying with my back
to the ground, but my eyes on heaven, "Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy,
though I fall, I shall arise." This image stimulates to exertion, as well as
comforts under failure.

In attempting to walk, the child falls; there is blood upon its brow, and
tears in its eye. Does it lie there

THE NEW LIFE just to weep? By no means Looking through these tears, and
stretching out its little arms—if not by speech, yet by signs that go to a
mother's heart—for it can pray before it speaks—it implores her help. Nor in
vain. She flies to raise it; and when she has stanched the bleeding wound, and
kissed away the tears, and soothed it in her gentle bosom, and it has there
sobbed out its grief, what then? Recovering from the alarm, and soon
forgetting its wounds, it seeks the floor again. Perhaps it has been taught
some caution—perhaps it has learned to cling more to a mother's hand—perhaps
it ventures less rashly from her side; yet, moved by an indomitable will, see
how it returns to the attempt, tries it again and again, until, after some
blows, and many falls, it earns the reward of its perseverance. Now, with
bright health on its cheek, with grace in every motion, and beauty in all its
attitudes, laughing in its joy, and luxuriating in the exercise of its new-
born powers, it runs "without wearying, and walks without fainting." We teach
our children; let us here be their scholars, and take a lesson from the
nursery. Why, then, do we make so little progress in grace? Why at this time
of day, when some of us are bowed, wrinkled, and grey, are we so unable to
walk in God's statutes—to keep his judgments and do them? It is not because
our education has been neglected. It is not because any child has a mother so
fond, so kind, so quick to help, so able to raise the fallen and guide the
tottering step, as He who suffered for us more than mother's birth's pangs,
and feels for us more than a mother's love. What child in earth's happiest
home enjoys a believer's advantages? "Happy art thou, O Israel? who is like
unto thee, O people saved by the

Lord? The eternal God is thy refuge, and beneath the everlasting arms." Why,
then, is the progress of the Church so slow, compared with the progress of the
nursery? Why has child after child in our families learned to walk, while the
best of us are but creeping, tottering, stumbling, on our way to heaven?

There are mysteries in grace; but there is no mystery here. The reason is
plain. Every hour of the day the infant is on its knees or feet; it falls, but
it is to rise; it fails, but it is to begin again; its very happiness and
business lie in the acquisition of this power and the smile which lights up
its beautiful face, and its proud-like air when it can stand alone, or cross
the floor to throw itself laughing into a mother's arms, show that its heart
and happiness are in this work. We say to God's people, "go, and," by God's
grace, "do likewise." Take more pains and give more prayer to learn this holy
art. Let the perseverance of the nursery be imitated by the church. Let our
knees be as much employed in prayer, and our powers and hours in attempting a
holy life, as those of infancy in learning to walk. Oh, if we would give the
same "diligence to make our calling and election sure"—the same diligence to
"work out our salvation," I am certain that we should be holier—much holier
than we are. Our life would present a happy illustration of these sublime and
resplendent emblems—"Ye are the light of the world:" "The path of the just is
as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day:" "They
shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary, they
shall walk and not faint." III. This willing and progressive obedience is the
sign and seal of salvation.

Am I a child of God? How am I to know that I am? These are anxious questions
with the believer; and yet they are questions that admit of a very simple
answer. We have not, nor can we expect to have, such a testimony to our
sonship as the Saviour received when he went up from Jordan, and the form as
of a dove descended out of heaven on his head, still wet with the waters of
baptism. By the descent of the dove, and the voice of the thunder, his Father
said—"This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." And yet God's people
enjoy that very same testimony. The descent of the Spirit is still the
evidence of sonship;—its sign, however, is not a dove perched upon their
heads, but the dove nestled within their hearts. By his Spirit God creates
their "anew in Jesus Christ unto good works," and by these—by the fruits of a
holy life, by the joys of a Holy Ghost, by the advancing stages of a holy
progress—his Spirit witnesses with their spirits that they are sons of God. A
witness this, as certain, and therefore as satisfactory, as the voice of the
skies, or the verdict of final judgment. The fruit is now, as it shall be
hereafter, the test of the tree. There is no such thing as faith without
works. Without these, your profession is a lie, your faith is dead, your hope
is a delusion. It is a delusion and a snare, like the phosphoric light, the
product of putrefaction which, to the terror of superstitious peasants, and
the destruction of unwary travelers, gleams and burns at night, above the pool
in whose dark depths life has been lost, and a body, evolving gases capable of
spontaneous combustion, is going to decay. Now as the fruit is the test of the
tree, obedience is the test of love; hear our Lord—"He that hath my
commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that lcreth

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL me." Do not mistake us. We do not mean to say that any
man keeps these commandments perfectly. Alas! the history of the church, and
each man's own personal history, prove to our shame and sorrow, that God's
people may, and do fall into sin; and, but for the restraining and
constraining grace of God, would fall into the deepest, grossest sin. Let the
conviction teach us to walk softly, humbly, circumspectly! Oh, never leave
God's side, nor let go the hand of grace. Cling to Christ's arm, as if the
storm of Galilee were beating about your head, and every footstep were planted
upon a swelling wave.

I do not say that saints will not fall into sin, but I do say that, even when
they are so unhappy, there will be an unmistakable difference between them and
the ungodly. Judas sinned, and went and hanged himself; Peter sinned, and went
out and wept. The sins of saints are the occasion of saintly sorrows. God
shall see them at the fountain weeping and washing away their guilt in the
blood of Jesus; and to Jesus himself they will go, to make on their knees the
confession of Peter—Lord, I know that I have sinned, I know that I am a great
sinner; yet "thou knowest all things; thou knowest that I love thee."

There is one test—nor any more sure in the laboratory of the chemist—by which
to distinguish the godly from the ungodly, when both have fallen even into the
very same sin. It is worth knowing, and never fails. It is very simple, and
yet a most sure criterion. A child may comprehend it, and any one may apply
it. I pray you to apply it, not to your neighbors' cases but to your own—nor
reject it because it is humble, and plain, and simple, and vulgar, if you
will. It is the test by which you may know a sheep from a swine, when both
have fallen into the same slough, and are, in fact, so bemired, that neither
by coat nor color can the one be distinguished from the other. How then
distinguish them? Nothing more easy! The unclean animal, in circumstances
agreeable to its nature, wallows in the mire; but the sheep—type of the
godly—bleats, and strives, and struggles to get out.

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 21: 21. The New Life
========================================================================

(CONTINUED.)

I will . . . . cause you to walk in my statutes, and keep my judgments, and do
them.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 27.

THE predestination which I believe in, is that of Paul—"Whom he did foreknow,
he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son." To redeem
us from the power, as well as punishment of iniquity, Jesus died. For this his
precious blood was shed—for this the Spirit has descended. We are "called with
a holy calling;"—called to pluck the love of sin from our hearts, to dethrone
every idol that usurps the place of God; and having nailed to the cross the
old man, with his affections and lusts, we we are called to be like Jesus. His
meat and drink was to do his Father's will. He was "holy, harmless, undefiled,
separate from sinners." By this lofty end of a good's man's life, by the
regard which you cherish to Christ, by the welfare of your soul, by the
interest of other men's souls, you are called to beware of every thing which
might blemish your profession, obscure the luster of your graces, and hinder
you from walking in God's statutes, and keeping his judgments, and doing them.
So far, therefore, as circumstances permit you, "depart from evil," and in the
choice of your company and companions, follow the example of David, and
remember the warning of his son, "I am a companion to all them that fear
thee;"—"a companion of fools shall be destroyed." Shun the place of infection,
and—more than if they had plague or fever—the company of the infected. Avoid
and abjure every scene, pleasure, pursuit, which experience has taught you
tends to sin, dulls the fine set edge of conscience, unfits for religious
duties or religious enjoyments, extends you prayerless to bed, or dull and
drowsy to prayer. As the seaman does with surf-beaten reef or iron-bound
shore, give these a wide berth; and passing on, hold away in your course
straight for heaven.

Never fear to suffer; but Oh! fear to sin. Stand in awe of God, and in fear of
temptation. "Watch and pray, that ye enter not into temptation." It is not
safe to bring gunpowder within reach even of a spark. Nor safe, however
dexterous your driving, to shave with your wheels the edge of a beetling
precipice. Nor safe in the best-built bark that ever rode the waves, to sail
on the rim of a roaring whirlpool. The seed of the woman has, indeed, bruised
the head of the serpent; yet beware! the reptile is not dead. It is dangerous
to handle an adder, or approach its poison fangs, if the creature is alive,
even although its head be crushed.

Let me also warn you that such a holy life as the text enjoins, is impossible
to all but those who are on their guard against the beginnings of evil. Take
alarm at an evil thought, wish, desire. These are the germs of sin—the
floating seeds which drop into the heart, and finding in our natural
corruption a fat and favorable soil, spring up into actual transgressions.
These, like the rattle of the snake, the hiss of the serpent, reveal the
presence and near neighborhood of danger. The experience of all good men
proves that sin is most easily crushed in the bud, and that it is

14* safer to flee from temptation than to fight it. Fight like a man when you
can not avoid the battle, but rather flee than fight. Be afraid of it, avoid
it, abhor it; let your answer, as you tear yourself from the encircling arms
of the enchantress, and seek safety in flight, be that of Joseph s—"Shall I do
this great evil, and sin against God?"

True, religion, however, consists not in a passive but active piety. We are to
walk in God's statutes, keep his judgments, and do them. Our pattern is not
the man who wears a monkish cowl, and tells his beads, and keeps his vigils,
and goes through the dull routine of prayers and fastings within the walls of
a monastery; nor she who, having assumed the black veil and renounced the
world, seeks safety from its contamination, or solace from its sorrows, within
the cell and cloisters of a convent. The pattern of a Christian is that divine
man, who—while he passed a brief period of probation in the lonely desert, and
often spent whole nights on the mountain in solitary communion with his
God—walked the fields of Galilee, frequented the fishing villages on the
shores of Tiberias, and was often to be met with in Judah's towns, and on
Jerusalem's busy streets. Our exemplar is he, who, wherever he went, "went
about doing good," earning for himself this noble opprobrium, "the friend of
publicans and sinners."

Observe, that activity of Christian life is implied in the very terms of the
text. Grant that we may thereby be exposed to hardships and temptations, from
which a quiet and retiring piety might exempt us. Still, a life of active
service will be best for others, and in the end also for ourselves. A candle
set beneath a bushel is, no doubt, safe from wind and weather; but of what use
is it? On whose work does it shine? Whose path does it illumine? I would
rather burn and waste on some lofty headland to guide the bark through night
and storm to its desired haven. No light shineth for itself, and "no man
liveth for himself." Besides, the very trials to which piety is exposed on the
stormy heights of duty, will impart to it a robust and healthy character. The
strongest trees grow not beneath the glass of a green house, or in the
protection of sheltered and shaded valleys. The stoutest timber stands on
Norwegian rocks, where tempests rage, and long, hard winters reign. And is it
not with the Christian as with the animal life also? Exercise gives health,
and strength is the reward of activity. The muscles are seen fully developed
in the brawny arm that plies the ringing hammer. Health blooms ruddiest on the
cheek, and strength is most powerfully developed in the limbs of him, who—not
nailed to a sedentary occupation, nor breathing the close atmosphere of heated
chambers—but fearless of cold, a stranger to downy pillows and luxurious
repose, rises with the day, sees the early worm rise in the dank meadow, and
hears the morning lark high over head, and passing his hours in athletic
exercises, increases his strength by spending it. Even so, the most vigorous
and healthy piety is that which is the busiest, which has difficulties to
battle with, which has its hands full of good works, which has—I may
say—neither time nor room for evil, but aiming at great things, both for God
and man, promptly, summarily dismisses temptation, with Nehemiah's answer—"I
have a great work to do, therefore I cannot come down."

This world—with so many living and dying in it without God and hope, with the
whole heathen world still unconverted, with thousands and tens of thousands at
home sunk in the deepest ignorance, and slaves of the vilest sins, with
members of our families or of friendly circles far from God, and between whom
and us--terrible thought!--death would make an eternal separation--has much
need that we were up and doing, and throwing ourselves into the cause of
active Christianity. Our opportunities of good are many and multiform. A
Christian man should feel like some strong swimmer, who has hundreds around
him sinking, drowning, shrieking for help; the difficulty is to make
selection, and on whose unhappy head first to lay a saving hand. Amid such
scenes and calls, Oh, it is lamentable to think how much of our time has been
frivolously and uselessly spent. "The time past of our lives has been more
than sufficient to have wrought the will of the flesh;" to have enjoyed our
own ease, made money, and secured for ourselves the comforts of life. To
nobler ends be its remaining sands devoted! Take Christ for your copy. Run in
God's statutes without wearying, and walk in them without fainting; and let
the day on which some good has not been done to ourselves or others--some
glory won for God, some progress made in the divine life--be a day mourned
over, wept for, and this written down against it in the calendar of our
life--"I have lost a day." Our Christianity is a name, a shadow, unless we
resemble him who, being incarnate God, was incarnate goodness, and of whom,
although he stood alone in that hall--without one kind or brave voice raised
to speak for him--there were hundreds and thousands to bear this testimony,
that he went about doing good," and was the friend both of sufferers and
sinners. It is thus that we are to fulfil the duties of the Christian life,
and exhibit a living picture of one in whom this promise is fulfilled—"I will
cause you to walk in my statutes, and to keep my judgments and do them." In
closing my observations on this part of our subject, I remark—

I One of the most powerful means to accomplish the duty of the text is to
cultivate the love of Christ.

They who would live like Jesus must look to Jesus. What effect will follow?
Look at the sun—and now to the eyes which have been bathed in his dazzling
beams, how do other objects appear? Why, all are changed. They have grown dim,
if not dark and invisible. Candles, that burned bright, have no flame;
flowers, that looked beautiful, have no color; the very diamond has lost its
sparkling. And could we see Jesus Christ in the full effulgence of his Saviour
glory, all sinful and even all common created objects, would appear to undergo
some such change.

We see but through a glass darkly. The dimness of sin impairs our vision, but
were we to see Jesus, as we shall see him in heaven, I think it would happen
to us as once it happened to a celebrated philosopher. Pursuing his
discoveries on the subject of light—with a zeal not too often consecrated to
science, but too seldom consecrated to religion—he ventured on a bold
experiment. Without protection of smoked or colored glass, he fixed his gaze
steadily, for some time, on the sun—exposing his naked eyes to the burning
beams of its fiery disc. Satisfied, he turned his head away; but, strange to
see!—such was the impression made on the organ of sight—wherever he turned,
the sun was there; if he looked down, it was beneath his feet; it shone in the
top of the sky in the mirkest midnight; it blazed on the page of every book he
read; he saw it when he shut his eyes, he saw it when he opened them. It was
the last object which he saw when he passed off into sleep; it was the first
to meet his waking eyes. Happy were it for us if we got some such sight of
Christ, and this glory of that sun of righteousness were so impressed upon the
eye of faith that we could never forget him, and, ever seeing him, ever loved
him. With Christ ever present to our mind's eye, then we should be able more
fully to adopt the words of Paul, and say, "the love of Christ constraineth
us, because we thus judge, that if one died for all, then we are all dead, and
that he died for all, that they which live should not henceforth live unto
themselves, but unto him who died for them, and rose again."

Experience has proved that of all instruments, the mightiest for conversion is
the love of Jesus. It was only "Christ and him crucified," that Paul was to
know and preach; and in every age of the church and region of the world has
not that proved the rod to smite rocky hearts? Let me illustrate the fact by
referring to oft-quoted experience of some Moravians who had gone to carry the
glad tidings of salvation to the cold clime and rude savages of Greenland. For
what reason I know not, but it is a fact that they commenced and continued for
months to preach to these savages of their sins. They told them of the wrath
of God; they sounded Sinai's thunders; they blew its loudest trumpet in their
ears; they appealed to their conscience, to their fears, to their self love
and self interest. They told them of a heaven above, with a sun that never
set, and of a dark and dreary hell below, where nor sun, nor hope ever rose;
of fire that burned and a worm that gnawed incessantly. Thus they preached.
But their preaching was all in vain. The aspect of their hearers had its
counterpart in the wintry landscape of these northern regions; characterized
by perpetual night—the intensest cold—death-like silence; a sunless sky; and a
sea bound fast in chains of ice. These good men changed their plan. They chose
another theme. Exchanging the law for the love of God, they preached of
Calvary, and expatiated on the love which brought Jesus to a cross, and opened
his blessed arms to embrace the world. The effect was almost as immediate as
remarkable. When summer came and the snows melted on their hills, and, with
sounds, like the salvos of cannon that announce a victory, the ice broke on
these frozen seas; and beneath the beams of a sun, which blazed at midday, nor
set at midnight the earth—like a corpse come to life—disrobed itself out of
its snowy shroud; and the sea, rejoicing in freedom from its icy bonds, with
tides that ebbed and flowed, once more answered to the influences of heaven,
and rising to the wind, praised God night and day with the voices of its
roaring breakers, this glorious change was but a picture of the melting,
moving, transforming, regenerating power felt by the soul of the poor,
wondering savage, as he looked with weeping eye on the love of Christ and the
bloody cross of Calvary.

As the love of Christ to us is the mightiest power to awaken faith, so in the
love of our hearts to Christ will be found the mightiest power to secure
obedience, and insure our walking in God's statutes, and keeping his
judgments, and doing them. Therefore, we urge you to cultivate it; for—

Love is the most powerful of all motives.

Samson's great strength lay in his hair. Shorn of that, he was like other men.
The Christian's great strength lies in his love; and when Christ invites us to
sacrifices and sufferings which the world would pronounce intolerable, love is
ready to explain and justify the language of his invitation—"Come unto me, all
ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke
upon you, for it is easy, and my burden, for it is light." On the back of love
the burden loses more than half its weight, and the work that is done in love
loses more than half its tedium and difficulty. It is as with a stone, that in
the air, and on the dry ground, we strain at, but can not stir. Flood the
field where it lies; bury the block beneath the rising water. Now when its
head is submerged, bend to the work. Put your strength to it. Ah! it moves—it
rises from its bed—it rolls on before your arm. So, when the tide of love goes
swelling over our duties and difficulties, a child can do a man's work, and a
man can do a giant's. With love in the heart, "out of the mouths of babes and
sucklings God ordaineth strength." Strength! What strength? Death pulls down
the youngest and the strongest; but love is stronger than death. She welcomes
sacrifices, and glories in tribulation. Duty has no burden, and death has no
terror for her.

Look at that bird, which, with wings outstretched, sits dead on the scorched
and blackened tree. She might have flown away in safety. The smoke below
alarmed her. Dashing through and through it on frightened wing, she screamed,
as, climbing from branch to branch, the fire rose to her nest and brood. She
dashes right into the danger; and, perched on the brim of the nest—a tender
mother,—she fans her young ones with her wings. Now the flames lick it with
their fiery tongues—she leaves her perch. False to her offspring? No. A true
mother. She abandons it—not to soar away to heaven—but, as on dewy nights and
in happier hours, to seat herself above her young to die with them; and, with
expanded wings, protecting them to the last—to be found dead with a dead brood
beneath her. I look on that—or I look on this other mother, who stands with
her child on the side of the sinking wreck, to catch the last chance of a
passing boat. She catches it—not to leap in herself; but, lifting her boy in
her arms, and printing a mother's last kiss upon his rosy lips, she drops him
in, and remains behind herself to drown and die. Or I look at that maid in old
border story, who, having caught a glance of the arrow that, shot by a rival's
hand, came from the bushes on the other bank, flung herself before her lover,
and received the fatal shot in her own true and faithful heart. I look at
these things, and, seeing that love is strong as death, I urge you to
cultivate the love of Jesus, and go in its divine strength to the field of
duty, and the altar of sacrifice.

I do not say that you will find it easy to walk in God's statutes, to keep
Christ's commandments, and do them. To pluck sin from a bleeding heart—to put
our right hand on the block and cut it off—to pull a right eye from its
socket, and put our foot upon it—for a proud man to learn humility—for a lover
of the world not to love it—for one who has strong native corruption to nail
it to the cross, and keep it nailed there till it die—when the path of duty is
strewed with flints and thorns, to walk over them with bleeding feet—is, and
must be painful. There is no use of concealing it, of denying it. No. But all
the more need there is that you inflame your love by looking to Christ. Go
often, and, with the shepherds, gaze on the heavenly babe laid on a pallet of
straw in the corner of a manger. With the disciples, accompany him to
Gethsemane, and sit beneath her hoary olives to listen in the stilly night to
the moans and groans of the Son in the hands of his Father. Or join the
weeping women, and, with the other Marys and his fainting mother, take up your
station near the awful cross, and meditate on these things till you can say
with David, "While I was musing, the fire burned."

Love is a motive to duty as pleasant as it is powerful.

Love weaves chains that are tougher than iron, and yet softer than silk. She
unites the strength of a giant to the gentleness of a little child; and, with
a power of change all her own, under her benign and omnipotent influence,
duties that were once intolerable drudgeries become a pure delight. The
mother, for instance, away from scenes of gayety, without which to others and
once also to herself the cup of life was flat and tasteless, is awakened to
new enjoyments. She never wearies watching by her infant's cradle; nor does
she grudge the nights of broken rest, the toils, the cares, the troubles that
creature costs her, although these have blanched her cheek and paled the
luster of her eye. To cares that others would feel irksome, she cheerfully
devotes herself, even before the babe can lisp her name, or reward her
kindness with a look of recognition and its grateful, winning smile. Nor does
the father weary of the toil that wins his children's bread. The thought of
these strengthens the arms of daily labor, fires the patriot's zeal, kindles a
soldier's courage, cheers the seaman on his lonely watch, and reconciles
thousands of our honest poor to a life of incessant struggle—carrying them
through toils and hardships, otherwise intolerable, with a cheerful,
contented, happy, singing spirit.

You would think it a most weary and dreary thing to lead the life which that
mother passes. You think so, because you do not feel her love. And it is just
because they are strangers to the love of Jesus—because they have never known
him, nor loved him, that many can not comprehend such things as—how a pious
life can be a pleasant one—how any man can think that the finest music is the
sound of Sabbath bells—that God's is the best house—and the Lord's the best
table—how a man of exalted grace would rather sit down with a pious peasant at
the Lord's supper, than at a banquet where he was the guest of kings—and how
King David should have thought a day spent in the sanctuary better than a
thousand passed amid the stirring scenes of a camp, or the glory and luxuries
of a palace. They can not understand how, unless they were fools or fanatics,
the disciples should leave the judgment-seat with bleeding stripes, and
rejoice that they were counted worthy to suffer for Christ; how Paul and Silas
should have sung as cheerfully in a dungeon as ever lark that shook the night
dew from its wings, and rose to greet the morning sun; and how the only fear
of that brave old man, John Welch, in yonder rocky prison of the Bass, was
lest, that when others were winning the crown of martyrdom, he should miss it,
nor be counted worthy of that bloody honor. But they, in some measure at
least, understand these things, whose pulse beats true to the law of God, and
whose heart burns with the

THE GOSPEL IN KZEKIEL.

love of Christ. To the feet of love the ways of that law are like the fresh
and flowery sward, "ways of pleasantness and paths of peace." Love changes
bondage into liberty, and, delighting in that law which was once to us what
his chain is to the dog, what his task is to the slave, and against which our
corrupt passions once foamed and fretted like angry seas on their iron shores,
she takes up the harp of David, and thus sings its praises;—"The law of the
Lord is perfect, converting the soul; the statutes of the Lord are right,
rejoicing the heart; the judgments of the Lord are true, and righteous
altogether; more to be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey and the droppings of the honeycomb." "Oh! how I love
thy law, O Lord; it is my meditation all the day."

II. A powerful motive to the duties of the text lies in the fact, that by our
obedience to these statutes the verdict of judgment shall be settled.

We are saved by grace, but shall be tried by works. We are to be judged by the
"deeds done in the body whether they were good or bad." "Every one of us,"
says Paul, "shall give account of himself to God." Oh! how should these solemn
truths hedge, wall up our path to a close and holy walk in his statutes! The
great realities of eternity are projected in outline on the field of time, and
this world lies under the long, solemn shadow of coming events. Imagine them
come—the day of judgment come! For whatever purpose met, there is something
most impressive in the spectacle of a great multitude; that vast sea of
faces—that mighty aggregate of human beings with living hearts, immortal
souls, eternal destinies—all in a few years to be dead and gone and the joys
and sorrows, the fears and hopes, that now animate and agitate them, cold and
buried in the dust. But how unspeakably more solemn a world come from their
graves to judgment! and amid circumstances of terrible and transcendent
sublimity—thunders that rend the skies—the perpetual hills passing
away—burning mountains hurled into boiling seas—the sun dying—the starry
heavens rolling up like a scroll—and all eyes fixed on the “great, white
throne,” which rises in lonely majesty high above the countless crowd.

It shall be a solemn thing to meet the dead again, and see those—father and
mother, children, our brethren—who are now moldering in the dust. How solemn
it was to part with them—to stand by the dying bed, and look on as they passed
away, till we heard life’s departing sigh, and saw the last convulsion quiver
on the lip of one that was our own. But the meeting of those who, although
lying side by side, have been long parted—who, although their coffins and dust
commingle, have held no communion in these silent graves, will be a more
solemn thing; and an awful thing, if we should meet, as many shall meet—how
dreadful the thought!—with mutual accusations and bitter recriminations;
awful, overwhelming, unless we meet with mutual congratulations, to spend
eternity together in a better than our old, earthly home—in the mansions where
friends meet to part no more.

Still the solemnity rises. If it shall be a solemn thing to find ourselves
face to face with the dead, how much more solemn to stand face to face with
the great Judge both of the quick and dead. We have read—we have often thought
of Jesus Christ, till we felt as if we saw him. We have followed him in
fancy's vision through the checkered scenes of his earthly history—along his
rough and bloody path, from the night that angels sung his advent, to the day
when they returned to escort the conqueror home. We have seen his form
stretched out—for want of a better bed—upon the dewy field, or wrapped up in
coarse boat-cloak as he lay buried in slumber amid the storm on Galilee. We
have seen the eyes of pity he bent on the weeping Magdalene—the expression of
reproachful love he cast on a recreant disciple—that dying look, so full of
fond affection, which he turned on a fainting mother. We have seen him
standing calm and collected before a prejudiced and time-serving judge,
patient and self-possessed beneath the bloody scourge, mute and meek before
the frenzied multitude; and as we watched the successive events of the cross,
we have seen the joy—typified by the passing away of this eclipse—that gleamed
in his dying eyes as he raised them to heaven and cried, "It is finished." We
have often in fancy seen him. When our dust revives, and the grave that is now
awaiting us shall give up its dead, with these very eyes we shall see him—by
the light of a world in flames we shall see him, & God enthroned for judgment.

The day grows yet more solemn; its solemnity reaches its highest point, and
culminates in the momentous issues of judgment. It is God's day of settlement
with a world that has had a long credit. It is the winding up of this earth's
bankrupt estate, and each man's individual interests. It is the closing of an
open account that has been running on ever since the Fall. It is the day when
the balance is struck, and our fate is heaven or hell; and what invests my
text with solemn and sublime importance is this, that by the manner in which
we have walked in these statutes, and kept these judgments, and done them,
shall our destiny be determined. The most common action of life, its every
day, every hour, is invested with a solemn grandeur, when we think how they
extend their issues into eternity. Our hands are now sewing seed for that
great harvest. We shall meet again all we are doing and have done. The graves
shall give up their dead, and from the tombs of oblivion the past shall give
up all that it holds in keeping, to be witness for or witness against us. Oh,
think of that, and in yonder hall of the Inquisition, see what its effect on
us should be. Within those blood-stained walls, for whose atrocious cruelties
Rome has yet to answer, one is under examination. He has been assured that
nothing he reveals shall be written for the purpose of being used against him.
While making frank and ingenuous confession he suddenly stops. He is dumb—a
mute. They ply him with questions, flatter him, threaten him; he answers not a
word. Danger makes the senses quick. His ear has caught a sound; he listens;
it ties his tongue. An arras hangs beside him, and behind it he hears a pen
running along the pages. The truth flashes on him. Behind that screen a scribe
sits committing to the fatal page every word he says, and he shall meet it all
again on the day of trial. Ah! how solemn to think that there is such a pen
going in heaven, and entering on the books of judgment all we say, or wish,
all we think, we do. Would to God we heard it—every where, and always heard
it! What a check! and what a stimulus! Are we about to sin, how strong a curb;
if slow to duty, how sharp a spur. What a motive to pray for the blood that
blots out a guilty past, and for such grace, as, in time to come, shall enable
us to walk in God's statutes, to keep his judgments, and to do them.

Do any flatter themselves that, as to their sins and transgressions, God hath
not seen, or doth not regard, or hath forgotten? Most fatal delusion! "I have
seen all that Laban hath done unto thee," said the Lord to Jacob in a dream.
"Surely I have seen yesterday the blood of Naboth," are his words to Elijah,
when he sends away his ambassador with a commission to throw down the gauntlet
at a king's feet, and to proclaim war between heaven and the bloody house of
Ahab. Naboth has been foully murdered, but lies quiet in his bloody shroud.
The crime is concealed. Cunning and cruelty have triumphed; and no living man
now stands between Ahab and the vineyard. His evil genius approaches his bed.
"Arise," says his wife, "Naboth is dead, arise and take possession." The king
rises, rides down in royal state to Jezreel, and luxuriates among the
clustered grapes of his ill-got possession. Suddenly a man clothed in rough
garment, unsummoned, unwelcomed, appears upon the scene, and intrudes himself
on royalty. It is Elijah. With steady step and stern look, he marches up to
Ahab, and, fixing his eyes on the quailing coward, asks, "Hast thou killed and
also taken possession? In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth,
they shall lick thy blood, even thine." Tread upon a worm and it will turn on
you. To be a king, and yet be bearded before his court by this rude,
unmannerly intruder, to have the damning deed—which had been contrived with
such cunning, and executed with such success—dragged out from its concealment
by this bold hand into the light of day, to be branded before his courtiers,
and proclaimed throughout all the country as Naboth's murderer, stirs—if not
the courage—at least the wrath of Ahab. With guilt on his scowling brow, and
malignant anger burning in his eyes, he turns on the prophet, saying, "Hast
thou found me, O mine enemy?" "I have found thee," was the calm, terrible,
intrepid answer.

Impenitent and unbelieving sinner! flatter not thyself that God hath not seen,
or doth not regard; fancy not that thy crimes are buried in a grave deeper
than Naboth's, and that, as the dust of death lies on the lips of the partners
or witnesses of thy guilt, therefore you may be at ease, since the dead tell
no tales. The day is coming when every unpardoned sin shall find out its
father;—when what has been done in darkness shall be revealed in daylight, and
the word whispered in the ear shall be published upon the house-top. We shall
be tried by our obedience to these statutes and judgments. We have often
disobeyed them, and if, on that dread day, we would not have these sins to
meet us as Elijah met the king—if we would meet not our sins but our Saviour,
Oh let us have recourse now to the blood that blotteth them out. Without a
pardon, Jesus shall have no answer to us but one, the terrible reply of Jehu,
"What hast thou to do with peace?"

Peace!—Yes, there shall be peace—"Being justified by faith, we have peace with
God, through our Lord Jesus Christ;" and the secret of our peace shall lie in
that which held up the head of a royal favorite, while undergoing trial before
his country for a very heinous crime. Men wondered at his strange serenity,
and how he could bear himself so calmly. He passed on to the bar without a
cloud upon his brow, or an expression of anxiety in his eye, as he looked
around

THE GOSPEL IN KZEKIEL him on judges, accusers, the crowd of anxious
spectators. The trial began. His case grew darker and darker—not so his
aspect. Witness after witness bore crushing evidence against him, yet the keen
eyes of his enemies could detect no quiver on his lip, or shade upon his brow.
Long after hope had expired in the breast of anxious friends, and they looked
on him as a doomed man, there he was, looking round serenely on that terrible
array. His pulse beat calm, nor started suddenly, but went on with a stately
march; while peace sat enthroned upon his placid brow. When at length, amid
the silence of the hushed assembly, the verdict of "Guilty" is pronounced, he
rises. Erect in attitude, in demeanor calm, he stands up, not to receive the
sentence—which was already trembling on the judge's lip—but to reveal the
secret of this strange peace and self-possession. He thrusts his hand into his
bosom, and lays on the table a pardon—a full, free pardon for his crimes,
sealed with the royal signet.

Would to God we all were as well prepared! Then fare ye well, earth, sun,
moon, and stars; fare ye well, wife and children, brothers and sisters, sweet
friends, and all dear to us here below. Welcome death, welcome judgment,
welcome eternity; welcome God and Christ, angels and saints made perfect,
welcome heaven In the grace that leads to a holy walk, in some measure of
godly obedience to these statutes, in the faith that worketh by love,
purifieth the heart, and overcometh the world, have you the evidence that you
are forgiven? In these, do you carry in your bosom God's pardon, ready to be
produced when you are summoned to trial? Look forward without fear to the
great account. These shall be witnesses that you have received the
righteousness which makes the

THE NEW LIFE sinner just. Best of all shrouds, may you be wrapped in the
"clean linen" of Jesus' righteousness! With that robe around you may you rise
from the grave! —this your plea—"Almighty God! of my own works I have nothing
to say but this, What is bad in them is mine; what is good in them is thine.
Behold this pardon—look on this robe, and know now whether it be thy Son's
coat or no."

THE

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  CHAPTER 22: 22. Nature, Necessity, and Power of Prayer
========================================================================

I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for
them.—Ezekiel xxvi. 37.

IN pursuing his voyage to the shores of the new world the seaman steers
southward. His object is to catch the trade wind. It blows so steadily from
east to west, that having once caught it in his sails he has often nothing
else to do. With his ship's head set before that wind, he is borne steadily
along beneath a brilliant sun, and gently wafted over a summer sea. His voyage
is one extended, happy holiday. The thrilling cry of land comes at length from
the out look on the topmast, and he drops his anchor in some quiet bay of
those lovely islands, where the waves wash coral strands, and the breezes that
blow seaward from their spicy forests, come loaded with delicious perfumes.

It is not thus man reaches the shores of heaven That landing may be a picture
of his arrival—the voyage is not. In yonder vessel, which enters the harbor
with masts sprung, sails in rags, bulwarks gone, bearing all the marks of
having battled with many a storm and ridden many a crested wave, and on her
deck a crew of weather-beaten and worn men, happy and glad to reach the land
again—behold the plight in which the believer arrives at heaven It is hard
work to get there? No doubt of it. Paul, the man, in labors more abundant, in
stripes above measure, in prisons more frequent, in deaths of—

Paul, the martyr, thrice beaten with rods, once stoned, thrice shipwrecked, in
journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by his
countrymen, by the heathen, in the city, in the wilderness, on the sea—Paul,
the patient sufferer for Christ, of a life of weariness, and painfulness, and
watchings, hunger, thirst, fastings, cold, nakedness—Paul even stood alarmed,
lest he himself should be a castaway.

"The righteous scarcely are saved." The busiest in praying, watching, working,
fighting, are no more than saved. O then, "if the righteous scarcely are
saved, where shall the ungodly and the wicked appear?"

My text summons you to prayer. But does any man think, that, by repeating a
daily prayer—learned long ago perhaps at his mother's knee, reading some
verses of Scripture, abstaining from grosser sins, attending church on
Sabbath, and the Lord's table on communion days, he is by this smooth and easy
way to reach the kingdom, and receive its crown? What says our Lord, "The
kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force;" it is
the prize of men who are valiant in faith and strong in prayer—men like those
who, at bugle's sound or flare of rocket, rush from the trenches, and
springing into the deadly breach—leaping into the very mouth of death—fight
their way on and up till their flag of victory waves above the smoke of
battle.

Or, take Paul's figure of the energies and activities of the Christian life.
Look at these two men, stripped to the skin, who stand face to face,
confronting each other in the public arena. They have been in training for
weeks and months. Strangers to the pleasures of ease and sweets of luxury,
they have been on foot every day by the dawn. Abstaining from all indulgences
which might enervate their frame, in hard bed, hard food, hard work, they have
endured every trial which could develop their muscular powers, and add to
their strength. And now these athletes are met to contend for the prize; foot
touches foot, eyes watch eyes, and their spare but sinewy and iron forms are
disrobed, that nothing may impede the lightning rapidity of their movements,
or lessen the power of the stroke. The signal is given. Blows fall thick as
bail; and now the candidates are rolling on the ground; now they emerge from a
cloud of dust to continue the fight, till one—planting a tremendous stroke on
the head of his antagonist—stands alone in the arena, and amid applauses that
rend the sky and waken up the distant echoes, holds the field. At this moment
Paul steps forward, and, addressing Christians, says, So fight; so win. "They
do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible." Woe to the man,
in these old games, who allowed his competitor to catch him off his guard. Woe
to the man who turned to look on father, mother, wife, or mistress. Woe to the
man who lifted his eyes but for a moment from the glaring eyeball of his
antagonist; that moment a ringing blow fells him to the earth—he bites the
dust.

Not less does our safety depend on constant prayer and watchfulness. "Be
instant in prayer." "Pray without ceasing." "Watch and pray." Ah! you will
never have to offer Satan an advantage twice. Should he catch you asleep, as
David caught Saul—when he put aside the spear of Abashai that gleamed in the
moonlight above the unconscious sleeper, and whispered, "Destroy him
not"—Satan will not be satisfied with carrying off spear and water-cruse, or
skirt of robe; he will not be content to prove how he had you in his power,
and that, like a noble enemy who declines to take advantage of a sleeping man,
he had generously left you your peace and piety. Constant prayer, unceasing
watchfulness, are what your interests imperatively demand. These the Christian
life requires, and these the crown of redemption rewards. Observe how in my
text God hangs all the blessings of salvation upon prayer. He says—as it
were—I have had pity upon sinners; I have provided pardon for the guilty,
justification through the righteousness, and life through the death of my Son;
I have promised to take away the heart of stone and replace it with one of
flesh; I have promised my Spirit to sanctify, sufficient grace, a certain
heaven—all these blood-bought, gracious, happy, holy blessings shall be yours,
freely yours; yet not yours, unless they are sought in prayer. "I will yet for
this be enquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them." In directing
your attention to prayer, let me notice—

I. Nature itself teaches us to pray.

Like our intuitive belief in the existence of the soul, or in man's
responsibility, there seems to be lodged in every man's breast, what I may
call an instinct to pray, and an intuitive belief in the efficacy of prayer.
Prayer must be natural, because it is universal. Never yet did traveler find a
nation upon earth but prayed in some form or other to some demon or god. Races
of men have been found without raiment, without houses, without manufactures,
without the rudiments of arts, but never without prayers; no more than without
speech, human features, or human passions.

Prayer is universal, and seems to be as natural to man as the feelings which
prompt an infant to draw the milk of a mother's bosom, and by its cries to
claim a mother's protection. Even so man is—as it were instinctively—moved to
cast himself into the arms of God, to seek divine help in times of danger, and
in times of sorrow to weep on the bosom of a Father who is in heaven.

Nature and necessity have wrung prayers even from an atheist's lips.

There was a celebrated poet, who was an atheist—or at least professed to be
so. According to him there was no God. Very strange! A rude heap of bricks
shot from a cart upon the ground was never seen to arrange itself into the
doors, stairs, chambers, and chimneys of a house. The dust and filings on a
brass-founder's table had never been known to form themselves into the wheels
and mechanism of a watch. The types loosely flung from the founder's mould
never yet fell into the form of a poem, such as Homer, or Dante, or Milton
would have constructed. The rudest hut of Bushmen, the Indian's simple
canoe—fashioned by fire from a forest tree, the plainest clay urn, in which
savage affection had enshrined the ashes of the dead, were never supposed to
owe their form to the hands of chance. Yet this man believed (if it is
possible to think so,) that nature's magnificent temple was built without an
architect, her flowers of glorious beauty were colored without a painter, and
her intricate, complicated, but perfect machinery constructed without an
intelligent mind. According to him there was no God—the belief in a God was a
delusion, prayer a base superstition, and religion but the iron fetters of a
rapacious priesthood. So he held when sailing over the unruffled surface of
the Aegean Sea. But the scene changed; and, with the scene, his creed. The
heavens began to scowl on him; and the deep uttered an angry voice, and, as if
in astonishment at this God-denying man, "lifted up his hands on high." The
storm increased until the ship became unmanageable. She drifted before the
tempest. The terrible cry, "breakers ahead!" was soon heard; and how they
tremble to see death seated on the horrid reef—waiting for his prey! A few
moments more, and the crash comes. They are whelmed in the devouring sea? No.
They were saved by a singular providence. Like apprehended evils, which, in a
Christian's experience, prove to be blessings, the wave, which flung them
forward on the horrid reef, came on in such mountain volume as to bear and
float them over into the safety of deep and ample sea-room. But ere that
happened, a companion of the atheist—who, seated on the prow, had been taking
his last regretful look of heaven and earth, sea and sky—turned his eyes down
upon the deck, and there, among papists, who told their beads and cried to the
virgin, he saw the atheist prostrated with fear. The tempest had blown away
his fine-spun speculations like so many cobwebs; and he was on his knees,
imploring God for mercy. In that hour—in that terrible extremity—Nature rose
in her might, asserted her supremacy, vindicated the claims of religion, smote
down infidelity by a stroke, and bent the stubborn knees of atheism in
lowliest prayer. Danger may thus extort prayer; it does not follow that God
will accept it. How can a man expect to have prayers accepted which are only
wrung from him by the hand of danger or the fear of death? Let us

15* translate their language? Is it not this? I will serve my lusts as long as
I dare. So long as I can say it safely, I will say—Evil be thou my good; my
vices, be ye my gods; I will turn to religion when I can do no better. Does
Jesus stand at my door? are his locks wet with the dews of night? are his
limbs weary standing? is his hand weary knocking? Till another hand is
knocking there—the loud, impatient hand of death—Jesus comes not in. "What
have I to do with thee, thou Son of God?" With thy religion—"Art thou come to
torment me before the time?" "Go thy way at this time: when I have a
convenient season I will call for thee."

In the name of reason, religion, gratitude, love, is this the treatment which
a Saviour deserves? Deluded sinner! "Is this thy kindness to thy friend?"
Beware! What if he should mete out to us the measure we mete to him? Remember
the warning—"I have spoken, and ye have not heard; I have called, and ye have
not answered; when ye speak I will not hear; when ye call I will not answer. I
will laugh at your calamity, and mock when your fear cometh."

II. Some difficulties connected with this duty.

The decrees of God, say some, render prayer useless. Are not all things, they
ask, fixed by these decrees—irrevocably fixed? By prayer I may, indeed,
prevail on a man to do a thing which he has not previously resolved not to do,
and even although he should have so resolved—man is changeable; and I may show
him such good reasons for doing it, as to change his resolution. But if an
immutable God has foresettled every thing by an eternal and irreversible
decree, what purpose can prayer serve? Who shall change the unchangeable? Thus
men have argued, saying—"What profit shall we have if we should pray unto
him?"

It were not difficult to expose the fallacy of this reasoning. The objection
may be entirely answered. We might show that the decrees of God embrace the
means as well as the end; and since prayer is a means of grace, being a means
to an end, it must be embraced within these very decrees, and can not be
excluded by them. I content myself, however, with simply saying, that this
objection is not honestly, at least not intelligently, entertained by any man.
For, if the objection is good against prayer, it is good against many things
besides. If it stops action in the direction of prayer—if it arrests the
wheels of prayer—it ought to stop the wheels of our daily business. If a good
objection against prayer, it is an equally good objection to ploughing,
sowing, taking meat or medicine, and a thousand other things. Might not an
unwilling or indolent husbandman, in spring, as well ask, what is the use of
sowing? Has not God ordained every thing? If I am to have a harvest—if he has
decreed a harvest for my farm—then, although no ploughshare turn up a furrow,
nor sower walks its fields, they shall wave in autumn with golden corn. Or
might not one, who sickens at the sight of nauseous drugs, as well say, Take
these away, I'll drink no more of them. Has not God ordained every thing? Can
a sparrow fall to the ground without the Father? If he has decreed that I am
to live, come cholera, fever, pestilence, I shall live; if he has decreed
otherwise, all the medicines of the apothecary, and the skill of science can
not avail to save me, or add one grain to the sands of my existence. Did any
man in his sober senses ever reason so? With that simple question we dismiss
this objection.

Others, more earnest and honest, reading that "without faith it is impossible
to please God, reading—and misunderstanding what they read—"he who doubteth is
damned"—say that, from want of faith, heir prayers must be useless. Most false
reasoning! What says the Apostle?—"I will that men pray every where." "God
will have all men to be saved." We take, like little children, the simple
word, nor trouble ourselves with the metaphysics of the question.

If you were sufficiently alive to your danger, these difficulties would have
no more power to hold you than the meshes of a spider's web. I knew of one
who, while wandering along a lonely and rocky shore at the ebb of tide,
slipped his foot into a narrow crevice. Fancy his horror on finding that he
could not withdraw the imprisoned limb! Dreadful predicament! There he sat,
with his back to the shore, and his face to the sea. Above his head sea-weed
and shells hung upon the crag—the too sure signs that when yonder turning tide
comes in, it shall rise on him inch by inch, till it washes over his head. Did
he cry for help? Does any man dream of asking such a question? None heard him.
But, Oh, how he shouted to the distant boat! how his heart sank as her yards
swung round, and she went off on the other tack! how his cries sounded high
above the roar of breakers! how bitterly he envied the white scamew her wing,
as, wondering at this intruder on her lone domains, she sailed above his head,
and shrieked back his shriek! how, hopeless of help from man, he turned up his
face to heaven, and cried loud and long to God! All that God only knows. But
as sure as there was a terrific struggle, so sure, while he watched the waters
rising inch by inch, these cries never ceased till the wave swelled up, and
washing the dying prayer from his lips, broke over his head with a melancholy
moan.

There was no help for him. There is help for us, although fixed in sin as fast
as that man in the rock. Whether we have true faith, may be a question which
is not easily settled, but to pray is a clear and commanded duty. The "help,
Oh, help, Lord," never yet rose from an anxious heart, but it was heard, and
accepted in heaven. And if Satan bids me hold my peace—as the disciples bade
the blind man—I bid him hold his own. I refuse to be silent; I but cry the
louder, "Jesus, thou Son of David, have mercy on me." In God's hands, when he
in smiting, let me be "dumb, opening not the mouth." In my Father's arms I may
lie and do nothing but weep—weep upon his loving bosom; but in the arms of
this mortal and malignant enemy, who has seized me, and is carrying me off to
prison and pit—a lamb bleating in the lion's jaws—"I will cry unto the Lord,
and he will answer me, and send help from above, and deliver me."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 23: 23. III. Prayer must be earnest
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The public become suspicious even of good money when coiners have pushed their
base metal into wide circulation. Even so, religion falls into disrepute, and
the character of piety suffers in the eyes of the world, when the church
swarms with pretenders and false professors. And in like manner, the value of
prayer has fallen in the eyes of men in consequence of many prayers which are
offered, being rejected by God, because they are not genuine. Hence prayer
comes to be held in light esteem, and—if I might so speak—the bills drawn on
the bank of heaven being dishon ored, man says—" Who is the Lord, that I
should serve him, or what profit shall I have if I pray unto him?"

Among other gross and venal impieties, the Church of Rome sells prayers. By
her prayer-market she converts God's house into a house of merchandise and a
den of thieves. Her prayers—although their price, like that of other goods,
varies with the locality—may be bought for money, under this general rule of
the market, that the praying shall correspond to the paying. The rude Tartar
saves his money by a practice that achieves the object just as well, or rather
that fails as completely to do any thing but deceive the blind. He cuts a
cylinder from a block of wood. Upon its surface he writes a series of prayers;
and then he runs an axle through the cylinder, and fitting it up so that it
shall keep turning like a mill-wheel in the running stream, he sets it in
motion. He goes away on his hunt, to the pursuit of war, business, or
pleasure, and reckons that, whether he sleeps or wakes as the wheel goes
round, and the prayers in its revolution turn up to the eye of the skies,
heaven reads them there, and God accepts the prayers of the dead cylinder for
the desires of a living heart.

Prayers without wishes are like birds without wings; while the eagle soars
away to heaven, these never leave the ground. It is the heart that prays—not
the knees, nor the hands, nor the lips. Have not I seen a dumb man, who stood
with his back to the wall, beg as well with his imploring eye and open hand,
as one that had a tongue to speak? If you would have your prayers accepted,
they must be arrows shot from the heart. None else mount to the throne of God.
You may repeat your prayers every day; you may be punctual as a Mohammedan
who, at the Mollah's call from the minaret of the mosque, drops on his knees
in public assembly or the crowded street. What then? The prayer of the lip,
tongue, memory, of the wandering mind, in its dead formality, are, in the
sight of God, no better than the venal prayers of Rome, or the revolutions of
the Tartar's wheel. "The sacrifice of the hypocrite is an abomination to the
Lord."

Would you see true prayer—would you know what prayer really is? step into this
Egyptian palace where Benjamin stands bound—his amazed and trembling brothers
grouped around the lad? Judah advances. He bows himself before Joseph. His
heart is full. His lip trembles. The tear glistens in his manly eye, and now,
with tenderness thrilling in every tone, he pours forth this plea of
surpassing pathos—"Oh my lord, let thy servant, I pray thee, speak a word in
my lord's ears, and let not thine anger burn against thy servant: My lord
asked his servants, saying, Have ye a father, or a brother? and we said unto
my lord, We have a father, an old man, and a child of his old age, a little
one; and his brother is dead; and he alone is left of his mother, and his
father loveth him." Thus on he goes; and every sentence goes like a knife into
Joseph's heart. And then he closes and crowns his appeal with this most brave
and generous proposal, "Now, therefore, I pray thee, let thy servant abide
instead of the lad, a bondsman to my lord; for how shall I go to my father,
and the lad be not with me, lest I see the evil that shall come on my father?"
Joseph's heart, which has been swelling with emotion, is now ready to burst.
He can stand it no longer; nor any wonder. That is prayer; and could we bring
such earnestness to Jesus, Oh, how would his tender, much more tender heart
melt, like wax, before it. Did we approach him with the fervor that glowed and
burned in Judah's speech; did we plead for our own souls or those of others,
with such tears, in such tones, as Judah's when he pleaded for Benjamin, how
would a divine brother discover himself to us.

Now turn from that Egyptian to this Hebrew palace. There also is prayer. Two
women stand before King Solomon. In the darkness of the night one has crept,
with noiseless step, to her neighbor's bed, and while the mother slept, and
the babe slept in her bosom, softly, cautiously, she steals the living child,
and leaves her own cold, dead infant in its place. They carry the dispute to
Solomon—each claiming the living, and each repudiating the dead. With a skill
that earned him his world-wide fame, the wise monarch summons nature as a
witness. Horrible to hear, he orders the living child to be divided. The sword
is raised—another moment, and each mother gets a quivering half—another
moment, and interference comes too late. One stands calm, firm, collected,
looking on with a cruel eye. With a bound that carries her to his feet, and a
shriek that rings wild and high over all the palace, the other—the true
mother—clasps her hands in agony, and cries—"Oh, my lord, give her the living
child, in no wise slay it." That is prayer. That cry, that spring, that look
of anguish—all these proclaim the mother—how different from the cold, callous,
unimpassioned frame in which, alas! the best too often present themselves at
the throne of grace, as if, when we are seeking pardon, it were a matter of
supreme indifference whether our prayer were or were not answered. Oh! how
should we pray that God would help us to pray, and touch our icy lips with a
live coal from off his altar.

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 24: 24. IV. Prayer is powerful
========================================================================

An angel, says our great poet, keeping ward and watch on the battlements of
heaven, caught sight of Satan as he flew on broad wing from hell to this world
of ours. The celestial sentinel shot down like a sunbeam to the earth, and
communicated the alarm to the guard at the gates of paradise. Search was made
for the enemy, but for a time without success. Ithuriel entered the bower,
whose flowery roof "showered roses which the morn repaired," and where our
first parents, "lulled by nightingales, embracing, slept." There he saw a toad
sitting, squat by the ear of Eve. His suspicions were awakened. In his hand
was a spear that had the celestial power of revealing truth, unmasking
falsehood, and making all things to stand out in their genuine colors. He
touched the reptile with it. That instant the toad—which was breathing horrid
dreams into the ear of Eve—changed its shape, and there, confronting him face
to face, stood the proud, malignant, haughty form of the Prince of Darkness.

With such a spear as that with which Milton, in this flight of fancy, arms
Ithuriel, prayer arms us. Are we in doubt whether a thing is right or wrong?
Are we indulging in pleasures, or engaged in pursuits, with which we are not
altogether satisfied, and yet are not ready decidedly to condemn, and promptly
to abandon? In any matter of Christian morals, are we halting between two
opinions? The simplest and shortest way of determining the doubt is to apply
the test of prayer. Take the subject to God. Look at your pleasures and your
practices in the light of his countenance. Examine the matter on your knees.
Can you make it a subject of prayer? Ah! be sure you are not safe in the place
to which you can not ask God to accompany you. Be sure that that good (as the
world may call it) is bad—that pursuit or enjoyment, however gainful or
pleasant, is an evil—upon which you can not implore God's blessing, and for
which you dare not go to a throne of grace, and give God thanks.

Is this test of universal application? is every thing, then, to be made a
subject of prayer? Certainly. So thought Fowell Buxton, even of those
amusements with which, in holiday times, he was wont to brace up mind and body
for noble labors in the cause of God and his country. So thought that Corsican
patriot, who never went down to battle till he had gone down to his knees, nor
ever leveled a rifle that never missed, without praying for the soul he was
about to send into eternity. And so speaks Paul, when, linking peace and
prayer together, he writes—"Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by
prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known
unto God; and the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep
your heart and minds, through Jesus Christ."

Such is one of the indirect uses, and not unimportant effects of prayer. Its
direct power is, in a sense, omnipotent. Prayer moves the hand that moves the
world. It secures for the believer the resources of Divinity. What battles has
it not fought! what victories has it not won! what burdens has it not carried!
what wounds has it not healed! what griefs has it not assuaged! It is the
wealth of poverty; the refuge of affliction; the strength of weakness; the
light of darkness. It is the oratory that gives power to the pulpit; it is the
hand that strikes down Satan, and breaks the fetters of sin; it turns the
scales of fate more than the edge of the sword, the craft of statesmen, or the
weight of scepters; it has arrested the wing of time, turned aside the very
scythe of death, and discharged heaven's frowning and darkest cloud in a
shower of blessings.

Prayer changes impotence into omnipotence; for, commanding the resources of
Divinity, there is nothing it can not do, and there is nothing it need want.
It has just two limits. The first is, that its range is confined to the
promises; but, within these, what a bank of wealth, what a mine of mercies,
what a store of blessings! The second is, that God will grant or deny our
requests as is best for his glory and our good. And who that knows how we are,
in a sense, but children, would wish it otherwise? My little child is angry
when I pluck a knife from his hands; he doubts his father's love because he
does not always kiss, but sometimes corrects him; and, turning away his head
from the nauseous drug, he must be coaxed—sometimes compelled to drink the cup
which, although bitter to the taste, is the restorative of health. Who that
sees the child seek meat when he needs medicine, eagerly clutch at tempting
but unripe fruit, prefer play, and go weeping to school, reject simple but
healthful fare for some luscious, but noxious luxury, who, I say, does not
feel thankful that God reserves the right of refusal, and makes his answers
correspond to our wants rather than to our wishes? This limit to prayer may
make poverty our lot; may bind us to a sick bed; may leave us to suffer and
bleed under the stroke of an impending calamity; but—while we will get as much
of earth as we need on earth—for the pardon of sin, for peace of con science,
for purity of heart, for growth in grace, for all that we need to make us meet
for heaven, and at length, for insuring heaven itself, prayer secures to us
the help and hand of Omnipotence.

By prayer, besides, God's children can reckon on immediate assistance. Prayer
flies where the eagle never flew; and rises on wings broader and stronger than
an angel's. It travels further and faster than light. Rising from the heart of
a believer, it shoots away beyond that starry sky, and, reaching the throne,
enters into the ear of God. So soon as the heart begins to work on earth, it
moves the hand of God in heaven; and, ere the prayer has left the lips of
faith, Jesus has presented it to his Father, and secured its answer. It is a
telegraph stretched not between shore and shore—the mother country and her
distant colonies, the seat of government and the far-off scene of battle—but
its extended lines connect heaven and earth, man and God, the sinner and the
Saviour, the humblest home of piety and a throne of grace.

That high invention of human genius, which, by its wires of iron connects
distant countries together, and has, in a sense, abolished both time and
space—offers but an imperfect image of a power which piety has been working
before science was born—nay, ever since the world began. From remote regions
the electric telegraph may convey to a father the tidings that his child is
ill; but it carries not the physician to his side, nor the drug of potent
virtue which could cure his malady. It leaves him to die. It may bring to-
night a detail of the fortunes of the war. Along it our army may send a cry
for help—for more men and more munitions; but days and weeks must elapse, and
many miles of ocean be traveled, ere ever our ships can pour their bayonets on
the hostile shore; and then it may be too late; the tide may have ebbed that,
taken at the full, had led on to fortune.

But does God never make his people wait? He does. Faith and patience are put
upon their trial; there is no answer, nor reply, nor relief. God is silent,
and the church is left to cry, "How long, O Lord, how long?" All true. Jesus
addresses to his Bride the language he of old used to his mother, "Woman, my
hour is not yet come." But let us need present help, and you shall see that he
is "a very present help in time of trouble." Let the disciple be sinking amid
the waves of Galilee, crying, "I perish"—let the prophet be on his knees in
the depths of the sea and the dark belly of the whale—let the widow's last
mite, and the barrel's last handful have come—let the confessor be descending
into the lions' roaring den—let the queen have her brave hand upon the door,
with these words of high resolve upon her lips, "If I perish, I perish"—let
the trembling host have the waters of the Red Sea roaring in their front, and
the chariots of Egypt pressing on their rear—let God's people have reached
such a crisis—let them stand in any such predicament—and his answer
anticipates their prayer. The supply is on the road before the want is
expressed; the door opens before the hand has struck it; while prayer is
traveling up the one line, the answer is speeding down the other. Hear the
voice of the Lord, "It shall come to pass; before they call I will answer, and
while they are yet speaking, I will hear."

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 25: 25. V. Prayer is confident
========================================================================

In speaking of Christ Jesus our Lord, Paul says, "In whom we have boldness and
access with confidence

THE GOSPEL IN EZEKIEL by the faith of him;" "Jesus, our High Priest, has
entered within the Vail, and having reconciled us to God, we have boldness to
enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus;" "Seeing, then, that we have a
great High Priest, that is passed into the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let
us hold fast our profession. For we have not an High Priest which can not be
touched with the feelings of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted
like as we are, yet without sin. Let us, therefore, come boldly unto the
throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of
need." It is easy to know the knock of a beggar at one's door. Low, timid,
hesitating, it seems to say, I have no claim on the kindness of this house; I
may be told I come too often; I may be treated as a troublesome and unworthy
mendicant; the door may be flung in my face by some surly servant. How
different, on his return from school, the loud knocking, the bounding step,
the joyous rush of the child into his father's presence, and, as he climbs his
knee, and flings his arms round his neck, the bold face and ready tongue with
which he reminds his father of some promised favor? Now, why are God's people
bold? Glory to God in the highest! To a Father in God, to an elder brother in
Christ, Faith conducts our steps in prayer; therefore, in an hour of need,
Faith, bold of spirit, raises her suppliant hands, and cries up to God, "Oh
that thou wouldst rend the heavens, and come down." I think that I see the
sneer curling on the skeptic's lip as he says, How absurd! What presumption!
as if it were not below the dignity of Divinity to come at king's or
peasant's, prince's or pauper's call. Should the lofty purposes of the Eternal
be shaped by your petitions? Creature of a day and of the dust!

what are you, that the universe should be steered— its helm moved this or that
way for your sake? Well, no doubt the language is bold; yet with God a Father,
our Father, my Father in Christ, I feel I can be bold and confident in prayer.
I know a father's heart.

Have I not seen the quiver of a father's lip, the tear start into his eye, and
felt his heart in the grasp of his hand, when I expressed some good hope of a
fallen child? Have I not seen a mother, when her infant was tottering in the
path of mettled coursers, with foam spotting their necks, and fire flying from
their feet, dash like a hawk across the path, and pluck him from instant
death? Have I not seen a mother, who sat at the coffin-head, pale, dumb,
tearless, rigid, terrible in grief, spring from her chair, seize the coffin
which we were carrying away, and, with shrieks fit to pierce a heart of stone,
struggle to retain her dead?

If we, that are but worms of the earth, will peril life for our children, and,
when they are moldered into dust, can not think of our dead, nor visit their
cold and lonesome grave, but our breasts are wrung, and our wounds bleed forth
afresh, can we adequately conceive or measure, far less exaggerate—even with
our fancy at its highest strain, the paternal love of

God? Talk not of what you suppose to be the dignity of Divinity. Talk not of
the calm, lofty, dignified demeanor which becomes a king, who sees his child
borne off on the stream that sweeps his palace wall.

The king is at once sunk in the father. Divesting himself of his
trappings—casting away scepter, robe of gold, and jeweled crown, he at once
rushes forth to leap into the boiling flood. Lives there a father with heart
so dead that he would not, at the sight of a child fallen overboard, and
struggling with death, back every sail, and, whatever might be the mission on
which his ship was bound, or whatever the risk he ran, would not put up her
helm, and, pale with dread, steer for the waves were his boy was sinking?

Child of God! pray on. God's people are more dear to him than our children can
be to us. He regards them with more complacency than all the shining orbs of
that starry firmament. They were bought at a price higher than would purchase
the dead matter of ten thousand worlds. He cares more for his humblest,
weakest child, than for all the crowned heads and great ones of earth, and
takes a deeper interest in the daily fortunes of a pious cottage than in the
fall and rise of kingdoms. Child of God! pray on. By prayer thy hand can touch
the stars, thy arm stretch up to heaven. Nor let thy holy boldness be dashed
by the thought that prayer has no power to bend these skies, and bring down
thy God. When I pull on the rope which fastens my frail and little boat to a
distant and mighty ship, if my strength cannot draw its vast bulk to me, I
draw myself to it—to ride in safety under the protection of its guns; to enjoy
in want the fullness of its stores. And it equally serves my purpose, and
supplies my needs, that prayer, although it were powerless to move God to me,
moves me to God. If He does not descend to earth, I—as it were—ascend to
heaven. Child of God! pray on. Were it indispensable for thy safety that God
should rend these heavens, it should be done—a wondering world should see it
done. I dare believe that; and "I am not mad, most noble Festus." Have not
these heavens been already rent? Eighteen hundred years ago, robed in
humanity, God himself came down. These blue skies, where larks sing and eagles
sail, were cleft with the wings and filled with the songs of his angel train.
Among the ancient orbs of that very firmament, a stranger star appeared,
traveling the heavens, and blazing on the banner borne before the King, as he
descended on this dark and distant world. On Canaan's dewy ground—the lowly
bed he had left—the eye of morning shone on the shape and form of the Son of
God, and dusty roads, and winter snows, and desert sands, and the shores and
very waves of Galilee, were impressed with the footprints of the Creator. By
this manger, where the babe lies cradled—beside this cross, upon whose
ignominious arms the glory of the universe is hung—by this silent sepulcher,
where, wrapped in bloody shroud, the body is stretched out on its bed of
spices, while Roman sentinels walk their moonlit round, and Death—a bound
captive—sits within, so soon as the sleeper wakes, to be disarmed, uncrowned,
and in himself have death put to death—faith can believe all that God has
revealed, and hope for all that God has promised. She reads on that manger, on
that cross, deeply lettered on that rocky sepulcher, these glorious words—"He
that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not
with him also freely give us all things?" And there, lifting an eagle eye to
heaven, she rises to the boldest flights, and soars aloft on the broad wings
of prayer— Faith, bold faith, the promise sees,

And trusts to that alone,

Laughs at impossibilities,

And says, it shall be done.

========================================================================
  CHAPTER 26: 26. The Blessedness of the Sain's
========================================================================

And ye shall dwell in the land that I gave to your fathers; and ye shall be my
people, and I will be your God. I will also save you from all your
uncleannesses; and I will call for the corn, and will increase it, and lay no
famine upon you. And I will multiply the fruit of the tree, and the increase
of the field, that ye shall receive no more reproach of famine among the
heathen.—Ezekiel xxxvi. 28, 29, 30.

A COUNTRY cleared of its inhabitants wears a mournful aspect. It may be that
the emigrant has left poverty for plenty. Still it is not a pleasant thing to
see nettles growing where the garden bloomed—the smoke-stained gable—the
roofless ruin—the empty window, out of which the fox is peering, and where the
morning sun was wont to shine upon the Bible and a pious patriarch. There is
something chilling about that cold hearth-stone where the fire of a winter
evening gleamed on the faces of a happy circle, while the mother plied her
busy wheel, and, forgetful of the toils and dangers of the day, the shepherd
dandled a laughing infant on his knee. Those are now silent walls that once
sounded to the evening psalm, and from which, when Sabbath rested on the
hills, a decent family went out, wending their way by the lake-side to that
old ruin beside whose crumbling walls the fathers of the exile sleep. The
wind, as it sighed among the trees above that roofless home, has seemed in our
fancy's ear to sound the prophet's lament, "Weep not for the dead, neither
bemoan him, but weep sore for him that goeth away, for he shall return no
more, nor see his native country."

Such scenes, the pain of which, indeed, lies more in fancy than in fact, give
us an image of the desolation which reigned in the land of Judah during the
time of the long captivity. By rule of contrast, they enhance also the
pleasure with which we turn to look on this glowing picture—a land teeming
with inhabitants, the rich plains studded all over with cities, each busy as a
bee hive—the valleys clothed with corn, crowded with reapers, and ringing to
their song—every terrace in the close embrace of vines, and flocks bleating on
a hundred hills. Such a scene, in fact, as surveyed from some eminence, awoke
the piety and poetry of David—"Thou crownest the year with thy goodness, and
thy paths drop fatness; they drop upon the pastures of the wilderness, and the
little hills rejoice on every side. The pastures are clothed with flocks, the
valleys also are covered over with corn; they shout for joy, they also sing."

The fulfillment of my text to God's ancient people would have invested this
prophecy with interest, even although its application had been altogether
confined to the Jews; and, for this reason—Their God is our God, and every
thing which he did for them is a most precious pledge of what he can and will
do for us. "He is the dwelling-place of his people in all generations." Thus
while faith turns her eye upon the future—a future often dark enough—she draws
courage and comfort from the past, saying, "I will remember the years of the
right hand of the Most High." But, in fact, we have more to do with this
prophecy than the Jews had. Under those blessings which God poured into their
cup—those temporal mercies which filled their mouths with meat, and their
hearts with gladness—lie the better mercies of Messiah's kingdom.

This shines plainly forth through the mystic language of the prophet. The
conversion of the Gentiles is, for instance, distinctly announced in the 36th
verse, "Then the heathen, that are left round about you, shall know that I the
Lord build the ruined places, and plant that which was desolate. I the Lord
have spoken it, and will do it." In the succeeding chapter, again, the
resurrection of the body and the renovation of the soul are set forth under
the vision of dry bones. In the same place also have we not a kingdom shown
forth more enduring far, than any which ever had its seat in Palestine? "And
David, my servant, shall be king over them, and they all shall have one
shepherd; they shall also walk in my judgments, and observe my statutes, and
do them; and they shall dwell in the land which I have given to Jacob, my
servant, wherein your fathers have dwelt; and they shall dwell therein, even
they, and their children, and their children's children, for ever; and my
servant David shall be their prince for ever." It appears to us that this
language can not, without violence, be applied to the old Jewish land and
people; and that the Roman ploughshare has buried such a fancy under the ruins
of Jerusalem. With the blood of man's best brother on their heads, the Jews,
like Cain, are vagabonds. They have no dwelling in the land which God gave to
Jacob; for eighteen hundred years they have been wandering the world, nor have
the soles of their feet yet found a resting-place. A nation scattered and
spoiled, they are a bye-word, a proverb, and a bissing—nor land, nor temple,
nor oracle, nor prince, have they, nor shall have, till turning to the hope of
his best and oldest fathers, the Jew bows his proud head to the Nazarene, and
kisses the feet that were nailed to a cross.

Looking at these words, therefore, in this light—taking them in a Gospel, not
a Jewish sense—let us give our attention to some of the blessings which they
announce—the benefits which, to use the words of our Catechism, “flow from
justification, adoption, and sanctification.” Let the believer look—

I. To the abundance of the blessings of grace.

A new-born infant is the most helpless of all creatures. In its nakedness,
weakness, dumbness, how dependent on a mother’s love! yet not more so than
God’s people are on his care and kindness. Theirs are therefore circumstances
in which his promises are exceedingly precious. The condition of believers
very much resembles that of a man of boundless affluence, whose wealth lies,
not so much in money, as in money’s worth—in bills and bonds, that, when due,
shall be duly honored. With these promises the poorest Christian is really a
richer man than any other men, with all their possessions; nor would he part
with one of them for the world’s wealth.

This rude and naked savage—the dupe of avaricious men—barters a coronet of
gold for some worthless trinkets, and buys the wonders of a mirror, the
tinkling of a bell, or a string of colored beads, with a handful of pearls,
the fit ornaments of a crown. The child of God knows better than to sell what
is of surpassing value, for any thing intrinsically worthless. With this
promise, “thy bread shall be given thee, and thy water shall be sure,” he
holds himself richer, more sure of meat to eat, and raiment to put on, than he
would be with the wealth of banks. And why? Is this reasonable? No doubt of
it. No logician ever reasoned more soundly. These may fail; God's promise can
not. The very stars shall drop like figs from shaken heavens, and these
heavens themselves shall pass away, but not one jet or tittle of what his God
has spoken shall fail, till all be fulfilled.

With such security as we have in the character of God, and such fullness as is
promised in the text, it needs, therefore, only a prophet's faith to echo a
prophet's speech, and—when gaunt famine walks our streets, and there are
"clean teeth," and children cry for bread, and their mothers have none to give
them—to repeat the boldest words that ever fell from mortal lips—"Although the
fig-tree should not blossom, and there be no fruit on the vine; though the
labor of the olive should fail, and the fields yield no meat; though the
flocks should be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stall, yet
I will rejoice in the Lord, and joy in the God of my salvation." I can fancy a
skeptic exclaiming—Extravagance! fanaticism—mad fanaticism! No such thing. In
his promises God's people have meat to eat that others know not of, and these
have proved like the breasts of a daughter to the aged captive who had been
condemned to die of pining hunger. In that cell, where the gray old man each
day took her infant's place, her love and ingenuity have found means to save a
father's life, which his enemies never dreamt of; and the child of God, around
whom fears of want are gathering, may rest assured that he who inspired that
daughter with the wit and will for such an emergency, will find ways and means
to make his promise good. "The word of the

Lord is a tried word"—fail us who, and what may that can not.

There are, indeed, times when the believer is ready to faint. Faith staggers
beneath the burden, and hope all but expires. My sins are so many, my guilt so
great, my burden so heavy! thus and thus they speak; now, with Jacob,
complaining, "All these things are against me" and now, on finding Satan so
often conquering them when they should have conquered him, crying with David,
"I shall one day fall by the hand of this Saul." Well, let your burdens, sins,
cares, be such as you describe. Let me ask you a question. Is it not as easy
for yonder great sea to carry the bulkiest ship that ever rode her waves, as
the sea-weed or foam she flings upon the shore? Is it not as easy for that
glorious sun to bathe a mountain, as to bathe a mole-hill in gold? Is it not
as easy for this mighty earth to carry on its back an Alp as a grain of
sand—to nourish a cedar of Lebanon, as the hyssop on the wall? Just so,
believer, it is as easy for God to supply thy greatest as thy smallest wants;
even as it was as much within his power to form a system as an atom—to create
a blazing sun, as kindle a fire-fly's lamp.

To one, indeed, whose standing point is on the ground, objects seem very
various in their size. The cliffs tower above the level shore; piercing the
horizontal cloud of smoke, the spires rise above the humbler tenements of the
town; and from her throne of snow in high mid summer, winter looks down on the
valleys that lie smiling at the mountain's feet. Eyed from the low, dead level
of shore or plain, objects do appear in strong contrast, high or low, great or
small, big or little. But I rise on eag'e's wings; I sit on the circle of the
earth; higher still, I stand beside the angel whom John saw in the sun; still
higher, I follow Paul up to the third heavens; and, seen from such
elevations—if seen at all—dwarf and giant, the mountain and the mole-hill, are
on one level. All these sublunary differences vanish, sink into
insignificance—into nothing.

Now, here lies a believer's comfort, and here shines a sinner's hope. So
vanish all distinctions between great and little wants in the eye of God; so
disappears all difference between great and little sins, or great and little
sinners, to the blood of Christ; and, when our cares are cast on him who
invites the burden, so sinks every difference between light and heavy burdens,
to the back of Jesus. It is as easy for Jesus Christ to save a Magdalene, a
Manasseh, a hoary thief, as an infant, that (happy creature!) just leaves its
mother's womb to make of this earth a stepping-stone to heaven. Whatever be
your circumstances, trials, cares, and griefs, this promise fits them—"As thy
day, so shall thy strength be." Be he dwarf or giant, no man can say of an
assurance so well founded, "The bed is shorter than a man can stretch himself
upon it; the covering is narrower than a man can wrap himself in it." Are you
cast down because, while others have shallows, you have depths—dark
depths—depths of sorrow, and suffering, to pass through? Be it so: it is as
easy for God to march his people through the wide, deep sea as across the bed
of Jordan. Are your corruptions strong? Be it so: Samson found it as easy to
snap a new spun cable as withes fresh gathered on the river's bank; and
believe me, it is as easy for God to break thy tyrant's strongest as his
lightest chain. A chain of iron and a thread of flax are all

THE BLESSEDNESS O. THE SAINTS.

one to God. The blood of thy Saviour cleanseth from all sin; and nothing being
impossible, nay not even difficult to Omnipotence, be assured, that in your
battle, and watch, and work, you shall find this promise true—"My grace is
sufficient for thee."

II. Consider the happiness which God's people enter on at death.

Egypt pursued the Hebrews to the very shores of the sea. There, however, the
people saw the last of them; of those tyrants who had made their burden so
heavy and life so bitter, that their cry came up before the Lord. On this
shore the oppressor and the oppressed are to part. In these weltering waves,
from which they shrink back with dread—as some good men from death—their
enemies and their griefs are to find a common grave. In these the wicked shall
cease from troubling; beyond them the weary shall be at rest. Night has come;
a sun they shall never see more has set on Pharaoh and his host. Under the
light that illumined the camp of God, and flung a fiery luster across the
deep, Moses stood up to address the people. Their redemption was nigh. It was
now just that darkest hour which ushers in the dawn. With his foot on the
shore, his rod in his hand, the fiery pillar lighting up his face, Moses
pointed to the gloom where the Egyptians lay, and said, "The Egyptians whom ye
have seen to-day, ye shall see them again no more for ever."

God's people are like his ancient Israel. They have enemies who will harrass
them in life, and follow them to the very shores of time; but whoever, or
whatever these may be—sin, sorrow, poverty, temptations, trials, fears,
doubts, Satan himself—Oh! a death.

16* bed shall be the death of them all. In leaving life we leave these behind.
Death is their destruction, not ours. And how should it reconcile us to that
dark passage from which nature shrinks, that when we stand in its gloomy mouth
to take our last look of this world, may feel assured that we shall take the
last look, not of friends in Christ—for we shall meet them again in heaven—but
only of these our enemies. We “shall see them again no more for ever.” Satan
may not only pursue God’s people to their very death-bed, but harrass them
upon it. He knows that his time is short. It is his last chance. Another day
or hour, and they are out of his grasp; and so—summoning all the powers of
hell—he drives down like the Egyptians into the sea—into the very depths of
death—and aggravates by his horrible suggestions the struggles of a dying
hour. The saint has, in that time of darkness, two enemies upon him—death, and
him that has the power of death, that is the devil. Be it so; God shall take
off their chariot-wheels; they shall not reach the other shore, nor set foot
in heaven; there, there entereth nothing to hurt or to defile.

The dead enter into rest. “Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord, they
rest.” “He that is dead is free from sin.” And, as I have looked on the calm
and deep repose of the quiet sleeper, when the tossing arms he still, and the
restless head reposes on its pillow, and the features which have now lost all
expression of pain, or passion, present an aspect of solemn, sublime,
beautiful, perfect rest, I have sometimes thought that this was an emblem
which the soul had left us of its own still more profound, perfect, heavenly
rest

This is what the redeemed escape from, but, Oh! what they escape to—the joys
they enter on when they go to be with Christ, who can tell? We know that "to
die" is—not shall be at some future time, and after some intermediate
state—but "to die is gain," gain immediate. One step—and, what a step!—the
soul is in glory. Ere the wail has sunk in the chamber of death, the song of
the upper sanctuary has begun. There is no delay; no waiting for an escort to
travel that invisible, untrodden way. Angels unseen are moving in that
chamber, looking on with tearless eyes where all else are weeping; and, the
last breath out—the last quiver passed from the lip—and away, away, they are
off with the spirit for glory. On angel's wings the beggar is borne to
Abraham's bosom; and the shout of saints and angels, that greeted the
Conqueror, is still ringing amid the arches of heaven, when the door opens,
and the thief walks in. "This day thou shalt be with me in Paradise." He
leaves his cross, and direct, as I have seen a lark drop singing into her
nest, he goes up singing to his crown.

And what and where is heaven? I can not tell. Even to the eye of faith, heaven
looks much like a star to the eye of flesh. Set there on the brow of night, it
shines most bright—most beautiful; but it is separated from us by so great a
distance as to be raised almost as high above our investigations as above the
storms and clouds of earth. A shining object, we see it gleaming in the fields
of space, but we see nothing more, even when our eyes are assisted by the most
powerful telescope. By what beings it is inhabited; what forms they have; what
tongue they speak; what the character the landscape wears in these upper
worlds we do not know; and perhaps never shall, till we have cast loose a body
which moors us to the earth, and, with a soul unchained, free perhaps as
thought--we are left to roam the universe, and pass, on the wings of a wish,
from world to world of our Father's kingdom. Never, at least, till then, shall
we know either where heaven is, or what heaven is. The best description of it
is to say that it is indescribable. Paul, on his return, attempted no other.
There he "heard and saw things unutterable." Nor does the matter cost us the
least anxiety. If God spared not his own Son, heaven shall want nothing to
make us supremely happy. It is enough for me to know that heaven, the home of
the blessed—the palace of the Great King—has joys which eye never saw, ear
never heard, and which it hath not entered into the heart of man to conceive.

III. The complete blessedness of the saints at the resurrection in the
restoration of all that sin forfeited.

There were periods in creation—progressive steps. Step by step the work
advanced to its consummation. In creation, just as in conversion, the process
began with light—letting light in upon the darkness. God said, "Let there be
light, and there was light, and the evening and the morning were the first
day." And then a wide-spread firmament of blue separates the waters above the
earth from the waters beneath, and, the work completed, the evening and the
morning are the second day. The third day begins a new epoch. The mountains
raise their heads above the waters, like an infant, the earth comes naked from
the womb, and when God has wrapped the new born world in a beautiful robe of
flowers, green fields, and waving forests, the evening and the morning are the
third day. The heavens next are garnished; and when their boundless fields are
sown with countless stars, the evening and the morning are the fourth day.
Thus the Creator goes on with his work. Each succeeding period brings it
nearer to perfection, till, on the evening of the sixth day, as the sun was
sinking behind the western hills, his slanting beams shone on our holy, happy
parents—their home a garden, their estate a world, the creatures all their
servants, in their hearts no taint of sin, in their eyes no tear of sorrow,
and on brows too soon to be bathed in sweat, and blushing with shame, flashing
crowns of innocence. Then, from the throne of his most excellent majesty, God
looked on this world as it rolled away in its happy orbit, and, pronouncing
all that he had made to be very good, the evening and the morning were the
sixth day.

Like creation, the Gospel has had its periods of progress. It gradually
advanced in its development from the first promise given by God, when he, the
judge, and the culprits man and the devil stood face to face upon the ruins of
Eden. First, we have a simple altar, with the smoke of sacrifice curling up to
heaven from earth's unbroken forests;—none there but our two solitary parents,
weeping, as well they might, when they gazed on the miserable wreck which they
had made of their own and their children's fortunes; and yet, while they wept,
lifting up their heads in hope of a coming redemption. The scene shifts, and
next we have a desert, with a mighty host scattered over its sands, and in
their midst a tented sanctuary with a cloud of incense floating, like a
prayer, away to heaven. The scene shifts again, and Jerusalem sits upon her
hills, and where hundreds of white-robed priests are serving, and thousands of
worshipers are kneeling, a magnificent temple of marble, cedar, and gold
towers high over all—the ornament and palladium of the land. The scene shifts
once more. It is mid-day, and yet dark; the earth is trembling, graves are
yawning to let out their dead, and, through the gloom of an unnatural eclipse,
we behold the cross of Calvary with its bleeding victim. Son of God! He is
dying, "the just for the unjust." He cries, "It is finished," and, Saviour of
the world, he dies. The work, so long ago begun, is brought to a triumphant
close. In the very act of death he swallows up death in victory. And thus you
see how, from one garden to another, from the flowery bowers of Eden to the
olives of Gethsemane, from the first promise to the final performance,
redemption advances by successive steps. Jesus bows his head; and then, again,
from the throne of his most excellent majesty, God looks on all the work, and
over the bloody cross and his own dead Son, pronounces this judgment, "Behold,
it is very good." And, ushering in an eternal Sabbath, the evening and the
morning were the sixth day of redemption.

There yet remains an aspect of redemption in which it is not complete. The
prince of this world is still out, and in the battle field fighting—fighting
like the devil he is for his kingdom. The body yet lies a captive in the tomb,
and the grave must yield its ancient charge. Insatiate and insatiable
devourer! thou robber of our pleasant homes! with thy black mouth ever
opening, and thy cry, give, give, give, ever in our ear, thou thyself must
give—thou must give up thy dead. The dust of saints is dear to Christ. He
comes to claim it. All that death and Satan hold they must relinquish; all
that Christ has purchased he shall possess. The soul wants her partner; and
although the exile may return no more, nor see his native land, the redeemed
shall return to claim their bodies from the earth—aye, and claim the very
earth they lie in. "The saints shall inherit the earth."

A grand destiny awaits this world of sins and sorrows. This earth, purified by
judgment fires, shall be the home of the blessed. The curse of briars and
thorns shall pass away with sin. "Instead of the thorn shall come up the fir
tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the myrtle tree." Of the thorns
of that curse Jesus' crown was woven, and he bore it off upon his head. Under
laws accommodated to the new economy, the wide world shall become one Eden,
where, exempt from physical as from moral evils, none shall shiver amid arctic
frosts, nor wither under tropic heat; these fields of snow and arid sands
shall blossom all with roses. From the convulsions of expiring—or rather the
birth-pangs of parturient nature—a new-born world shall come, a home worthy of
immortals, a palace befitting its King. The blood that on Calvary dyed earth's
soil shall bless it, and this theater of Satan's triumph, and of a Saviour's
shame, shall be the seat of Jesus' kingdom, and the witness of his glory.

Then the saints shall inherit the earth. Some, like Abraham in the promised
land, are poor wanderers here—the proprietors of nothing but a grave. Some own
not even so much as that. The saints, like the descendants of a noble but
decayed house, are strangers on the soil which was once the property of their
fathers. But the time of their redemption draweth nigh. Man shall get his own
again, and hold it by a charter writ ten in the blood of Christ. This world
was gifted to him. It was his patrimonial estate. It was the land given to our
fathers. And it seems most meet, that with the rank and title, the lands
should come back to the old family; and, as forming the completest triumph
over Sin and Satan, that our redemption should be altogether like that of
Israel, when Moses turned round on Pharaoh, saying, "Not a hoof shall be left
behind." Even so, come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.

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  CHAPTER 27: 27. The Security of the Believer
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I the Lord have spoken it, and I will do it.—ESSEXEL XXXVI, 36.

WHEN in a sultry summer day the sky gets overcast, and angry clouds gather
thick upon its brow, and bush and brake are silent, and the very cattle, like
human beings, draw close together, standing dumb in their untasted pastures,
and while there is no ripple on the lake, nor leaf stirring on the tree, all
nature seems struck with awe, and stands in trembling expectation; then, when
the explosion comes, and a blinding stream of fire leaps from the cloud, and
as if heaven's riven vault were tumbling down upon our head, the thunders
crash, peal, roar along the sky, he has neither poetry, nor piety, nor sense,
who does not reverently bow his head and assent to the words of David, "The
voice of the Lord is full of majesty."

When the God of glory thundereth in nature, his voice is full of majesty;
when, in still louder thunders, the God of providence speaks by calamities
that shake the nation, or shake to its foundations the happiness of our home,
his voice is also full of majesty; and when the ear of faith listens to these
august and lofty words, "I have spoken, and I will do it," the voice of the
Lord again is "full of majesty." This language is stamped with divinity. And
to God we may, with the highest propriety, address the words which the
flatterers of royalty blasphemously offered to an orator, whose proud
assumption of divinity the worms soon refuted. The lie of their adulation to
Herod changes to truth on our lips, when—speaking of him who says, "I the Lord
have spoken, and I will do it"—we exclaim, "This is the voice of a God, and
not of a man."

The words of my text fit not mortal lips. Of that truth, Jephthah's calamity
and Herod's crime afford memorable illustrations. In the full tide of
patriotism, in the fierce excitement of the fight, with a warrior's proud
ambition to win the field, Jephthah made his vow, and resolved to keep it—to
do what he spake. And little did he dream, that the first to leave his house,
the victim for sacrifice, should be the daughter of his heart—his only child.
And as little did Herod foresee, upon what a bloody path of remorse and crime
the rash pledge extorted by the fiendish hatred of a paramour would lead him.

Often, we have not the power to do what we say, and to perform what we
promise. "If the Lord will," should qualify all the future. And although the
power were ours, some vows, some resolutions, are more honored in the breach
than in the observance. The language of my text, therefore, belongs only to
him whose glance penetrates eternity; to whose omniscience nothing is
impervious, to whose power nothing is impossible. Weak, short-sighted,
ignorant, erring mortals, such words in our mouths were impudent and impotent
presumption; and we have no more right to assume the imperial tone of
Divinity, than we have ability to launch his thunderbolts, or wisdom to guide
his counsels.

These great words of power are also words of mercy. Connect them with the
exceeding precious promises, the exceeding lofty offers of the Gospel, with
such a passage as this—"Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be
saved;" or this, "Come unto me all ye that labor, and are heavy-laden, and I
will give you rest;" or this, "My grace shall be sufficient for thee, and my
strength made perfect in your weakness;" or this, "With my dead body shall
they arise." "Awake and sing, all ye that dwell in the dust. For thy dew is as
the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead"—and these words are
as full of mercy as of majesty. God in them speaks with absolute confidence.
And how is his confidence calculated to create and sustain in our hearts the
firmest assurance that he can and that he will do all he says? He speaks "as
one having authority." There is no obscurity about his language, or hesitation
in its tone. He speaks as one whose word is law, whose will is power, whose
smile is life, whose frown is death. He speaks as one who has entire
confidence in his own resources, and whose word is as efficient now as on the
day when he issued the creative fiat, and said, "Let there be light, and there
was light." Were you ever at sea in a storm, when the ship recled to and fro
like a drunken man, and struggling, as for life in the arms of death, now rose
on the top of the billow, now plunged into the trough of the sea? Partially
infected with others' terror, did you ever leave shrieking women and pale men
below, to seek the deck, and look your danger bravely in the face? In such
circumstances, I know nothing so re-assuring as—when we have staggered across
the slippery planking, and are holding by rail or bulwark—to see amid these
weltering foam-wreaths, that fierce commotion, the hurricane roar of the wind
among the shrouds, and the loud dash of the billows beneath—calm con fidence
seated on the brow of that weather-beaten man who, with iron strength, leans
upon the wheel, and steers our ship through the roaring billows. Such - only
much higher - is the confidence which we draw from the confidence of God, as
expressed in the words - "I have spoken, and I will do it."

In illustration of this, take the night of the storm in Galilee. The disciples
gather round our Lord, and wake him, crying, Master, Master, "Carest thou not
that we perish?" Look up, and see these mountain waves! Hark to the roaring of
the storm! the boat fills - we sink. Save, Oh save, we perish! Had they known
him fully, would they not have drawn courage from his very slumbers? With a
beat-cloak protecting his wasted and weary form from the flying spray, they
would have let him sleep on; and bold faith, arresting the arm of fear, had
said, "Hush! wake him not; let him take his rest; he would not, could not
sleep, were disciples in danger."

When a mother, on a watch by a cradle where life has been feebly flickering,
falls asleep, we are sure that the crisis is over - the worst is passed.
Before sleep sealed these kind and anxious eyes, they had seen the tide, that
had ebbed, returning. Let the storm wreck a hundred boats, and carry disaster,
widowhood, orphanage among the fishing hamlets upon Galilee's shores, to my
eye the disciples had full assurance of safety in the fact that Jesus slept,
and slept as soundly in that storm-tossed boat as when Mary rocked the cradle,
or sung him over on her gentle bosom. In that sleeping form "there was the
hiding of his power," and the confidence of high and worthy faith. But my text
is one that meets the weakest faith; for who can doubt that God will make good
all his promises, who marks the firm, unqualified, determined, supreme,
sovereign tone of the words, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it." Man
is often confident when he should be diffident; and yet, if the confidence of
man inspires us with hope, and speaks peace to the apprehensions of a troubled
heart, how much more should the confidence of God? With these words in our
eye, we can look on the starry dome of heaven and this solid earth, and
believe that sooner shall that arch fall, and bury a crushed world in its
ruins, than that one good word spoken of his people shall fail till all be
fulfilled.

I. The text announces a most important truth.

So long as there was pulse and breath in Lazarus, his sisters often left their
brother's couch, and went to door and window to see if there was yet any sign
of Jesus. Days ago a messenger had been dispatched with the tidings, "He whom
thou lovest is sick;" and they felt like the mother of Sisera, when, wearying
for her son's return, she looked for him in the glare of day, and listened for
him in the gloom of night, crying, Why is his chariot so long in coming? why
tarry the wheels of his chariots? Death at length quenches hope. The funeral
is over; and, when four days have elapsed, a lingering Lord is seen descending
the heights of Olivet in his approach to Bethany. One enters the house of
mourning and whispers, "The Lord is come." Martha rises, advances to meet him
and pour forth her regret for his absence, and her confidence in his power in
this bitter cry, "Lord, if thou hadst been here, my brother had not died."
When we look at our text, we feel, in reference to the sad event of Eden, much
as Martha did when she turned her weeping eyes on Jesus. Would his presence
have preserved the life of Lazarus? No less certainly had these words been
present in their power to Eve, they would have preserved her innocence, and
saved the world. Not Lazarus only, but no man had died; there had been neither
sin, nor sorrow, nor griefs, nor graves, in this suffering world, had Eve,
when she stood by the fatal tree, but remembered, believed, felt this
sentence, "I have spoken, and I will do it." Then, on the serpent saying,
"Thou shalt not surely die," with a voice as prompt and peremptory as her
Son's, she had replied, "Get thee behind me, Satan, thou savorest not of the
things that be of God." The honor reserved for her seed had been her own. She
had placed her naked foot upon the serpent, and, stamping down a heel
unbruised, had crushed his head. Oh, the world had been saved, had she, taking
up her position on the high ground of my text, answered the tempter thus, "The
Lord hath said, In the day thou eatest thereof, thou shalt surely die. He hath
spoken, and He will do it." Entrenched more strongly within these lines than
ever army that, behind batteries—bristling with cannon—beat back the fierce
sortie, she had stood alone; within the impregnable barriers of God's word,
she had defied the powers of hell; and, omnipotent in God, she had received
the battle on her single shield. Eden had still been ours, and our family had
still been blessed and holy, with God for a father and Paradise for a home.
Some years ago, when autumn floods wrought great devastation in our country, a
strong man was swept away into the swollen river. It bore him—as he and others
thought—by good fortune, to a tree, which stood bravely up amid the sea of
waters. He caught it and climbed it. Seated on a bough he stretched out his
arms for help to the distant banks. Attempts were made to rescue him before
nightfall, but all in vain. The day wore on, and the night at length came
down; and now a frantic wife, and weeping little ones, and some kind
neighbors, were left nothing to do, but to listen amid the pauses of the
tempest for his long, shrill whistle. Ever and anon that came across the flood
to cheer them up; for he sounded it to let them know that he was still alive,
and that the tree was yet breasting the roaring stream. About midnight this
signal ceased. They strained their ears, and heard nought but the hoarse roar
of the angry river, mingled with the shrieking of the storm. Morning at length
arrived; the man was gone—tree gone—and where it stood they saw but the
whirling waves of the red roaring flood. At this moment, one—considered little
else than a fool—stepped forward to say, “I could have saved him.” Any other
but that heart-broken group would have laughed him to scorn; and yet he showed
them how, by attaching a rope to a float, and sending that away from the very
bank where the lost man had been carried off, he could have saved him, since
the current that bore the man to the tree would have been certain to carry to
him this means of communication with the shore. The plan was perfect; no doubt
of it. But it came too late; and they had to leave the scene with their grief
exasperated and embittered by the thought, that had they possessed but the
wisdom of this fool, their desolate home had received a joyous family, to give
God thanks for the “dead that was alive again, and the lost that was found.” I
have told you, that had my text been present to he mind, and felt in its power
by the heart of Eve, we had not been lost. But when the deed has been tone,
and it is now too late, my object is not to show how man might have been
saved. There is little kindness in telling me of a medicine that would have
cured my dead. To tell me that had this or that been done, the grave had not
held their loved dust this day, is not to close but open my wound—to drop not
balm, but burning acid upon a raw and bleeding sore. Glory to the grace of
God, I tell not that my text, if believed in, would have saved man, but, if
believed in, shall still save him.

It would have kept us out of the grave. It can raise us out of it. It is like
Jesus Christ. Had he been present, Lazarus had not died, but he who could have
saved Lazarus from the tomb, when it has closed upon his friend, calls him out
of it. The power that would have proved the sick man's remedy, stands at the
mouth of that yawning sepulcher the dead man's resurrection. Let my text lay
hold of the redemption of Christ, and it has all, and more than all the power
it ever had—the cross, the crown, peace, pardon, grace in life, hope in death,
heaven throughout all eternity— these are all wrapped up in a deep, solemn,
heartfelt, divine conviction of this truth. "I the Lord have spoken, and I
will do it."

Take, on the one hand, these precious invitations—

"Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters;

come ye, buy and eat, yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without
price;" and this, "Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth;"

and this, "The blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth us from all sin;" and this, "I
will take out of you the hard and stony heart;" and this, "Behold, O my
people, I will open your graves, and I will cause you to come up out of your
graves, and ye shall live;" and take, on the other hand, these:—"They that sow
to the flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption;" and this, "The soul that
sinneth, it shall die;" and this, "The wicked shall be cast into hell." Now,
would God by his Spirit help us to lodge in men's hearts an earnest, cordial
belief of these truths as they appear in the light of the text, man would
not—man could not be lost. At once warned and won by it, the Gospel would be
glad news. Men with all their hearts would embrace offered mercy. Churches
would become sanctuaries, and the place of worship would be a gate to heaven.
And ministers—disheartened and despondent—would not have to return so often to
their Master, saying, "Lord, they are perishing; yet they will not come to
thee that they may have life. I have brought back thine offer. They will not
take it. No man hath believed my report, and to none has the arm of the Lord
been revealed." II. The comforts this truth imparts to a true Christian.

Through his confidence in this truth, the believer commits all his earthly
cares to God.

I do not say that we are not to embrace any opportunity of improving our
circumstances, and acquiring lawful objects of pursuit. Far from it. The
Gospel inculcates diligence, even in our worldly calling. "Go to the ant, thou
sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise." Nor shall our lawful calling,
whatever it be, interfere with the best interests of our souls. Religion is
none the worse, but all the better for work; and a man's work is all the
better for his religion. The morning prayer does for a good man's heart what
the morning meal does for his body. It braces him up for the day and its
duties. He has least need of a master's watchful eye, who feels that the eye
of God is ever upon him. You may safely trust most to those who make
conscience of the meanest work; who, in kindling a fire or sweeping a floor,
have an eye uplifted to the glory of God; who ennoble life's humblest
employment by aiming at a noble end; and who address themselves to their
business in the high and holy belief, that when duty—however humble it may
be—is well done, God is glorified; just as he is glorified as well by a lowly
daisy, as by the garden's gaudiest and proudest flowers.

But while this truth gives no encouragement to indolence—to a languid and idle
waiting upon providence—and no encouragement to cast our work itself on God,
it teaches his people to cast the cares of the work upon him. Are not these
among the words that he hath spoken, and will do, "The steps of a good man are
ordered by the Lord." "Cast thy burden on the Lord, he shall sustain thee."
"The lot is cast into the lap; but the whole disposing thereof is of the
Lord?" Child of God! put in, then, a fearless hand into this lottery, and
draw. With faith in God's superintending providence and his unfailing word.
Child of God! shield thy heart from cares that are the torture of others, and
from temptations that are often their ruin? Between a man, torn with
anxieties, tossed with fears, fretting with cares, and the good man, who
calmly trusts in the Lord, Oh! there is as great a difference as between a
brawling, roaring, mountain brook, that with mad haste leaps from crag to
crag, and is ground into boiling foam, and the placid river, which, with
beauty on its banks and heaven in its bosom, spreads blessings wherever it
flows, and pursues the noiseless tenor of its way back to the great ocean,
from which its waters came. "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." "They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be
removed."

Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the believer is sustained amid
the trials of life.

God casts his people into trial for the very same reason that the refiner
commits his silver to the furnace. He tries them to purify them. He does not
afflict willingly. Be assured that he has no more pleasure in their sufferings
than a kind surgeon in his patient's groans, or a parent in his children's
tears.

Trials are ill to bear. To be reduced from affluence to poverty—to become
dependent on cold charity—to lie on a bed of languor—to pass nights of
sleepless pain—to be exposed to evil tongues—to be hissed on the stage where
we were once applauded—to sit amid the ruins of fortune—to lay loved ones in a
lonesome grave—such things are not "joyous, but grievous." Winter, no doubt,
is not the pleasant season that summer brings, with her songs and flowers, and
long, bright, sunny days. Bitter medicines, no doubt, are not savory meat. Yet
he who believes that all things shall work together for good, will be ready to
thank God for physic as well as for food; and for the winter frost that kills
the weeds, and breaks up the soil, as for the dewy nights and sunny days that
ripen the fields of corn. May God give us such a faith! With nature weak and
grace imperfect, when there is no lifting of the cloud, and trials are severe
and long-protracted! ah! though it may be easy for an on-looker to preach
patience, it is not easy for a sufferer to prac tice it. In such
circumstances, how prone we are to take the case out of God's hands, and,
getting discontented with his discipline, how ready we are to cry, "How long,
O Lord, how long?" "If it be possible, let this cup pass from me;" or, take
away this, and give me any one else to drink. Yet let me have a firm faith in
God's truth and love, let me be confident that he will do what he has said,
and perform all that he has promised, and I shall discover mercy's bow bent on
fortune's blackest cloud, and, under most trying providences, shall enjoy in
my heart, and exhibit to others in my temper, the blessed difference between a
sufferer that mourns, and a spirit that murmurs.

Through his confidence in the truth of my text, the believer cheerfully hopes,
and patiently waits for heaven.

Home! to be home is the wish of the seaman on stormy seas and lonely watch.
Home is the wish of the soldier, and tender visions mingle with the troubled
dreams of trench and tented field. Where the palm-tree waves its graceful
plumes, and birds of jeweled luster flash and flicker among gorgeous flowers,
the exile sits staring upon vacancy; a far away home lies on his heart; and
borne on the wings of fancy over intervening seas and lands, he has swept away
home, and hears the lark singing above his father's fields, and sees his fair-
haired boy brother, with light foot and childhood's glee, chasing the
butterfly by his native stream. And in his best hours, home, his own sinless
home—a home with his Father above that starry sky—will be the wish of every
Christian man. He looks around him—the world is full of suffering; he is
distressed by its sorrows, and vexed with its sins. He looks within him—he
finds much in his own corruptions to grieve for. In the language of a heart
repelled, grieved, vexed, he often turns his eye upwards, saying, "I would not
live here alway." No. Not for all the gold of the world's mines—not for all
the pearls of her seas—not for all the pleasures of her flashing, frothy
cup—not for all the crowns of her kingdoms—would I live here alway. Like a
bird about to migrate to those sunny lands where no winter sheds her snows, or
strips the grove, or binds the dancing streams, he will often in spirit be
pruning his wing for the hour of his flight to glory.

The holier the child of God becomes, the more he pants after the perfect image
and blissful presence of Jesus; and dark although the passage, and deep
although the river may be, the more holy he is, the more ready will he be to
say, "It is better to depart, and be with Jesus." "Tell me," said a saintly
minister of the Church of England, whose star but lately set on this world, to
rise and shine in better skies—"tell me," he said to his physician, "the true
state of my case; conceal nothing;" adding, as his eye kindled, and his face
beamed at the very thought, "if you have to tell me that my dissolution is
near, you could not tell me better or happier news."

Paul said, "I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart and to be
with Christ, which is far better: nevertheless, to abide in the flesh is more
needful for you." He judged it best for himself to go, but for others he
judged it best to stay. And there are few nobler sights than to see that man,
with his foot on the door-step of heaven, return to throw himself into the
very thick of battle, and spend and be spent in his Master's work. The crown
of martyrdom often within his reach, he drew back a hand that was eager to
grasp it. He took as much care of life as the coward guilt that is afraid to
die. He was not impatient of the hardships, wounds, and watchings of the
warfare, so long as he could serve the cause of Jesus. It was sin, not
suffering that he felt intolerable; and which wrung from him the bitter cry,
"O, wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from this body of death?" His
a Saviour's spirit, he chose rather that Christ should be glorified through
his labors on earth, than that he himself should be glorified with Christ in
heaven. And so long as he had a tongue to speak for Jesus, and an arm to hold
high above the battle's tumult the banner of the faith, he was willing to work
on—not impatient for death and his discharge. His was a higher and more heroic
wish than to get to heaven. He wished to make a heaven of earth; and,
persuaded that nothing could separate him from the love of God, or, finally,
from heaven, believing that all which God had said of him he would do for him,
and knowing that, though the vision tarried, it would come, he possessed his
soul in patience and peace—waiting for the Lord. It is a cowardly thing for a
soldier to seek his discharge, so long as his country's banner flies in the
battle-field. The Christian should be a hero, not a coward, and with such
faith as all may get, and many have enjoyed, God's people, while they look to
heaven, will with patience wait for it. On his way home, the saint will prove
himself a good Samaritan; ready to stop even on a heavenward journey, that he
may raise the fallen, bind up the wounds of humanity, and do all the work that
meets him upon the road. Nor shall this go unrewarded. "The sleep of a
laboring man is sweet." And, Oh! heaven shall be sweetest to him who has
wrought through the longest day, and toiled the hardest at his work. Now and
then he will be lifting up a weary head to see now the hours wear by—if there
be yet any sign of his Master coming. But upborne under the heat and burden of
the day by the confidence that "he who shall come will come, and will not
tarry," he works patiently, and he suffers patiently. The most importunate and
urgent prayer he ventures on, that of one, who, trembling lest patience should
fail and religion suffer dishonor, cried, when her pain deepened into agony,
and the agony became excruciating—"Come, Oh come, Lord Jesus! come quickly."

II. Both nature and providence illustrate the truth of my text.

Nature assures us, that what God hath said, he will do.

It can never be wrong to do what Jesus did. That must be sound reasoning, in
the use of which he sets us an example. I see him bring a flower to the
pulpit, and choose a lily for his text. He bids the people listen to that
sweet preacher—the little bird—that, seated on the bending spray, with
providence for its song and sermon, neither sows nor reaps; without harvests,
suffers no wants; and without a barn, feels no fears. Thus he taught his
hearers to cast their cares on God, and thus have I the highest authority for
summoning Nature here to bear witness to the character of God. We ask her then
to say, whether her God, who is our God, is true to his word? whether he ever
says, and fails to do? By the voices of the sun, the stars, the hills, the
valleys, the streams, the cataracts, the rolling thunders, and the roaring
sea, she returns a majestic answer—it is an echo of the text. Spring comes
with infant nature waking in her arms; Summer comes bedecked with a robe of
flowers; Autumn comes with her swarthy brow crowned with vines, and on her
back the sheaves of corn; old Winter comes with his shivering limbs, and
frozen locks, and hoary head; and these four witnesses—each laying one hand on
the broad table of nature, and, lifting the other to heaven—swear by him that
liveth for ever and ever, that all which God hath said, God shall do.

No man looks for sunrise in the west. No soldier stands beneath the falling
shell, expecting to see it arrested in its descent, and hanging like a star in
empty space. We build our houses in confidence that the edifice will gravitate
to the center; nor ever doubt, when we set our mill-wheel in the running
stream, that as sure as man is on his way to the grave, the waters shall ever
take their way to the sea. We consult the Nautical Almanac, and, finding that
it shall be high water to-morrow at such an hour, we make our arrangements for
being on board then, certain that we shall find our ship afloat, and the
seamen shaking out their sails to go away on the bosom of the floating tide.
If fire burned the one day, and water the next; if wood became at one time as
heavy as iron, and iron at another as buoyant as wood; if here the rivers
hasted to the embraces of the sea, and there, as in fear, retreated from them,
what a scene of confusion this world would become! In truth, it whole business
rests on faith—on our belief, that God will carry into unfailing effect every
law which his finger has written in the books of nature and of providence.
This is the pillow on which a sleeping world rests its weary head; this is the
pivot on which its business turns. Now let us remember, that there are not two
Gods; a consistent Divinity who presides over nature, and a capricious
Divinity who presides in the kingdom of grace. "Hear, O Israel, the Lord thy
God is one Lord." In regard, therefore, to all the precious promises and
solemn warnings of the Bible, Nature lifts up her voice, and cries—"O Earth,
Earth, Earth, hear the word of the Lord."

Providence assures us that what God hath said, he will do.

Some time ago the heavens were pouring down torrents of rain, the streams had
risen into rivers, the rivers were swollen into seas, and, our fields changed
into lakes, boats were plying were ploughs were wont to go. It looked like the
beginning of a second deluge; and to some who had fled from their beds for
safety to cottage roofs, the howling of the wind, the incessant pouring of the
rain, the waters steadily rising on the walls, may have recalled the memory of
that day when the ark began to float, and men hung round it knocking on a door
which God had shut in judgment against a wicked world. Yet, I will venture to
say, that the dread of a second deluge aggravated no man's sufferings, nor
changed a sinner's curses into a penitent's prayers. Why not? Ah! men say the
sea has never left her bounds. Apart altogether from the records of
revelation, geology tells us that she has, and that round the rock where the
eagle now has her nest, monsters of the deep have swam, and that the highest
peaks of earth's highest mountains were once the islands of an ancient sea.
Yes! but then, it is said, there is the bow in the cloud, and the promise in
the Bible, "Neither shall all flesh be cut off any more by the waters of a
flood; neither 17* shall there any more be a flood to destroy the earth. This
is the token of my covenant that I will make between me and you, and every
living creature that is with you for perpetual generations. I do set my bow in
the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between me and the
earth." That indeed is a security against a second flood. Now, shall God keep
his word to this doomed, sinful, polluted world—shall he keep the covenant of
the bow, and not keep the covenant of the cross? The providences of four
thousand years assure us that he who is true to his covenant with Noah, shall
not be less true to the blood-sealed covenant made with his beloved Son.

The voice of every storm that, like an angry child, weeps and cries itself
asleep—the voice of every shower that has been followed by sunshine—the hoarse
voice of ocean breaking in impotent rage against its ancient bounds—the voice
of the seasons as they have marched to the music of the spheres in unbroken
succession over the earth—the scream of the satyr in Babylon's empty halls—the
song of the fisherman, who spreads his net on the rocks, and shoots it through
the waters where Tyre once sat in the pride of an ocean queen—the fierce shout
of the Bedouin as he careers in freedom over his desert sands—the wail and
weeping of the wandering Jew over the ruins of Zion—in all these I hear the
echo of this voice of God, "I the Lord have spoken, and I will do it." These
words are written on every Hebrew forehead. The Jew bartering his beads with
naked savages—bearding the Turk in the capital of Mohammedan power—braving in
his furs the rigor of Russian winters—over-reaching in China the inhabitants
of the Celestial Empire—in Golconda buying diamonds—in our metropolis of the
commercial world standing highest among her merchant princes—the Hebrew every
where, and yet every where without a country; with a religion, but without a
temple; with wealth, but without honor; with ancient pedigree, but without
ancestral possessions; with no land to fight for, nor altars to defend, nor
patrimonial fields to cultivate; with children, and yet no child sitting under
the trees that his grandsire planted; but all floating about over the world
like scattered fragments of a wreck upon the bosom of the ocean—he is a living
evidence, that, what the Lord hath spoken, the Lord will do.

True to his threatenings, Almighty God will be true to all his promises; and
to both we can apply the words of Balaam—"Rise up, Balak, and hear; hearken
unto me, thou son of Zippor: God is not a man that he should lie, nor the son
of man that he should repent. Hath he said, and shall he not do it? hath he
spoken, and shall he not make it good?"

THE END.

BS1545 .G8 1891

Guthrie, Thomas, 1803-1873.

The Gospel in Ezekiel illustrated in

BS Guthrie, Thomas, 1803-1873.

1545 The Gospel in Ezekiel, illustrated in a

G8 series of discourses. New York, E. B.

1891 Treat & company [1891]

vi, 395p. 20cm.

1. Bible. O. T. Ezekiel--Criticism, interpretation, etc. I. Title.

CCSC/mr

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