ILLUSTRATIONS AND MEDITATIONS; OR, FLOWERS FROM A PURITAN’S GARDEN, DISTILLED AND DISPENSED

BY C. H. SPURGEON

NEW YORK
FUNK & WAGNALLS, PUBLISHERS
10 AND 12 DEY STREET

 

PREFACE

WHILE commenting upon the One Hundred and Nineteenth Psalm, I was brought into most intimate communion with THOMAS MANTON, who has discoursed upon that marvellous portion of Scripture with great fulness and power. I have come to know him so well that I could choose him out from among a thousand divines if he were again to put on his portly form, and display among modern men that countenance wherein was a “great mixture of majesty and meekness.” His works occupy twenty-two volumes in the modern reprint: a mighty mountain of sound theology. They mostly consist of sermons; but what sermons! They are not so sparkling as those of Henry Smith, nor so profound as those of Owen, nor so rhetorical as those of Howe, nor so pithy as those of Watson, nor so fascinating as those of Brooks; and yet they are second to none of these. For solid, sensible instruction forcibly delivered, they cannot be surpassed. Manton is not brilliant, but he is always clear; he is not oratorical, but he is powerful; he is not striking, but he is deep. There is not a poor discourse in the whole collection: he is evenly good, constantly excellent. Ministers who do not know Manton need not wonder if they are themselves unknown.

Inasmuch as Manton used but a few figures and illustrations, it came into my head to mark them all, for I felt sure that they would be very natural and forcible: I will give you the reasoning of which this volume is the result. I thought that here we should find a set of workable illustrations. It never occurred to this good man to introduce a metaphor by way of ornament; he was too intent upon telling his message to think about how his sentences might be adorned, and hence it fell out that if he did use a simile, it was because one was absolutely needful, or, at least, because it was the preferable mode of making himself understood.

Here, then, is a man whose figures will be sure to be usable by the earnest preacher who has forsworn the baubles of rhetoric, and aims at nothing but the benefit of his hearers. I thought it worth while to go through volume after volume, and mark the metaphors; and then I resolved to complete the task by culling all the best figures out of the whole of Manton’s works. Thus my communing with the great Puritan ends in my clearing his house of all his pictures, and hanging them up in new frames of my own. As I leave his right to them unquestioned and unconcealed, I do not rob him, but I bless him by giving him another opportunity of speaking.

One kind of work leads on to another, and labor is lightened by being diversified: had it not been for “The Treasury of David” I had not been found among the metaphors of Manton.

I see it is thirteen years ago since I issued a volume of illustrations; I may surely take the liberty to put forth another. The former was entitled, “Feathers for Arrows;” it has met with a large sale, and it may be presumed to be useful, seeing it has been appropriated, almost every scrap of it, by the compilers of Cyclopædias of Illustrations.

To make this little book more generally acceptable, I have thrown it into a somewhat devotional form, using Manton’s figures as texts for brief meditations: this I humbly hope may be found profitable for reading in the chamber of private worship. The latter half of the work was composed in the gardens and olive-groves of Mentone, where I found it a pleasure to muse, and compose. How I wish that I could have flooded my sentences with the sunlight of that charming region! As it is, I have done my best to avoid dulness, and to aim at edification. If a single practical truth is the more clearly seen through my endeavors, I shall be grateful; and doubly so if others are helped to make their teaching more striking.

It is my design to bring out a third volume, consisting of illustrations which I have long been collecting at home and abroad, and patiently jotting down in pocket-books till leisure should be found for their proper shaping and arranging. Time is short, and it behooves each one to be working for his Lord, that when he is called home he may leave behind him something for the generations following. Highly shall we be favored if the gracious Master shall accept our service now, and grant us the consciousness of that acceptance; happier still if we may hope to hear Mm say, “Well done.”

That all my readers may meet with so great a blessing is the earnest prayer of,
Their grateful Servant,

WESTWOOD, January, 1883.

BIRD TIED BY A STRING

“A bird that is tied by a string seems to have more liberty than a bird in a cage; it flutters up and down, and yet it is held fast.”

WHEN a man thinks that he has escaped from the bondage of sin in general, and yet evidently remains under the power of some one favored lust, he is woefully mistaken in his judgment as to his spiritual freedom. He may boast that he is out of the cage, but assuredly the string is on his leg. He who has his fetters knocked off, all but one chain, is a prisoner still. “Let not any iniquity have dominion over me” is a good and wise prayer; for one pampered sin will slay the soul as surely as one dose of poison will kill the body. There is no need for a traveller to be bitten by a score of deadly vipers, the tooth of one cobra is quite sufficient to insure his destruction. One sin, like one match, can kindle the fires of hell within the soul.

The practical application of this truth should be made by the professor who is a slave to drink, or to covetousness, or to passion. How can you be free if any one of these chains still holds you fast? We have met with professors who are haughty, and despise others; how can these be the Lord’s free men while pride surrounds them? In will and intent we must break every bond of sin, and we must perfect holiness in the fear of the Lord, or we cannot hope that the Son has made us free. O thou who art the free Spirit, break every bond of sin, I beseech thee.

FADING FLOWERS

“The flowers which grow in earth’s garden wither in our hands while we smell at them.”

They are as frail as they are fair. They grow out of the dust, and to the dust must they return. As Herbert says,

“Their root is ever in their grave,
And they must die.”

How speedy is their withering, they are gathered by the hand, and laid before us, and they wilt and become sickly, fainting, decaying objects. At the very longest, their lives smile through a day or two, and all is over.

Which of earth’s joys is better than her flowers? Health flies, wealth takes to itself wings, honor is a puff of air, and pleasure is a bubble. Only from heaven can we expect “pleasure forever more,” and “everlasting joy.” The Rose of Sharon blooms through all the ages, and the Lily of the Valley, which is Jesus himself, outlasts all time,—yea, this is the only Everlasting Flower, for he only hath immortality. Why, then, should we seek for the living among the dead, or search for substance in the land of shadows? Henceforth, my soul, gather thy Hearts-ease in the garden of the Lord, pluck thy Forget-me-nots from beds which Christ has planted, and look for thy Crown-Imperial only in the Paradise above.

The flowers of the field are children’s adornments. See how the little ones garland themselves, and fashion chaplets with the buttercups and daisies. Earth’s loveliest joys are good child’s play; but, my soul, thou hast to act a nobler part: seek thou the bliss which fadeth not away. Turn thou to God, thine exceeding joy, and then if thy years be multiplied upon earth thou shalt have a life-long possession, or if thou be caught away suddenly thou shalt carry with thee in thy bosom the rosebud of a life which will open to perfection in the land where fading and withering are things unknown.

DEAD FISH

“They are dead fish which are carried down the stream.”

Living fish may go with the stream at times, but dead fish must always do so. There are plenty of such in all waters: dead souls, so far as the truest life is concerned, and these are always drifting, drifting, drifting as the current takes them. Their first inquiry is—what is customary? God’s law is of small account to them, but the unwritten rules of society have a power over them which they never think of resisting. Like the Vicar of Bray, they can twist round and round if the stream is running in an eddy; or, like the sluggard, they can remain at their ease if the waters are stagnant. They stand in awe of a fool’s banter, and ask of their neighbor leave to breathe.

Is this a right state to be in? Each one of us must give an account for himself before God: should not each one act for himself? If we follow a multitude to do evil, the multitude will not excuse the evil nor diminish the punishment. Good men have generally been called upon to walk by themselves. We can sin abundantly by passively yielding to the course of this world; but to be holy and gracious needs many a struggle, many a tear.

Where, then, am I? Am I sailing in that great fleet which bears the black flag, under Rear-Admiral Apollyon, who commands the ship Fashion? If so, when all these barks come to destruction I shall be destroyed with them. Better part company, hoist another flag, and serve another sovereign.

Come, my heart, canst thou go against stream? It is the way of life. The opposing waters will but wash and cleanse thee, and thou shalt ascend to the eternal river-head, and be near and like thy God. O thou who art Lord of the strait and narrow way, aid me to force a passage to glory and immortality.

THE BRIGHT COUNTERFEIT

“A counterfeit coin may look better and brighter than the true piece of money, and yet be almost or altogether worthless.”

And in the same manner a base professor may for a while seem to be brighter than a true Christian. He is not downcast, for he has none of those inward strivings which cause sincere believers so much anguish of soul. He is not sad, for he has no penitence of heart at the remembrance of those shortcomings which humble the living child of God. Doubts and fears he has none, for these are the moss which grows upon faith, and of this grace he is quite destitute. Failures in holiness, loss of communion, non-success in prayer, smitings of conscience, all of which happen to the elect of God, come not near to him, for he is a stranger to the inward, sensitive principle of which these are the tokens.

Sad sons of God, be not utterly dispirited by these men’s equable tempers and quiet assurances, for they will be troubled indeed when the testing hour shall come. As for you, your gracious disquietudes and holy anxieties are a proof of the reality of your spiritual life, and evidences of grace which ought to afford you comfort. Dead men do not suffer from changes of weather, and mere imitations of life, such as paintings and statues, know nothing of the aches and pains of living men. Pity those who are never in soul trouble, and bless the Lord that he has not left you to their vainglorious peace. Better be dim gold than shining brass. Do you not think so?

SULPHUR IN THE INCENSE

“How often do we mingle sulphur with our incense!”

A strong expression, but most sadly true. When we offer prayer, is there not at times a sorrowful mixture of self-will, petulance, and impatience? Does not unbelief, which is quite as obnoxious as brimstone, too often spoil the sweet odor of our supplications? When we offer praise, is it all pure spices after the art of the heavenly apothecary? Do not self-laudation and pride frequently spoil the holy frankincense and myrrh? Alas, we fear that the charge must lie against us, and force us to a sorrowful confession.

As the priests of God, our whole life should be the presentation of holy incense unto God, and yet it is not so. The earthly ambitions and carnal lustings of our nature deteriorate and adulterate the spices of our lives, and Satan, with the sulphur of pride, ruins the delicate perfume of perfect consecration.

What grace the Lord displays in accepting our poor, imperfect offerings! What rich merit abides in our Lord Jesus! What sweet savor beyond expression dwells in him, to drown and destroy our ill-savors, and to make us accepted in the Beloved! Glory be unto our glorious High Priest, whose perfect life and sin-atoning death is so sweet before the Divine Majesty that the Lord is well pleased for his righteousness’ sake, and accepts us in him with our sweet savor.

THE SHIP WHICH IS ALWAYS SAILING ON

“The ship holds on her course, and makes for the desired port, whether they on board sit, lie or walk, eat or sleep.”

Thus time is at all times bearing us onward to the land where time shall be no more. There is never a pause in our progress toward eternity, whether we trifle or are in earnest. Even while we read these lines the great ship is still speeding onward at the same rapid and unvarying rate. We shall soon see the shore of eternity; far sooner than we think! It becomes us to be ready for the landing, and for the weighty business which will then engage us, namely, judgment at the hands of Christ.

If we could lie becalmed a while and make no movement toward eternity we could afford to sport; but if we look over the ship’s stern we may see by her shining wake how she is cutting through the waves. Past time urges us to diligence, for it has reported us in heaven; and future time calls us to earnestness, for it must be short, and may end this very day. AND THEN!

MAN’S TAILORING

“Men make laws as tailors make garments—to fit the crooked bodies they serve for, to suit the humors of the people who are to be governed by those laws.”

This is man’s poor tailoring, and it betrays the sinfulness both of those who frame laws and of those for whom they are made: the Judge of all the earth acts on other principles. God has ordained his law according to the rule of perfect equity, and he will not adapt it to our prejudices and deformities. Some men treat the law and testimony of the Lord as if it were like plaster of Paris, to be poured over their features to take the cast of their own boasted loveliness. Religion is to them a matter of opinion and not of fact; they talk about their “views,” and their ideas, as if Christians were no longer believers but inventors, and no more disciples but masters. This cometh of evil, and leadeth on to worse consequences. Our sentiments are like a tree, which must be trained to the wall of Scripture; but too many go about to bow the wall to their tree, and cut and trim texts to shape them to their mind. Let us never be guilty of this. Reverence for the perfect word should prevent our altering even a syllable of it. “The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul;” let it convert us, but never let us try to pervert it. Our ideas must take the mould of Scripture—this is wisdom: to endeavor to mould Scripture to our ideas would be presumption.

THE TRAVELLER AND THE MERCHANT

“A traveller and a merchant differ; thus: a traveller goes from place to place that he may see; but a merchant goes from port to port that he may take in his lading, and grow rich by traffic.”

Thus there are travelling hearers who merely observe and criticise, and go their way very little the better for what they have heard; and there are also merchant-hearers who listen to profit and make a gain to their souls out of every sermon. O Lord, put me among the wise merchantmen, and in my trading may I find the one pearl of great price, even Jesus, thy Son.

EACH BIRD FROM ITS OWN EGG

“It would be monstrous for the eggs of one creature to bring forth a brood of another kind, for a crow or a kite to come from the egg of a hen. It is as unnatural a production for a new creature to sin.”

Each creature brings forth after its own kind: the old nature being radically evil continues to produce and to send forth swarms of sins; it is not reconciled to God, neither indeed can be, and therefore its thoughts and acts are those of rebellion and hatred toward God. On the other hand the new nature “cannot sin because it is born of God;” it must have its fruit unto holiness, for it is holiness itself. Out of a dove’s nest we expect only doves to fly. The heavenly life breeds birds of paradise, such as holy thoughts, desires, and acts; and it cannot bring forth such unclean birds as lust, and envy, and malice. The life of God infused in regeneration is as pure as the Lord by whom it was begotten, and can never be otherwise. Blessed is the man who has this heavenly principle within, for it must appear in his life, and cause him to abound in holiness, to the glory of God. Reader, have you this divine seed within you, or do you remain under the dominion of corrupt nature? This question deserves a present and thoughtful reply.

THE CRACKED POT

“The unsoundness of a vessel is not seen when it is empty, but when it is filled with water, then we shall see whether it will leak or no.”

It is in our prosperity that we are tested. Men are not fully discovered to themselves till they are tried by fulness of success. Praise finds out the crack of pride, wealth reveals the flaw of selfishness, and learning discovers the leak of unbelief. David’s besetting sin was little seen in the tracks of the wild goats, but it became conspicuous upon the terraces of his palace. Success is the crucible of character. Hence the prosperity which some welcome as an unmixed favor may for more rightly be regarded as an intense form of test. O Lord, preserve us when we are full as much as when we are empty.

THE BEST OF WAYS TO THE BEST OF POSSESSIONS

“If a man should offer a lordship or a farm to another, and he should say, The way is dirty and dangerous, and the weather very troublesome, I will not look after it; would you not accuse the man of folly who thus loved his ease and pleasure? But, now, if this man were assured of a pleasant path and a good way if he would but take a little pains to go over and see it, it were gross folly indeed to refuse it.”

Such is the folly of those who refuse the great inheritance of God. It were worth while to spend a lifetime in prison if thereby we could obtain the Kingdom of God; but we are not called to such suffering, the way to eternal life by Christ Jesus is made plain and easy by the Holy Spirit who bids us believe and live. To believe that which is most surely true cannot be unpleasant to a sincere mind; to trust in One who cannot lie cannot be a hardship to an honest heart. In fact, the way of true religion is the path of wisdom, and we know that her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace. Who would not go to heaven when Christ is the way?—the dearest, holiest, and happiest way that can be conceived. Since the way to heaven is heavenly, and the road to bliss is bliss, who will not become a pilgrim? My soul, be thou in love with the way as well as with the end, since thy Lord is the one as well as the other.

IVY IN THE WALL

“Man’s corrupt nature has been compared to a wild fig-tree, or to ivy growing upon a wall, of which you may cut off the body, boughs, sprigs, and branches, yet still there will be something that will be sprouting out again until the wall be digged down.”

When we think that we have fairly done with sin it suddenly sprouts again and seems as vigorous as ever. As it is said of a tree, “at the scent of water it will bud,” so is it true of our corrupt nature, at the first opportunity it will shoot forth. Vainglorious professors have talked of their being free from all likelihood of sinning, but experienced believers in the depth of their hearts are made to feel the evil of their nature and therefore they walk humbly with God and cry to him to keep them from evil. Often does it happen that the boaster is tripped up by the enemy whom he thought to be dead and buried, while the watchful, careful Christian is preserved in the midst of the fiercest temptations and enabled to maintain his integrity.

We may well believe in the vitality of evil when we see how it survives the efforts of grace; and yet the Lord Jesus can and will destroy it, root and branch, and we shall forever adore him when this marvellous work is accomplished. Divine Master, uproot in me the root of bitterness, and tear away the follies which twine about my soul.

UNJUST BALANCES

“In a pair of scales, though the weights be equal, yet if the scales be not equal there may be wrong done: so, though the arguments used be powerful, yet, if the heart be biassed by unhallowed affections, the scale will not be turned according to truth and righteousness.”

Many instances of this false weighing may be quoted. Eternal realities appear to be mere trifles when the heart is hot after some engrossing pleasure. The most fallacious estimates are made under the influence of corrupt desires. Like a judge that has been bribed, the understanding gives a false verdict. In one scale lies eternity with endless joy or bliss, and in the other lies a passing gain of gold or honor. The comparison needs no studying, it is as a ton to an ounce, and yet the balances are so false that the ounce is declared to have greater weight than the ton. God hateth unjust balances, and we may wisely do the same when we see how souls are ruined by the insane trickery with which a man cheats himself out of his own soul.

O Lord of truth, teach my conscience the law of truth, for Jesus’ sake. Hold my hand while I hold the scales, and let me weigh all things in the balances of the sanctuary.

TREASON IN COINING FARTHINGS

“There is as much felony in coining pence, as shillings and pounds.”

The principle is the same, whatever the value of the coin may be: the prerogative of the Crown is trenched upon by the counterfeiter, even if he only imitates and utters the smallest coin of the realm. He has set the royal sign to his base metal, and the small money-value of his coinage is no excuse for his offence.

Any one sin wilfully indulged and persevered in is quite sufficient to prove a man to be a traitor to his God. Though he may neither commit murder nor adultery—which would be like counterfeiting the larger coins, he may be as surely a felon in the sight of heaven if he deliberately utters falsehood or indulges pride—which some think as lightly of as if they were but the counterfeits of pence. The spirit of rebellion is the same whatever be the manner of displaying it. A giant may look out through a very small window, and so may great obstinacy of rebellion manifest itself in a little act of wilfulness.

How careful should this consideration make us! How earnestly should we watch against what are thought to be minor offences. The egg of mischief is smaller than that of a midge; a world of evil lurks in a drop of rebellion. Lord, keep us from pence transgressions and then we shall not commit the pound offences.

A CHILD’S FAILING

“A father out of indulgence may pass by a failing when his son waits upon him; for instance, suppose he should spill the wine and break the glass; but surely he will not allow him to throw it down carelessly or wilfully.”

Every one can see that there is a grave distinction between sins of infirmity and wilful transgressions. A man may splash us very badly with the wheel of his carriage, as he passes by, and we may feel vexed, but the feeling would have been very much more keen if he had thrown mud into our face with deliberate intent. By the grace of God, we do not sin wilfully. Our wrongdoing comes of ignorance or of carelessness, and causes us many a pang of conscience, for we would fain be blameless before our God. Wilfully to offend is not according to our mind. In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil. Deliberation and delight in sin are sure marks of the heirs of wrath. Sin in believers is a terrible evil, but there is this mitigation of it, that they do not love it, and cannot rest in it. The true son does not wish to do damage to his father’s goods; on the contrary, he loves to please his father, and he is himself grieved when he causes grief to one whom he so highly honors. O my Lord, I pray thee let me not sin carelessly, lest I come to sin presumptuously. Make me to be watchful against my infirmities, that I may not fall by little and little.

ESTHER GOING IN UNTO THE KING

“Queen Esther would go into the king’s presence, even though there might be no golden sceptre held forth; so, believer, venture into God’s presence when you have no smile and no light from the countenance of your God. Trust in a withdrawing God.”

A good child will believe in his father’s love even when his father is angry. We believe in the sun when he is under a cloud, and shall we not believe in God when he hideth himself? When the door of mercy is shut, then is the time for knocking. When the blessing appears to be lost, then is the season for seeking; and when favors seem to be denied, then is the hour for importunate asking. When we have had many denials we should be the more earnest in prayer, that the hindrance may be removed. Esther succeeded in her suit though she went without a call, and much more shall we if we boldly come unto the King of kings, from whom no sincere petitioner ever was dismissed unheard. If we knew the worst time for prayer had come, we ought still to pray Come, my soul, get thee to thy chamber and seek the King’s face, for thou hast great need.

MEADOWS AND MARSHES

“Meadows may be occasionally flooded, but the marshes are drowned by the tide at every return thereof.”

There is all this difference between the sins of the righteous and those of the ungodly. Surprised by temptation, true saints are flooded with a passing outburst of sin; but the wicked delight in transgression and live in it as in their element. The saint in his errors is a star under a cloud, but the sinner is darkness itself. The gracious may fall into iniquity, but the graceless run into it, wallow in it, and again and again return to it. Lord, grant that we may be uplifted by thy grace, so that the great water-floods of temptation may not come near us; and if through the prevalence of our inward corruption the enemy should come in like a flood, O Lord, deliver thy servants by thy great power.

THE NEEDLE AND ITS POLE

“The needle that hath been touched with the loadstone may be shaken and agitated, but it never rests until it turns toward the pole.”

Thus our heart’s affections when once magnetized by the love of Christ find no rest except thy turn to him. The cares and labors of the day may carry the thoughts to other objects, even as a finger may turn the needle to the east or west, but no sooner is the pressure removed than the thoughts fly to the Well-beloved just as the needle moves to its place. We are unable to rest anywhere but in Jesus. The new birth has disqualified us for contentment with the world, and hence we have no choice but to find our all in Christ. Blessed necessity! Driven to Jesus by an unrest which finds no remedy elsewhere! Drawn to Jesus by an impulse which we have no desire to resist! It is our life’s business and our heart’s delight to point to him so plainly that if any would see Jesus they have only to look in the direction in which our whole being is always pointing. We are subject to many deflections and disturbances, but thou knowest, O Lord, that our inmost soul seeks after thyself.

IMPLICIT OBEDIENCE

“John Cassian makes mention of one who willingly fetched water near two miles every day for a whole year together, to pour it upon a dead, dry stick, at the command of his superior, when no reason else could be given for it. And of another it is recorded, that he professed that if he were enjoined by his superior to put to sea in a ship which had neither mast, tackling, nor any other furniture, he would do it; and when he was asked how he could do this without hazard of his discretion, he answered, The wisdom must be in him that hath power to command, not in him that hath power to obey.”

These are instances of implicit obedience to a poor fallible human authority, and are by no means to be imitated. But when it is God who gives the command, we cannot carry a blind obedience too far, since there can be no room for questioning the wisdom and goodness of any of his precepts. At Christ’s command it is wise to let down the net at the very spot where we have toiled in vain all the night. If God bids us, we can sweeten water with salt, and destroy poison with meat, yea, we may walk the waves of the sea, or the flames of a furnace. Well said the Blessed Virgin, “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it.” My heart, I charge thee follow thy Lord’s command without a moment’s question, though he bid thee go forward into the Red Sea, or onward into a howling wilderness.

SUN-DIAL WITHOUT THE SUN

“A sun-dial may be well and accurately set, and yet, if the sun shines not, we cannot tell the time of day.”

Our evidences of grace are in much the same condition: they are good signs, but we cannot see them unless the grace of God shines upon them, and then we can almost do without them, even as an observant person can tell the time of day without a sun-dial, by looking to the sun itself. Present faith in a present Saviour is better than all the marks and evidences in the world. Yet let no man be content if the marks of a child of God are absent from his life, for they ought to be there, and must be there. The presence of sensible evidences must not be too much relied on; but the absence of them should cause great searching of heart. Our main concern should be to look daily and hourly unto Jesus, trusting in him, and not in evidences; judging the progress of our soul’s day, rather by our view of the Sun of righteousness than by our own sun-dial. If Jesus be gone, all is gone: without his love we are darkness itself. What a sun-dial is without the sun, that is the fairest character, the choicest past experience, and the maturest knowledge without Jesus’ fellowship. Rise, O Sun of my soul; end my doubts, if I have any; prevent them, if I have none.

WINDING UP THE CLOCK

“The conscience of a sinner is like a clock, dull, calm, and at rest, when the weights are down; but when wound up, it is full of motion.”

Sometimes God winds up conscience in this life, and then it works vigorously, and strikes the time of day in the sinner’s ears. Shame attends his sin, and he trembles in secret. A dreadful sound is in his ears, and like the troubled sea he cannot rest. This is far better than a dead calm. Alas, in many cases the clock runs down, conscience is again still, and the man returns to his false peace. Of all states this is most dangerous.

In the world to come the ceaseless activity of conscience will be the torture of hell. Rendered sensitive by the removal of hardening influences, the lost soul will find memory accusing, and conscience condemning forever, and no advocate at hand to suggest a defence. A man had better be shut up with a bear robbed of her whelps, than live with an accusing conscience. No racks or fires can equal the misery of being consciously guilty, and seeing no way of escape from sin. May the Lord make our conscience to be an alarum to us here that it be not a torment to us hereafter.

EMPTY THE BUCKET

“Empty the bucket before you go to the fountain.”

Wise advice. If the pail be full of the best and cleanest water it is idle to carry it to the well, for its fulness disqualifies it for being a receiver. Those who think themselves full of grace are not likely to pray aright, for prayer is a beggar’s trade, and supposes the existence of need. What does a full bucket want with the well? Let it stay where it is. Fitness for mercy is not found in self-sufficiency, but in emptiness and want. He can and will receive most of the Lord who has least of his own.

If the bucket is full of foul water, it is wise to throw it away as we go to the crystal spring. We must not come to the Lord with our minds full of vanity, lust, covetousness, and pride. “If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.” He will not make his grace the medium of floating our unclean desires. Grace will cleanse out sin, but it will not mix with it, neither may we desire such a dishonorable compromising of the holy name of the Lord our God. Let the bucket of the heart be turned upside down and drained of the love of sin, and then prayer will be heard, and Jesus will come in and fill it.
Lord, empty me of self, of pride, of worldliness, of unbelief, and then fill me with all the fulness of God.

THE HYPOCRITE’S TRICKS

“A hypocrite has been likened to one who should go into a shop to buy a pennyworth, and should steal a pound’s worth; or to one who is punctual in paying a small debt, that he may get deeper into our books and cheat us of a greater sum.”

Hypocrites make much ado about small things that they may be more easy in their consciences while living in great sins. They pay the tithe of mint to a fraction, but rob God of his glory by their self-righteousness. Punctilious to the utmost about ritual and rubric, they set up their own righteousness in the place of Christ, and rob him of his crown, while all the while they pretend to be serving him. They honor him with their church adornments, in the way of pictures and images, and thereby insult him with idolatry. In the mass they pretend to great devotion for the Lord Jesus, and yet the sum of it is that they put a piece of bread into the throne of his eternal Godhead. In a word, they give God the shells, and steal the kernels for their own pride and self-will. Christ may have their names, and they will be his disciples if they can turn a penny thereby, either for their purse or their pride, but all the while they are robbing him of his glory. O Lord, whatever I may be, let me not be a hypocrite. Suffer me to be the least among thy true children, rather than the chief among pretenders.

THE WEAK STRONG, AND THE STRONG WEAK

“It is related of Laurence Saunders the martyr, that one day in the country, meeting his friend Dr. Pendleton, an earnest preacher in King Edward’s reign, they debated upon what they had best do in the dangerous time that Mary’s accession had brought upon them. Saunders confessed that his spirit was ready, but he felt the flesh was at present too weak for much suffering. But Pendleton admonished him, and appeared all courage and forwardness to face every peril. They both came, under the control of circumstances, to London, and there, when danger arose, Pendleton shrunk from the cross, and Saunders resolutely took it up.”

The reader has probably met with this story before, but it will not harm him to learn its lesson again. We are certainly stronger when we feel our weakness than when we glory in our strength. Our pastoral observation over a very large church has led us to expect to see terrible failures among those who carry their heads high among their brethren. Poor timid souls who are afraid to put one foot before another, for fear they should go an inch astray, go on from year to year in lovely, bashful holiness, and at the same time the very professors who condemned them, and distressed them by their confident pretensions, fall like Lucifer, never to hope again.

The fault which has happened to others may be yet seen in me, unless the Lord shall guard me from it. It is no time for boasting while we are still in the enemy’s country.

THE SUN IN WINTER

“A summer’s sun, even when beclouded, yields more comfort and warmth to the earth than a winter’s sun that shines brightest.”

The comforts of the Spirit at their lowest, are far superior to the joys of the world at their highest pitch. When saints are mourning, their inward peace is still superior to that of worldlings, when their mirth and revelry overflow all bounds. Lord, I had rather take the worst from thee than the best from thine enemy. Only do thou graciously shine within me, and let mine outward condition be as dull as thou pleasest.

THE NURSE AND THE FALLING CHILD

“The nurse lets the child get a knock sometimes, in order to make it more cautious.”

Thus does the Lord in Providence allow his children to suffer by their sins, that they may be more thoughtful in future. He has no hand in their sin; but, since the sin is in them, he allows circumstances to occur by which the evil is made manifest in open acts, which cause them sorrow. When a physician sees a person suffering from an inward complaint, he may think it wise so to deal with his patient that the disease is brought to the surface; and thus also God may permit the sins of his people to come to an open sore, that they may be aware of them, and seek for healing. The nurse does not make the child careless or cause it to tumble, but she withdraws her interposing care for the best of reasons, namely, that the little one may learn to avoid danger by a measure of suffering on account of it. It would be blasphemous to attribute sin to God; but it is a matter of fact that, by smarting for one fault, gracious men learn to avoid others.

GRACE FOR USE, AND NOT TO BE PLAYED WITH

“Grace is not only donum, but talentum. Grace is not given, as a piece of money, to a child to play withal, but as we give money to factors, to trade withal for us.”

Everything is practical in the great gifts of God. He plants his trees that they may bear fruit, and sows his seed that a harvest may come of it. We may trifle and speculate; God never does so. When a man imagines that grace is given merely to make him comfortable, to give him a superiority over his fellows, or to enable him to avoid deserved censure, he knows not the design of the Lord in the bestowal of grace, and, indeed, he is a stranger to the grand secret. God works in us that we may work, he saves us that we may serve him, and enriches us with grace that the riches of his glory may be displayed.

Are we putting out our talents to proper interest? Do we use the grace bestowed upon us? “He giveth more grace,” but not to those who neglect what they have. Men do not long trust ill stewards. Lord, help us so to act that we may render our account with joy and not with grief.

STUDY MUST BE FOLLOWED UP BY MEDITATION

“The end of study is information, the end of meditation is practice, or a work upon the affections. Study is like a winter’s sun that shineth but warmeth not; but meditation is like blowing up the fire, where we do not mind the blaze, but the heat.”

Meditation being thus the more practical of the two, should not be placed second to study, but should even take precedence of it.

“In study we are rather like vintners, who take in wine to store for sale; in meditation, like those who buy wine for their own use and comfort. A vintner’s cellar may be better stored than a noble-man’s. The student may have more of notion and knowledge, but the practical Christian hath more of taste and refreshment.”

The student, therefore, is in a sad case if he go no further, for his soul may starve, notwithstanding his stores, if he does not use them. How miserable to die of cold while your cellar is full of coals! To perish with hunger when your granary is full of corn! This is a species of suicide which many commit. For want of due examination and meditation the precious truth of God is of no avail; but the blame lieth at the man’s own door because he would not consider and turn unto the Lord. My soul, see to it that thy knowledge is well used for thy sustenance and growth. Retire more than thou hast done and chew the cud by meditation. Thou hast had too little of this. Be zealous, therefore, and mend thy ways in this respect.

CLEAN VESSELS FOR CHOICE LIQUORS

“As precious liquors are best kept in clean vessels, so is the mystery of faith in a pure conscience.”

Who, indeed, would knowingly pour a choice wine into a tainted cask? It would be no instance of his wisdom if he did so. When we hear of men living in sin and yet claiming to be the ministers of God, we are disgusted with their pretences, but we are not deceived by their professions. In the same manner, we care little for those who are orthodox Christians in creed if it is clear that they are heterodox in life. He who believes the truth should himself be true. How can we expect others to receive our religion if it leaves us foul, false, malicious, and selfish? We sicken at the sight of a dirty dish, and refuse even good meat when it is placed thereon. So pure and holy is the doctrine of the cross that he who hears it aright will have his ear cleansed, he who believes it will have his heart purged, and he who preaches it should have his tongue purified. Woe unto that man who brings reproach upon the gospel by an unhallowed walk and conversation.

Lord, evermore make us vessels fit for thine own use, and then fill us with the pure blood of the grapes of sound doctrine and wholesome instruction. Suffer us not to be such foul cups as to be only fit for the wine of Sodom.

THE RHODIANS

Plutarch tells us that the Rhodians appealed to the Romans for help, and one suggested that they should plead the good turns which they had done for Rome. This was a plea difficult to make strong enough, very liable to be disputed, and not at all likely to influence so great a people as the Romans, who would not readily consider themselves to be debtors to so puny a state as that of Rhodes. The Rhodians were, however, wiser than their counsellor, and took up another line of argument, which was abundantly successful: they pleaded the favors which in former times the Romans had bestowed upon them, and urged these as a reason why the great nation should not cast off a needy people for whom they had already done so much.

Herein is wisdom. How idle it would be for us to plead our good works with the great God! What we have done for him is too faulty and too questionable to be pleaded; but what he has done for us is grand argument, great in itself and potent with an immutable Benefactor. Legal pleading soon meets a rebuff; yea, it trembles even before it leaves the pleader’s mouth, and makes him ashamed while he is yet at his argument. Far otherwise fares it with the humble gratitude which gathers strength as it recalls each deed of love, and comforts itself with a growing assurance that he who has done so much will not lose his labor, but will do even more, till he has perfected that which concerneth us. Sinners run fearful risks when they appeal to justice: their wisdom is to cast themselves upon free grace. Our past conduct is a logical reason for our condemnation; it is in God’s past mercy to us that we have accumulated argument for hope. The Latin sentence hath great truth in it, Deus donando debet, God by giving one mercy pledges himself to give another; he is not indebted to our merit, his only obligation is that which arises out of his own covenant promise, of which his gifts are pledges and bonds. Let us remember this when next we urge our suit with him.

CHOKING THE WEEDS

“The way to destroy ill weeds is to plant good herbs that are contrary.”

We have all heard of weeds choking the wheat; if we were wise we should learn from our enemy, and endeavor to choke the weeds by the wheat. Preoccupation of mind is a great safeguard from temptation. Fill a bushel with corn, and you will keep out the chaff: have the heart stored with holy things, and the vanities of the world will not so readily obtain a lodging-place.

Herein is wisdom in the training of children. Plant the mind early with the truths of God’s word, and error and folly will, in a measure, be forestalled. The false will soon spring up if we do not early occupy the mind with the true. He who said that he did not wish to prejudice his boy’s mind by teaching him to pray, soon discovered that the devil was not so scrupulous, for his boy soon learned to swear. It is well to prejudice a field in favor of wheat at the first opportunity.

In the matter of amusements for the young, it is much better to provide than to prohibit. If we find the lads and lasses interesting employments they will not be so hungry after the gayeties and ensnarements of this wicked world. If we are afraid that the children will eat unwholesome food abroad, let us as much as possible take the edge from their appetites by keeping a good table at home.

BROKEN BONES COMPLAINING

“Old bruises may trouble us long after, upon every change of weather, and new afflictions revive the sense of old sins.”

We know one who broke his arm in his youth, and though it was well set, and soundly healed, yet before a rough season the bones cry out bitterly; and even so, though early vice may be forsaken, and heartily repented of, and the mind may be savingly renewed, yet the old habits will be a lifelong trouble and injury. The sins of our youth will give us many a twist fifty years after they have been forgiven. How happy, then, are those who are preserved from the ways of ungodliness, and brought to Jesus in the days of their youth, for they thus escape a thousand regrets. It is well to have a broken bone skilfully set, but far better never to have had it broken. The fall of Adam has battered and bruised us all most sadly; it is a superfluity of naughtiness that we should incur further damage by our own personal falls. The aches and pains of age are more than sufficient when every limb is sound, and recklessly to add the anguish of fractures and dislocations would be folly indeed. Young man, do not run up bills which your riper years will find it hard to pay; do not eat to-day forbidden morsels, which may breed you sorrow long after their sweetness has been forgotten.

THE CHARIOT OF THE SPIRIT

“The Spirit of God rides most triumphantly in his own chariot.”

That is to say, he is best pleased to convey conviction and comfort by means of his own word. God’s word, not man’s comment on God’s word, is the most usual means of conversion. This is done to put honor upon the divine revelation, and to make us prize it with all our hearts. Our Lord said not only, “Sanctify them,” but, “sanctify them through thy truth;” and then he added, “thy word is truth.” Our author does well to liken the Scriptures to a chariot, because they are the ordinary means by which the Holy Ghost comes to us, but they are only the chariot, and without the quickening Spirit they bring us no good. The Scriptures do not make our hearts burn till the Spirit kindles them into flames, and then we say, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures.” Let us reverence Holy Scripture because the Holy Ghost is its author, expositor, preserver, and applier. We cannot too often use the weapon which the Spirit himself calls his sword.

COVETOUSNESS AS A SERVANT

“Covetousness may be entertained as a servant, where it is not entertained as a master—entertained as a servant to provide oil and fuel to make other sins burn.”

Where avarice is the absolute master, the man is a miser; but even he is not more truly miserable than the man whose gainings only furnish opportunity for indulging in vice. Such persons are greedy that they may become guilty. Their money buys them the means of their own destruction, and they are eager after it. Winning and saving with them are but means for profligacy, and therefore they think themselves fine liberal fellows, and despise the penurious habits of the miser. Yet in what respects are they better than he? Their example is certainly far more injurious to the commonwealth, and their motive is not one whit better. Selfishness is the mainspring of action in each case; the difference lies in the means selected and not in the end proposed. Both seek their own gratification, the one by damming up the river, and the other by drowning the country with its floods. Let the profligate judge for himself, whether he is one grain better than the greediest skinflint whom he so much ridicules.

Lord, help us to live for thee and not for self, and both in giving and in spending may thy glory be our only aim.

UNDISTURBED DEVOTION

“It is a strange constancy of fixedness that is attributed to the priests at Jerusalem, who, when Faustus, Cornelius, Furius, and Fabius broke into the city with their troops, and rushed into the temple ready to kill them, yet they went on with the rites of the temple, as if there had been no assault. And strange is that other instance of the Spartan youth, that held the censer to Alexander while he offered sacrifice. A coal lighting upon his arm, he suffered it to burn there rather than that any crying out of his should disturb the worship.”

These instances are a shame to Christians, that we do not more intensely fix our hearts when we are in the service of God; instead of which, many may be seen looking hither and thither, and turning their heads to the door to observe every new comer. Even in our private devotions, how soon we are distracted and carried away from the point in hand. Our minds flit and fly like birds on the hedges, which have scarcely time to settle, for as one passenger moves along the road and then another, they are ready for flight at once. At the sound of every footstep the bird is on the wing, and thus some hearts are the prey of every trifling circumstance. Saints have been undisturbed amid a crowd, while others find their prayers crowded out when they are alone.

O Lord, assist me in my communion with thee, that my whole soul may be set upon it, and not a single thought may wander from thee. Let not even pain and care prevent my whole heart from adoring thee.

RARE EXOTICS NEED CARE

“The more supernatural things are, the more we need diligence to preserve them. A strange plant [an exotic] requires more care than a native of the soil. Worldly desires, like nettles, breed of their own accord; but spiritual desires need a great deal of cultivating.”

The more spiritual the duty, the sooner the soul wearies of it. An illustration of this is seen in the case of Moses, whose hands grew weary in prayer, while we never read that Joshua’s hands hung down in fight. Spirituality is a tender plant, and without great care it soon flags, while sin needs neither hoeing nor watering, but will spring up in the dark, and flourish even amid the wintry frosts of trouble. The fair flower of grace, is, however, so precious that God himself has promised to tend it. What must be the value of that plant of which the Lord hath said, “I will water it every moment; lest any hurt it, I will keep it night and day?” Let us watch and pray, and never dream that things will go well with us if we neglect these necessary duties. No spiritual grace will thrive if we neglect it. We ought to be very diligent in our spiritual husbandry; nor should our labor be grudged, for the fruit will well reward our pains.

THE MARTYR AND THE CHAIN

“When Hooper, the blessed martyr, was at the stake, and the officers came to fasten him to it, he cried, ‘Let me alone; God that hath called me hither will keep me from stirring; and yet,’ said he, upon second thought, ‘because I am but flesh and blood, I am willing. Bind me fast, lest I stir.’ ”

Some plead that they have no need of the holdfasts of an outward profession, and the solemn pledges of the two great ordinances, for the Holy Spirit will keep them faithful; yet surely, like this man of God, they may well accept those cords of love wherewith heavenly wisdom would bind us to the horns of the altar. Our infirmities need all the helps which divine love has devised, and we may not be so self-sufficient as to refuse them.

Pledges, covenants, and vows of human devising should be used with great caution; but where the Lord ordains we may proceed without question, our only fear being lest by neglecting them we should despise the command of the Lord, or by relying upon them we should wrest the precept from its proper intent. Whatever will prove a check to us when tempted, or an incentive when commanded, must be of use to us, however strong we may conceive ourselves to be. “Bind the sacrifice with cords, even with cords to the horns of the altar.”

Lord, cast a fresh band about me every day. Let the constraining love of Jesus hold me faster and faster.

“Oh, to grace how great a debtor,
Daily I’m constrained to be!
Let that grace, Lord, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.”

BEGGING OF THE RICH

“Beggars in the streets, if they see a poor man, meanly clad, they let him alone; but when they see a man of quality and fashion they rouse up themselves, and besiege him with importunate entreaties and clamors, and will not let him go until he hath left something with them.”

Thus should we do in our spiritual begging. Vain is the help of man, and therefore we should ask little of him: he is as poor as we are, and it will be a waste of time to wait upon such a pauper. As for the Lord Jesus, he is so rich that if all the beggars in the universe would call at his door, he would not refuse one of them, but would set open the doors of his granaries and the hatches of his butteries, and feast the world. He is the heir of all things. There is no bottom to his treasuries. He is the true Solomon, and his daily provision is not only enough for all his household, but for all those who lie starving on the highways and in the hedges. The wealth of nations is nothing to the wealth of Jesus. Come, then, my heart, beg largely of thy Lord, and when he hears thee, beg again. His quality and fashion invite thee to follow him with importunity withersoever he goeth.

SOUR GRAPES

“Ungodly men are too impatient to wait for solid and eternal pleasures, but snatch at the pleasures of sin, which are but for a season. These resemble children who cannot tarry till the grapes are ripe, and therefore eat them sour and green.”

Pleasure lies mainly in hope, and yet some men will not give space for hope to grow in: it must be now or never; all to-day, and to-morrow may starve. In business, men put out their money, foregoing its use themselves, that it may, after a while, return to them with increase; but carnal men are all for keeping the bird in the hand, and cannot wait for joys to come.

Yet these hasty delights are not satisfying. Man was not made to find his heaven upon earth, nor can he do so, even though he labors after it. The grapes plucked in this untimely season cause ere-long a griping of the heart, and a gnawing within the soul. We are not ready for fulness of joy, nor is the joy ready for us. Our wisdom is to be preparing for eternal bliss by present holiness, believing that he who is making us ready for heaven is making heaven ready for us. This is the surest way to present satisfaction, which must always be found in careful obedience to the divine will from day to day, and in a believing expectation of glory to be revealed.

O thou who art “the God of hope,” grant that, by thy hope which thou hast wrought in us, we may be daily purified, and set free from the defilement of this present evil world.

THE SINGLE MILLSTONE

“The Egyptians, in their hieroglyphics, expressed the unprofitableness of a solitary man by a single millstone, which, being alone, grindeth no meal, though with its fellow it would be exceedingly profitable for that purpose.”

Let this serve as a symbol to those unsociable Christians who endeavor to walk alone, and refuse to enter into the fellowship of the saints. They are comparatively useless. The Lord has made us dependent upon each other for usefulness. Our attainments are not put to their right use till they supply the deficiencies of others: this is one side of our necessity for fellowship—we need to associate with the weak, that we may find a sphere in which to trade with our talents, by helping them. On the other hand, our infirmities and deficiencies are meant to draw us into association with stronger brethren, from whom we may receive help and direction. Whether we be of the stronger or the feebler sort, we have an equal reason for seeking Christian communion. It is of the nature of the Lord’s people to assemble themselves together, and live in companies: wild beasts may roam the woods alone, but sheep go in flocks. David said, “I am a companion of all them that fear thee,” and he showed his piety not only by being select in his company, but in loving such fellowship when he found it.

O thou who didst call thy disciples “friends,” give me ever the friendly spirit, and make me to love all those whom thou lovest.

RAIMENT, THE BODY, THE SOUL

“A man who is wounded, and cut through his clothes and skin and all, will be more anxious to have the wound closed up in his body than to have the rent in his garment mended.”

His body is much more himself than the garment with which he covers it, and, therefore, he gives it his first attention. Now, on the same principle, we should take more care of the soul than of the body, for the soul is more truly the man than the mere flesh and blood which he inhabits. As a man may get a new coat, so shall he obtain a new body at the resurrection; but his spirit, which is his real self, abides the same as to identity, and should, therefore, be carefully guarded. Yet what fools the most of men are; they spend a lifetime in providing for a body which will soon be worms’ meat, and their immortal soul is left uncared for, to go before God, naked, and poor, and miserable. If there were as much as a pennyworth of wisdom to be found among ten thousand sinners they would no longer neglect their own souls.

O Lord, heal thou my soul; and as for the rents in my garments, they shall give me small concern.

THE IMAGE NOT THE MAN

“As Michal laid a statue in David’s bed, and, covering it with David’s apparel, made Saul’s messengers believe it was David himself sick in bed; so, many persons cover themselves with certain external actions belonging to religion, and the world believeth them truly sanctified and spiritual, whereas, indeed, they are but statues and apparitions of devotton to God.”

Formalism is a vain show, and will, in the end, be discovered, and the cheat will cease to impose upon any one. Of all matters, religion is the very worst to play with. It may be easy to mimic it, but the price to be paid for such fooling will be terrible. If men must act a borrowed part, let them ape the princes of this world, but let them not put such an affront upon the princes of the blood royal of heaven. Let them go to their theatres if they would wear a mask; to do so in the house of God is an insult which the Lord will not brook. The best imitation of religion will make its possessor wail forever when the hand of eternal truth shall lay bare its falsehood.

O thou who art “the truth,” deliver me from all seeming, and let me be in truth that which I profess to be.

RUNAWAY KNOCKS

“Watch in prayer to see what cometh. Foolish boys, that knock at a door in wantonness, will not stay till somebody cometh to open to them; but a man that hath business will knock, and knock again, till he gets his answer.”

To pray and not to look for an answer argues either a mere formality in prayer, and that makes the prayer to be dead; or else unbelief as to the truth of God, and that makes the prayer to be corrupt. He who presents a check at the banker’s looks to hare money for it; if not, he is not a business man, but a mere trifler. So in our pleadings of the divine promise we expect a fulfilment, of otherwise we do but play with God. How many runaway knocks we give at mercy’s gate! Let us put away such childish things, and treat prayer as a reality: then shall we be answered of a truth. “I will direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up.”

He who writes these lines bears witness that he has never knocked in vain at the Lord’s door, and he begs the reader to make trial of that which he has found so effectual. “Knock, and it shall be opened, UNTO YOU.”

THE RUSSET COAT

“Man is a proud creature, and would fain establish his own righteousness, and have somewhat wherein to glory in himself. Rom. 10:3. Our proud heart takes up the old proverb and thinketh—A russet coat of our own is better than a silken garment that is borrowed of another.”

Man would sooner wear his own rags than Christ’s fine white linen. Pride, however, is too expensive a luxury when a man must give up all hope of heaven in order to indulge it. Such is the case. There can be no feasting with the King unless we wear the wedding-garment which he supplies. Our own silk and satin would not suit his courts, much less our russet and our corduroy. We must accept the righteousness of God, or be unrighteous forever. Surely we shall be worse than madmen if we insist upon going naked rather than put on the royal apparel of free grace. Lord, I cannot longer err in this fashion, for I perceive my righteousnesses to be filthy rags, and I am heartily glad to be rid of them. Clothe me, I pray thee, with the righteousness divine.

FIRE SPREADING

“A good man is always seeking to make others good, as fire turneth all things about it into fire.”

You cannot make fire stay where it is, it will spread as opportunity serves it. It will subdue all its surroundings to itself. Carlyle says that “man is emphatically a proselytizing creature,” and assuredly the new creature is such. Life grows, and so invades the regions of death and spiritual life is most of all intense in its growing and spreading. Liberty to hold our opinions but not to spread them is no liberty, for one of our main opinions is that we should bring all around us to Jesus, and to obedience to the truth. Lord, help us ever to be doing this, subduing the earth for thee by spreading on all sides the name of Jesus. Let our life burn till the whole world is on a blaze.

NO OLD AGE IN GRACE

“We have our infancy at our first conversion, when liable to childish ignorance and many infirmities; we have our youth and growing age, when making progress in the way of grace toward perfection and lastly, we have our perfect manly age when we are come to our full pitch, when grace is fully perfected in glory. In Scripture there is nothing said of a fading and declining time of old age in grace.”

The fact being that, unlike the natural life, the spiritual life does not conclude in declining strength and inevitable decrepitude, but continues its progress even beyond the grave. We go from strength to strength, not from strength to weakness. The old age of grace is maturity, not decay; advancement, not decline; perfection, not imbecility. In the advanced years of nature we lose many of our faculties, but in advanced grace our spiritual senses are more quick and discerning than ever. The aged man feels the grasshopper to be a burden, and the clouds return after the rain; but to the advanced believer the greatest loads are light and the rain is over and gone. Old age goes down to death, but ripe grace ascends to everlasting life. Lord, let me grow ripe but not rotten, maturing but not decaying, for thy glory’s sake.

INFANTS AND SICK FOLK

“Though we cannot love their weaknesses, yet we must love the weak, and bear with their infirmities, not breaking the bruised reed. Infants must not be turned out of the family because they cry, and are unquiet and troublesome; though they be peevish and froward, yet we must bear it with gentleness and patience, as we do the frowardness of the sick; if they revile we must not revile again, but must seek gently to restore them, notwithstanding all their censures.”

This patience is far too rare. We do not make allowances enough for our fellows, but sweepingly condemn those whom we ought to cheer with our sympathy. If we are out of temper ourselves, we plead the weather, or a headache, or our natural temperament, or aggravating circumstances; we are never at a loss for an excuse for ourselves, why should not the same ingenuity be used by our charity in inventing apologies and extenuations for others? It is a pity to carry on the trade of apology-making entirely for home consumption; let us supply others. True, they are very provoking, but if we suffered half as much as some of our irritable friends have to endure we should be even more aggravating. Think in many cases of their ignorance, their unfortunate bringing up, their poverty, their depression of spirit, and their home surroundings, and pity will come to the help of patience. We are tender to a man who has a gouty toe, cannot we extend the feeling to those who have an irritable soul?

Our Lord will be angry with us if we are harsh to his little ones whom he loves; nor will he be pleased if we are unkind to his poor afflicted children with whom he would have us be doubly tender. We ourselves need from him ten times more consideration than we show to our brethren. For HIS sake we ought to be vastly more forbearing than we are. Think how patient HE has been to us, and let our hard-heartedness be confessed as no light sin.

PILLS

“We should not expect to see a reason for everything which we believe, for many doctrines are mysteries, and we must receive them as we do pills. We do not chew pills, but swallow them; and so we must take these truths into our souls upon the credit of the revealer.”

This indeed is true faith—this taking truth upon trust because of the divine authority of the revelation which contains it. We are persuaded that the Lord cannot lie, and so we believe, for this sole reason, that “thus saith the Lord,” Why should we chew the pill by wishing to know more than is revealed? Must our Father explain everything to us on pain of not being believed if he reserves any point in his proceedings? Would not such a demand savor more of a proud, rebellious spirit than of humble, childlike love? Has a man any faith in God if he will believe no more than his reason proves?

Many a truth when taken into the soul as a whole has proved to be very sweet to the heart. We could not understand it; but no sooner had we believed it than we were conscious of its delightful influence upon the inner nature. Who can understand the twofold nature of our Lord’s person, or the doctrine of the Trinity in Unity, or the predestination which does not violate free agency? And yet what a delight these truths create in minds which cheerfully accept them. My soul, thou canst not know or understand all things, else wert thou omniscient, and that is the prerogative of God alone. Be it thine, therefore, to believe the testimony of thy God, and then his omniscience will be all at thy disposal. He will teach thee what else thou couldst never learn, if thou art but willing to sit at his feet and receive of his word. We sometimes speak of a scholarly man; in the best sense every Christian should be scholarly; that is, willing to be a scholar.

HARD BEGINNINGS

“Some beginners are discouraged in their first attempts at a godly life, and so give over through despondency. They should remember that the bullock is most unruly at the first yoking, and that the fire at first kindling casts forth most smoke.”

They forget this, and therefore are tempted to give over religion and its graces as hopeless. When a man is new to the ways of God those duties are difficult which afterward become easy. Use in common life is called second nature, and in gracious matters it helps our second nature. Gracious habit gives impetus to gracious action. Self-denials, which seem hard at first, become delights in due season, so that we even wonder that we thought them denials. Some things there are which are most easy in our first days of grace, but other things will be found to improve as we proceed upon the way: let not the young beginner be discouraged, but fully believe that “it is better on before.” We have heard persons talk of the days of childhood as the happiest in mortal life, but we do not agree with them: the sorrows of childhood take a very intense possession of the little ones, and in their grief everything seems lost, whereas the full-grown mind is divided in sorrow, and other considerations come in to temper the wind of trouble. Even so, childhood in grace is by no means our best time; for its trials, though less in themselves, are greater to our weakness and rawness of mind. The yoke will be easier soon, and the fire will yet burn with a clearer blaze.

Lord, help thy babe. Nurse me into vigor by thy good Spirit.

LEAD

“Lead is lead still, whatever stamp it beareth.”

A change of form is a very different thing from a change of substance. You may cast lead into the shape of a shilling, but you cannot make silver of it. Now, the only change which can save us is a thorough transformation of nature, and this is as clearly beyond human power as the turning of lead into silver. When we see a great moral improvement in any man we ought to be glad, and to admire the power of conscience; but if the man’s heart remains the same, the alteration is only casting a lump of lead into a pretty form. When the man’s nature and disposition are radically altered, we may then exclaim, “This is the finger of God”—this is transmuting lead into silver. “Ye must be born again:” nothing lees will suffice.

Lord, grant that I may truly know this change. If I am mistaken and have never been regenerated, be pleased to exercise thy gracious power upon me now, for Jesus’ sake.

WHY A CANDLE IS LIT

“God seldom lighteth a candle, but he hath some lost groat to seek.”

This is assuredly true, and its practical bearings are worthy of our attention. If God raises up a preacher or any other useful worker, we may conclude that he has a people to be sought out and won for his kingdom. All capacities and abilities in the Church are intended for this great purpose—the finding of the lost treasure. The same is true of the doctrines of the gospel, the ordinances, and the promises: these are all lights kindled with the view of finding lost souls. The whole Scripture has an eye in this direction. By one text one man is found, and by another passage another is discovered. Each Scripture has its own ray, and by its means its own lost piece is perceived. Some texts are great candles, and have found out many; but probably there is not one tiny taper of Holy Writ which has not shed its saving beams on some one or other of the Lord’s precious ones. Certainly every light which the Lord has given has a gracious design, and will be used for a saving purpose.

Lord, use me also, though I be but a poor rushlight, and find out some poor lost sinner by my means.

THE KING’S EXAMPLE

“Alexander, when his army grew sluggish because laden with the spoils of their enemies, to free them from this incumbrance, commanded all his own baggage to be set on fire, that when they saw the king himself devote his rich treasures to the flames they might not murmur if their mite and pittance were consumed also. So, if Christ had taught us contempt of the world, and had not given us an instance of it in his own person, his doctrine had been less powerful and effectual.”

But what an example we now find in him, seeing he had not where to lay his head in life, nor a rag to cover him in death, nor anything but a borrowed grave in burial. What manner of persons ought we to be in all unselfishness when we have such a Lord! He hath not said to us in matters of self-denial, “Take up thy cross and go,” but “Come, take up thy cross, and follow me.” Fired by the heroic self-sacrifice of our King, the sternest abnegation of self and the severest renunciation of the world should become an easy matter. Well may the soldiers endure hardness when the King himself roughs it among us, and suffers more than the meanest private in our ranks.

My soul, I charge thee, endure hardness, and look not for ease where Jesus found death.

THE BEST WEATHER FOR ME

“The same weather does not fit every soil; that drought which burneth up the hotter grounds comforteth those that are more chill and cold. If one man had another’s blessings he would soon run wild, as another would grow desperate if he had our crosses. Therefore the infinite wisdom of the great Governor of the world allots every one his portion.”

It may be, my soul, that thou art a dry and thirsty plot which will never yield a harvest at all unless thou art continually under the watery sign. For thee the clouds must return after the rain, and rough weather last long and come again. Thou hast had little sunshine, but thy long glooms are wisely appointed thee, for perhaps a stretch of summer weather would have made thee as a parched land and a barren wilderness. Thy Lord knows best, and he has the clouds and the sun at his disposal. Let me therefore bless him for such weather as he sends to me from day to day, for foul is fair to me if the Lord appoints it in love.

Let me not envy those whom the sun shines on. May be they need it all to make them fruitful. Why should they not have it? There is all the more sunshine for me when it shines for others. Lord, I bless thee for other men’s joys, and I will not repine if I am denied an equal share with them. I have thee; and what more can I ask?

THE PAPER-STAINER AND THE ARTIST

“A paper-stainer will think a painter too curious, because his own work is but a little daubing. The broad way pleaseth the world best, but the narrow way leadeth to life.”

Our author means that the maker of wall-papers gets over a great deal of ground as compared with the artist who is producing a masterly painting. Of rough daubing there is plenty to be had, and there is a great market for it; and yet, though thoroughly fine art is scarce, it is infinitely more precious than daubing. That religion which needs no care, and takes no trouble, is in great demand in the world; it is produced by the acre, and may be seen spread over the surface everywhere. Not so the religion of grace; it costs many a tear, and a world of anxious thought, and solemn heart-searching, and it is but slow work at the best; but then it is of great price, and is not only acceptable with God, but even men perceive that there is a something about it to which the common religious daubers never attain. If we let the boat drift with the stream, and leave our religion to random influences, without care or thought, what can we look for but slovenliness and worthlessness? If we would please God we must watch every stroke and touch upon the canvas of our lives, and we may not think that we can lay it on with a trowel and yet succeed. We ought to live as miniature-painters work, for they watch every line and tint. O for more careful work, more heart work! Otherwise we shall lose that which we have wrought.

SAVE THE JEWELS

“As men in a great fire and general conflagration will hazard their lumber to preserve their treasure, their money, or their jewels, so should we take care, if we must lose one or the other, that the better part be out of hazard. Whatever we lose by the way, let us make sure that we come well to the end of our journey.”

Herein is wisdom. See how men throw overboard the lading of the ship when it becomes a question of saving their lives. Reason teaches them that the less precious must go first: they do not throw over first their gold and then their corn, neither do they lose their lives to save their ingots. So let us, above all things, care for our souls and their eternal interests. He whose house was burned to ashes kneeled down and thanked the Lord because his child was safe; and he who loses the whole world but obtains eternal salvation has so much to rejoice in that he would waste his tears if he shed them over his losses. Suppose it were said that Virgil died worth half a million of money, it is so long ago that it would be stale intelligence, and if the same were said of a man who died yesterday there would really be no more in it; yet if the soul of Virgil’s slave was saved, though he never owned a single gold coin, heaven has not ceased to ring with joy concerning his salvation. The soul should be our main care. It is our all, for it is ourself. Lord, teach men this wisdom; teach me this wisdom.

THE CARVER FOR HIMSELF

“He that will be his own carver seldom carveth out a good portion to himself. Wilful spirits who would fain be their own providence intrench upon God’s prerogative, and take the work out of his hands; and, therefore, no wonder if their wisdom be turned into folly.”

It is God’s business to regulate providence, and when we attempt it we cause confusion and trouble. Not only does the carver for himself get a poor portion, but he frequently cuts his fingers, and spoils his clothes by spilling the contents of the dish. Israel went into Canaan well enough when the Lord led the way; but when the people before the set time presumed to go up of their own head, they brought defeat upon themselves. It is never well either to run before the cloud, or to stay behind it: in either case we may expect to fall under clouds of another sort, which will darken our way and becloud our peace.

Cannot we trust the Lord with his own business? Can we supplement infallible wisdom, or improve upon infinite goodness? Have we not enough to do if we earnestly endeavor to obey our Lord? Do we want to be rulers? Are we tired of being disciples and followers? Why do we strain after things too high for us, intruding into spheres which belong to God alone?

My soul, stand thou still, and see the salvation of God! He is at the helm, and is well able to pilot the vessel. Keep thy hand off the tiller. Down with thee, unbelief, what hast thou to do while God himself provides for his people?

THE GHOST

“Guilt raked out of its grave is more frightful than a ghost, or one risen from the dead.”

Nor is the terror which sin excites in the awakened conscience at all an idle one. There is in evil a horror greater than can be found in hobgoblin, sprite, or apparition. Great is the mystery of iniquity, and he who comes under its spell will have no joy of his life till the ghost is laid in the Red Sea of Jesus’ precious blood. Blessed be God, our Lord has done this for us; and we are not afraid of being haunted by sins which are buried in his grave.

NO DAY WITHOUT THE SUN

“When the sun is gone all the candles in the world cannot make it day.”

Vain would be the attempt, though we should kindle a mountain of wax. So when the Lord denies comfort to a man, neither wealth, nor honor, nor power can enlighten the darkness of his mind. We can procure our own sorrow, but we cannot produce our own comfort. A secret curse eats out the heart of earthly joys when God does not smile upon them. Without God the world is, says Manton, “a deaf nut, which we crack, but find nothing in it but dust.” Vanity of vanities, all is vanity, till the Lord becomes our all in all. Reader, do you know this by personal experience?

ARE THEY HAPPY?

“Do you account him a happy man who is condemned to die, because he hath a plentiful allowance till his execution? Or him a happy man that makes a fair show abroad and puts a good face upon his ruinous and breaking condition, while at home he is pinched with want and misery, which is ready to come upon him like an armed man; one who revels in all manner of pleasure to-day, but is to die at night? Then those who remain in the guilt of their sins may be happy.”

If we view unpardoned sinners aright we shall heartily pity them. Let their condition be what it may, at this present the wrath of God abideth on them, and they are “condemned already;” and as for the future, it is black with certain doom. Alas for the unhappy man against whom God sets his face! What misery can be greater than to be reserved against the great day of the wrath of God? We wonder at the mirth of men condemned to hell, their infatuation is terrible to behold.

Hence we cannot join with them in their carnal mirth. Sinners may dance, but it will not be to our piping. They may revel and riot, but we dare not countenance them in their jollity, for we know that their day is coming. Let no desire to share their base delights lurk in your mind if you be indeed a child of God. Be not envious at the transgressors. Who would envy a criminal about to be executed his last draught of wine? Let not their frivolities attract you. Every sensible man pities the wretch who can dance under the gallows. Sinners on the road to hell sporting and jesting are worse than mad, or their singing would turn to sighing.

THE SUN ECLIPSED

“To put out a candle is no great matter; but to have the sun eclipsed, which is the fountain of light, that sets the world a-wondering! For poor creatures to lose their comforts is no great wonder, who, though they live in God, are so many degrees distant from him; but for Christ, who was God-man in one person, to be forsaken of God, that is a difficulty to our thoughts and a wonder indeed, for by this means he was so far deprived of some part of himself.”

Yes, indeed, this is the wonder of wonders, the miracle of miracles, at which my mind would forever stand amazed. That the thrice Holy One should take the sinner’s place, and, coming under the sinner’s doom, should be smitten of God, is a mystery past finding out! Hell is horribly amazing, but the death of Jesus is far more astounding, and especially that in death he should cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” Only the Son of God could endure this great grief; yet is it a mystery of mysteries, that so divine a person should be capable of enduring it. The marvel is thought to be that a man should be able to suffer so much; but the real marvel is that, being God, he should suffer at all that which was the very essence of his grief—the being forsaken by the Father.

My soul, adore and love; understand thou canst not. Behold the eclipse of thy soul’s Sun, and know that, had not this been, thou wouldst have been in the dark forever.

THE ASS WISER THAN THE SINNER

“You cannot drive a dull ass into the fire that is kindled before his eyes.”

The ungodly are far more brutish, for they choose the way of destruction, and rush with eagerness into the flames of hell. “Surely in vain is the net spread in the sight of any bird,” and yet men see the net, and hasten into it. Sinners take more pains to go to hell than the saints to go to heaven. They are more bold to destroy themselves than saints are in their salvation. What greater proof can we have of the madness of their hearts, and what plainer evidence that salvation is not by the will of man, but by grace alone?

Lord, save me and mine from that obstinate love of sin which makes men more brutish than the ox and the ass.

SURFACE MELTING

“Some are frightened into a little religiousness in their straits and deep necessities, but it is poor work and superficial work. They are like ice in thawing weather, soft at top and hard at bottom.”

They melt, but to no very great extent. It is upon the surface only that they yield to heavenly influences. This is a sorry state of things, for it generally ends in a harder frost than before, and the bonds of cold indifference bind the very soul. Let those in whom there are any meltings of holy feeling take heed, for their danger lies in being content with a partial subjection to gracious influences. Grace will be all or nothing: the ice must all melt, and the soul must flow like a river. Jesus did not come to create temporary and partial religious feeling, but to make new creatures of us. He will have nothing to do with those Ephraimites who are as halfdone cakes, which are black on one side with too much baking, but have never been turned so as to feel the fire on the other side. The centre of the heart must feel the warmth of divine love, or nothing is done.

Lord, shine on my soul till I am wholly melted, and all my ice has vanished. Thou alone canst break up nature’s frost, but thou canst do it. Shine on me, most patient Lord.

THE DRUNKEN SERVANT STILL A SERVANT

“A drunken servant is a servant, and bound to do his work; his master loseth not his right by his man’s default.”

It is a mere assumption, though some state it with much confidence, that inability removes responsibility. As our author shows, a servant may be too drunk to do his master’s bidding, but his service is still his master’s due. If responsibility began and ended with ability, a man would be out of debt as soon as he was unable to pay; and if a man felt that he could not keep his temper he would not be blamable for being angry. A man may be bound to do what he cannot do: the habitual liar is bound to speak the truth, though his habit of falsehood renders him incapable of it. Every sin renders the sinner less able to do right, but the standard of his duty is not lowered in proportion to the lowering of his capacity to come up to it, or it would follow that the more a man is depraved by sin the less guilty his actions become, which is absurd.

Every Christian will confess that it is his duty to be perfect, and yet he mourns over his inability to be so. It never enters into the Christian’s head to excuse his failings by pleading the incapacity of his nature; nay, this is another cause for lamentation.

The standard of responsibility is the command of God. The law cannot be lowered to our fallen state. It is sin to neglect or break a divine command. All the theology which is based upon the idea that responsibility is to be measured by moral ability or inability has the taint of error about it.

Lord, make me to know my obligation, that I may be humbled, and help me to adore thy grace, by which alone holiness can be wrought in me.

CYPRESS TREES

“Some talk, but do nothing; like cypress trees, tall and beautiful, but unfruitful; or, like the carbuncle, afar off seeming all on fire, but the touch discovers it to be key-cold: their zeal is more in their tongues than their actions.”

These are a numerous race, and never more so than at this time. Persecution is an unhealthy season for false professors, who prefer to flourish in the piping times of peace, when godliness is gain, and it pays to get Christ to-day and sell him to-morrow. The cypress tree is an excellent emblem of the more prominent specimens of this class. They are conspicuous, and aim to be so: rising above their fellows, they invite attention; but when you turn your eyes toward them you cannot discover even a tiny apple upon them, or any other useful fruit. Certainly they are shapely and stately, and when you have said that yon have said all. They look most at home near the grave, and a melancholy air surrounds them, but still they are not half as valuable as the more lowly fruit-bearers which flourish unobserved with a cheerful verdure. Certain professors whom we know are prim, stiff, orderly, and melancholy, but we are not fond of their neighborhood; for they yield no refreshing shade or nourishing fruit, and make us feel doleful to the last degree.

Lord, let me be as low and unnoticed as thou pleasest, but do enable me to bear fruit, to the honor of thy name and to the comfort of thy people.

THE EMPTY BRAG

“A Roman bragged ‘that he had never been reconciled with his mother,’ implying that he had never disagreed with her. So, some say they were never comforted, they never needed it; they lay nothing to heart.”

Of this company are those who were born free, and were never in bondage to any man, and yet, by their boastings, set the fetters of their pride a-clanking. Those who were never wounded, and therefore have never been healed, may glory in their state, but the time will come when they will wish it were otherwise with them, and envy the very least of those broken-hearted ones whom Jesus has bound up. A day shall dawn when the self-righteous, who are now at ease in Zion, would gladly exchange places with those whom they now despise as morbid and melancholy.

Lord, let me be among those who confess that they were once thine enemies, and have been reconciled to thee by the death of thy Son. Let me be numbered among those who were the servants of sin, but have, through thy grace, obeyed from the heart the doctrine of thy word. Let me ever vividly perceive that I have undergone a radical change, which I greatly needed, and without which I should have been an heir of wrath, even as others.

THE HEDGE OF THORNS

“Wicked men are preserved in reference to the godly; they are but as a defence of thorns about a garden of roses. Now, when the roses are cropped off, what will become of the thorns?”

This is a solemn question, and should arouse the careless. Ungodly men are a sort of scaffold to God’s house, and when the house is finished they must be pulled down. The husk is needful to the wheat at a certain time, but when the corn is ripe the husk is useless chaff, and must be separated from it. An ungodly mother is to a pious son as the chaff to the wheat, and ere-long the chaff must be driven away. What think ye of this, ye unsaved parents of godly children? What think ye of this, ye unregenerate brothers and friends, by whom the godly are succored, while you yourselves remain unsaved?

When good men die the wicked should reflect that there is so much the less salt left to preserve society. There is one pleader less for the preservation of the barren tree. Every saint taken home brings the world so much nearer its end. Much as they may despise the godly, the deaths of righteous men ought to be solemn warnings to the thoughtless world, as they reflect upon what must happen to the world when those who are its light and its salt are taken away.

THE UNUSED KEY

“A key rusteth that is seldom turned in the lock.”

It becomes hard work to stir it, for it becomes rusted into its place. Neglect of prayer makes prayer become hard work, whereas it should be a privilege and a delight. We cannot restrain prayer, and yet enjoy prayer. Frequency in this matter helps fervor, and constancy in it brings out the comfort of it.

Am I becoming slack in devotion? O Lord, forgive me, and save me from this grave neglect before it begins to eat into my soul and corrode my heart!

THE SERPENT’S EGG

“It is easier to crush the egg than to kill the serpent.”

It is prudent to break up all the eggs we can find before the reptiles are hatched. Far greater wisdom will be shown in early dealing with an error or a temptation than in allowing it time to make headway. In our own cases, it will be best to correct ourselves betimes, and unhesitatingly to stamp out the first sparks of ill desire, before passion rises to a flame. A serpent’s egg a child can break, but who is to contend with the venomous creature which may be hatched from it, if it be left unbroken? So is it with that vice which stingeth like a viper. The first glass can readily be refused; it is quite another matter to stop when the wine has entered the brain. The first impropriety we may readily avoid; but when unclean desires are fully aroused, who shall bridle them?

O Lord, of thy grace, teach me to crush sin betimes, lest it should gather strength and crush me.

INVISIBLE INK

“Things written with the juice of a lemon, when they are brought to the fire are plain and legible; so when wicked men draw near to the fires of hell, their secret sins stand out before them, and they cry out upon their beds.”

The prospect of eternity discovers those secret beliefs and inward fears which they labored so hard to deny and conceal. Few men can keep up a deceit when they approach their end. The skeleton hand readily tears off the mask. A death-bed is not always free from hypocrisy; but, assuredly, it is hard for the dying sinner to keep up his deceit. The fire of his approaching doom brings out the secret writing upon his soul, which even he himself had not before cared to read, and then he who thought himself a firmly rooted sceptic finds out that he had after all an inward conviction which he could not stifle, and a fear in his heart which he could not smother. O that men would seek to know themselves, for it might turn out that the defiant blasphemy of their tongues is not, by any means, a sure index that their heart is at rest in unbelief.

What must be that man’s condition whose very infidelity is feigned? It is a terrible thing to be a sham Christian, but what must be the worthlessness of a hypocritical infidel? When the genuine metal is worthless, what shall we say of its counterfeit? Yet we doubt not that thousands of sceptics, in their inmost hearts, believe what they blusteringly deny, and the day will come when, like him whose children they are, they will believe and tremble.

Lord, help me to read my own heart. Let me know my true state, and let that state be such as thou wilt approve.

ONE RAINY DAY

“All the tediousness of the present life is but like one rainy day to an everlasting sunshine.”

How readily, then, should we bear these shortlived troubles! They are but for a moment; just a passing shower, and then the sun will shine out forever. Time is nothing when compared with eternity. To a believer, this sorrowful life is like one drop of grief lost in a sea of glory, one speck of rain in a year of fair weather. These light and momentary afflictions are not worthy to be compared with the eternal bliss which awaits us.

THE TRUMPET AND THE PIPE

“There is a time for the trumpet as well as the pipe.”

We must sometimes sound an alarm; we should be traitors to men’s souls and to our Master if we always piped to dulcet music. He who is always comforting his people will find no comfort when he is called to answer for it before his God another day. Many souls need Boanerges more than Barnabas, thunder more than dew. By many who think themselves great judges the trumpet discourse is judged to be too harsh, and the piper is commended for his pleasant strains; and yet the Lord may distribute the praise and the blame very differently.

My heart, be not thou always craving for soft music. Be willing to be startled and stimulated. Life is a conflict, and thou needest battle music to keep thee up to fighting pitch. Let those who dance with the world pay the pipers who play to them; as for thee, give thine ear to the King’s trumpeters.

POISONED MEAT

“If a man had poison mixed with his meat, although the excellence of his digestion or the strength of his constitution might bear him through, yet he would run great hazard.”

Thus a soul may survive grave doctrinal error; it is possible for it to struggle out of the power of a strong dose of Popery, or Socinianism, or “Modern Thought;” but it runs great risks, of a character so violent that no one should lightly venture upon them. Our safest course is to take heed what we hear, and partake of nothing which comes from doubtful quarters.

O my Lord, do thou feed me with the bread of life. Suffer me not to taste of Satan’s dainties. I have no strength to spare. Forbid that I should test it by imbibing the deadly teachings of those who err from thy truth.

TASTE

“Love maketh faith more operative; there is a knowledge by sight, and a knowledge by taste. A man may guess at the goodness of wine by the color, but more by the taste; that is a more refreshing apprehension. Augustine prayeth, ‘Lord, make me taste by love what I perceive by knowledge.’ Surely, we are never sound in Christianity till all the light that we receive be turned into love.”

It is so. Love comes to close dealings with truth, and gets a truer knowledge of it than any other grace. A hot iron, even though blunt, will penetrate further into a board than a cold tool, though it be sharp; and so love enters further into truth than mere thought or study can do. David would have us “taste and see;” for the palate sees more into the essence of things than the eye can do; love discovers more than reason can ever know. That which love learns is also more useful than the cold notions of the brain, for it sets men working for Jesus, and leads them to follow him, and makes them willing to suffer for him. We have heard of some who could not dispute for their Lord, and yet they died for him, and were not such among the best of his followers? He who only knows truth in the light of it, is not worthy to be compared with the believer who receives truth in the love of it.

O Lord, let me never use thy gospel as a pillow for my head, but as a medicine for my heart. Do not suffer me to be content with mere knowing; cause me always to be deeply in love with thy word.

FAR OFF LOOKS SMALL

“Look, as the stars, those vast globes of light, by reason of the distance between us and them, do seem but as so many spangles; so we have but a weak sight of things which are set at a great distance, and their operation on us is usually but small.”

Hence the need of faith, by which things are brought near to us, and made to stand out in their reality. A far-off hell is the dread of no man, and a far-off heaven is scarce desired by any one. God himself, while thought of as far away, is not feared or reverenced as he should be. If we did but use our thoughts upon the matter we should soon see that a mere span of time divides us from the eternal world, while the Lord our God is nearer to us than our souls are to our bodies. Strange that the brief time which intervenes between us and eternity should appear to the most of men to be so important, while eternity itself they regard as a trifling matter. They use the microscope to magnify the small concerns of time; O that they would use the telescope upon the vast matters of eternity! How differently would they order their lives with judgment felt to be at their doors! How would they seek to escape from infinite wrath, if they felt it to be nigh!

Lord, arouse me, and all around me, to a due estimate of eternal matters. Enable me to project my soul into the infinite. Break me free of this narrow present, and launch my soul upon the wide and open sea of the ages to come. Thou art in eternity, and let my soul even now dwell there with thee.

PLEADING THE HANDWRITING

“We have a strong tie upon God, because he giveth us the promise, which is our ground of hope. Surely we may put his bonds in suit, and say, ‘Thy handwriting is placed before thee, O Lord.’ ”

We say among men—we have it in black and white, and there is no getting over it: a man’s handwriting binds him. Now, we may be sure that the Lord will never deny his own writing, nor run back from a bond given under his own hand and seal. Every promise of Scripture is a writing of God, which may be pleaded before him with this reasonable request, “Do as thou hast said.” The Creator will not cheat his creature who depends upon his truth; and, far more, the heavenly Father will not break his word to his own child.

“Remember the word unto thy servant, on which thou hast caused me to hope,” is most prevalent pleading. It is a double argument: it is thy word, wilt thou not keep it? Why hast thou spoken it if thou wilt not make it good? Thou hast caused me to hope in it, wilt thou disappoint the hope which thou hast thyself begotten in me?

How sure are thy promises, O my God. Forgive me that I ever doubt them, and give me more faith, that I may treat them as the blessings which they guarantee, even as men pass checks and notes from hand to hand as if they were the gold they stand for.

KEEPING OUT THE COLD

“A man that would keep out the cold in winter shutteth all his doors and windows, yet the wind will creep in, though he doth not leave any open hole for it.”

We must leave no inlet for sin, but stop up every hole and cranny by which it can enter. There is need of great care in doing this, for when our very best is done sin will find an entrance. During the bitter cold weather we list the doors, put sandbags on the windows, draw curtains, and arrange screens, and yet we are made to feel that we live in a northern climate: in the same way must we be diligent to shut out sin, and we shall find abundant need to guard every point, for after we have done all, we shall, in one way or another, be made to feel that we live in a sinful world.

Well, what must we do? We must follow the measures which common prudence teaches us in earthly matters. We must drive out the cold by keeping up a good fire within. The presence of the Lord Jesus in the soul can so warm the heart that worldliness and sin will be expelled, and we shall be both holy and happy. The Lord grant it, for Jesus’ sake.

THE TRAITOR WITHIN

“A garrison is not free from danger while it hath an enemy lodged within.”

You may bolt all your doors, and fasten all your windows, but if the thieves have placed even a little child within doors, who can draw the bolts for them, the house is still unprotected. All the sea outside a ship cannot do it damage till the water enters within and fills the hold. Hence, it is dear, our greatest danger is from within. All the devils in hell and tempters on earth could do us no injury if there were no corruption in our nature. The sparks will fall harmlessly if there is no tinder. Alas, our heart is our greatest enemy: this is the little home-born thief.

Lord, save me from that evil man, myself.

FIRE FROM HEAVEN

“The heathens counted that the fire which was enkindled by a sunbeam was more fit and pure for their altars than a coal taken from a common hearth.”

Herein they blindly stumbled upon the image of a great spiritual truth. The right fire for a preacher of the gospel is fire from God himself. All else defiles the sacrifice, and is sure, sooner or later, to die out. When we speak for God it is a blessed thing to speak through God. Excitement arising from animal spirits is a poor substitute for the Holy Ghost. Far worse is the stimulus of wine or strong drink, which is an absolute profanation of holy things and a presumptuous provocation of God. To attempt to serve God under the influence of the “mocker” is to mock the Most Holy One.

To preach under the stimulus of anger is horrible, and to do so from motives of ambition is equally so. Nadab and Abihu died before the Lord for offering strange fire, and this should be a perpetual warning to all who bear the vessels of the Lord.

O fire of God, touch our lips, yea, burn in our hearts. Let no strange fire come near us: neither from the furnace of anger, nor from the flames of ambitious desire, nor from the flash of carnal excitement may we ever borrow our fires, when we wait at thine altar, O Lord.

PETER MARTYR’S ILLUSTRATION

Celius Secundus Curio hath a notable passage in the Life of Galiacius Caracciolas, as to the occasion of his conversion. One John Francis Casarta, who was enlightened with the knowledge of the gospel, was very urgent with this nobleman, his cousin, to come and hear Peter Martyr, who then preached at Naples. One day, by much entreaty, he was drawn to hear him, not so much with a desire to learn and profit as out of curiosity.

Peter Martyr was then opening the First Epistle to the Corinthians, and showing how much the judgment of the natural understanding is mistaken in things spiritual. Among other things, he used this similitude: “If a man, riding in an open country, should, afar off, see men and women dancing together, and should not hear their music, according to which they dance and tread out their measures, he would think them to be a company of fairies or madmen, appearing in such various motions and antic postures; but if he came nearer, and heard the musical notes, according to which they exactly danced, he would find that to be art which before he thought madness. The same happeneth to him who at first sees a change of life, company, and fashions in his former companions; he thinketh they are brain-sick and foolish; but when he cometh more intimately to weigh the thing, and what an exact harmony there is between such a life and conversation and the motions of God’s Holy Spirit and the directions of his word, he findeth that to be the highest reason which before he judged madness and folly.”

This similitude stuck in the mind of the noble marquis (as he was wont to relate it to his familiar friends), that ever afterward he wholly applied his mind to the search of the truth and the practice of holiness, and left all his honors and vast possessions for a poor life, in the profession of the gospel, at Geneva.

This needs not a word from us. If ungodly men could only hear the music to which we dance, they would dance too.

THE INWARD REGISTRAR

“If conscience speaketh not, it writeth; for it is not only a witness, but a register, and a book of record: ‘The sin of Judah is written with a pen of iron, and the point of a diamond,’ Jer. 17:1. We know not what conscience writeth, being occupied and taken up with carnal vanities, but we shall know hereafter, when the books are opened, Rev. 20:12. Conscience keepeth a diary, and sets down everything. This book, though it be in the sinner’s keeping, cannot be razed and blotted out. Well, then, a sleepy conscience will not always sleep; if we suffer it not to awaken here, it will awaken in hell; for the present it sleepeth in many, in regard of motion, check, or smiting, but not in regard of notice and observation.”

Let those who forget their sins take note of this. There is a chiel within you taking notes, and he will publish all where all will hear it. Never say, “Nobody will see me,” for you will see yourself, and your conscience will turn king’s evidence against you.

What a volume Mr. Recorder Conscience has written already! How many blotted pages he has in store, to be produced upon my trial. O thou who alone canst erase this dreadful handwriting, look on me in mercy, as I now look on thee by faith.

STUDY PROPORTIONS

“A drop of honey is not enough to sweeten a hogshead of vinegar.”

Under great troubles we need great grace to console us. We must seek the special aid of the Holy Spirit, and be more diligent and fervent in prayer, for the eternal consolation of the Covenant. A proportion must be maintained: as he who sets out upon a long journey takes all the more money with him, so, in prospect of a great trial, we should seek extraordinary grace. The heavier the wagon, the more horses the farmer puts into the team; and so, the more difficult our service, the more grace must we bring to bear upon it.

Lord, when we have much sorrow, let us taste more of thy love, and the vinegar will become sweet wine. If now thou dost try us severely, be pleased also to comfort us richly.

THE HEN WHICH DOES NOT SIT ON HER EGGS

“A sudden glance at truth without meditation upon it bringeth nothing to perfection; as a hen that soon leaveth her nest never hatcheth her chicks.”

How can she? Patience is needed, and the quiet self-denial by which she renders up the warmth of her heart, otherwise her eggs will lie as dead as stones. The value of truth will never be known by those who look at it and hurry on: they must brood over it, and cover it with their heart’s love, or it will never become living truth to their souls. We must apply ourselves to a doctrine, giving our whole soul and heart to it, or we shall miss the blessing. Herein is wisdom.

Lord, when I hear a sermon, or read in a good book, let me not be as the partridge which sitteth on eggs and hatcheth them not; but make me to see life and power in thy word, and to rejoice over it as one that findeth great spoil.

THE THIEF AND THE CANDLE

“A thief is always desirous to have the candles put out.”

His trade is best carried on in the dark. This is the reason why Satan is so dead set against faithful preachers and teachers: he can rob the church, and plunder souls so much better when the light of the gospel is withdrawn. How much better could the Pope pick our purses with his purgatory, indulgences, and relics, if the gospel light were quenched among us! The old-fashioned doctrines of grace are the candles of the Lord, and we must keep these well alight among the people, or we shall soon find the Romish thieves busy among us.

This is one reason why creeds and catechisms are so much detested by men of the modern school: these candles are not to their mind, for they prevent their robbing us of the treasures of divine truth.

Lord, I bless thee for the light, and I pray that I may not quench even the tiniest taper by which thou dost enlighten me.

AUGUSTINE’S STORY

“Take heed of giving way to sin. The heart that was easily troubled before, when once it is inured to sin, loseth all its sensitiveness and tenderness, and what seemed intolerable at first grows into a delight. Alipius, St. Austin’s friend, first abhorred the bloody spectacles of the gladiators, but gave himself leave, through the importunity of friends, to be present for once. He would not so much as open his eyes at first; but at length, when the people shouted, he gave himself liberty to see, and then not only beheld the spectacles with delight, but drew others to behold what himself once loathed.”

The story has had its counterpart in thousands of instances. Men who shuddered at the sight of a dead bird have, by familiarity with cruelty, come to commit murder without compunction. Those who sipped half a glass of wine have come to drink by the gallon. Stanch Protestants have given way to some little form and ceremony, and become more Popish than the Romanists themselves. There is no safety if we venture an inch over the boundary line; indeed, little allowances are more dangerous than greater compliances, since conscience does not receive a wound, and yet the man is undone, and falls by little and little.

Come, my soul, leave sin altogether. Do not give Sodom so much as a look, nor take from it so much as a thread. Do not set a foot within her doors, for God abhors the abode of sin, and would have his people refrain their foot from it.

SLEEPING BY WATERFALLS

“Things to which we are used do not work upon us; we are not much moved with them. Custom maketh men sleep quietly by the falls of great waters, which much noise is; and some parts of the body grow callous, brawny, dry, and dead, as the laborer’s hand and the traveller’s heel, by much use.”

So doth the conscience gradually lose its force. At first, like a cataract, its great roar astounds the soul, and effectually prevents its slumbers of carnal security; but by and by its noise is scarcely heard, and men are even lulled to sleep by its sound. Now, this is to be dreaded exceedingly, for it is the forerunner of doom. No more warnings are heard, because sentence has gone forth, and the man’s destruction is sealed.

Even on a smaller scale, it is a serious thing to have conscience lose its tenderness. Christian men, by association with the world, and by a want of thorough consideration, may come to do with impunity things which would shock them if their consciences were in a healthy state. It is dangerous for a steam-engine when the tell-tale does not act; and no one knows what mischief may come through the failure of the soul’s indicator. We wish to know what is evil that we may avoid it; and it is a serious calamity when the warning faculty has become dulled and silent through continuance in sin. Better far to live in perpetual anxiety to be right, than to remain at ease while doing wrong.

Lord, make my conscience tender as the apple of my eye. Awaken it, and keep it awake.

THE DECOY

“As a fowler catches many birds by one decoy, a bird of the same feather, so God bringeth us to himself by men of the same nature, and subject to the same temptations and the same commands. He attracts us to himself by men with whom we may have ordinary and visible commerce, and not by angels, that might affright us. He calls us by our fellow-creatures, who are concerned in the message as much as we are; men that know the heart of a man by experience, and know our prejudices and temptations.”

In this choice of means, wisdom and condescension are equally manifest, for which we are bound to render grateful adoration. Blessed be God that he calls men by men, adopting thus the kindest and most effectual mode of dealing with us. We should also learn wisdom, and receive practical guidance from this act of God: when we would win our fellow-men for Jesus let us show ourselves to be near of kin to them. If, by a lofty and distant bearing, we act as if we belonged to another race, we shall be poor decoy-birds. The poor bird fascinates its like by being of their kith and kin, and we must capture hearts for Jesus by showing that we are of like passions with them, and love them much. Love men to Jesus—that is the art of soul-winning.

Blessed Lord Jesus, thou didst this win my heart, for I had never loved thee and trusted thee if I had not perceived thee to be touched with a feeling of my infirmity. Thy sympathetic manhood draws my manhood to thee, and I am won to thy Father by thy brotherly love.

A DISLOCATED BONE

“When a bone is out of joint, the longer the setting is forborne the greater will the pain of the patient be; yea, it may be so long neglected that no skill nor art can set it right again. So it is in the cure of a wounded spirit and a bleeding conscience.”

Fly, then, O wounded one, to the Lord thy Saviour, at once. When delays are dangerous as well as painful, who would linger? For the most part, injured persons are anxious to be carried to the surgeon at once: they dread the inflammatory action which may be set up in the injured parts. In spiritual wounds the fever of fear soon heats into despair, unless the divine Healer is fetched in. When Jesus comes he suffers no delay; speedily he healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Unbelief pulls off the bandages, and presumption declares that the limb is as sound as ever; but humble faith waits only upon the Lord, and cries to him to make haste for her deliverance.

O Lord, heal me speedily, I beseech thee.

DRINKING TO DROWN CARE

“He is a mountebank who strives to make men forget their spiritual sorrows instead of loading them to the true cure. This is like a man in debt who drinks to drown his thoughts; but this neither pays the debt nor postpones the reckoning.”

When conscience is uneasy, it is foolish as well as wicked to attempt to smother its cries with worldly merriment. Nay, let us hear it patiently. If we be in debt let us know it, and set about meeting our liabilities like honest men; but to burn the ledger and discharge the clerk is a madman’s way of going to work. O soul, be true to thyself. Face thin own case, however bad it may be; for refusing to know and consider the sure facts will not alter or improve them. He is a cruel doctor who tells the afflicted patient that he ails nothing, and thus sets him for the time at his ease, at the terrible cost of future disease, rendered incurable by delay.

Lord, bring me to the bar of my conscience now, lest I stand condemned at thy bar of judgment hereafter.

THE HEN AND HER EGGS

“To be careless of the degree of our grace makes way for the loss of the whole. Christians are like a hen when many eggs are taken out of the nest; as long as one or two remaineth, she taketh no notice of it, and forsaketh not the nest. Be not thus foolish, but consider whether there be not abatement of some degree of your grace, though a little may remain with you still. Content not yourselves that all is not lost because something remains; but seek to have grace in as great a proportion as formerly.”

A miser would not be content to miss a part of his gold because a pile still remained; the woman in the parable was not easy because she had many pieces of money left; neither should we be comfortable if a grain of grace is lost by us, even though we may be well assured that a saving portion still remains. Why should we lose any measure of grace? We shall need it all. At our strongest we are weak enough. We have never one whit of love to spare; what a pity that we should lose a fragment of it.

No man is more sure of being poor than he who loses his estate insensibly. You may stop a leak if you perceive it, but what can save a ship which sinks imperceptibly. We may heal a wound, but when life oozes away in secret who can save us?

Lord, help us to perceive, to lament, and to recover the least loss in gracious matters.

THE LITTLE WISP

“Little sticks set the great ones on fire, and a little wisp is often used to enkindle a great block of wood.”

Thus have we known persons of small talent and position influence their superiors by their zeal. Though themselves able to do but little, they have been full of fervor, and so have ventured further than the more solid and prudent felt at first inclined to do. Some of us have had to thank God for our weaker brethren who have been more eager and venturesome than we were: these wisps and bunches of firewood, though they could not keep up the fire, came in very opportunely to give the flames a start. Even rash suggestions have their value. Fools who are all alive may do good service to wise men, when they are sluggish and slow. It is right to get good out of all good men. When we meet with persons of little substance but of considerable kindling power, let us put them together like matches and splinters of wood, for the commencement of an enterprise, and when we find others to be like heavy old logs, let us put them to use when the flame has taken good hold, for if they once get thoroughly alight they will sustain the fire long after the straw and the shavings have passed away.

Reader, which are you, a wisp or a log? In either case there is a place for you, and be it your ambition, in some way or other, to be consumed for your Lord’s service.

MATTOCKS OF GOLD

“To prefer our own ease, quiet, profit, before the glory of God, is madness. Would it not be insanity to dig for iron with mattocks of gold?”

Our author means that it must always be unreasonable to make the means greater than the end. When man lives for the glory of God he spends his strength for something far beyond himself in value, and thus he acts as reasonably as when men dig for gold with mattocks of iron; but when an immortal mind spends itself upon decaying objects, such as transient gain and pleasure, it is occupied beneath itself, and is like a mattock of gold used in searching for base metal. It is a misapplication of forces for the nobler to spend itself upon the meaner. Men do not usually care to spend a pound in the hope of getting back a groat and no more, and yet, when the soul is given up for the sake of worldly gain, the loss is greater still, and not even the groat remains.

Lord, arouse me from the folly of grovelling among earthly things. Make my soul reasonable, that it may devote itself to worthy pursuits; and what can be so worthy of me as thyself! Thou art above all, and infinitely better than all; to thee I devote my whole being. O help me to live alone for thy glory. Thy grace I need; let thy grace come to me with power.

TREES MARKED FOR THE AXE

“To fix our confidence upon a dying world is folly. It is as if we were building our nests when the tree is being cut down, or decorating our cabin when the ship is likely to be dashed in pieces or is already sinking.”

Is it a time to drive a trade for ourselves when we are just leaving earth, and hope soon to be in heaven? Yet too many among professors are doing this. Their hearts are set upon their money, they build their nest in the golden grove; or they are wrapt up in their children, and, as it were, nestle down among those who spring up as willows by the watercourses. The axe is laid at the root of all earthly comforts, and, therefore, those who are taught of God soar aloft, and make their eyries on the Rock of Ages. What is our friend doing whose eyes are now scanning this page? Where is your heart? What is its dear delight and joy? Is it of earth? Then be sure that to earth it will return. Is your joy a thing of heaven? Then alone is it stable and sure.

My soul, the world is passing away, set not thy love upon it. The ship is sinking, care little about the little luxuries of the berth which thou hast for a while occupied in it. Up and away! This is not thy rest. See, before thine eyes the fashion of this world passeth away; look to eternity and to thy God, for there alone is solid bliss.

THE SPIRE

“The best of God’s people have abhorred themselves. Like the spire of a steeple, minimus in summo, we are least at the highest. David, a king, was yet like a weaned child.”

Manton is not very clear about the steeple, but he means that the higher a spire rises toward heaven the smaller it becomes, and thus the more elevated are our spirits the less shall we be in our own esteem. Great thoughts of self and great grace never go together. Self-consciousness is a sure sign that there is not much depth of grace. He who overvalues himself under-values his Saviour. He who abounds in piety is sure to be filled with humility. Light things, such as straws and feathers, are borne aloft; valuable goods keep their places, and remain below, not because they are chained or riveted there, but by virtue of their own weight. When we begin to talk of our perfection, our imperfection is getting the upper hand. The more full we become of the presence of the Lord the more shall we sink in our own esteem, even as laden vessels sink down to their water-mark, while empty ships float aloft.

Lord, make and keep me humble. Lift me nearer and nearer to heaven, and then I shall grow less and less in my own esteem.

CHAFF AND WHEAT CONTRASTED

“Light chaff is blown up and down by every wind, when solid grain hitcheth in, and resteth on the floor where it is winnowed.”

Constancy is one of the evidences of worth. Those who change their religion generally need to be changed by their religion before they will have any religion worth the having. Fickle professors are ready to be the prey of every new teacher; his breath is enough to blow them according to his pleasure. They are everything by turns, and nothing long. Depend upon it, he knows nothing of the preciousness of truth, who is ready to stand and deliver to every footpad of heresy who challenges him: he who has about him doctrines which he esteems to be a treasure will fight for them, and send the robber to the rightabouts.

We know one of whom we usually ask, whenever we see him, “What are you now?” Yet are there some good points about him, and he has a mind open to conviction, too open a great deal to be a fit casket for the jewels of truth. We have seen a child in a field of flowers, filling its little hand eagerly, and then dropping its posy, not for better but for other flowers. Many professors are such children.

A heart which is fickle in its love is not likely to make a marriage with the truth. Lord, fix my heart in thy truth, and never let it be removed.

THE DEATH-BLOW OF POPERY

“When Dr. Day discoursed with Stephen Gardiner concerning free justification by Christ, saith he, ‘O, Mr. Doctor, open that gap to the people, and we are undone!’ The more gospel there is discovered, the more Antichrist is discovered. Free grace puts the foundation of Popery out of course.”

The doubtful doctrine of many Protestants is a greater encouragement to Romanism than all her own finery can bring to her. Rome has gained more by Oxford than by all her cardinals. The glorious doctrines of grace are the great guns with which the Papal galleys may be blown out of the water. Grace is a word which is as obnoxious to Popery as the name of Jesus to the devil. Reptiles cannot bear salt, nor can Jesuits and priests endure sovereign grace. Their trade is gone when salvation is free. Their honor is gone when Christ is all. When people think much of Jesus and his redemption, they are sure to think little of priests and their fiddle-faddle. It was not Luther’s arguments, but Luther’s plain teaching of justification by faith, which shook the corner-stone of the Vatican. If men are saved by believing, they are not likely to waste money on purgatory pick-purse, nor on any other of the papal schemes for enriching the Church.

Let us then keep gospel truth always to the front, for in our own hearts the best preservative against error is a hearty acceptance of the living Christ and his own sure gospel.

PEARLS AND SWINE

“Pearls do not lose their worth though swine trample upon them.”

Scriptural truth is none the less worthy to be held and proclaimed because foolish and depraved men pervert it to their own destruction. A knife is a very useful article; and, though some have committed suicide by its means, it is no reason why knives should be discarded. The doctrines of grace are pearls even after Antinomians have turned them over. Justification by faith is the crown-jewel of the gospel, though hypocrites abuse it. Every truth is perverted by polluted minds, but this is no reason for our renouncing what God has revealed; rather is it a strong argument for adorning the doctrine of our Saviour in all things.

My heart, see thou to it that the doctrines of grace are honored at thy hands. Since so many pour contempt upon them, do thou hold them in high esteem, and by thy life make them to be esteemed by others.

PERSONAL WITNESS

“A report of a report is a cold thing and of small value; but a report of what we have witnessed and experienced ourselves comes warmly upon men’s hearts.”

So a mere formal description of faith and its blessings falls flat on the ear; but when a sincere believer tells of his own experience of the Lord’s faithfulness, it has a great charm about it. We like to hear the narrative of a journey from the traveller himself. In a court of law they will have no hearsay evidence. Tell us, says the judge, not what your neighbor said, but what you saw yourself. Personal evidence of the power of grace has a wonderfully convincing force upon the conscience. “I sought the Lord, and he heard me,” is better argument than all the Butler’s Analogies that will ever be written, good as they are in their place.

Lord, make me ever prompt to bear my personal witness for thee, and eager to magnify thy grace, of which I have been made a partaker. Never permit me to be ashamed of thy salvation, but make me openly to proclaim thy matchless grace to me.

FREE, YET NOT WITHOUT LABOR

“There is a difference between merit and means; a schoolmaster may teach a child gratis, and yet the boy must himself take pains to get his learning. There is, moreover, a difference between cause and effect, and the mere order of coming. Mercy is never obtained but in the use of means: wisdom’s dole is dispensed at wisdom’s gate.” (Prov. 8:34.)

This is a very important remark, and tends to screen from the charge of legality those who earnestly exhort men to gospel duties. There is no merit in seeking the Lord; but we may not hope to find him without it. Prayer does not deserve an answer, and yet we are to pray without ceasing, neither may we hope to have if we refuse to ask. The cup must be held under the flowing fountain or it will not be filled, yet the cup does not create the water or purchase it. All the exertion which a man makes in running the heavenly race will not merit the prize of eternal life; but it would not therefore be right for him to lie in bed and hope to win it. The Father freely gives the bread of heaven without money and without price, and yet Jesus bade men labor for it.

Lord, thou hast taught me to see a great distinction between the idea of meriting thy favor and the truth that earnest effort is necessary to salvation. Help me to work as if my salvation depended on my working, and them keep me trusting in thee alone, as if I worked not at all. Thou givest me all things, the end and the means to that end. That measure of holy labor which I put forth is first wrought in me, and therefore would I be doubly diligent. I would work because thou workest in me, and strive for victory because thou givest me both the strength and the crown.

BEATEN SPICES

“Spices are most fragrant when burnt and bruised, so have saving graces their chiefest fragrancy in hard times. The pillar that conducted the Israelites appeared as a cloud by day, but as fire by night. The excellency of faith is beclouded till it be put upon a thorough trial.”

Herein lies one of the benefits of affliction, it fetches out latent sweetness and light. Certain herbs yield no smell till they are trodden on, and certain characters do not reveal their excellence till they are tried. The developing power of tribulation is very great: faith, patience, resignation, endurance, and steadfastness are by far the best seen when put to the test by adversity, pain, and temptation. God has created nothing in vain in the new creation any more than in the old, hence one of the sweet necessities of trial is to bring forth and use those precious graces which else had been unemployed. God is not glorified by unused graces, for these lie hidden and bring him no honor; may we not, therefore, rejoice in tribulation, because it fetches out our secret powers, and enables us to give glory to the Lord whom we love? Yes, blessed be the pestle which bruises us, and the mortar in which we lie to be beaten into fragrance. Blessed be the burning coals which liberate our sweet odors and raise them up to heaven like pillars of smoke. Can we not say this? Then it is time we could, and perhaps our present affliction has been sent for that very end—that we may learn the way of complete consecration, and be made perfect through suffering.

STARS AND THEIR STRANGE NAMES

“As the astronomers call the glorious stars bulls, snakes, dragons, and other strange things, so do ungodly men miscall the most shining and glorious graces. Zeal is fury; strictness, nicety; and patience, folly!”

So far as the astronomers are concerned, the names which they give to the constellations are no dishonor to the lamps of heaven; it were well if the other misnomers were equally indifferent. Ill names are, however, a kind of persecution, a part of the “cruel mockings” which are employed by the graceless. Evil comes of it, too, over and above the grieving of pious men, for weak minds avoid zeal when it is stigmatized as fanaticism, and many despise patience when it is maligned as meanness of spirit. Since the weak-minded are so many, this is a great evil which every man who loves his fellows should endeavor to correct. There is a great deal in a name after all. A great falsehood may be wrapped up in a short word, and a current misnomer may produce widespread evil. Let us call things by their right names, and stand up for all that is lovely and of good repute. Why should men bear false witness against the virtues, and villify the fruits of the Spirit? If the will do so, let us not be so cowardly as to be silent; let us speak out boldly, and avow our hearty appreciation of that which the world despises. We will call the stars stars, and let the world call them bears, and crabs, and scorpions, if they will.

THE CHILD WANTING A KNIFE

“God knoweth what is best for us. Like foolish children, we desire a knife; but, like a wise father, he giveth us bread.”

It would be a most unfatherly thing for a man to give his son that which would cause his death. The largest generosity must refuse some requests when it is a higher kindness to withhold than to bestow. The limit which is set to prayer—namely, that if we ask anything in accordance with God’s will he heareth us, is just such a limit is love on God’s part must fix, and as prudence on our part must approve. Would we have the Lord act according to our ignorance or according to his own wisdom? Shall our uninstructed self become the arbiter of God’s providence? Assuredly no Christian in his senses would propose such an arrangement. If it could be proposed and carried out it would place us in daily jeopardy, and work, at its very best, most sadly to our loss.

If we could have our own will absolutely it would be wise not to have it, but to divest ourselves of the horrible privilege. How much more restful are our minds, now that we know that our Father arranges all things, than could possibly be the case if the responsibility of management rested with ourselves. Like Phaeton, who sought to drive the chariot of the sun, we should soon perish by our own folly if the reins of providence were placed in our feeble hands. It is better far that the rule should be, “not as I will, but as thou wilt.”

Lord, give me not what I ask, but what I should ask, yea, what thou seest to be most for thy glory

THE STRIPPED STALK

“ ‘All flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass.’ Many times the flower is gone when the stalk remaineth; so man ofttimes seeth all that he hath been gathering a long time soon dissipated by the breath of providence, and he, like a withered, rotten stalk, liveth scorned and neglected.”

Alas, for such an one! What is the daffodil without its golden crown, or the crocus without its cup of sunshine? Such is man without the object of his life. What is the thorn without its rose, or the tree without its leaves, or the wood without the birds of song? Such is man without the comforts and joys of his being. It is ill to exist when life is dead, to eat and drink when the taste has departed, to move among men when the heart is broken: yet are there thousands in this condition: a blight is on them, their flower and glory are withered, and they are as those who go down into the pit. So have we seen a tree smitten by lightning standing still among its fellows, but no longer adding to the verdure of the forest. It has been, and this is all that we can say of it, for its continuance is but in semblance. Who has not seen men in a like condition? Alas! for those who have no hereafter when this present faileth them, for they fall indeed, and wither with a vengeance.

Blessed is the man who lives in God, for no such withering shall happen to him. God is his crown and glory, the flower of his true being, and God cannot fail him. He shall be as a tree planted by the rivers of water, and not so much as his leaf shall wither.

Lord, make me to live on thy word, which abideth forever, and then when flesh, like grass, shall fade, I shall find eternal joy in thee.

THE SWORD IN A CHILD’S HAND

“Sometimes truth is like a keen weapon in a child’s hand, it maketh little impression because it is weakly wielded.”

Do not therefore blame the truth, but the weak hand. In many cases of controversy the apparent victory of error has been due to the unfitness of the warrior who championed truth. It may for some men be their truest service to the good cause to leave it in stronger hands. We do not send women and children to our battle-fields, nor do we march our recruits to war before they have been trained; neither should we expect raw youths and timid maidens to put on armour at once and face the adversaries of the gospel. It has happened times without number that a blustering infidel has posed a new convert with his sophistical arguments, and then he has shouted as if he had gained a triumph over the truth; whereas his boasting only proved the weakness of his cause, or the childishness of his own mind. He who could crow so loudly over so slender a success must be conscious of inherent feebleness, and therefore he is astonished and elated at the semblance of victory.

Let us all pray to be strengthened, that our inner life, growing day by day, may reach a fulness of stature and a firmness of strength worthy of the heavenly weapon which the Lord has put into our hand. O sacred Spirit, make us strong in the Lord and in the power of his might!

CÆSAR KILLED WITH BODKINS

“Not only do great sins ruin the soul, but lesser faults will do the same. Dallying with temptation leads to sad consequences. Cæsar was killed with bodkins.”

A dagger aimed at the heart will give as deadly a wound as a huge two handed sword, and a little sin unrepented of will be as fatal as a gross transgression. Brutus and Cassius and the rest of the conspirators could not have more surely ended Cæsar’s life with spears than they did with daggers. Death can hide in a drop, and ride in a breath of air. Our greatest dangers lie hidden in little things. Milton represents thousands of evil spirits as crowded into one hall; and truly the least sin may be a very Pandemonium, in which a host of evils may be concealed—a populous hive of mischiefs, each one storing death.

Believer, though thou be a little Cæsar in thine own sphere, beware of the bodkins of thine enemies. Watch and pray, lest thou fall by little and little. Lord, save me from sins which call themselves little.

A STITCH IN TIME

“He who keeps a house in constant repair prevents all fear of its falling to ruin; by stopping each hole and chink as he finds it he keeps off greater mischief.”

We shall do well to use the same economy with our spiritual nature. No great decays of spirit will occur if we look to each of our graces, and lament the first sign of declension in any one of them. A loose stone here, and a fallen tile there, and a rotting timber in a third place, will soon bring on a total ruin to a tenement, but the hand of diligence maintains the fabric. Thus must we watch our spiritual house, lest we fall by little and little. Are there no repairs wanted at this time? Does not my soul show a number of flaws and decays? Come, my heart, look about thee, and pray the Lord to restore that which has fallen.

BUCKETS IN A WELL

“The life of sin and the life of a sinner are like two buckets in a well—if the one goeth up, the other must come down. If sin liveth, the sinner must die.”

It is only when sin dies that a man begins truly to live. Yet we cannot persuade our neighbors that it is so, for their hearts are bound up in their sins, and they think themselves most alive when they can give fullest liberty to their desires. They raise up their sins, and so sink themselves. If they could be persuaded of the truth, they would send the bucket of sin to the very bottom that their better selves might rise into eternal salvation.

Lord, make my fellow-men wise, that they may do this, and teach me the same lesson. I would fain sink every evil and selfish desire that my heart may rise to holiness, to heaven, to thee.

THE UPRIGHT COLUMN

“A straight pillar, the more you lay upon it, the straighter it is, and the more stable; but that which is crooked boweth under the superincumbent weight: so the more God loadeth the godly the more doth he hold fast his integrity, while, on the other hand, the more the Lord casteth in upon carnal men, the more is their spirit perverted.”

A little leaning from the right line is a serious thing: uprightness alone is safety. As our author well says, an upright column will bear anything; it would be hard with any known force to crush an erect pillar. So, when a man is upright before God, neither the weight of good or of ill can overthrow him: he stands in his integrity alike under prosperity and adversity, under fawnings or frownings. When the foundations of the earth are removed, he bears up the pillars thereof. He is like Mount Zion, which can never be moved, but abideth forever. “Let uprightness and integrity preserve me:” these are a sure preservative in the day of trial.

The man who gives way to leanings or inclinations out of the straight line is never safe. It is only necessary to supply sufficient pressure and he falls. Whether he be loaded with wealth or pressed with poverty, he will come to the ground with equal certainty in due time. He is out of the perpendicular, and he must fall sooner or later.

O Lord, give me to stand before thee in perfect uprightness of heart! Take from me any inclination to the right hand or to the left, and establish me upon the eternal basis of thy grace, for Jesus’ sake. Upright Lord, thou alone canst set me upright, and keep me so; hearken to my prayer, I beseech thee.

THE MISER’S BAG OF MONEY

“Affection is a great friend to memory; men remember what they care for: an old man will not forget where he laid his bag of gold. Delight and love are always renewing and reviving their object upon our thoughts. David often asserteth his delight in the law, and because of this delight it was always in his thoughts (Ps. 119:97). ‘O how love I thy law! It is my meditation all the day.’ ”

By this, then, we may judge ourselves whether we have a true and lively love to God and his kingdom. If from day to day we have no thought of him or of his ways, we may be sure that our affection to him, if it be sincere, is assuredly by no means fervent. A man hath little love to his espoused if he thinks of others more than of her. Where the thoughts fly, there doth the heart lie. Not that we can be always thinking of divine things, for we could not perform the duties of our calling if we gave no thought to them, and especially in certain pursuits of life the mind must for the time be concentrated upon the work in hand; but still our mind must be ready to fly to Jesus as soon as the pressure is removed. Love will break over all laws, and rules, and engrossments to have a word with its beloved, and so will the soul do when Jesus is truly its delight. It will fly to revel in his charms as the miser hastens to count his money.

Come, my heart, take thyself to task! Is it not true that if thou wert warmer thy memory would be more retentive? Be penitent, then, because thou art convicted of coolness to thy Well-beloved. Thy frequent forgetfulness of him proves the slackness of thy love.

STORY OF THE KNIGHT

“Thuanus reporteth of Ludovicus Marsacus, a knight of France, when he was led, with other martyrs that were bound with cords, to execution, and he for his dignity was not bound, he cried, ‘Give me my chains, too; let me be a knight of the same order.’ ”

Certainly, it is an honor to be made vile for God; David purposed to abound in such vileness (2 Sam. 6:22). Shame for Christ’s sake is an honor no more to be declined than the highest dignity a mortal man can wear. Among the early Christians the relatives of martyrs were a sort of aristocracy, and the martyrs themselves were regarded as the nobility of the Church. We need a spice of the same spirit at this day. A true believer should tremble when the world commends him, but he should feel complimented when it utterly despises him.

What do we suffer, after all? The most of us are but feather-bed soldiers. Our ways are strewn with roses compared with those who endured hardness in the olden time. We are poor and mean successors of noble ancestors—ennobled by their supreme sufferings. If we cannot reach their superior dignity, nor hope to wear the ruby crown of martyrdom, at least let us not shun such glory as may be obtainable, but accept with cheerful patience whatever of opprobrium this worthless world may honor us with.

BERNARD’S CHARITY

“When Bernard chanced to espy a poor man meanly apparelled, he would say to himself, ‘Truly, Bernard, this man hath more patience beneath his cross than thou hast;’ but if he saw a rich man delicately clothed, then he would say, ‘It may be that this man, under his delicate clothing, hath a better soul than thou hast under thy religious habit!’ ”

This showed an excellent charity! Oh, that we could learn it! It is easy to think evil of all men, for there is sure to be some fault about each one which the least discerning may readily discover; but it is far more worthy of a Christian, and shows much more nobility of soul, to spy out the good in each fellow-believer. This needs a larger mind as well as a better heart, and hence it should be a point of honor to practise ourselves in it till we obtain an aptitude for it. Any simpleton might be set to sniff out offensive odors; but it would require a scientific man to bring to us all the fragrant essences and rare perfumes which lie hid in field and garden. Oh, to learn the science of Christian charity! It is an art far more to be esteemed than the most lucrative of human labors. This choice art of love is the true alchemy. Charity toward others, abundantly practised, would be the death of envy and the life of fellowship, the overthrow of self and the enthronement of grace.

Charity, be thou my classics, my poetry, my science, my music, for thou art more to be desired than all these. Thou art a Godlike thing, and I would be filled with thee.

A SWORD NOT TO BE JUDGED BY THE BELT

“We do not judge a sword to be good merely because it hangs by a golden belt, or because it is set in a jewelled hilt.”

Neither is a doctrine to be valued because a fine orator delivers it in gorgeous speech with glittering words. A lie is none the better for being bespangled with poetic phrases and high-sounding periods. Yet half our people forget this, and glittering oratory fascinates them. Alas, poor simpletons!

The same blunders are made about men, who should ever be esteemed according to their native worth, and not according to their position and office. What mistakes we should make if we considered all the hangers-on of great men to be themselves great, or all the followers of good men to be themselves necessarily good. Alas! the Lord himself had his Judas, and to this day swords of brittle metal hang at the golden girdle of his Church. A man is not a saint because he occupies a saintly office, or repeats saintly words.

No; the test of a sword’s goodness is to be found in battle. Will its edge turn in the fray, or will it cut through a coat of mail? Will our faith bear affliction? Will it stand us in good stead when we are hand to hand with the enemy? Will it avail us in the dying hour? If not, we may suspend it on the glittering belt of great knowledge, and hold it by the jewelled hilt of a high profession; but woe unto us!

Lord, give me the true Jerusalem blade of childlike faith in thee, and may I never rest content with a mere imitation thereof.

THE MOON ECLIPSED ONLY AT THE FULL

“The moon is never eclipsed but when it is at the full. Certainly God’s people are then in most danger.”

When all goes well with them in house and field, in basket and in store, then should then look lest they be full and forget the Lord, and so become eclipsed. For the world to come between us and our Lord is very easy but very terrible. When all is apparently prosperous as to soul matters, and neither doubt, nor fear, nor temptation comes in, then also should the heart look well to its bearings lest at this very moment some evil should Interpose between God and the soul, and darkness should be the fearful result.

Remember this, dear reader: eclipses happen at the full moon. Look to thyself, then, in thy moments of greatest happiness and peace, for then is the time of peril.

Whene’er becalmed I lie,
And storms forbear to toss;
Be thou, dear Lord, still nigh,
Lest I should suffer loss.
Far more the treacherous calm I dread,
Than tempests thundering overhead.

EAGLES AND FLIES

“Walk worthy of God, who hath called you unto his kingdom. (1 Thess. 2:12). Live as kings, commanding your spirits, judging your souls to be above ordinary pursuits. It is not for eagles to catch flies. As of old it was said, ‘Cogita te Cæsarem esse?’—‘Remember that thou art Cæsar,’ so say we to each believer, ‘Remember that thou shalt one day be a king with God in glory, and therefore walk becomingly.’ ”

This is important teaching, and much needed in these days. Many who declare themselves to be eagles spend the most of their lives in hawking for flies: we even hear of professing Christians frequenting the theatre. Instead of acting like kings, many who claim to be the sons of God act as meanly as if they were scullions in the kitchen of Mammon. They do not judge themselves to be Cæsars, but they demean themselves as if they were Cæsar’s slaves, living upon his smile, and asking his leave to move. What separation from the world, what brave holiness, what self-denial, what heavenly walking with God ought to be seen in those who are chosen to be a peculiar people, the representatives of God on earth, and courtiers of the new Jerusalem above! As the world waxes worse and worse, it becomes men of God to become better and better. If sinners stoop lower, saints must rise higher, and show them that a regenerate life cannot share in the general corruption.

O Lord, I know that in Christ Jesus thou hast made me a king; help me, then, to live a right royal life. Lay home to my conscience that question—What manner of persons ought we to be? and may I so answer it that I may live worthy of my high calling.

BRIDLES FOR OLD HORSES

“Not only colts, but horses already broken, need a bridle.”

Indeed they do, and so also do we who are advanced in years and full of experience. Old men are not always wise men. Passions which should have been by this time quite subdued still need bit and bridle, or they may hurry us into fatal errors. Flesh does not improve by keeping, nor do corruptions sweeten by the lapse of years. New converts need to watch in the morning of their days, but old saints must be equally on their guard, for the hours become no safer as they draw toward evening. We are all within gunshot of the enemy as long as we are this side of Jordan.

“Without me ye can do nothing,” is as true of strong men as of babes in grace. Temptation, like fire, will burn where the wood is green, and certainly it hath no less power where the fuel is old and sere. We shall need to be kept by grace till we are actually in glory. Those who think themselves at heaven’s gate may yet sin their souls into the deepest hell, unless the unchanging love and power of God shall uphold them even to the end. Lord, bit and bridle me, I pray thee, and never let me break loose from thy divine control. Conduct me every mile of the road till I reach my everlasting home.

THE COMPASSES

“As in a pair of compasses, one part is fixed in the centre, whilst the other foot wandereth about in the circumference, so whatever subjects we may think upon, the soul most stay on Christ, and be fixed on him.”

While we search after evidences and additional comforts we must not leave our simple trust in Jesus. Whatever sweep our knowledge may take as we advance in years, we must retain most fixedly the one and only centre which is worthy of a regenerated soul, namely, our Lord Jesus. If the circle of our energies should encompass all the world, still must the heart stay with delightful continuance with the Well-Beloved. Immovable and steadfast must we be, our willing soul unswervingly loyal to its sole object of trust and love, the one and only Lord of our whole being, the chief among ten thousand, the altogether lovely.

To whom else can we go? Where else is there rest for us? Let us then abide in Christ Jesus. Fix the centre with the whole force of a resolute heart, nay, more, with the whole power of divine grace. Never tolerate the idea of novelty in this matter. Here there can be no advance; we are in him rooted and grounded. Only so can we strike out the true circle of life: without a fixed centre the sphere can never be true.

O thou who art the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, hold me fast forever, and bid me sing, “O God, my heart is fixed, my heart is fixed!”

THE LARK AND THE FOWLER

“Men of abstracted conceits and sublime speculations are but wise fools; like the lark, that soareth high, peering and peering, but yet falleth into the net of the fowler. Knowledge without wisdom may be soon discerned; it is usually curious and censorious.”

This is abundantly seen in many who pretend to interpret seals and vials, and yet neglect family devotion and the plain precepts of the Word. Such are found occupying their time in hair-splitting over difficult points, but they do not labor to maintain the unity of the body of Christ. They are very acute upon speculative topics of no consequence whatever, but they divide on the slightest pretext from the rest of the brotherhood. We have enough to do with watching over our own hearts and endeavoring to bring sinners to Christ without becoming more nice than wise upon matters of theological subtlety and word-spinning. The wide difference between wisdom and knowledge is forgotten by many: they hoard up knowledge of a peculiar sort like collectors of coins, and yet they use it not as merchants use money, but keep it for show, a rarity to be looked at, labelled, put away in a glass case and exhibited to those who are admirers of curios and rarities.

Lord! help me to soar like the lark, but keep me clear of the net. Make me practical, and let not my head swim with airy notions till I rush upon my own destruction.

SATAN CASTING OUT SATAN

“Lusts are contrary one to another, and therefore jostle for the throne, and usually take it by turns. As our ancestors sent for the Saxons to drive out the Picts, so do carnal men drive out one lust by another, and, like the lunatic in the Gospel (Matt. 17.) fall sometimes into the water, and sometimes into the fire.”

Of what use then can reforms be which are wrought by an evil agency? If sobriety be the fruit of pride, it grows upon a pernicious root, and though the body be no longer intoxicated, the mind will be drunken. If revenge be forsworn from considerations of avarice, the meanness of the miserly is a small gain upon the fury of the passionate. If outward irreligion be abandoned out of a desire to gain human applause, the Pharisee will be a very slender improvement upon the prodigal. Satan’s casting out of Satan is deceitful work: his intent no doubt is to establish his empire by pretending to overthrow it.

No, there must be another power at work, or little is accomplished. Any fancied good which one devil may bring another is sure to take away, and the last end of the man whom Satan mends is always worse than the first. A stronger than he must enter in by force of grace, and hurl him out by divine force, and take full possession, or the man may be another man but not a new man.

Lord Jesus, cast out all the devils from my soul at once, and never permit one of them to return.

THE DOG

“Satan is like a dog that standeth wagging his tail and looking to receive somewhat from those that sit at table; but if nothing be thrown out, he goeth his way. So doth Satan watch for our consent, as Benhadad’s servants did for the word ‘brother.’ He looketh for a passionate speech, an unclean glance, gestures of wrath, or words of discontent, and if he findeth none of these, he in discouraged.”

It would be a great shame to please the dog of hell. Nay, let him look and long, but let him have never a look, or a word, from us to stir his wicked heart. O for grace! to starve him out, and to bid him begone to his own den. “Neither give place to the devil,” says the apostle. We are not ignorant of his devices. To tempt him to tempt us is indeed a superfluity of naughtiness. Let this serpent eat his own meat, which is the dust; by no means let us turn servitors to wait upon our enemy.

We have need to watch and pray in the presence of this crafty one. When he came to our Lord, he found nothing in him, but in us he sees much which favors him. O Lord, bid him get behind thee once again! Deliver us from the evil one, and bid him depart from us. This we humbly entreat of thee.

GIBEONITES

“Make your sorrows to draw water for the sanctuary. Our natural affections, like the Gibeonites, must not be exterminated, but kept for temple service.”

The Stoic slays his emotions, the Christian sanctifies them to noblest ends. It is like a brute not to feel, it is like a man to feel tenderly, and it is like a Christian to feel in a chastened manner. We may weep, and we may rejoice, and when our weeping is in sympathy with the afflicted, and our rejoicing is in brotherly fellowship with the joyful, the Gibeonites are indeed made hewers of wood and drawers of water for the sanctuary.

Business, marriage, travelling, recreation, literature, music, art, should all be placed in the same subordinate condition. They are not distinctly spiritual, and as mere human matters they may be either right or wrong; but it is ours to lay the yoke upon them, and make them serve our spiritual designs. They will make admirable servants; we can never allow them to be our masters. The Gibeonites might not be killed, but they were to be placed under the yoke, and made to be useful, and the same must be done with the matters which we have mentioned. It would be foolish to endeavor to put these things down, for they are incidental to human existence; it is wise therefore to subdue them to do servile work for the Lord.

O Lord, give me ever so to use worldly things as never to be worldly myself: rather may I sanctify them by the word of God and prayer!

EXPENSIVE ECONOMY

“The inhabitants of Constantinople would afford no money to the Emperor Constantinus Palælogus, when he begged from door to door for a supply for his soldiers; but what was the issue? The barbarous enemy won the city and got all. The like story there is of Musteatzem, the covetous caliph of Babylon, who was such an idolater of his wealth and treasures that he would not spend anything for the necessary defence of his city, whereupon it was taken, and the caliph famished to death, and his mouth by Haalon, the Tartarian conqueror, was filled with melted gold.”

Such economy is evidently most extravagant. May not the like be said of those who give grudgingly to the cause of God, and of those who ruin their souls in order to increase their pelf? They refuse to be losers for Christ, and so lose their souls. Religion might cost them a loss in business, by leading them to close the shop on the Sabbath, or to act with strict uprightness: this they cannot afford, and so they throw away their souls in order to keep their coppers. Verily, the race of fools has not yet died out. Thousands still think it profitable to gain the world and lose their own souls.

O Lord, teach me true wisdom! Make me willing to lose wealth, and health, and home, yea, and my life also, in order that I may follow Jesus and possess his salvation.

SAMSON’S LOCKS

“Single prayers are like the single hairs of Samson; but the prayers of the congregation are like the whole of his bushy locks, wherein his strength lay. Therefore you should, in Tertullian’s phrase, quasi manu factâ, with a holy conspiracy, besiege heaven, and force out a blessing for your pastors.”

This is a fine metaphor wherewith to set forth united prayer. One prayer is a hair of Samson, but our united supplications are as the seven locks of that hero’s head. May God grant that the church may never be shorn of the locks of prayer, wherein her great strength lieth, and her great beauty also.

The cumulative power of prayer is well worthy of notice. Abraham alone could not by intercession save a single city of the plain, though his pleas were very weighty. Lot’s poor prayer was to Abraham’s as an ounce to a ton, and yet that last ounce turned the scale, and Zoar was preserved from the burning. The agreement of two saints is a grand force against which very few obstacles can stand; and when it comes to a praying band, all the smiths in Jerusalem cannot make bolts for the doors, or chains for the wrists, sufficiently strong to hold Peter in prison. Come, then, to the meetings for prayer, for there is the strength of the church, and there are her Samson’s locks.

IMPERIAL REVENUES, AND SMALL CHARGES

“It is folly to think that an emperor’s revenue will not pay a beggar’s debt. Christ hath undertaken to satisfy for the sinner’s debt, and he hath money enough, to pay.”

Delightful thought! Great as is my debt before the justice of God, it can assuredly be met by the riches in glory which belong to the Lord Jesus. It is an over-whelming debt to me, but now that my Redeemer has shed his blood, it will be as nothing to him. A Cæsar’s revenue would discharge a poor man’s liabilities and would scarcely suffer diminution; far more will the infinite merits of Jesus discharge my sins, and remain infinitely full. Where, then, can unbelief find an excuse for its existence? There can be no real ground for fear. Come, my heart, look not so much at thy present and urgent need as at thy Lord’s supplies which are boundless, and all thine own.

WHY MEN ATE ACORNS

“The main reason why men dote upon the world is because they are not acquainted with a higher glory. Men ate acorns till they were acquainted with the use of corn; a candle is much ere the sun riseth.”

Now it has happened unto us to eat the bread of angels, and to see the Sun of righteousness, and never again can we find content in baser things. All the joys of the world are now but beggarly elements to us, compared with our delight in Christ Jesus our Lord. Carnal wisdom has become folly in our esteem; the mirth of fools is a weariness; and the pomp and glory of earth are mere baby toys, scarce worthy of a glance. What grace is this which has revealed such precious things to us! Worldly-wise men think us fanatics and fools, but we know what they are, and where the folly really lies. Oh that their eyes were opened to join with us in the joys which they ridicule! If they will persist in their blindness it shall not be for want of plain testimony on our part, for we are bold to declare in all companies that there is more satisfaction in Christ’s worst things than in sin’s best things, and that a half-hour of his presence is better than all the feasting of royal courts for a lifetime. Oh that they would believe us so far as to try for themselves! Alas, they munch their acorns, and scorn the bread of life!

NEW LEAVES PUSHING OFF THE OLD

“Old leaves, if they remain upon the trees through the autumn and the winter, fall off in the spring.”

We have seen a hedge all thick with dry leaves throughout the winter, and neither frost nor wind has removed the withered foliage, but the spring has soon made a clearance. The new life dislodges the old, pushing it away as unsuitable to it. So our old corruptions are best removed by the growth of new graces. “Old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” It is as the new life buds and opens that the old worn out things of our former state are compelled to quit their hold of us. Our wisdom lies in living near to God, that by the power of his Holy Spirit all our graces may be vigorous, and may exercise a sin-expelling power over our lives: the new leaves of grace pushing off our old sere affections and habits of sin.

With converts from the world it is often better not to lay down stringent rules as to worldly amusements, but leave the new life and its holier joys to push off the old pleasures. Thus it will be done more naturally and more effectively.

Lord, let thy life in me push off the relics of my former death, that I may put on the new man, and manifest the energy of thy grace.

THE KING AND HIS ATTENDANTS

“Those who entertain a king, reckon upon receiving his train.”

It is not fit that he should come alone. So those who receive Jesus by faith into their hearts, receive also his church, his ministers, his word, and his cause. They take the Saviour and all his belongings. As the old proverb hath it, “Love me, love my dog,” so they love all who belong to Jesus for their Lord’s sake.

Where Jesus comes with pardon, he brings all the graces with him, and we are right glad to entertain them all: not only faith, but love, hope, patience, courage, zeal, and the whole band of virtues. It would be idle to say, “Christ is in me,” if none of the graces of his Spirit lodged within our souls. Come in, great Lord, and dwell in my heart, and bring all thy disciples with thee, and all thy belongings, yea, and thy cross itself.

AN IMAGINARY CARPENTER

“Peter Martyr sets forth the holiness of God, by this comparison: ‘Take a carpenter when he hath chalked and drawn his line, then he goes and chops the timber. Sometimes he chops right, and sometimes amiss. Why? Because he hath an outward rule, a line outside of himself according to which he cuts the timber. But if you could suppose a carpenter that could never chop amiss, but his hand should be his line and rule; if he had such an equal poise and touch of his hand, that his very stroke is a rule to itself, then he could not err.’ By this plain and homely comparison he did set forth the holiness of God and the creature. The holiness of the creature is a rule without us, therefore sometimes we chop amiss; but God’s holiness is his inward rule, it is his nature, he can do nothing amiss.”

This is an instructive simile, and may be carried further. Sanctification is a renewal of the heart, which creates such a rule within us. The Holy Spirit works in us, according to our measure, a law of our nature, so that it cannot sin because it is born of God; for, after all, it is the nature of the man which determines the nature of his deeds. The fruit is according to the tree. The evil of our life arises from the living evil within. If we could be perfect, we should act perfectly. Hence the man himself is first to be looked to.

Lord, purge us, yea, make us new creatures in Christ Jesus, that out of us good may come because thou hast made us good.

RECORDS OF LIFE

“The story of our lives is all engraven upon the heart, and when God awakeneth the conscience, it tells of past sin. God will open the sinner’s eyes in the next world, not by a holy illumination, but by a forced conviction. We are told in Rev. 20:12, ‘The books were opened,’ and one of these books is conscience, and though it be in the sinner’s keeping, and therefore may become blurred and defaced, yet our story will be legible enough, and forgotten sins will stare us in the face: ‘Be sure your sin will find you out.’ (Num. 32:23.) We forget it now, and think we shall never hear of it more; but God can make all occur to memory as fresh as if newly committed, and in an instant represent the story of an ill-spent life, and show us all the thoughts, words, and actions that ever we have been guilty of. The paper goeth white into the printing-house; but within one instant it is marked within and without, and cometh forth stamped with words, and lines, and sentences, which were in no way legible there before; even so will it be with the soul when conscience is aroused at the last.”

Our lives to-day are like the picture upon the photographer’s plat before he develops it; God hath but to put the soul into a bath prepared according to his divine art, and all the sins of his whole existence will stand out clear before the sinner’s astonished gaze. Nothing can be forgotten: all the past must live again. Let the unconverted tremble as they think of this, and let the saved ones bless the Lord Jesus who has so blotted out their sins that no power or process can ever bring them again to remembrance.

THE APPLES DISPLAY THE SAP

“The apples appear when the sap is not seen. It is the operative and lively graces that will discover themselves. A man may think well, or speak well; but it is that grace which governeth his actions which most showeth itself.”

There could be no apples if there were no sap, but the sap itself has no manifestation except in the leaves and fruit. If we have inward grace it is well for ourselves; but others cannot see it or profit by it till it works itself into our daily life. This it is bound to do, and we may not think lightly of such a result, for as it would be a token that something ailed the sap of the tree if it brought forth no fruit in its season, so it would be a mournful proof of spiritual declension if our conversation yielded none of the graces of the Spirit. It is all very fine to plead as some have done that they are doing inside work; if their fruit is all within they will have to be cut down that it may be got at. A true epistle of Christ is not written in invisible ink, and then sealed up, but it is known and read of all men. A tree of the Lord’s right-hand planting bears fruit to his honor and glory, visible to those who are round about him.

Lord, make me one that can bear to be looked at. Make my inward grace to be so vigorous that my outer life may b fruitful to thy praise. May no on have to enquire about the sap; may they see so many baskets of fruit that they may be quite sure about the life of the tree.

THE MADMAN OF ATHENS

“As the madman at Athens challenged all the ships that came into the harbor for his own, so carnal men claim an interest in heavenly things which are none of theirs. Deceived hearts believe they are running to heaven when they are posting to hell; like rowers in a boat, they look one way, and go contrary.”

Religions delusions may be very comfortable while they last, but what will be the misery of their breaking up! To have all your fancied godliness vanish like the mists before the sun will be grievous indeed. In proportion to the confidence inspired will be the despair involved. The poor madman in Bedlam in the olden time placed a straw crown upon his head, and issued orders like a Cæsar; it was his madness which made such a farce a comfort to him. In the next world the sinner’s madness will be over, he will be sobered by his despair: what then will he think of his former fancies and fond self flatteries! What an awaking, from the dreams of bliss to the realities of hell!

O my soul, see thou to it that all thy hopes are well grounded! Call not Christ thine, and heaven thine, if they are not so. Do not play the fool with eternal things, but get a sure title to everlasting blessedness.

THE UNFAITHFUL STEWARD

“We shall be called to an account, what we have done with our time, and talents, and interests, and opportunities: ‘At his coming our Lord will require his own with usury.’ (Luke 19:23.) Ah, unfaithful ones, what will you say, when you cannot shift and lie? Will this be an answer: I spent my time in serving my own lusts? This will not avail you. if a factor (or steward), that is sent to a mart or fair, should stay guzzling in an inn, or ale-house, and there spend all his money, which was to be employed in traffic, could he excuse himself by pleading that he was busy with his cups? Oh, what a dreadful account will poor souls make, that have spent their time either doing nothing, or nothing to purpose, or that which is worse than nothing, even sin which will undo them forever!”

Come, my heart, call thyself to account. What hast thou been at? Hast thou served thy Lord, or hast thou wasted his goods and his time? The Lord will require this of thee before long, therefore require it of thyself. How would it fare with thee if the judgment-day commenced to-morrow, and on leaving thy bed in the morning thou shouldst find the dread assize already commenced? Say, my soul, if thou wert at this instant called away, how stand accounts between thee and thy Lord?

THE SUNFLOWER AND THE AQUEDUCT

“As the flower of the sun doth follow the sun, and openeth and shutteth according to the absence of that luminary; so doth the heart of a Christian move after God.”

The divine nature within us followeth hard after the divine nature, and longeth to drink in its warmth and light. Everything acteth according to its nature. “We say, ‘Aqua in tantum ascendit;’ and it is true that neither water nor nature riseth higher than its spring-head and centre.”

So when self is our principle and end, we rise no higher than ourselves; but when God becometh the life of our soul we follow after him, and rise far above the highest point to which nature could conduct us. His grace in us strives to rise to the point from which it came, and it will never rest till it does so. This argues a high destiny for the believer, and is the foretaste of it. Hence the need to have a good and true beginning, and to draw our life from the eternal fountains above; for, apart from this, there will be no rising up to heaven.

How sweet it is to find our mind and heart turning God ward, as the heliotrope seeks the sun! To find our joys begin and end with manifestations of Jesus’ love! It is well to pine till the Lord’s face be revealed, and only to flourish when he imparts his gracious influences. It is wise to turn away from all things in which God is not evidently present, but carefully to follow each movement of his shining face that we may always front his love, and bask in the beams of his favor.

Whatever partakes largely of the light of Jesus should be prized by us, whether it he fashioned after our own favorite model or no: the sun is there, and we must turn to it. “Anything of Jesus” should be a sufficient attraction to us. A gleam of his sunlight should be prized, for it is far more than we deserve; and we should joyously receive it as the crocus drinks in the rich gold of the spring sun, and brims its cap therewith. What will it be to dwell above, where the light no more goeth, down, and the flowers feel no cold drops of the night?

A DECAYING ROOT HAS WITHERING BRANCHES

“As when the root of a tree perisheth, the leaves keep green for a little, but within a while they wither and fall off; so love, which is the root and heart of all other duties, when that decayeth, other things decay with it. The first works go off with the first love; at least, are not carried on with suck care, and delight, and complacency, as they should be.”

Swiftly other works follow, withering in their turn; for the fatal blow has been struck, and failure of every good thing is but a matter of time. Could the love of saints to Jesus utterly die out, all their virtues must die also, for love is the root of all. The outward form of piety might survive, as the wretched counterfeit of holiness, but what would be its worth? Even this in many cases passes away, for some men are bravely consistent in their wickedness, and do not care to keep up the name to live when the life of God is not within their souls.

Our main concern must be as to the root. The heart must be alive with gracious gratitude, or the leaf cannot long be green with living holiness. How is it with thee, my soul? Is there root-life in thee? Is Jesus precious? Is the Father’s name most sweet? the Holy Spirit move thee to ardent affection? A chill love, whose very existence is questionable, means a miserable experience. He who doubts his own love to Jesus generally doubts Jesus’ love to him. O love, be thou the living root in me, and, through thy quickening and nourishing energy, may the branches of my consecrated life grow exceedingly!

ONE NAIL DRIVES OUT ANOTHER

“Men will not be frightened from self-love; it must be another more powerful love which must draw them from it; as one nail driveth out another.”

This is true philosophy. Love to God can alone expel the love of sin. Many forget this, and set to work extracting the old love: a very tedious task; impossible, indeed, with such poor tools as we possess. They torture the body and torment the mind, but the old nail of self-love is rusted in, and will not stir. They might sooner break up the fabric of their manhood than tear out its old deep-seated affections; the self-nail has been driven well home, and clinched besides, and what can we do?

It is wonderful to see how love to Christ fetches out the love of self from its lodging. At the first it shakes and loosens it; by and by it drives it a little from its place, and at last it drives it out altogether. Self is at first somewhat denied, then it is chastened and kept under, and finally it is crucified with Christ so completely that the man finds pleasure in warring against it, and glories in the submission of the flesh to suffering and loss.

O blessed hand of Jesus, drive in the nail of divine love! Smite hard, Lord. Force out the rusted iron of my selfishness. Let not a fragment of it remain. Love alone can vanquish love. Thyself alone can conquer self in me. No secondary force will suffice. My God, thou must display thy Godhead’s power of love, or my vile heart will never part with self.

THE PERFUMED GALE

“As the odors and sweet smells of Arabia are carried by the winds and air into the neighboring provinces, so that before travellers come thither they have the scent of that aromatic country; so the joys of heaven are by the sweet breathings and gales of the Holy Ghost blown into the hearts of believers, and the sweet smells of the upper paradise are conveyed into the gardens of the churches. Those joys which are stirred up in us by the Spirit before we get to heaven are a pledge of what we may expect hereafter.

Oh that we had more of these heavenly gales laden with the spices of Immanuel’s land! Gracious Lord, cause such a celestial wind to awake at this very hour! I am already accepted in Christ Jesus, adopted, and beloved in him: this is a foretaste of heaven. In him I am secure, immortal, triumphant: these also are heavenly privileges. In Jesus I have peace, and rest, and profound confidence: is not this also something of paradise? In my Lord I have fellowship with God, and exceeding joy in his love: surely the wind is blowing from the glory quarter, and has taken up much of the aroma of the beds of spices whereon the saints recline. The Holy Ghost hath revealed unto us in our inward experience much of the bliss which the Lord hath prepared for them that love him. The life of the believer on earth is the same as that which will be in him throughout eternity, and the joy with which the Lord favors him below is of the same nature as that which shall fill him forever. When Jesus reveals himself to my soul, the winds are blowing from heaven; I can discern the fragrance. All around me delight is poured forth, and my heart is singing all the time.

DREAMS, BUT NOT DREAMS

“Carnal men hear of the beauty of holiness, of the excellency of Christ, of the preciousness of the covenant, of the rich treasures of grace, as if they were in a dream. They look upon such things as mere fancies, like to foolish dreams of golden mountains, or showers of pearls.”

“This their way is their folly.” When scientific men describe to us their curious experiments and singular discoveries, we know them to be persons of credit, and therefore accept their testimony: why do not men of the world do us the like justice, and believe what we tell them? We are as sane as they, and as observant of the law of truth; why, then, do they not believe us when we declare what the Lord has done for our souls? Why is our experience in the spiritual world to be treated as a fiction any more than their discoveries in chemistry or geography? There is no justice in the treatment with which our witness is received.

Yet the Christian man need not complain, for in the nature of things he may expect it to be so, and the fact that it is so is a confirmation of his own beliefs. In a world of blind men, an elect race, to whom eyes had been given, would be sure to be regarded as either mad or false. How could the sightless majority be expected to accept the witness of the seeing few? Would it not touch their dignity to admit that others possessed faculties of which they were destitute? And would it not be highly probable that the blind would conspire to regard the men of eyes as fanatical dreamers or deluded fools? Unrenewed men know not the things which are of the Spirit of God, and it is by no means a strange thing that they should deride what they cannot understand. It is sad that those who are dreamers in the worst sense should think others so, but it is by no means so extraordinary as to cause surprise.

O my Lord, whatever others may think of me, let me be more and more sensible of thy presence, and of the glorious privileges and hopes which are created in the heart by thy grace! If men should even say of me, as of Joseph, “Behold, this dreamer cometh,” it will not grieve me so long as thou art with me, and thy favor makes me blest.

ARROWS SHOT AT RANDOM

“Continued meditation brings great profit to the soul. Passant and transient thoughts are more pleasant, but not so profitable. Deliberate meditation is of most use because it secures the return of the thoughts. Sudden thoughts pass away from us, and, as a rule, they do not return to benefit us; as children shoot away their arrows at rovers, and do not look after them; or as a ball stricken in the open field goes out from us, whereas a ball struck against a wall doth return to our hand again.”

We need more meditation, more of this shooting of thought-arrows at a mark on which they will strike and stick, more of this throwing the thought-ball at the wall that we may catch it again. This would create for us a better style of teachers and preachers, and train a more solid race of Christian men and women. People do not think, and yet thinking is living, and one of the nearest approaches to death is to be without thought. Gentle reader, do you never think? Are you too busy to meditate? Is your time occupied from morning to night? Then stay a moment while we whisper in your ear: if you are very busy, think and pray all the more, or your work will wear and weary you, and drag you away from God. For your work’s sake, break away from it, and give the soul a breathing time. Get a holy subject and keep to it till you have drawn somewhat from it to feed your soul upon, and then you will do your lifework with less fatigue because you will have more strength to spend upon it.

THE BURNING-GLASS

“When the beams of the sun are contracted by a burning-glass, upon one spot, then they cause fire; so when our thoughts are concentrated on one object they warm the heart and at last burn the truth into it.”

This is the reason why so many sermons and addresses are so cold and ineffective; they are not sufficiently focussed upon one point. There are many rays of light, but they are scattered. We get a little upon many things, while what is wanted is one great truth, and so much upon it as shall fix it on the heart, and set the soul blazing with it. This is the fault of many lives: they are squandered upon a dozen objects, whereas if they were economized for one, they would be mighty lives, known in the present and honored in the future. “This one thing I do” is a necessary motto if we are to accomplish anything.

Our friend lay basking in the sunshine, and the beams of the sun did not disturb him for a moment. In a mirthful moment we crept to his side, and holding up a burning-glass, we formed a little bright spot on the back of his hand. He started in an instant as if touched with a hot iron, and was some little time before he quite appreciated our lecture upon concentrated energies. He did not invite a repetition of the interesting experiment, but confessed that he should throughout life dread a man whose strength all converged to one point, and that when next he wished to arouse a careless mind, he would try what concentration would do.

Great Lord, teach thou me how to accomplish somewhat for thy glory; and, to that end, enable me to live for thee with my undivided being, that what little light and heat I have may be so focussed that I may burn my way to successful service.

THE ALL-SUPPORTING NAIL

“The creatures hang upon God as a garment upon a nail; take away the nail and the garment falls down.”

The emblem is simple but accurate. All the weight falls upon the nail, and all the need of the creature’s existence hangs upon the Omnipotent One. What power must he have from whom all power is derived! All that we see around us of force and might is but God in action. There is no such deity as “Nature:” nature is the Lord at work.

Do all things depend upon God? Then the law of faith is, after all, no novelty, no intrusion, no exception to general rule. A sort of passive faith is the life of all created things. Dependence is the faith of irrational objects, and the believer’s trust is this dependence gifted with eyes and will. It should then be an easy thing for my creature-life to hang upon its Creator. Had it not been for sin, faith would have been my very nature, dependence upon God a constituent quality of my existence. Who, then, are they that laugh at faith? Rationalists? Nay; irrational men, at war with one of nature’s first and most essential laws. Let them laugh on, for my heart is well assured that confidence in God is the highest reason, and trust in my Maker the finest common-sense.

O Lord! I bless thee that the nail on which creation hangs can never fail, for thou faintest not; neither will my confidence be put to shame, for it hangs where hang the worlds. Till thou dost thyself cease from thine almightiness, my soul’s hope is safe beyond question, for it rests only upon thee.

THE WATCHMAKER

“He that makes a watch, can mend it when it is broken and disarranged.”

So it is certain that the best physician for the body is the Maker of the human frame. This is too much forgotten, and faith is placed in men and medicines, and the great Lord is forgotten. We would not have men decline the aid of physic and surgery, but yet we count it a sort of idolatry to trust in these and make no appeal to the Lord himself. It is unwise to neglect the means, but be not so utterly foolish as to leave out of mind the First Cause and true Author of all good. It is best to trust in the Lord and use medicine too, but of the two evils—faith in God and no use of means, or use of means and no faith in God—we should certainly prefer the former.

With regard to the soul, none can do anything to purpose in putting it into order save the Creator himself. All merely human attempts at the repair of the spiritual nature are a kind of tinkering which injures more than it benefits. The Lord can set mainspring, and balance-wheel, and lever, and hands in good working order. He can cleanse, repair, and regulate; and what he does is done to purpose. We have known a child wash a watch till it was spoiled, and so may a reformer purge a man till he makes a hypocrite of him. An ingenious young man repaired a watch so that it would never go again; and so may the superstitious impress men with foolish fancies till they lose all capacity for true religion. God himself must put his hand to the business, or it will be a total failure.

Lord, with all my imperfections and irregularities, it gives me joy to know that I am in thy hands, and that thou wilt set me right. No case has ever baffled thee; neither will mine. Thou wilt yet make me perfect in every good work to do thy will.

THE DISH FOR ME

“As at a feast, when there is a dish for which we have a great liking set upon the table, though all the company be welcome to partake of it, yet we say, ‘Here is a dish for me.’ So should you apply and take to yourselves your own portion of the word. Though it be propounded generally, yet, when God directeth the tongue of his messengers to speak expressly to your case, yon should say, ‘This is for me.’ This is all the calling by name which you can look for.”

How often has this been the case when reading the word of God, or hearing it! We have felt an inward relish and delight in divine truth, and our spiritual instincts have taught us that it was intended for us. A man may be misled by his natural appetite, but the spiritual man’s holy taste never deceives him. If he can feed upon the word, this is clear evidence that it is “food convenient for him,” and that the Lord intends it for him. The Holy Ghost has said, “Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness,” plainly indicating that the truth which gives delight to the renewed soul may be safely feasted on, and that we have full license to enjoy it without stint.

My heart, here is good news for thee! Be not slow to avail thyself of the divine permit. At the feast of love, eat the fat and drink the sweet, and bless the Lord who satisfieth thy mouth with good things.

A PRINCE IN A DITCH

“If you saw a man laboring in filthy ditches, and soiling himself us poor men do, would you believe that he was heir-apparent to a crown, called to inherit a kingdom? Who will believe in your heavenly calling when you stick in the mud of worldly pleasures, and are carried away with carking care for secular interests?”

Princes should behave as princes. Their haunts should be in palaces, and not amid dung-heaps. How, then, is it that some who profess and call themselves Christians are found raking in questionable amusements to discover pleasure, and many others groping amid sordid avarice to find satisfaction in wealth? What are they at to be thus disgracing the blood royal! How dare they drag the name of the “Blessed and only Potentate” through the mire? A prince of the blood acting as a beggar would dishonor not only himself but all the royal house. Nobility has obligations. Race, which is the eminent nobility of saints, lays them under heavy bonds to act as the true aristocracy of the universe. Come, my soul, dost thou carry thyself royally? I am made a king by Jesus Christ—are my bearing and conversation answerable to the dignity laid upon me?

Lord, thou must teach thy poor child. He has so long been a vagabond and an outcast that unless thou teach him the majestic manners of thy holy courts, he will dishonor both himself and thee.

VICTIMS LED TO THE SLAUGHTER

“The heathen were wont to hang garlands around the necks of the beasts which were about to be slain at the altar, and to crown them with roses as they led them to sacrifice.”

Many are thus decked with the ornaments of wealth and mirth who are on the way to the slaughter. Ungodly men may be garlanded with social distinctions, scientific attainments, and courtly honors, and yet be no better than bullocks devoted to the axe, at the altar of the god of this world. How little availed the roses to the creature doomed to die! If men were wise they would regard with equal disesteem those earthly honors and possessions which do but deck out a condemned criminal, and adorn a wretch over whom the wrath of God is hovering. O silly men, to rejoice in the tokens of your destruction, and to glory in your shame!

Lord, it is better to bear thy cross, and march heaven-ward with the blessed burden, than to be smothered in flowery pleasures and to be led down to hell. I pray thee, bring my unregenerate neighbors to be of the same mind.

THE GIDDY THINK THE EARTH MOVES

“The earth is never the more unsettled because to giddy brains it seemeth to run round.”

Even so the salvation of the saints is sure, though to their trembling hearts it may seem to be in terrible jeopardy. A passenger on crossing the Channel is none the less in safety because he himself feels ready to give up the ghost with the nausea brought on by the rolling of the vessel. Our feelings are poor judges of facts. Some who felt sure of heaven are now in hell, and others who had almost lost hope are now glorified in heaven. My brain may whirl and make me think all things are running round, and yet I know those very things to be steadfast as the hills, and therefore I do not believe my feelings, but trust the facts; and so, when my poor silly heart imagines that the eternal promises will fail, I must chide its folly, and fall back upon the everlasting verities.

Yes, Lord, thou art immovable and immutable! This I know of a surety. Therefore give me grace never to doubt thee, or to distrust thy faithfulness to all those who put their trust in thee.

METEORS NOT STARS

“Meteors are soon spent, and fall from heaven like lightning, while stars keep their course and station.”

When a meteor darts across the sky children say that a star has fallen, but it is not so. Look through the telescope, and you will find Jupiter, and Saturn, and Venus, each one in its place, shining as usual; yea, even the tiniest satellite is in its predestined sphere, fulfilling its times and seasons. So, too, we hear men say that a Christian has fallen from grace, a saint has become an apostate. This also is an error. The saints are in their places still, for it is written, “the righteous shall hold on his way:” those who have fallen were meteors, not stars; professors, but not genuine possessors of the heavenly light. The seven stars are in a hand out of which nothing falls: “all the saints are in thy hand.” Jesus says, “he that believeth in me hath everlasting life,” and therefore we are sure that they will not die.

O my blessed Saviour, give me no temporary salvation! Make me a star whose brightness shall never be quenched. To be enlightened for a time will not serve my turn; grant me light which Satan cannot extinguish. Let me be “saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation.”

ALL BLOSSOMS DO NOT BECOME FRUIT

“Plenty of blossoms do not always foretell great store of fruit.”

Few knit out of the many flowers which make promise of apples. It has ever been so, and he is an unwise man who dreams that his trees will be exempted from the universal law. The same rule holds good in all earthly matters. Out of many hopeful results which we look for from our plans and labors some must fail us. Because we make appointments for ourselves, and forget the appointments of God, we meet with many more disappointments than would otherwise fall to our lot. It is of no use reckoning that every egg in our basket will become a chicken, for it will not so happen, and our over-anticipation will be the cause of needless sorrow to us. Every prudent merchant reckons upon a certain amount of bad debt and loss in his trading, and when it comes he writes it off as a part of his estimated charges, and is not broken-hearted: our wisdom lies in doing the same with all earthly hopes, and even with the visible results of our service for the Lord. Whether this or that will prosper we must leave with the Master, it is ours to sow with unwearied hand both at morning and at night.

THE LEAVEN IN THE BREAD

“Jude saith we are ‘preserved in Christ Jesus.’ There is a close union between Christ and us: we are ‘in him,’ and because of this union we are eternally preserved. Look! As it is impossible to sever the leaven and the dough when they are once mingled and kneaded together; so Christ and a believer, when they are united together, there is no parting them any more, and while one lasts the other must endure.”

This is indeed the sure ground of the final preservation of the saints: their union with their Lord is of an indissoluble nature, so that the apostle inquires, “Who shall separate us?” It is as the union of the body with the head, which cannot be sundered without death to both. “Because I live ye shall live also” is our gurantee of life eternal. What more do we require? If Christ be in us, and we in him, the union is of the most intense kind, and the security which follows from it is of the most certain sort. “He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit:” what closer and more abiding union can be imagined?

Lord, let there be no doubt as to my union with thee. Cause my fellowship to be so constant and so sweet that the oneness of soul to thy sacred person may be most evident. So shall I be with thee here, and with thee where thou art for ever.

A SAYING OF THE FATHERS

“I remember one of the fathers bringeth in the flesh, saying of believers, ‘Ego deficiam, I will surely fail them and make the miscarry; and the world, Ego decipiam, I will deceive them and entice them; and Satan, Ego eripiam, I will snatch them and carry them away; but God saith, Ego custodiam, I will keep them, I will never fail them nor forsake them.’ Here lieth our safety and security.”

In other words, the flesh saith, “I will deceive;” the world, “I will defile;” the devil, “I will destroy;” but the Lord saith, “I will defend;” and that one word of God takes the sting from all the rest. The flesh is as a drawn sword, the world as a sharp spear, and Satan as a poisoned arrow; but the Lord God is a shield, and this baffles all. The flesh is much, the world is more, and Satan is most of all; but God is all in all. The flesh must die, the world must pass away, Satan must be overthrown; but the word of our God abideth forever; and as the word of God is the life of the saints, they shall also abide world without end. What a rest this affords us when we are looking out of the windows of the future! The Lord will be our succor in the days to come!

THE TIGHT-ROPE DANCER

“They weaken Christian comfort who make believers walk with Christ like dancers upon a rope, every moment in fear of breaking their necks.”

Those who deny the doctrine of the final perseverance of the saints deserve this censure. We cannot tell whence these brethren derive their comfort. Our notion of trusting Christ includes in it a reliance upon him for the present and the future as well as for the sins of the past. It is to us the glory of the gospel that it gives us now, at this very moment, a present and everlasting salvation. Once grasped in the hand of Jesus, what can pluck us thence or cause us to perish? Tight-rope dancing suits not our poor head, we prefer to be “safe in the arms of Jesus.”

My soul, let others say what they will, do thou accept thy Lord’s word for it, and believe that he will keep the feet of his saints. A temporary, questionable salvation may suffice those who know not thy Lord; but as for thee, do thou abide by his eternal, unchangeable love, and fear no final fall.

OLIVIAN’S DYING SAYING

“Olivian, when dying, comforted himself with that promise (Isa. 54:10), ‘The mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee.’ Being in the agonies of death, he said, ‘Sight is gone, speech and hearing are departing, feeling is almost gone, but the lovingkindness of God will never depart.’ The Lord give us such a confidence in that day that we may die glorying in the preservation of our Redeemer.”

To this end let us live in the like assurance. It is certain that God can never leave those who put their trust in him, and it becomes us to be certain of this certainty. The security of the saints is grounded, not upon their own faithfulness, but upon the faithfulness of him to whose keeping they have committed their souls. If the Lord can depart from his people they will assuredly depart from him and perish; their comfort is that he has said in his covenant, “I will put my fear in their hearts, and they shall not depart from me.” Our soul may live and die on this one sure promise.

THE PLAISTER AND THE HAND

“The gospel is a sovereign plaister, but Christ’s own hand must make it stick.”

How true is this! The wounded heart cannot by its own unaided power avail itself of the promise though it be evidently adapted to its need. Instead of grasping consolation, the soul refuses to be comforted. Nor can the most loving of ministers apply the balm; awakened consciences are usually more cunning at putting from them the reasons for hope than we are in applying them. They think us flatterers when we bring them cheering news. It will even happen that when a gracious word seems to strike them and to stick upon their minds, they will with a cruel diligence and suicidal resolution tear it off lest it should work their cure.

Abundant facts prove that according to our author’s statement—

“When wounded sore the stricken soul,
Lies bleeding and unbound,
One only hand, a pierced hand,
Can salve the sinner’s wound.”

Therefore, O Lord, doth my soul love the because thou didst not only provide a salvation for me, but thou didst also apply it to me; and at this hour thou dost not only lay up comfort In store for me, but thou dost actually cheer and sustain my spirit. Thou art both Physician and physic, Comforter and comfort, yea, thou art all in all.