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.

PHIDIAS AND HIS NAME

“Like Phidias, who in his image carved his own name, there is God engraven upon every creature.”

Not in characters of human writing is it written, but in the character of the work. Phidias needed not to have written the word PHIDIAS in so many letters, for the master’s hand had a cunning of its own which none could counterfeit. An instructed person had only to look at a statue and say at once, “Phidias did this, for no other hand could have chiselled such a countenance;” and believers have only to look either at creation, providence, or the divine word, and they will cry instinctively, “This is the finger of God.” Yet, alas, man has great powers of wilful blindness, and these are aided by the powers of darkness, so that, being both blind and in the dark, man is unable to see his God, though his presence is as clear as that of the sun in the heavens.

EXPEDIENT ABSENCE

“It is better for us that Christ should be in heaven than with us upon earth. A woman had rather have her husband live with her than go to the Indies; but she yieldeth to his absence when she considereth the profit of his traffic.”

The figure is well selected. Let us dwell on it a while, and think of the amazing profit which this journey of our best Beloved is bringing in to us. He is pleading in the place of authority: what an enrichment to us to have an Intercessor at the throne of grace, through whom every true prayer is accepted! He is ruling on the seat of empire, arranging all providences for the success of his church: what a gain to have our Head and Leader raised above all principalities and powers! He is preparing a place for his people: what a boon to have such a Forerunner, Representative, and Preparer! Moreover, by his departure we have received the Holy Ghost, of whose divine value what pen shall write! He is with us and in us, our Instructor, Quickener, Purifier, and Comforter.

Even upon these few points we are great gainers by his bodily absence; but there is much more. If our Lord judged it to be expedient that he should go, then expedient it is in the highest sense, and therefore let us solace ourselves in his present bodily absence from us “till the day break, and the shadows flee away.”

THE EMPTY HOPPER

“The mind is like a mill: when it wanteth corn it grindeth upon itself.”

And this is the cause of much of the mental depression which afflicts mankind; many people have nothing to think of outside of themselves, and so their thoughts prey upon their own hearts. Occupation is the remedy for many an internal sorrow. The study of the Scriptures would prevent brooding over imaginary ills. Try it, good friend, and see! Fill the hopper of thy mind’s will with holy instruction, and thou shalt get for thyself good corn instead of wear and tear and grit.

THE LOVING WIDOW

“A woman, that only bemoaneth the loss of her husband in company, but banisheth all thoughts of him when alone, might justly be suspected to act a tragedian’s part, and to pretend sorrow rather than feel it.”

The moral is, that one who only has Christ upon his tongue in public, and has no thought of him when alone, is a mere actor and hypocrite. Secret religion is the very soul of godliness. What we are alone, that alone we are. Private communion with Jesus is a better sign of grace than all the outward sacraments that were ever attended. It is not likely that a hypocrite will delight in solitary devotion; there is nothing in it to pay him for his trouble; for his reward is the praise of man. Judgment upon ourselves will be much more likely to be correct, if we examine our hidden life than if we measure ourselves by that which is seen of men.

THE HUNTING DOG

“A good dog hunts by sight as long as he can see his game; but when that is lost he hunts by scent.”

So in prayer we are to pursue the blessing while we are encouraged to seek it, but we are not to cease when the likelihood of success is gone. We must hunt by a spiritual scent when sight quite fails us. The odor of the promise must direct our way when the mercy is numbered with the “things not seen as yet.” It would be a sad degeneration if faith became nothing better than a conclusion drawn from preponderating probabilities: we must hope against hope, and believe in the truth of the promise against all likelihood of its performance, or we know nothing of the crown and glory of faith.

O for a quick nostril, that we may follow after those heavenly things which the eye seeth not and the ear heareth not. These will repay the chase; whereas the things seen of the eye turn out, when overtaken, to be mere gaudy butterflies which are spoiled in the act of grasping them.

THE DWARF

“A child, if he should continue a child, and an infant still, would be a monster.”

However pleased the parents had been with the little one when it was a babe, they would soon be deeply distressed if year after year it still remained a tiny thing: indeed, they would consider it a great calamity to be the parents of a dwarf. What, then, shall we say of those in our churches who never grow? They are no forwarder after fifty years! Infants at sixty years of age!

I have in my house a singular picture which is made up of the portraits of my sons, taken on their birthdays for twenty-one years. They begin in the perambulator, and end as full-grown young men. This is interesting and according to nature; but, alas, I have spiritual children whom I wheeled about in the perambulator of tender comfort twenty years ago, and they are babies still, needing as much care as ever, and are as little able to run alone. Ah me, that so many who ought to be warriors are weaklings, that those who should be men of six feet high are so stunted as to be mere Tom Thumbs in grace.

O for grace to grow in grace, and especially in the knowledge of my Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. God gave us from a life which does not grow, and from a growth which is not healthy.

WHETTING THE SCYTHE

“Certainly the best of our hours should be taken up about the best business, and not in recreations. Those are to be blamed who as soon as they rise think about amusements, knit pleasure to pleasure, and wear away the scythe in whetting, not in working.”

This is a specially wise hint. Doubtless many occupy the chief of their thoughts upon mere sport and pastime, and wear out their minds by anxiously considering that which can only be allowable as a relief from anxious consideration. To expend more pains upon their pleasures than upon their duties is the mark of ungodly men, and the sign of folly. That which should be a rest from thought is mad to be the theme of thought, and so a second wear and tear is created by the very process which ought to have prevented it: the scythe is not only worn away by its cutting, but by its whetting.

Christian man, remember this. Let not allowable diversions become occasions for transgression. This they will be if they cause waste of time; for in such a case you will be reported to your Master as a steward who has wasted his goods. Nor will you be blameless if your recreations weary the brain and heart, and cause a new and unremunerative expenditure of force. Above all, you will be greatly censurable if there is the slightest tinge of sin about the amusement: “Abstain from all appearance of evil.” “Happy is he that condemneth not himself in that which he alloweth.”

SHIP BUILDING

“He that buildeth a ship doth not make his work of such a sort that it may avoid all waves and billows, that is impossible; but he so builds it that it may be tight and stanch, and able to endure all weathers.”

Even so the very frame and construction of the spiritual life were formed with a view to trials. Jerusalem was walled because enemies were expected; David built towers and armories because he looked for war; and what mean the graces of faith and patience unless affliction is to be reckoned on? Our glorious Leader would never have armed and armored all his followers if there had not been allotted to them a wrestling with principalities and powers. See how Paul, in the same chapter in which he tells us of the panoply of God, reminds us of the adversaries whom we shall surely encounter.

Has the Lord made thee, my brother, to be strong in faith and brave in heart? Then be not surprised if thy stout ship is sent to traverse stormy seas. God doth not throw away strength by putting it where it will never be needed. Storms will surely come where grace is given to bear them, and through these storms grace will develop into glory.

ONE BIRD SETTING THE OTHERS CHIRPING

“It is of advantage to others when we use vocal prayer, for it quickens them to the same exercise, as one bird setteth all the rest a chirping.”

Often one who has been in the spirit of prayer has stirred his friend out of a cold and lifeless frame, and set him all on a glow. Yea, and a whole company of believers have been roused to hearty devotion by the fervor of one man.

The simile used by our author is very beautiful. Ere the sun has risen, one bird awakes, and, with a clear tuneful note, calls to his mate. Whereupon another follows in the same manner, and a rivalry begins between the first two songsters. These bestir birds of every wing, and in a few minutes the whole grove is vocal, the air is full of music, and the sun rejoices to arise amid a concert of happy minstrels. Earth has nothing sweeter than its spring sonnets, which make that season of the year like the first creation, when the morning stars sang together and the sons of God shouted for joy. Blessed is the bird which thus leads the choir, and happy is that praying or praising man whose holy expressions awaken his fellows to the like sacred exercise. It is well worth while to shake off natural timidity, which would make a good man to be as though he were dumb, and deprive him of half of his usefulness. To pray in private is essential, but to be able to pray in public is profitable. We are not to live unto ourselves in anything, and certainly not in those matters which are the crown and glory of our highest life: therein it is well to edify saints as well as to benefit ourselves.

Lord, open thou my lips, and my mouth shall show forth thy praise.

THE ROMAN SENATE AND CHRIST

“The story goeth, that the Roman Senate, hearing of the miracles in Judea, decreed divine worship to Christ; but Tiberius the emperor crossed it, when he heard that he would be worshipped alone.”

There is the edge of the controversy between Christ and the world. The Christian religion interferes with no man’s liberty, but leaves every conscience free and accountable only to God; and yet it his no tolerance for false doctrine, and enters upon no compact or truce with error. It does not claim to be one form of truth which exists side by side with a dozen others, but it reveals Christ as “the truth.” We do not believe in many ways to heaven, for we know that there is only one way, and we do not acknowledge two foundations for faith, for we know Christ to be the one and only foundation, and we dare not say otherwise. Christ is not one among many Saviours, he is the only Redeeemer of men. The popular fiction of “comparative religions” is a delusion; there is but one truth, and that which does not agree with it is a lie.

In my heart, great Lord, many lords have had dominion aforetime, but now thy name alone shall bear rule over my nature. Let me never insult thee by enduring a rival; let me never ruin myself by dividing my allegiance.

LOOSE STONES IN THE FOUNDATION

“It is dangerous when foundation-stones lie loose.”

Indeed it is. Never was this danger greater. Men are denying the full inspiration of the Bible, frittering away the atonement, carping at justification by faith, and questioning the proper deity of our blessed Lord. It is the work of the Holy Spirit to establish, ground, and settle his people in foundation truths, and there is reason to fear from the dubious preaching of certain “intellectual” persons that they have little or no acquaintance with his inward teachings. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” The ungodly may triumph, but we weep and lament when we see the glorious doctrines of truth assailed by those who, though they know it not, are the enemies both of God and man. O Lord, visit thy church, and restore a martyr’s faith among us. Meanwhile we rejoice that “the foundation of God standeth sure.”

THE QUEEN CROWNED WITH THE KING

“We are made prophets, priests, and kings: prophets meet to declare God’s praises, priests fit for holy ministering, kings to reign over our corruptions here, and with Christ forever in glory. As the queen is crowned with the king, so shall the church reign with Christ.”

What a joy it is thus to receive our honors in connection with our Lord! “Crowned with the King”—this is a vast increase of joy! It makes our seat in the heavenlies the more glorious when we remember that we are made to sit there together with him. To rise in his resurrection, to live because he lives, to be crowned in his coronation, and to be glorified with his glory. this is a double, yea, a sevenfold bliss. The queen’s coronation with the king is much more joyous to her than if she were crowned alone; for all her husband’s honors are her delight, and give her, as it were, another coronation better than her own.

O Lord, It seems too great a thing that such a worthless, unworthy creature as I am should be glorified at all; but to be with thee and like thee is a greater glory than even heaven itself would have been if it could have been enjoyed apart from thyself.

THE CIVET BOX

“After the worship of the Lord’s Day, and especially after the Lord’s Supper, we should continue in devotion, and make the whole day a post-communion. As civet boxes retain their scent when the civet is taken out, so, when the act of visible communion is over, our thoughts and discourse and actions should still savor of the solemnity. Certainly it is an argument of much weakness to be all for flashes and sudden starts.”

This retaining of their perfume by boxes and drawers in which sweet scents have been placed is a fragrant figure of the abiding nature of grace in a heart wherein it has once been stored up. If ordinances yield the influence designed by them, their savor will remain in our lives, and if our conversion be indeed a passing from death unto life, the effect of it will be seen as long as we dwell among men.

We cannot come away from real communion with Christ without carrying some of the delightful odor of his good ointments. Grace will reveal itself by its fragrance if it be genuine, and that fragrance will be a perfume of everlasting continuance, a sweetness indestructible. It should be said of every believer, in his measure, even as it is written of his Lord, “All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad.” The hypocrite has a temporary perfume, with which he takes care to odorize himself when he goes into the outward sanctuary; but the true believer is, by grace, made inherently fragrant, and the heavenly spices have so thoroughly saturated his garments, that they shed their savor abroad even when he is engaged in his worldly calling, yea, as long as he lives, and wherever he goes.

Sweet Lord Jesus, do thou so anoint me that I may always bear about with me the fragrance of thine infinite perfections, and be a savor of life unto life among my neighbors.

BEGGAR WITH TREMBLING HAND

“We give a beggar an alms, though he receives it with a trembling, palsied hand; and if he lets it fall, we let him stoop for it.”

So doth the Lord give even to our weak faith, and in his great tenderness permits us afterward to enjoy what at first we could not grasp. The trembling hand is part of the poor beggar’s distress, and the weakness of our faith is a part of our spiritual poverty; therefore it moves the divine compassion, and is an argument with heavenly pity. As a sin, unbelief grieves the Spirit, but as a weakness, mourned and confessed, it secures his help. “Lord, I believe,” is a confession of faith which loses none of its acceptableness when it is followed by the prayer, “help thou mine unbelief.”

CYRUS AND THE RIVER

“Cyrus, in Herodotus, going to fight against Scythia, coming to a broad river, and not being able to pass over it, out and divided it into divers arms and sluices, and so made it passable for all his army. This is the devil’s policy; he laboreth to divide the people of God, and separate us into divers sects and factions, that so he may easily overcome us.”

This needs no comment. What is needed is that by a spirit of brotherly love we promote the unity of all the churches, and the peace and concord of that to which we belong. May the peace of the church be “as a river.” Unity is strength. “Divide and conquer” is Satan’s watchword to his myrmidons; but Christ teaches us that the world will be won when his disciples are one.

WINDOWS AND TILES WORTHY OF CARE

“Some say—‘fundamentals are few; believe them, and live well, and you are saved.’ This is as if a man in building should be only careful to lay a good foundation, and care nothing for roof, windows, or walls. If a man should untile your house, and tell you the foundation and the main buttresses are safe, you would not be pleased. Why should you be more careless in spiritual things?”

This is well spoken. The least particle of diamond is diamond, and the least grain of truth is truth, and therefore to be prized above the rarest gems. That which is not essential to salvation may yet be essential to comfort, and necessary to our complete spiritual manhood. Our Lord threatens those who teach men to disregard the least of his commandments that they shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven. It becomes not servants to trifle with the smallest commands of a perfect master. How can the church ever be a perfect house of God if one of the parts, which are “fitly framed together,” should through our neglect be left out? No, we must receive all the truth, that we may be built up “a holy temple in the Lord.” Grave errors have been suggested and nurtured by what at first appeared to be trifling departures from scriptural rule, therefore we ought to give earnest heed even to minor precepts. Future ages may have to mourn over the defalcations of to-day, unless we are careful to do the building of the Lord’s house with faithfulness.

Lord, make me watchful in little matters, lest I grow careless in weightier concerns. Thou didst speak concerning the pins and cords of the tabernacle, and ordain that all should be made to pattern, and by this I perceive that thou regardest even the small things of thy service; I pray thee, therefore, give me both clear light, a keen eye, and a tender heart, that in all things I may please thee.

FLINT AND STEEL

“God’s seasons are not at your beck. If the first stroke of the flint doth not bring forth the fire, you must strike again.”

That is to say, God will hear prayer, but he may not answer it at the time which we in our own minds have appointed; he will reveal himself to our seeking hearts, but not just when and where we have settled in our own expectations. Hence the need of perseverance and importunity in supplication. In the days of flint and steel and brimstone matches we had to strike and strike again, dozens of times, before we could get a spark to live in the tinder; and we were thankful enough if we succeeded at last. Shall we not be as persevering and hopeful as to heavenly things? We have more certainty of success in this business than we had with our flint and steel, for we have God’s promise at our back. Never let us despair. God’s time for mercy will come; yea, it has come, if our time for believing his arrived. Ask in faith, nothing wavering; but never cease from petitioning because the king delays to reply. Strike the steel again. Make the sparks fly and have your tinder ready: you will get a light before long.

CATCHING AT A BOUGH

“As a man falling into a river espieth a bough of a tree, and catches at it with all his might, and as soon as he hath fast hold of it he is safe though troubles and fears do not presently vanish out of his mind; so the soul, espying Christ as the only means to save him, and reaching out the hand to him, is safe, though it be not presently quieted and pacified.”

The soul’s grasp of Jesus saves even when it does not comfort. If we touch the hem of his garment we are healed of our deadly disease, though our heart may still be full of trembling. We may be in consternation, but we cannot be under condemnation if we have believed in Jesus; even as the man who has grasped the branch may be wetted, but cannot be drowned. Safety is one thing, and assurance of it is another. Whether the believer in Christ Jesus is able to rejoice in his safety, or is still under bondage to fear, the word of the Lord standeth true beyond all question—“He that believeth in him hath everlasting life.”

THE COIN AND THE PRINCE

“In the Scriptures there is a draught of God, but in Christ there is God himself. A coin bears the image of Cæsar, but Cæsar’s son is his lively resemblance. Christ is the living Bible.”

We rightly call the Scriptures “The Word of God,” and yet in the deepest and truest sense Christ only is “THE WORD.”

What reverence, then, is due to him, and how important it is that we get beyond all the outward signs and symbols of religion, and even beyond the letter of Scripture, to the person of the Son of God himself. His promise of rest is to those who come to himself—“Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden;” for it is in himself that the divine power is centred. He tells us, “He that hath seen me hath seen the Father;” but the eye of the mind has never yet beheld the glory of God, or known him in any true sense until it his gazed upon Immanuel, God with us; for he alone is “the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his person.”

God is in every covenant blessing, but not as he is in Christ, for “in him dwelleth all the fulness of the God head bodily.”

A man had better have the prince for a friend than possess a thousand images of the king his father upon gold and silver; and so it is a happier thing for us to know that Christ is ours than to possess all other blessings, however much of God there may be about them. “Christ is all,” and he is more than all. To his people he is all in all, for such is God.

My soul, let this endear Jesus to the beyond all else, and let it make thee urgent and eager to draw very near to him. Here lies thy way to God, for God is in him, and nowhere else canst thou ever find him. What a happy thing for thee that thy God, thy heaven, thy all, are treasured up in one so accessible to thee as thy Mediator and Friend.

THE ANGLER AND THE HUNTER

“Till we sin Satan is a parasite; but when once we are in the devil’s hands he turns tyrant. As an angler, when the fish hath swallowed the bait, discovers himself; or as a hunter lies out of sight till the beast is gotten into the toils, and then he shouts and triumphs over his prey, so the evil one lets not his enmity be seen till he has deceived his dupe.”

How often have I seen this. A soul tempted by the pleasures of sin one day, and driven to despair by remorse for it the next! Satan first acts as deceiver and then as accuser. While men can be made to suck down sin he will make it sweet in their mouths; but when the poison is down he makes it bitter in their bowels. At the first he tells them that there is no punishment, and by and by that there is no mercy.

Lord, teach us how to baffle Satan’s arts, and rescue men from his wiles. No mere human wisdom can match his subtlety; instruct us, then, by thy Spirit that we may be as wise to win souls as he is crafty to destroy them.

WEDGES

“When a man cleaves a block he first pierces it with small wedges, and then with greater; and so doth the devil make entrance into the soul by degrees. Judas first purloineth and stealeth out of the bag; then censureth Christ as profusely lavishing. What needs this waste? This was not only a check to the woman, but to Christ himself. Lastly, upon Christ’s rebuke he hates him, and then betrays him to his enemies.”

There is no dealing with the devil except at arm’s length. Those little wedges of his are terribly insinuating because they are so little. Keep them out, or worse will follow. Occasional glasses lead on to drunken orgies; occasional theatre-going grows into wantonness and chambering; trifling pilfering soon grows to downright theft; secret backslidings end in public abominations. The egg of all mischief is as small as a mustard seed. It is with the transgressor as with the falling stone, the further he falls the faster he falls. Again we say—beware of the little wedges, for they are in crafty hands, and our utter destruction may be compassed by them. Even iron safes have been forced when little wedges have made room for the burglar’s lever. Take heed of the plea, “Is it not a little one?”

O my Saviour, let me not fall by little and little, or think myself able to bear the indulgence of any known sin because it seems so insignificant. Keep me from sinful beginnings, lest they lead me on to sorrowful endings.

THE RIDER AND THE FOOTMAN

“We expect he should come sooner that rideth on horseback than he that travelleth on foot.”

Privileges have their responsibilities. To whom much is given, of him much shall be required. Five talents must bring in more interest than one, or their possessor will prove to be a slothful servant.

How is it with us? Have we more talents than others? Then our Master asks, “What do ye more than others?”

LIGHT CARRIED BY A BLACK MAN

“A torch giveth never the less light though carried by a blackamoor; nor is the gospel less efficacious because managed by carnal instruments.”

It is not God’s will that any one who is himself living in sin should proclaim the gospel, or be an officer in his church, and yet when it so happens, the gospel itself is still a divine light, and those who see it live thereby. The faults of the preacher are very grievous; but if the truth of God be delivered by him, we should not be so foolish as to reject the doctrine, though we censure the man. The church itself may be like Laodicea, in an ill state; but it is not for us to quarrel with the Scriptures on that account. Young persons are greatly stumbled when they hear of the fall of an eminent professor, and yet they need not be surprised, for there have been hypocrites in all ages. We must not rest our faith upon men nor believe in God because we have confidence in a minister; that would be a sorry reason for faith, and would vitiate its nature. No, if the torch-bearer turns black as soot we will still rejoice in the light.

Fit is it, however, that none but gracious men should touch the work of the Lord; all others are intruders. “Be ye clean that bear the vessels of the Lord.” “To the wicked God saith, What hast thou to do to declare my statutes?”

THE RIVER LOSING DEPTH

“Salvian observeth that the church, like a river, loseth in depth what it gained in breadth.”

Yet Salvian could not prove that it needs to do so. It is to be feared that the case is occurring even now; but it ought not so to be. When the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, we shall look for depth is well is breadth, or the figure will not be complete. The New Jerusalem lieth four square, and the length is as large as the breadth; “the length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.”

THE WOODEN LEG

“Wicked men may supply the needs of an office, as Judas for a while did duty as an apostle. A wooden leg may be a stay to the body, though it be not a true member.”

Quaint, but true. It is to be feared that our churches have many wooden legs, in the form of lifeless ministers, graceless deacons, and unregenerate elders. The body may move with these, but her walk must be limping, painful, slow, and ungainly. As for the wooden limb itself, its end is to be burned. It will be a fearful thing to turn out to be a dead member of a living body—a false arm, or a glass eye. Such shams can never be part of the body of Christ. O for living, loving, lasting union with the living Head!

THE MISFIT

“A garment too short will not cover our nakedness, and a garment too long will be a dirty rag to trip up our heels. God is bound in covenant only to do what is convenient for us, and that we must leave to God to judge. The sheep must not choose the pastures, but the shepherd.”

O for contentment! “Too much,” we see by the figure used above, has its inconveniences as well as “too little.” Enough is the word, and God knows best when we are at that point. We see around us those who are much hindered in holy living by the fact of their being wealthy, and yet perhaps we are pining to run in their silken sack. Others we see who are impeded by their poverty, and yet this need not be, for some of the Lord’s poor are far ahead of other runners, and keep up all the better pace because they have so little to carry.

Come, my heart, be satisfied. It should be no hard task to thee to be content, seeing all things are thine, and thy Father acts as thy steward, and deals out daily “things convenient” for thee. The garment which he puts around thee fits thee in every part; blessed art thou if thou canst wear it becomingly and praise him for it.

TIMBER. SHEEP. WAX

“We warp in the sunshine, a shower does us good. The dog is let loose that the sheep may run together. A piece of wax, when it is broken, put it together never so often, it will not close; but put it into the candle and the ends will stick close together.”

Thus by three figures we see the danger of prosperity and the benefit of affliction.

The first metaphor is impressive. Timber warps if it be exposed to noontide heat, and men are all too apt to be influenced one way or another by success. Poor fools that we are, we cannot, while on earth, bear too much happiness. It is our tendency to warping which often necessitates our weeping. The Lord will sooner damp us with showers of sorrow than allow us to be spoiled.

The dog to fetch back the wandering sheep is a well-known illustration. Some need to feel the dog’s teeth before they will mind him, and God has dogs which will bite if barking is not enough. Our good Shepherd will sooner worry us with the dog of affliction than leave us to the wolf of apostasy.

The broken stick of wax prettily shows how we need suffering if we are to be set right after the fractures of temptation. How well the broken heart of a sinner unites with the heart of the suffering Saviour! There must be melting, or there will not be union. Blessed be God for any experience by which he unites our heart to fear his name.

THE TRAIL OF A SNAIL

“As a snail leaveth a frothy slime upon the fairest flowers, so do unthankful persons leave their own slime upon the rich mercies of God vouchsafed to them.”

Pining for things denied them, they undervalue favors bestowed upon them. Like Israel in the wilderness, if they cannot have flesh to feed their lusts they call even angels’ food “light bread.” By feasting to the full, and wasting their substance in luxury, many persons do more mischief with the bounties of providence than slugs and snails can do among the plants in a garden. Yet, when their festivals are over, or even while their wine is yet on the board, they grumble and murmur as if they were more hardly done by than any other men upon the face of the earth: thus a second time they besmear God’s goodness by their thankless conduct. They abuse the gift and then abuse the Giver, They climb the wall, and spurn the ladder by which they climbed; they drink, and then defile the spring; they rise upward to the sky, and then, like clouds, obscure the heavens.

My God, grant that I may never abuse thy gifts, nor even dare to use them without gratefully praising thee for them. Moses warned the Jews that the lizard, the snail, and the mole are unclean, and I would not be like to any one of them. David said concerning the wicked, “As a snail which melteth, let every one of them pass away.” God forbid that I should come under that curse, and so pour out my life in complaining, leaving behind me a trail of repining wherever I may move.

THE WOLF AND THE PICTURE OF A SHEEP

“A wolf doth not worry a painted sheep, nor does the world annoy a mere professor. But when any are holy indeed, and of a strict innocency, they are hated, and contradicted, and spoken against.”

No one fights with a statue, but living soldiers are often in the wars: living Christians are sure to be assailed in one way or another. Let us therefore for once gather figs of thistles, and find comfortable fruit upon the thorns and briers of persecution. The world is no fool; it would not be so fierce against us if it did not see something about us contrary to itself; Its enmity therefore is part evidence that we are the children of God. When we see wolves worrying the picture of a sheep we shall expect to see the ungodly scoffing at those who are like them. “If ye were of the world, the world would love his own.”

SMALL VESSELS AND A GREAT FOUNTAIN

“Our communion with Christ is not now full. There is a defect both in the pipe and in the vessel; we cannot contain all that he is able to give out, nor can the means convey it all to us. The means are as narrow conduits from the fountain, or as creeks from the sea. The fountain could send forth more water, but the pipe or conduit can convey no more.”

Yet the means of grace could convey much more than we are usually ready to receive, and Dr. Manton must not blame the pipe so much as the poor, cracked earthen vessel, so narrow at the mouth, and so stinted in every direction. Ministries and ordinances would be far more profitable if we were prepared to be profited. At the same time, if we dwell where outward privileges are scanty, we need not therefore be famished. Our Lord can pour his grace into us altogether apart from the means: we are not straitened in him—the straitness is in ourselves alone. We are shallow and narrow creeks, and how can the great sea of divine love pour its fulness into us? O Lord, enlarge our hearts till we shall be “filled with all the fulness of God.”

TRAVELLING MUCH MORE DIFFICULT THAN LOOKING AT MAPS

“When we look at towns on a map, we think the way to them easy, as if our foot were as nimble as our thoughts; but we are soon discouraged and tired, when we meet with dangerous and craggy passages, and come to learn the difference between glancing at the way and serious endeavors to traverse it. So in matters of religion, he that endeavors to bring Christ and his soul together, before he hath done, will be forced to sit down and cry, Lord, help me!”

He means that faith is no such child’s play as some dream: it appears easy enough, and yet when the awakened soul comes to seek the Lord in earnest, it finds out its own insufficiency. It is well when this discovery comes speedily, and is clearly made, so that the heart early in the morning casts itself on God for everything, and does not waste the day in searching for water in its own broken cisterns. We need as much to look to Christ for faith as by faith.

Our author also sets forth the difference between theory and experience. Grace in the book is one thing, and grace in the heart is another. To build on paper by drawing elaborate plans has been the amusement of many a fool who could not lay one brick upon another. We must beware of resting in mere words and confiding in head knowledge, and we must come to solid, substantial facts. A man may dream that he is among the stars, and may suddenly wake to find that he has battered his face against the post of his bed: dreaming, doting, and theorizing are poor substitutes for “real” experience of divine things.

KNOCKING THE BARREL

“By knocking upon the vessel we see whether it be full or empty, cracked or sound; so by the knocks of providence given us in affliction we are discovered.”

The figure may be varied by remembering the manner in which wheels are tapped with a hammer on the railway, that their soundness may be tested. Not only does affliction thus try our characters, but prosperity does the same. Approbation is a testing blow to many a man; for he who could have borne opposition gallantly too often yields at the touch of praise, and is found to be empty, vain, and devoid of stability.

When we are afflicted it is wise to watch the result upon ourselves. Can our faith bear trial, or is it a mere counterfeit? Do we love a taking as well as a giving God? Do we cleave to Christ when under a cloud, or is our religion only a fair-weather amusement? Heart-searching may thus be greatly helped, and we shall run less danger of self-deception. It will be an awful thing to be mere empty barrels, and never know it till death deals a blow with his rod of iron, and we answer to it with hollow sounds of despair.

THE BROOK AND THE RIVER

“A traveller may easily pass over the head of a brook; but when he goeth down, thinking to find it narrower, it is so broad that he cannot pass at all. Every delay brings on a new degree of hardness of heart on our part, and a new desertion on God’s part.”

Never will his sin be less powerful than at this moment, though, the ungodly man should wait for fifty years. The domination of evil is ever growing, never waning. Manton well points out the two dangers of delay—our own hardening, and the Holy Spirit’s withdrawal. Either of these may well cause fear and trembling in self-confident hearts.

To-day let the anxious soul pass the brook by God’s gracious help; to-morrow the stream will be hard to ford, and anon the torrent will sweep all before it. Tarry not, O thou who wouldst be saved.

COMMERCE

“Divers countries have divers commodities, and one needeth what another produceth; one aboundeth with wines, some have spices, others have skins, and commodities of other kinds; and all this is so ordered that by commerce and traffic there might be society maintained among mankind. So God in his church hath given to one gifts, to another graces, to each one somewhat which is not possessed by his fellow, to maintain a holy society and spiritual commerce among themselves.”

Brethren who will not commune with one another upon spiritual subjects are as traders who shut up their shops and will neither buy nor sell. Too wise to be taught, and too idle to teach, they live isolated lives, like the man in the iron mask, without joy to themselves or benefit to others.

We shall all be beggars together if we shut ourselves up like hermits, and cry “every man for himself.” We have seen a little of this “protection” in spiritual goods, and we witness that it tendeth to poverty.  Fellowship is pleasant, mutual help is profitable; let us not look every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Time was when they that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and that was the best of times. Let us hold mutual discourse upon our experiences, make pleasant exchange of our knowledge, and aid each other by our gifts. Among idolaters we read that “the carpenter encouraged the goldsmith, and he that smoothed with the hammer him that smote the anvil,” and surely such co-operation ought to be even more evident among the servants of the true God. We wish it could be said of all church work, “They helped every one his neighbor, and every one said to his brother, ‘Be of good courage.’ ” When shall all rivalry cease, and every Christian seek to advance the interests of his brethren? We want no more “exclusive brethren,” whoever they may be; but we need communicating brethren, whose fellowship is with the Father, and with the Son, and with all the saints.

THE BIRD AFRAID OF THE SCARECROW

“If an unregenerate man should leave off sin under fear of death of hell, it would not be out of hatred to sin, but out of the fear of the punishment, as the bird is kept from the bait by the scarecrow.”

Much of this scarecrow work is going on around us, and if it prevents the stealing of the wheat we may be glad of it. Still, it is a poor state of things for a man to refrain from, sin merely and only because he is afraid of smarting for it. If the heart would, but the hand dares not, the person will be judged by what he desires rather than by his actions. We are before God what in our hearts we wish to be. The raven is not a dove so long as it longs for carrion, even though it may sit in a cage, and act like the gentlest of birds. Christ did not come to scare us from sin, but to save us from it. Even if there were no hell, true saints would hate sin, and strive after holiness.

ON THE TREE AND IN THE STILL

“The rose is not so sweet on the tree as in the still.”

Yes, Mr. Manton, it is just as sweet, but it does not so fully pour forth its perfume. Thanks to the fire, the fragrance cannot lie latent when the leaves are distilled. Thus is it with the believing soul under adversity, the heart then yields up to God the sweetness which else had laid dormant.

Some of us owe more than we can tell to what Manton calls “the still.” The furnace, the anvil, and the hammer have been the making of our lives under the guiding wisdom of the great Worker’s hand. We cannot enjoy the process while we undergo it; but the results are such that we are ready to fall in love with suffering. O rose, were it not for the still, thine essence had not made fragrant the robes of queens; but now art thou in king’s palaces, and a drop of thy soul’s inmost ichor is of more worth than gold. Even so, we had never been so near our Lord, the Prince Immanuel, had we not, after our measure, been made to drink of his cup, and to be baptized with his baptism.

We bless thee, O Lord, for all that thou doest, whether thou load us with favor till we are as flowers gemmed with dew, or pluck away our beauty, and sever us from our delights till we are as roses cut off and cast into the still. All that thou doest is good, and for all thou shalt be extolled.

CALLING OFF THE DOG

“A stranger cannot call off a dog from the flock, but the shepherd can do so with a word; so the Lord can easily rebuke Satan when he finds him most violent.”

O Lord, when I am worried by my great enemy, call him off, I pray thee. Let me hear a voice saying, “The Lord rebuke thee, O Satan; even the Lord that hath chosen Jerusalem rebuke thee.” By thine election of me, rebuke him, I pray thee, and deliver me from the power of the dog.

HEWING STONES AND PRUNING VINES

“There is more squaring, and hewing, and hacking used about a stone that is to be set in a stately palace than that which is placed in an ordinary building; and the vine is pruned when the bramble is not looked after, but let alone to grow to its full length.”

This should reconcile believers to their chastisements. It is a well-worn figure; but it is well put. Brambles certainly have a fine time of it, and grow after their own pleasure. We have seen their long shoots reaching far and wide, and no knife has threatened them as they luxuriated upon the commons and waste lands. The poor vine is cut down so closely that little remains of it but bare stems. Yet, when clearing-time comes, and the brambles are heaped for their burning, who would not rather be the vine?

Ah, Lord! Let me never sigh for ease, but always seek for usefulness. Square me till I am fit for a place in thy temple; prune me till I yield my utmost fruit. I know not what this prayer may involve; but if I did, I would pray to be helped to pray it, and I would entreat thee to fulfil it to the letter.

THE SINGER

“In a choir or concert of voices he is commended that sings well. Whether he sings the bass, of the mean, or the treble, that is nothing, so he singeth his part well; but he is despised and disallowed that sings amiss, whatever voice he useth. Even thus doth God approve, accept, and reward his people that serve and glorify him in any state, whether it be high or low, rich or poor, eminent or obscure.”

Yes, it is not our rank or estate, but the right using of our position which is the point to be thought of—the point by which we shall be judged at the last. If called in poverty to sing bass, blessed is he who sings so as to please the ear of God; he shall be fully as accepted as his neighbor who exalts his voice upon a higher key. So long as the music of his life was true to the score of duty no man will be censured because his notes were not so strong, or high, or many as those of another in the company. It is not the loftiness of our place, but the worthy occupying of it, which will bring acceptance to our work before the Lord.

O, my great Master and Teacher, help me to remember this, and let me be far more anxious to sing my part correctly than to sit in this seat or that, among the rich or the great.

WAGONS NOT MOVED BY WIND, NOR SHIPS DRAWN BY HORSES

“The wise use right means, such as will bring them to their desired end. We do not use to draw ships in the sea with horses, nor draw wagons with the wind. We must not use contrary means, nor insufficient means. We cannot go to the bottom of a well that is thirty foot deep with a line that is but ten foot.”

Why, then, do men try to win heaven by their own merits? This short line will never reach so far. Why do they endeavor to save souls by noise and carnal excitement instead of crying for the Spirit of God? What is this but refusing to spread the sail for the heavenly breeze, and relying upon the tramp of horses, and the strength of flesh and blood? How is it that so many look to obtain blessing through ceremonies of man’s invention? This is an endeavor to move a mountain by dancing before it.

If the means must be adequate to the end, then nothing short of the merits of Jesus can cause a sinner to enter heaven, and nothing but the power of the Holy Ghost can make men new creatures in Christ Jesus. If the means must be adapted to the end, then we must have mercy to comfort misery, love to rescue lost sinners, divine goodness for despairing hearts, and power from on high for souls dead in trespasses and sin.

Next time we hear a man try to convert people by fine language, we shall remember Manton’s saying, that wagons are not moved by wind.

THE PRICK OF A PIN AND A HEAVY BLOW

“The prick of a pin maketh a man start, but a heavy blow stunneth him. David, when he cut off the lap of Saul’s garment, his heart smote him; but when he fell into adultery and blood, he was like one in a swoon.”

Thus it is that a slight departure from right will startle the unsophisticated conscience, while a gross sin may stun it into a horrible insensibility. Much serious thought is suggested by this most striking simile. Among other things it teaches us to dread a benumbed or swooning conscience, for it may have been brought into that condition by a terrible sin. Better far to be morbidly sensitive, and condemn one’s self needlessly, than to be hardened through the deceitfulness of sin. A quick and tender conscience is among the best gifts of grace; let those who have it guard its delicacy with jealous care.

Lord, let my conscience be as tender as the apple of my eye. As well-balanced scales are tremulous at the fall of a single grain of dust, so let the minutest sin set me on the move. Never, I beseech thee, permit me to become heavy with the intoxication caused by a deep draught of evil: “Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me.”

TO DIE FIGHTING

“Sometimes God letteth his people alone till their latter days, and their season of fighting cometh not till they are ready to go out of the world, that they may die fighting and be crowned in the field. But first or last the cross cometh, and there is a time to exercise our faith and patience before we inherit the promises.”

It has been observed that many of those who begin their spiritual career with severe mental conflicts are afterward filled with peace, and are left unmolested for years. Others have their battle in middle life, and find the heat of their noontide sun to be their severest trial; while a third class suffer, as our author tells us, at the very close of their pilgrimage. No rule can be laid down is to the varied experiences of the saints; but we suspect that few make the voyage to heaven over a perpetually glassy sea; the vast majority, at some time or other, are “tossed with tempest and not comforted.”

What if we also must die fighting? We shall fall amid the shouts of victory. How surprising will heaven be to us! One moment almost wrecked, and the next in “the Fair Havens.” Wrestling one moment, and resting the next with the crown about our brows! “At eventide it shall be light.”

TRADING ON A MAN’S WORD

“If a man promise, they reckon much of that; they can tarry upon man’s security, but count God’s word nothing worth. They can trade with a factor beyond seas, and trust all their estate in a man’s hands whom they have never seen; and yet the word of the infallible God is of little regard and respect with them, even then when he is willing to give an earnest of the promised good.”

It is noteworthy that in ordinary life small matters of business are transacted by sight, and articles valued by pence are paid for over the counter: for larger things we give checks which are really nothing but pieces of paper made valuable by a man’s name; and in the heaviest transactions of all, millions change from hand to hand without a coin being seen, the whole depending upon the honor and worth of those who sign their hands. What then! shall not the Lord be trusted? Ay, with our whole being and destiny. It ought to be the most natural thing in all the world to trust God; and to those who dwell near him it is so. Where should we trust but in him who has all power and truth and love within himself? We commit ourselves into the hands of our faithful Creator and feel ourselves secure. “Blessed is he that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is.”

THE CHILD AND THE FATHER

“A young child does not know his father’s strength. We are poor, weak creatures, and cannot conceive fully of the perfections of God; we know not what the power of God can do for us.”

It would be the height of absurdity for the child to think and speak of its father as if he were a child too, and could do no more than the boy’s playmates. Yet this is the common error of the children of God. We do not raise our thoughts to a godlike level. We think our own thoughts of God, and straightway we doubt. Oh, that we rose to God’s thoughts, and tried to conceive how HE looks upon matters! Surely he taketh up the isles as a very little thing, and the mountains he weighs in scales. If our troubles were set in the light of God’s power, and love, and faithfulness, and wisdom, they would become to us small burdens: why should we not so regard them? Why must we reckon as children? Why not compute our load by our Father’s measurement, and then see how easily it will be carried? Estimating divine strength by human standards is one of the childish things which we must put away.

O Lord, forgive me for having often limited the Holy One of Israel, and teach me never again to judge after the flesh.

THE GILDED POTSHERD

“A gilded potsherd may shine till it cometh to scouring, then the varnish is speedily worn off.”

May this never be my character, but may I be solid gold, which will bear not only rubbing but burning. Alas, when I am impatient under affliction, or cowardly under persecution, or weary in holy service, have I not good reason to suspect myself? It may be that my religion is only a mere surface film, and not part and parcel of my being; and if so, it will go ill with me. I shall ere-long be like a broken vessel, cast away upon the dunghill of everlasting contempt.

O Lord, of thy mercy save me from being a mere piece of gilded clay, by giving me truth in the inward parts.

HOLDING ON WITH THE TEETH

“He who is spoken of in the story first holds the boat with his right hand, and that being cut off, he takes hold with his left hand, and when that is cut off, he fastens on with his teeth. So when one help is cut off, and then another, yet faith doth fasten upon God as long as it hath his word to fasten on. When God makes breach after breach, then to depend upon him is faith indeed.”

Well may we maintain our hold upon our God, come what may; for who else is fit to be our soul’s holdfast? With us it must be Christ or nothing, for other refuge there is none. Trying times make us desperately resolved to trust in the Lord at all hazards. A sense of sin snatches away one promise, and another; and then we betake ourselves to such words of grace as were expressly given to the most unworthy: there we resolve to perish, if perish we must. Our grasp at such times does not embrace much of the truth, but it is intense, and takes fast hold on what it has reached. We cannot, we will not, let go the Saviour. Like Joab, we will die at the horns of the altar, if we must die. He who, like the man in the story, has lost both his hands and yet holds by his teeth, is safe enough: God will never leave such a man to drown. Let us refuse to despair, or even to despond; since there is no just cause for distress while we can truly say, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him.”

GONE AT THE ROOT

“As when the root of a tree perisheth, the leaves keep green for a while, but within a while they wither and fall off; so the love is the root and heart of all other duties, and when that decayeth, other things decay with it.”

What would the virtues be if they could remain without love? A sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal. But, as a rule, they do not long remain. First one drops off and then another, like falling leaves; and by and by the man is as a bare branch, only fit to be cut down and cast into the fire. Some, who once professed great things, have now hardly enough rags of morality left decently to go to hell in, and all because they were without true love, and therefore were rotten at the core.

Evil in the heart is a deadly wound, but it is usually unperceived till it has done its work. No axe has been lifted against the man’s morals, no great strokes have gashed his visible character, and yet the end has been certain, the ruin has been complete: the spiritual life-sap ceased to flow, the branch of usefulness withered, and at last the tree fell over, to lie prone among the spoils of death. We have seen it—seen it so often, that our most solemn warnings are reserved for secret declensions. There is something nobler in falling by the woodman’s strokes than in perishing by a little worm at the root. The meanness of decaying into corruption, while standing in the midst of a church, is awful.

Lord, have mercy upon us, and keep us from this evil. Amen.

CHESSMEN IN THE BAG

“As chessmen are all thrown into the bag together, so in the grave there is no distinction; skulls wear no wreaths, and corpses carry no marks of honor.”

The bishop and the knight tumble into the box with the pawns, and the king and the queen fare no better. Death is a terrible leveller. It is a pity that some men carry their heads so high above their fellows all the day, for they will have to sleep at night in the same bed of clay with those whom they despise. With uncouth verse the poet tells the like story:

“Beauty, and strength, and wit, and wealth, and power,
Have their short flourishing hour;
And love to see themselves and smile,
And joy in their pre-eminence awhile.
Ev’n so in the same land,
Poor weeds, rich corn, gay flowers together stand:
Alas! death mows down all with an impartial hand.”

THE BITER BITTEN

“Persecution and oppression are like an iron in the fire, which, heated too hot, burneth their fingers that hold it.”

The nations on the continent which drove out the Huguenots were ruined in their trade by the loss of their most intelligent and industrious artisans. The Romish Church itself became the object of popular hatred by its burnings of godly men and women. As Pharaoh was glad at last to be rid of the Israelites whom he had oppressed, so are persecutors frequently pleased if they can sneak out of their persecutions, and wash their hands of the business. Playing with edged tools is dangerous work, and so is slandering the saints of God. Hammers have smitten the patient anvil until they have been worn out, and have become more weary of the anvil’s endurance than it was of their blows.

If any reader is opposing the church of God, let him consider what he is doing. He will find it hard to kick against the pricks. It will end as did the famous battle of the tow with the fire, and the stubble with the flame. No honor is to be gained by the conflict, but a blot will fall on the persecutor’s escutcheon, and his portion shall be everlasting contempt.

THE GIANT AND THE STRAW

“A giant striking with a straw cannot put forth his strength with it. So in blessing, no creature nor ordinance can convey all the goodness of God to us.”

The best preacher is no better than a straw, in and of himself. God shows his omnipotence by accomplishing anything with such poor tools as we are. Were he not Almighty the infirmities of his servants would cause him to fail in every design in which he employs them. As it is, the fact of our unfitness should greatly enhance our sense of his glory. This feebleness on the part of the fittest instrument makes it imperative that the Lord’s own Spirit should work in men’s hearts over and above his working through the means. New hearts cannot be created by mere human voices: these are more qualified to call beasts to their fodder than dead souls out of their spiritual graves. The Holy Ghost must himself breathe life and infuse strength into men; for his ministers are little better than the staff of Elijah, which was laid upon the dead child, but neither hearing nor answering resulted from it.

The figure of a giant using a straw as a cudgel is not, however, perfect unless we picture him as able to strengthen the straw, till he strikes with it as with a hammer and dashes rocks in pieces; for even thus the Lord doth by his feeble servants. Hath he not said, “Fear not, thou worm Jacob, and ye men of Israel; I will help thee, saith the Lord, and thy Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel. Behold, I will make thee a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth: thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them: and thou shalt rejoice in the Lord, and shalt glory in the Holy One of Israel?”

O thou Almighty One, continue to display thine omnipotence by using me, even me, the least and feeblest of all thine instruments.

EVERYTHING ACCORDING TO ITS NATURE

“A bowl used on the green must be made round before it can run round; a musical instrument must be framed and strung, and put in tune before it can make melody; a tree must first be made good before we can expect any good fruit from it.”

Precisely so; and yet this fact is seldom considered. Men are loath to believe that their errors arise out of themselves, and that they must themselves be improved before their lives will be bettered. Their circumstances and associations are blamed, whereas the fault lies in themselves, only they will not believe it. They will not admit that there is a bias in the ball itself, but they blame the hand which threw it; the harp-strings they will not attend to, but complain of the musician’s touch; the tree they will not chide for bearing crabs, it is the soil, the season, or the gardener. Most guilty men, when their crimes are exposed, blame their ill-luck, and not their evil hearts. The world has come to call an unchaste woman “unfortunate;” and this is but one open expression of what it secretly believes as to all sin: it reckons our transgression to be our misfortune rather than our fault. We are poor erring mortals, and are more to be pitied than punished—this is the secret creed of mankind, and there is a floating tradition abroad that we ourselves are right enough, but our position renders error unavoidable.

When will our fellow-men give up this falsehood, and perceive that if the vessels leaks, it is because it is broken; and if foul water drips from it, it is because its contents are unclean? Oh, that they would blame themselves, and seek a change of heart; for nothing short of this can set the matter right.

ALEXANDER AND APELLES

“Alexander would be painted by none but Apelles, and carved by none but Lysippus. Domitian would not have his statue made but in gold or silver. God, the great king, will be served with the best of our affections. When we care not what we offer to God, how will he accept us?”

It is but ordinary manners that, when we entertain a friend who is greatly our superior, we should at least do our best and set before him all that our house and purse can afford, with many an apology that it is no better. If our queen came to sup with us, we should do our very best to please her majesty; how much more ought we to be devoutly intent to offer fit homage to the King of kings!

O my Lord, teach me to give thee the choicest product of my being, and instruct me how to do this in the most acceptable manner. May I never play the sloven with thee. Angels cannot serve thee as thou deservest to be served, and shall I think to please thee with hap-hazard offerings? If I sing to thee, make me earnest and hearty in spirit, and as musical in utterance as my harsh voice permits. When I pray, forbid that I should even seem to be chill and dull. If I am honored to preach thy gospel, may I plead for thee with my whole heart, and speak even to a few as zealously as if thousands waited for my words. It is meet that the best should have the best; that thou, the most loving of Lords, shouldst have my most loyal services.

TWO WAYS OF PUTTING OUT FIRE

“Fire is quenched by pouring on water or by withdrawing fuel; so the Spirit is quenched by living in sin, which is like pouring water on a fire; or by not improving our gifts and graces, which is like withdrawing fuel from the hearth.”

Many are found carefully avoiding outward sin, and yet they daily neglect the gifts of grace! What folly! Will it not come to the same thing in the end with the fire upon my hearth whether I pour water on the logs or refuse to place fresh brands thereon? It will die out with equal certainty, whichever is my mode of procedure. So will it be with the fire in my heart. To be careless is as dangerous as to be disobedient. Not to do good is to do evil. Sins concerning neglected grace and omitted duty are as mischievous to us as actual wrong-doing.

This is a caution to thousands; possibly to the reader; certainly to the writer. Oh for grace to attend to the state of the inward fires, lest Satan should get an advantage over us by our neglect! Though he may have been foiled in every attempt to lead us into active rebellion against God, the enemy may yet prevail by bringing us into a negative state of indifference and apathy. There is a passive disobedience, which is exceedingly injurious to the soul. The Lord save us from this great peril. Let us hear him say, “Quench not the Spirit,” and yet again, “Stir up the gift which is in thee.”

SETTLING THE EXPENDITURE

“When a man hath allotted so much for building a house, so long as he keeps within the bounds of his allotment he parteth with his money freely; but when that is gone he parts with every penny with grudging. It is good to make Christ large allowance at the first so that we do not afterward grudge our bargain and contract.”

Good, Dr. Manton! Very good! When some of us began with the Lord Jesus we meant to place all that we had at his disposal, and ever since it has been a great joy to feel that everything we are and have belongs to him. What we can give to his cause we regard as children do their spending money; we lay it out with eagerness, and wish it were a hundred times as much. No silver slips from our hand so joyfully as that which goes to God. No gold is so readily parted with as that which is spent upon his cause. Grudging is far from us, when God’s cause is near to us. Surely, some of our friends started with other notions, and put the Lord on short commons at the first estimate, for they need to be hardly pressed ere they will give to his cause.

Dear reader, is this so with you? Do you look a score times at every sixpence you spend upon the Lord? If so, revise your contract. Make your Beloved a more liberal allowance. “He that soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly.”

THE SHAKING OF THE TREE

“When the tree is soundly shaken, rotten apples fall to the ground; so in great trials guile of spirit will fail.”

This, then, is the purpose of affliction: first, to teat me, that I may see how far my supposed graces are real and vital. Those which are not sound will soon be lost; only the living and growing graces will remain. Can I bear the test? How have I borne it?

Secondly, trials relieve me, for it is a hurtful thing to the tree and to its living fruit to be cumbered with rottenness, in which may breed noxious worms, which when they multiply may come to be devourers of the tree’s life. We are enriched when we lose fictitious virtues. Stripping of filthy rags is an advance toward cleanliness, and what are counterfeit graces but mere rags, worthy to be torn off and cast into the fire?

In the end such a result of affliction also beautifies me; for as rotten apples disfigure the tree, so would the mere pretence of virtue mar my character in the sight of God and good men. It is always better to be openly without an attainment than to bear the form of it without in reality possessing it. A sham is a shame: an unreal virtue is an undoubted vice.

Lord, I thank thee for shaking me, since I now perceive that all this good and much more is designed by the process, and is, I trust, in some measure accomplished thereby. Oh that thy Holy Spirit may bless my adversities to this end, and then they will not be adverse to me, but the very reverse!

THIRSTY MEN DRINKING WITHOUT LOOKING

“As men in a deep thirst swallow their drink before they know the nature of it, or discern the taste of it; so when we are under a great thirst, or under great famishment as to spiritual comfort, and have great troubles upon us, we take up with comfortable notions of Christ and salvation by him, and easily drink in these and other truths, catching at them without looking into the grounds or reasons of them. Afterward we see the need of care and watchfulness of soul, to strengthen our assent and fortify ourselves against those doubts of mind which shake us. Then we desire to settle our hearts in those supreme truths which in our necessity we accepted without discussion.”

This is a very natural figure. See how the thirsty man turns up the cup and drinks the contents at a draught; he cares little what it is, so that it quenches his raging thirst. “Behold, he drinketh up a river, and hasteth not: he trusteth that he can draw up Jordan into his mouth.” But now, mark him in cooler moments! He is careful of his drinking, lest he be made top-heavy, or become nauseated. A simple, receptive faith is a fine thing for the speedy removal of the soul’s thirst; but if it were not soon qualified by spiritual discernment it would lead to credulity, and the man would be ready to take in anything which might be set before him. The rapid believer would soon become the victim of superstition. The more study of the Scriptures, and testing of doctrines thereby, the better. Careful investigation may save the mind from being injured by poisonous teaching, and it will certainly endear the truth to us, and strengthen our confidence in it.

What a draught was that which some of us had at the first! Little enough we knew; but our enjoyment of what we did know was intense! Lord, thou hast now revealed to us the ingredients of that divine cup; grant that this may give us a new and deeper joy; but do not allow us to forget the bliss of satisfied thirst because we are gifted with fuller knowledge. Such a gain would be a loss most serious.

CHILDREN CARRIED BY THEIR FATHER

“We must look upon Christ as a father carrying all his children on his back, or lapped up in his garment, through a deep river, through which they must needs pass, and, as it were, saying to them, Fear not, I will set you safe on land. Look upon Christ wading with all his children through the floods of death and hell, and saying. Fear not, worm Jacob; fear not, poor souls, I will set you safe.”

This is not very poetically put. It is the old Christopher story in a more common dress. The good Lord waits at the river to bear us over, lest the water-floods prevail against us. He hath made, and he will bear, even he will carry. Here is our safety: He shall gather the lambs with his arm, and carry them in his bosom.

O my gracious Lord, be pleased to carry me among thine own in life and in death. Yea, set me safe on the further short to sing forever of thy saving power.

GOING TO BED TO RISE AGAIN

“A man goes to bed willingly and cheerfully, because he knows he shall rise again the next morning, and be renewed in his strength. Confidence in the resurrection would make us go to the grave as cheerfully as we go to our beds; it would make us die more comfortably, and sleep more quietly, in the bosom of the Lord than we rest in our own beds.”

This is a choice word; a flower which smells sweet, and blossoms in the dust. It needs not a line from us; it only requires the Holy Spirit to enable us to enjoy its fragrance.

THE KING’S LODGING

“If an earthly king lie but a night in a house, what care is there taken that nothing be offensive to him, but that all things be neat, clean, and sweet? How much more ought you to be careful to get and keep your hearts clean, to perform service acceptably to him; to be in the exercise of faith, love, and other graces, that you may entertain, as you ought, your heavenly King, who comes to take up his continual abode and residence in your hearts!”

“We know a house in which, an empress rested for a very short time, and the owner henceforth refused to admit other inmates. Such is his devotion to his royal guest that no one may now sit in her chair or dine at the table which she honored. Our verdict is that he makes loyalty into absurdity by this conduct; but if we imitate him in this procedure in reference to the Lord Jesus we shall be wise. Let our whole being be set apart for Jesus, and for Jesus only. We shall not have to shut up the house; for our beloved Lord will inhabit every chamber of it, and make it a permanent palace. Let us see to it that all be holy, all pure, all devout.

Help us, O Purifier of the temple, to drive out all intruders, and reserve our soul in all the beauty of holiness for the Blessed and Only Potentate.

BANKRUPTS

“A man is a man, though he be a bankrupt; he has a being, though his well-being is lost.”

So a believer may be truly alive unto God, though by his carelessness he has lost all the wealth of the spiritual life, and has fallen into soul poverty. Such a man should not despair, but with deep humiliation he should begin again. A tradesman who has failed will take to a humble calling to earn his bread, and so should a Christian who has broken down in his spiritual estate take a lowly position, and with all diligence labor to glorify the Lord better than before.

O my Lord, give me good speed in heavenly business, lest I fail, and do an injury to thy cause. But if I have already made a miscarriage of my life’s endeavors, then set me on my feet again, for I am still thy child. “I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek thy servant; for I do not forget thy commandments.”

INFECTED AIR

“The devil is called ‘the prince of the power of the air.” Infected air is drawn into the lungs without pain, and we get a disease before we feel it, and so die of a pestilential air.”

Thus doth Satan injure and destroy men’s souls by an influence so subtle and painless that ere a man is aware of it he is inflicted with error or iniquity, and falls a victim to the evil. Whole cities have been carried off by pests arising from causes which the sick ones never suspected, and whole classes of men perish from wild passions which only the devil could have excited to such a pitch. No gas is so impalpable, so penetrating, so all-pervading, so deadly, as the influence of Satan. In these days it is not polite to speak of him; it would seem that he is so much respected by his own children that they cannot endure to hear a word against him. The common doubt of his existence is a proof of his powerful cunning; nothing will serve his turn better than for silly men to dream that he is dead or incapacitated. He laughs in his sleeve, for he is surrounding the very men who deny him, and for him they live and move. His subtlety slays without leaving the stain of blood to alarm other victims: who knoweth the depth of his cunning! Alas, that so many should be so ignorant of his devices as to be unsuspicious of the deadly influence which he breathes into the moral atmosphere!

May the health-giving Spirit of the Lord preserve all new-born hearts, so that they may pass through this pestiferous world unharmed. Surely we may give a spiritual as well as a natural meaning to that promise in the psalm, “Thou shalt not be afraid for the pestilence which walketh in darkness. A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.” Doth not the Scripture expressly say, “Sin shall not have dominion over you?” Under the protection of this assurance we may pursue our callings in the midst of this evil generation, and yet remain in vigorous health of soul. God grant it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

INFECTION EASY

“We easily catch an infectious disease from one another, but no man receiveth health from another’s company.”

Too true. Evil communications inevitably corrupt good manners; but good communications do not so necessarily improve evil manners. We more readily learn evil than good, and we are also more forcible in communicating sin than virtue. Both as to the giving out and the receiving, the aptness lies on the wrong side. What a proof of our natural depravity! What a change must grace work in us before we shall be fully like our Lord Jesus, who was incapable of being inoculated by sin, but abundantly able to communicate goodness; for healing virtue proceeded from him. When shall we become disseminators of holiness by our very presence? When shall we dwell where every companion shall minister to our soul’s health? Such a place Jesus is preparing for us, and thither is he bringing his redeemed ones.

THE EVERY-DAY SUIT

“Godliness is not a holiday suit, but apparel that is for constant wear.”

This illustrates a very important truth. Some people seem to fancy that they can put their religion on and off as they do their Sunday clothes. Such religion is better put off once for all. He who is not godly every day is not godly any day. We should aim at serving God with all our hearts on the Sabbath, in songs, and prayers, and sermons; but if these are to be acceptable, we must also serve God on all the week-days in an honest, upright, holy conversation. True Christians will endeavor to make their houses temples, their meals sacraments, their garments vestments, and all their days holy-days. That profession which is merely on the surface, like the gilt upon the gingerbread at a country fair, is too poor a thing to enter heaven.

Lord, make me to wear thy righteousness within me, and then I cannot leave it off. Make me like the king’s daughter, “all glorious within.” Weave thy grace into the warp and weft of my being. Even on earth let me ever be with the Lord.

WORKING BY CONTRARIES

“God many times worketh contrary to outward likelihoods. When the bricks were doubled, who would look for deliverance? As the Hebrew tongue must be read backward, or as the sun going back ten degrees in Ahaz’s dial was a sign of Hezekiah’s recovery, so is providence to be read backward. Joseph was made a slave that he might be made a favorite. Who would have thought that the dungeon had been the way to the court, that error is a means to clear truth, and bondage maketh way for liberty?”

Thus have we found sickness work for our health and poverty promote our wealth. Our worst days have turned out to be our best days, and our low estate has lifted us on high. When storms come we may welcome them, for they bring blessing on their wings; but when our calm is long and deep we ought to be on our watch, lest stagnation and disease should come of it. Science talks of curing by likes; but the Heavenly Physician heals both by likes and by contraries; in fact, he bends all things to his gracious purpose. To judge his proceedings is folly and ingratitude. What can we know? Especially what can we know of his design and purpose while his work is yet on the anvil? Our judgments at their best are only moderated foolishness. We are neither prophets nor sons of prophets, and it would be wise if we would no more speculate upon the results of divine operations, but firmly believe and patiently wait till the providence comes to the flower and to the seed, and God becomes his own interpreter.

LIFE IS THE MAIN MATTER

“A corpse may be laid in state, and sumptuously adorned, but there is no life within.”

Adornments are out of place in the chamber of death; they do but make the scene the more ghastly. We have heard of a dead prince who was place upon a throne, dressed in imperial purple, crowned, and sceptred! How pitiful the spectacle! The courtiers mustered to so wretched a travesty of state must have loathed the pageantry.

So is it when a man’s religion is a dead profession; its ostentatious zeal and ceremonious display are the grim trappings which make the death appear more manifest. When, like Jehu, a man cries, “Come with me, and see my zeal for the Lord,” his false heart betrays itself. The more he decorates his godliness the more does the hypocrite’s spiritual death appear. It is not possible to supply the lack of the divine life. There is an essential difference between a dead child at its best and a living child at its worst, and it needs no Solomon to see it. Unless the Spirit of God shall give life, sustain life, and perfect life, none of us can ever dwell with the living God. This is the point to look to: the vestments and trappings are a secondary business.

WINDFALLS

“When the tree is shaken the rotten apples fall.”

When religion is at a discount, and godliness is derided, then hypocrites and unsound professors desert the cause. It is astonishing what a little shake will get rid of the commonplace members of our churches. Let but a minister die, or remove, or a couple of leading men fall out—off they go. A warm south wind, blowing from the cathedral, or the manor-house, or the public-house, and dropping a gentle shower of gifts, will cause many rotten ones to fall into the lap of bribery. Sound believers, who are full of life, and untouched by the worm of insincerity, hold to the church of God in all weathers. May more of these be produced every year to God’s glory!

Rougher winds than these try other professors. Stagnation in business, pressure for money, and the temptation to speculate fetch down many rotten Christians. The fashion of the world, the luxuries of life, and the habits of wealthy society also shake off others from their visible profession. When they fall, the loss is all their own: the church may apparently lose by their apostasy, but it is not a real injury; in fact, it may be in God’s sight a gain to it. God thinks no better of a tree for being burdened with rotten fruit, nor of a church for being swollen in numbers by base pretenders.
Lord, make me true to the core, and keep me so.

THE BAKER AND HIS OVEN

“The baker watcheth when his oven is hot, and then putteth in his bread.”

Thus should we seize the best opportunity for a good work. Let us pray most when we feel we can pray best; and labor most in our holy calling when God is giving us precious opportunities, for the old proverb bids us make hay while the sun shines. To everything there is a season, and much depends upon seizing that season, and utilizing it. Oh, worker for God, take the tide at its flood, and the occasion at its full! Preach the gospel at all times, but specially bring it in when men’s minds are tender through affliction or thoughtfulness. If the oven be cold, heat it; but when it is heated, do not lose your fuel. Work up the conversation till it reaches a fit stage for bringing in the Lord Jesus and saving truth; but be sure that you never get men’s minds ready, and then fail to do that which you are aiming at. As the baker would mot forget to put in the bread, so never forget to introduce the word of faith, the gospel of our salvation, before the interview is over. Have we not already suffered many a hot oven to cool? Let us mend our ways, and be more diligent in our Master’s business.

THE BENUMBED SNAKE

“It is true that natural corruption doth not break out in all with a like violence; but a benumbed snake is a snake; a sow washed is not changed. As when the liver groweth, other parts languish, so great lust intercepteth the nourishment of other corruptions.”

It seems, then, that there may be a winter to our corruptions as well as to animal and vegetable life, and then the sin which dwelleth in us may be quiet, as though frozen into a rigid powerlessness: but what of that? The weather will change, and then the nest of vipers will be all astir again, each one with venomed tooth aiming to destroy. Experience has also taught the wise observer that sin may be bound by sin, and one ruling passion may hold the rest in check. One man is kept from licentiousness by covetousness: he would be glad to revel in vice if it were not so expensive; another would be a rake and a spendthrift, but then it would not be respectable, and thus his pride checks his passions. This restraint of sin by sin is no proof that the nature is one jot the better, but that it puts on a fairer appearance, and is more likely to deceive. When Satan casts out Satan it is a deep game; but we must not be deceived by the diabolical trick. When the devil’s work seems good it is at its worst.

Nothing will answer with inbred sin but the killing of it. When Joshua had the five kings in the cave at Makkedah, he was not content to shut them in with great stones. No, he too special pains to fetch them out, and hang them up. The condemned race must die, and then Israel can breathe freely. Sin will be our death if we do not put it to death. Checks and restraints are of small value; what is needed is the root-and-branch cure—crucifixion with Christ. To cure sin by sin is a mere piece of stage-playing, which will never answer before God. We need to be purged of the cause of sin, yea, of all sin, or we can never enter heaven.

O thou destroyer of the serpent and his seed, break the head of sin within me, so that it may never lift up its usurped power within my soul. Let the sword of the Spirit do a thorough work within my nature, till not a single rebel lust shall remain alive in the wide domains of my being. Furbish thy sword, O Captain of the Host, and do thine office within me, for I cannot rest till sin is slain.

BUTTERFLIES

“As children catch at butterflies the gaudy wings melt away in their fingers, and there remaineth nothing but an ugly worm.”

Such is the end of all earthly ambitions: they cost us a weary pursuit, and if we gain our desire it is destroyed in the grasping of it. Alas, poor rich man, who has wealth but has lost the power to enjoy it! Alas, poor famous man, who in hunting for honor has learned its emptiness! Alas, poor beautiful woman, who in making a conquest of a false heart has pierced her own with undying sorrow! A butterfly-hunt takes a child into danger, wearies him, throws him down, and often ends in his missing the pretty insect; if, however, the boy is able to knock down his victim with his hat, he has crushed the beauty for which he undertook the chase, and his victory defeats him. The parallel is clear to every eye. For my part, let me sooner be the schoolboy, dashing after the painted fly, than his father worrying and wearying to snatch at something more deceptive still.

Lord, it is time I had done with all butterfly-hunting, for my years are warning me that I may hope soon to be among the angels, and see greater beauties than this whole creation can set before me. I am now bent on pursuing nothing but that which is eternal and infinite. Keep me to this resolve, I pray thee.

SPECTACLES USELESS TO THE BLIND

“When unrenewed nature putteth on the spectacles of art she is still blind.”

Nowadays men must needs be philosophers, and reason and argue; but their conclusions as to spiritual things, wherein they come into conflict with divine revelation, are not one whit more to be respected than the conclusions of utter ignorance. Blind men blunder enough in the dark; add light, and they see no better; add spectacles, and the case is not altered; what is needed is the seeing eye. Till God gives eyes it is in vain for opticians to lend their glasses. So unregenerate men, when they are ignorant, are full of error; set them in the light of the gospel, they are in truth no wiser, for they have no spiritual perception of it; then add learning and sharp reasoning, and the case is by no means altered; they see no more than before, for they are still stone-blind. We have in this day many famous learned men, whose talk about the things of God is as idle as that of illiterate blasphemers. Whatever they know as to other matters, they can know nothing of divine truths, for they have no faculty with which to perceive them. Let them put on their great goggles of science, they see no more of spirituals with them than without them.

Lord! let me not go about to fit spectacles to blind eyes; but whenever I meet with a birth-blind Bartimeus, help me to bring him to thee, for it is a mark of thy Messiahship that from thee the blind receive their sight.

AT HOME, YET NOT AT HOME

“Jerusalem from above is the mother of us all. Heaven is the believer’s native country, and therefore, though the man be at home, yet the Christian is not; he is out of his proper place.”

Hence our position is a paradox. We were in literal fact born out of our native country, and whilst we are at home we are abroad. We can say, “Lord, thou has been our dwelling-place in all generations,” and yet we often cry, “Oh that I knew where I might find him!” We are exiles in spirit while we are at home in the body; and we shall never be at home till we have left our native land, and have returned to the country which we have never yet seen. We are living paradoxes and contradictions, and it is no wonder that men know us not, for we scarcely know ourselves.

HORSE WITH HALTER

“A heart escaped with a halter is easily caught again; so a lust indulged will bring us into our old bondage.”

Nothing is harder to bury than the tail of habit; but unless we do bury it, tail and all, the viper will wriggle out of its grave. A clear, clean, and complete escape is the only true deliverance from an evil practice which has long been indulged. A drunkard, is not safe from the drink while he takes his occasional glass with a friend. A man who allows himself any one sin will be sure to allow another; where one dog comes into the room, another mat follow. A fish is not free for his life while a hook is in his mouth, and a line holds him to the rod. However thin the connecting medium, it will be the death of the fish, if it holds; and, however slight the bond which links a man to evil, it will be his sure ruin.

Oh for grace to war with every sin! So long as one Amalekite remains, Isreal is not free from peril from the accursed race. Let us, like Samuel, hew the delicate Agag in pieces before the Lord. He may have a gentle speech and pleasing manners, but he is the very king of the band, and must not be spared. We must not let our heart go after one of its idols, or it will be in bondage to it, and afterward in servitude to every other form of sin.

Lord, set me free from the last link of my chain. Suffer me not to drag behind me even a fragment of my betters. Free to obey, free to be holy—this is what I crave!

THE SUNBEAM ON THE DUNGHILL

“God can by no means be looked upon as the direct author of sin, or the proper cause of that obliquity that is in the actions of the creatures; for his providence is conversant about sin without sin, as a sunbeam lighteth upon a dunghill without being stained by it.”

This is a grand truth most clearly set forth. It will help us to answer many a gainsayer. Evil is in God’s world, but God is good, and only good.

IRON IN THE FIRE MADE LIKE FIRE

“In a stamp impressed, the wax receiveth only the form and figure, without any real quality; as a golden seal leaveth no tincture of gold, nor a brazen seal the property of brass. In a glass, besides figure and proportion, there is a representation of motion, but no other real qualities. But here, as iron in the fire seemeth to be fire, we are like our Lord in holiness and happiness.”

Thus, O my soul, be thou in Christ as the iron in the fire, thyself transformed into his very nature and spirit. Is it so with thee now? Alas, not as it should be. Yet he that hath wrought us to the self-same thing thus far is the Lord, and he will not cease his work till he hath perfected it. Refining fire go through my heart until I, also, burn and glow. Lord, I cry to thee for this, and surely that which is already in my desire will soon be in my possession. I leave myself in thy hands. Change me wholly into thine image, I beseech thee.

THORNS AND BURRS

“Ears of corn do not catch our clothes and hang about them, but thorns and burrs will do so.”

In passing through the midst of this crooked and perverse generation, we are far more likely to learn evil than good. It is well to keep our clothes well brushed when traversing this world’s dusty roads, for it is not a fragrant spice, but a defiling dust, which we gather in our journeying. Often have we gone for a walk and brought home mire upon our shoes, but we never remember to have come home with our clothing improved by our perambulations. The tendency of all around is to soil us, and mar the beauty of our holiness. The Lord, help us to be very careful on this point. May we be among those of whom there were a few even in Sardis, “who have not defiled their garments;” for the Lord Jesus says of them, “they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.” What a walk will that be! What joy had Enoch in such a walk on earth! What honor will be given us by such a walk in heaven!

SERVANTS AND HEIRS

“A servant must have something in hand, he must have his pay from quarter to quarter, or from week to week. He is not expecting to receive his master’s possessions, and, therefore, seeks a present wage; but an heir waiteth till the estate falls in to him, and looks not for present gains.”

Thus may we discern between the mere hireling and the true-born child: the one deserts the Lord’s service when it does not pay down on the nail; the other never expects reward till glory shall crown his labors. It is a sad thing for any sort of people when Jesus can say of them, “Verily, I say unto you, they have their reward.” They cannot expect to be paid twice, and as their account is discharged in full, what have they to look for?

Blessed shall we be if we are enabled to imitate the example of the Lord Jesus, who served the Father in the spirit of Sonship. Love made him rise above all idea of present recompense: he waited the Father’s time, and he still waits for his complete reward till the hour of his Second Advent shall arrive.

“A servant,” according to Job, “earnestly desireth the shadow” of evening, when his task will be ended; “and the hireling looketh for the reward of his work:” this is nothing more than natural, for they have no interest in the work beyond their pay. But the heir loveth his father, and worketh and waiteth patiently, for the father saith to him, “All that I have is thine.” In serving the cause of God we are really serving ourselves, for we are partakers in this great cause, even as the interest of sons is one with that of their father. Can we not, therefore, “both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord?”

HOUSES AND SHIPS PREPARED FOR STORMS

“He that buildeth a house, doth not take care that the rain should not descend upon it, or the storm should not beat upon it: there is no fencing against these things, they cannot be prevented by any care of ours; but he takes care that the house may be able to endure all weathers without damage. And he that buildeth a ship, doth not make this his work, that it should never meet with waves and billows; that is impossible; but that it may be tight and stanch, and able to endure all tempests. A man that taketh care for his body, doth not desire that he meet with no change of weather, hot or cold; but he prepareth his dress that his body may bear all inclemencies. Thus should Christians do: they should not so much take care how to avoid afflictions as to be ready to bear them with an even, and quiet mind.”

Let me then seek steadfastness that I may stand in every storm, strength that I may brave every tempest, and all the graces of the Spirit that I may be happy in every condition. I may not pray to be kept from the flood and the wind, but that my house may be built upon a rock. I may not ask that no tempest may assault my bark, but that Jesus may be always in the vessel. I may not beg the Lord to change the arrangements of his providence, and neither try me with the heat of prosperity nor the cold of adversity, but I must see to it that I buy of him raiment that I may be clothed amid all the changes of my circumstances.

Herein is wisdom. Let us learn it, even as the prudent woman of the Proverbs had learned it, of whom we read, “She is not afraid of the snow for her household, for all her household are clothed with scarlet.” Better to be prepared for trial than to be flying hither and thither to avoid it. Come, my soul, thou must make a passage across a rough sea, nerve thyself to it by grace divine, and the Lord shall yet be glorified in thee. A battle awaits thee. Do not attempt to run from the fight, but look to thine armor, and unsheath thy sword.

HEART-DISEASE THE WORST DISEASE

“What would we think of a man who complained of the toothache, or of a cut finger, when all the while he was wounded at the heart? Would it not seem very strange?”

Yet men will lament anything sooner than the depravity of their hearts. Many will confess their wandering thoughts in prayer, but will not acknowledge the estrangement of their hearts from God. They will be sorry for having spoken angrily, but not for having a passionate heart. They will own to Sabbath-breaking, but never lament their want of love to Jesus, which is a heart-matter. The evil of their hearts seems nothing to them: their tongues, hands, feet are all that they notice. What! will they cry over a cut finger, and feel no fear when they have a dagger thrust into their bowels? Oh, madness of sinners, that they trifle most with that disease which is the most dangerous, and lies at the bottom of all other ills. God’s great complaint of men is that they set up in their hearts idols which they themselves think nothing of. Ezek. 14:3, 5. Certain in our day are so far gone that they even deny that the human heart is diseased. What then? It does but prove the intimate connection between the heart and the eyes. A perverted heart soon creates a blinded eye. Of course a depraved heart does not see its own depravity. Oh that we could lead men to think and feel aright about their hearts; but this is the last point to which we can bring them! They beat about the bush, and mourn over any and every evil except the source and fountain of it all.

Lord, teach me to look within. May I attend even more to myself than to my acts. Purge thou the spring, that the stream may no longer be defiled. I would begin where thou dost begin, and beseech thee to give me a new heart. Thou sayest, “My son, give me thine heart.” Lord, I do give it to thee, but at the same time I pray, “Lord, give me a new heart;” for without this my heart is not worth thy having.

THE JUDGE’S VERDICT ALONE TO BE REGARDED

“It is no matter what standers-by say of the runner, so the judge of the race doth approve of his running.”

Yet we all make too much of the approval or disapproval of our fellow-men, who are, after all, only the spectators, and not the umpires, of the race. What folly this is! What injuries it inflicts! We are elevated by human opinion if it be favorable to us, and this betrays us into the weakness of pride; which weakness soon shows itself in faint-heartedness, when that unstable opinion wears round, and blows a cold blast of fault-finding. If we were steadily “looking unto Jesus,” this would not happen, and our running would be more regular and less disturbed. Be it our endeavor to live above men, in the conscious presence of God. Who and what are men that we should live upon the breath of their nostrils? Their judgment is a small matter; the judgment of God is all in all.

Lord, thou hast said, “Walk before me, and be thou perfect,” and from this I learn that I cannot hope for perfection unless I set thee always before me, and rate thine approval at an infinitely higher price than the judgment of those about me. Enable me to say with thy servant David, “I have set the Lord always before me; because he is at my right hand, I shall not be moved.”

PRUNING UNPRUNED TREES

“Trees long unpruned have the more cuts of the knife when the gardener begins with them.”

The ground is strewn with their offshoots, and they present a sorry figure: one might even think that the gardener was quite destroying them. So have we seen our Father, who is the Husbandman, cut and slash terribly with those who have been long prosperous, and have, therefore, borne little of the fruit of grace, and much of the wood of worldliness. See how their wealth diminishes, their health declines, their family sickens! Providence multiplies their trials till they feel that the hand of the Lord is gone out against them. Does the gardener hate the apple-tree when he prunes so remorselessly? Far from it: he knows it to be a choice tree, and, therefore, he would have fruit from it: he would not thus wear away his knife upon a crab. Abounding trials prove their own necessity and the Lord’s sagacity. If it clearly appears that we have not been able to bear seasons of worldly case, it is the stern order of heavenly love that we must lose the unprofitable luxuriance of our unregulated joys. Is it not well that it should be so?

O Lord, I thank thee for all the wounds thou hast hitherto seen it wise to inflict upon me. If I, too, have enjoyed too much repose, and have spent my strength unprofitably in consequence thereof, I rejoice to think that I am in good hands. Deal with me even as thou wilt. I ask not for affliction, but I beg thee to make me fruitful unto thyself, let the means be what they may.

LIKE WILL TO LIKE

“Everything tendeth to the place of its original. Men love their native soil; things bred in the water delight in that element; inanimate things tend to their centre; a stone will fall to the ground though broken in pieces by the fall.”

Thus I may judge of my nature by my inclination. What delights me? For where my delight is my heart is. If I take pleasure in the ways of the world, then I am of the world. If I find myself at home in sin, then I am still the servant of sin. Doubtless many hasten to evil with such desperate speed that they will be broken in the fall; yet to evil they must needs go, and he who would hinder them gets a wound for his pains.

Come, my heart, what sayest thou of thyself? Art thou inclined to holiness or to lewdness, to grace or to covetousness? How much hangs on this! Yet take heart, for if thou hast a nature which came from heaven it will rise to heaven. If Jesus is the source of thy life, that life will rise as high as the place where Jesus dwells. Is not this a rich encouragement?

SAILING LONG, BUT NOT FAR

“A man may abide long in the world till he be eaten out of life by his own rust, or droppeth like rotten fruit; but he cannot be said to have a long life; as a man may be long at sea, but if he is driven to and fro by the waves he cannot be said to make a long voyage when he is at last driven back into the port out of which he sailed at first.”

Yes, life is not to be measured by mere lapse of time, but by the real headway which a man makes. The mass of mankind voyage to no known port, but are the sport of winds and waves. Compass or chart they no more consult than do the sea-birds or the dolphins. Thus it happens that in advanced years men are no forwarder than in youth, for they never continue in one line, having no object before them: they have not lived, but existed. Nothing has been attempted, much less accomplished; their years have rusted them into infirmity, but otherwise they are unaltered. Here’s the respect which makes calamity of so much wasted life.

O my blessed Lord, preserve thy servant from spending his sojourn here after the manner of the idler. Let mine be a real life. May I not be a mere strainer of meat and drink, or a walking clothes-horse, or a cipher; but may I so live on earth that it may seem wise to thee to bid me continue my life forever.

DOUBLE BENEFIT

“A malefactor that hath a leprosy on him needs not only a pardon, but a medicine; and in a broken leg, not only ease of the pain is desirable, but that the bone be set right. So we need both justification and sanctification.”

Justification saves the malefactor, and sanctification cures him of his spiritual disease: are they not equally desirable? Who would wish to miss the one or the other if in need of them? Pardon removes the pain of our broken bones, but spiritual renewal reduces the fracture. Let us not be content with half a gospel, but obtain a whole Christ for our broken hearts. Renewal of life is every way as desirable as forgiveness of sin. As well be full of guilt as full of guile. If a child has eaten unhealthy food, it is well to cure the disease which is occasioned by it, but it is equally desirable to break him of the habit which led him to such foul feeding.

Lord, thy poor servant is by nature both malefactor and leper; and nothing will serve my turn but a double-handed blessing. I pray thee absolve me, and cure me too. Let me know of a surety that both these blessings are mine beyond all question, mine in immediate and experienced possession.

GRAVEL IN THE SHOE

“Who will pity the man who complains of soreness and pain in walking, and yet doth not take the gravel out of his shoe? If you wound and gore yourselves, no question but your smart and trouble are real, you do not complain in hypocrisy; but who is to be blamed? Your business is to remove the cause.”

Many of the trials of our spiritual life are preventible: if we indulge a sin we invite a sorrow. Others are curable: if we refuse a remedy we rivet a disease. All that we can do for ourselves we are bound to do. We must put away evil habits, and not content ourselves with whining out our regrets. We must get away from temptation, and not sit near the fire and complain of the heat. There is too much of this insincerity abroad. What should we have thought of the prodigal if he had lamented his destitution, but had continued in the far country? What do we now think of the drunkard who mourns over the redness of his eyes, and yet tarries long at the wine; or of the lascivious man who bemoans his vice, and yet frequents the house of the strange woman?

By gracious instruction, I pray thee, O Lord, teach me to be practical in going to the bottom of things, that I may not waste time in regretting evils which it is my duty to prevent. Let me not mourn my doubt, and yet refuse to believe thy faithful word; neither permit me to cry over my chastisement, and yet continue in my folly. Lord, make me to know wisdom. To this end, make me mindful of little things. Help me to look to the little stone, or tiny dust in my shoe, for this may cause me many a blister, and even lame me, so that I cannot hold on my way.

AN UNUSUAL COMPLAINT

“I have read in the lives of the fathers of a devout man that, being one year without any trial, cried out, ‘Domine, reliquisti me, quia non me visitasti, hoc anno,’—Lord! thou hast forgotten me, and for a whole year hast not appointed me upon any exercise of patience.”

We would not recommend any one of our readers to unite with this devout but mistaken expression. We should count it all joy when we fall into divers trials, but, at the same time, we ought to be thankful if we do not fall into them. If a cross be laid upon us, let us take it up cheerfully; but it would be folly to make a cross for ourselves, or go out of our way to look for one. He must be a very foolish child who begs to be whipped. “Lead us not into temptation,” is a prayer of our Lord’s own teaching, and we prefer to keep to it rather than follow this devout man in what reads very like a prayer for temptation. Those who cry for chastisement will have enough of it before all is over. Be it ours to leave our correction and probation in our Lord’s hands, and never let us be so unwise as to desire more trials than his infinite wisdom appoints us.

THE TAP AND THE LIQUOR

“The tap runneth according to the liquor with which the vessel is filled.”

The tongue babbleth out that which occupies the mind. We shall never hear much pious conversation till we hare more thorough conversions. Taps will never run with pure water while the barrels are bursting with fermented liquors. Change the contents of the heart, and you alter at once the droppings of the mouth. From a sweet fountain of thought we shall have sweet waters of talk. Even the involuntary utterances of gracious men are gracious: the mere drippings of common speech reveal the heart of the man. The leakings of a tap show the contents quite as surely as the proper runnings of it.

Lord, grant that even my dreams may be pure, that my playful thoughts may be godly, and my chance words acceptable before thee. Fill me with thyself, and then nothing but good can come from me.

BRASS FARTHINGS AND GOLD IN THE POCKET

“He that hath in his pocket more store of gold than of brass farthings will at every draught bring out more gold than farthings.”

Of course the hand fetches out the various kinds of coins in proportion as they exist in the place from which it takes them. Now, our works are our hand, and this, by action, fetches out of us that which is in us. In a child of God there is a measure of natural evil, and a more abounding measure of grace; and so it will come to pass that, in his life, holiness will be more conspicuous than sin. His life has its failings, but much more its virtues. Peter brought out brass farthings of boasting and impetuous folly at times; but he also brought forth so much true gold that his Lord said, “Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona.” When he had received the Holy Ghost he brought out much more gold; but even then a farthing came out now and then, for Paul withstood him because he was to be blamed.

When the believer’s tongue also makes a dip into the pocket of the heart there may come forth some of those wretched brass farthings in the form of idle words; but much more will the gold be poured forth in edifying discourse. Paul saith that foolish talking is not befitting, but he commends giving of thanks; now, if somewhat of our folly has come forth in our talk, let us give heed that far more of our gratitude shall be brought out also. We ought daily to grow richer in grace, and so have more gold, and less of the baser sort.

Lord, help me to get rid of these miserable brass counters, and do thou fill up their places with the precious metal of thine own holiness and truth. Am I not thy child? Wilt thou not supply me within with that which will be fit to be brought out into my life? Oh that I might be “filled with all the fulness of God,” that my poor empty things may no more appear!

RAVENS LOVING THE SCENT OF CARRION

“If you would be free from sin, avoid the temptations that lead to it. If ravens or crows be driven away from carrion, they love to abide within scent of it.”

This last sentence is a grim parable, but all too true. If human nature cannot yield an ell to self-indulgence, it will give its full inch. We have seen those who dared not enter the devil’s house linger long and lovingly around the doors. The old woman in the fable, who could find no wine in the jar, yet loved to smell at it. It is a clear proof of the love of human nature to evil that, when restrained from actual sin, men will rehearse their former exploits, and dote on the lusts which they indulged years ago. If they cannot have a fresh dish from Satan’s garden they will have “the cauld kail het again” sooner than go without.

Our author gives sage advice at the outset, when he says—to avoid sin, avoid temptation. He who would not be wounded should keep out of battle; he who would not be tossed about should not go to sea; he who would not be heated should keep away from the fire. If men will get into the train which runs to the terminus of iniquity, they must expect to be carried to their journey’s end. He who desires to keep awake should not go to bed. If I stand in the way of sinners I shall soon ran with them. Oh to possess a godly fear, which shall lead me rather to go ten miles round about, than pass by the place of temptation! It is well to keep out of the smell of sin, for the very odor of it is baneful.

If we seek a temptation we shall soon find it; and within it, like a kernel in a nut, we shall meet with sin. Oh that our young people had the wit to see this, and were more firmly resolved not to stand in the broad road, or even near it, lest they should become regular travellers upon it! Lord, give them prudence. Yea, give me prudence, and, as I would not devour the carrion of sin, give me such a renewed nature that the most distant scent of it shall at once sicken me, and cause me to urge my steps as far from it as possible.

TONGS FOR HANDLING HOT IRON

“Chrysostom hath the following comparison: ‘A smith that taketh up his red-hot iron with his hands, and not with his tongs, what can he expect but to burn his fingers? So we destroy our souls when we judge of the mysteries of faith by the laws of common reason.”

Common enough is this error. Men must needs comprehend when their main business is to apprehend. That which God reveals to us is, to a large extent, beyond the reach of understanding, and, therefore, in refusing to believe until we can understand, we are doing ourselves and the truth a grievous wrong. Our wisdom lies as much in taking heed how we receive as in being careful what we receive. Spiritual truth must be received by a spiritual faculty; namely, by faith. As well hope to grasp a star by the hand, as divine truth by reason. Faith is well likened to the golden tongs, with which we may carry live coals; and carnal reason is the burned hand, which lets fall the glowing mass, which it is not capable of carrying.

Let it not, however, be thought that faith is contrary to reason. No: it is not unreasonable for a little child to believe its father’s statements, though it be quite incapable of perceiving all their bearings. It is quite reasonable that a pupil should accept his master’s principles at the beginning of his studies; he will get but little from his discipleship if he begins by disputing with his teacher. How are we to learn anything if we will not believe? In the gloriously sublime truths of Godhead, Incarnation, Atonement, Regeneration, and so forth, we must believe, or be forever ignorant: these masses of the molten metal of eternal truth must be handled by faith, or let alone.

All gracious Lord, this one thing thou hast done for me—thou hast made me a willing believer. Let but thine authority be at the back of a statement, and it stands instead of reason: in fact, thy word is to me the surest evidence, and to believe it is my soundest common-sense. O Lord, thy LOGOS is my logic; thy Testament is my argument; thy Word is my warrant. In the day which shall reveal all things it shall be seen that man’s reasonings are but childish folly, and God’s revelation is wisdom at its height.

GREEN WOOD

“Green wood, which is wet and full of sap, cannot be kindled by a flash or a spark, but needeth much care and blowing ere it will burn.”

When we are dealing with young and thoughtless minds, we must remember this, and be patient and persevering. Such will not readily take fire when we apply our match; we had better go down on our knees while we are trying to light the fire of attention in them, and if we use the warm breath of our anxious love we shall all the sooner do the work.

Lord, as I have seen my servant thus doing my work, help me as thy servant to copy her, and succeed in thy work.

GAMBLING

“In gaming there is a secret witchery. A man will play a little, and only venture a small sum; but soon he is wormed in, and more and more entangled; and so men think it is no great matter to sin a little, and yet that little leadeth on to more.”

The illustration is most forcible. Many persons have put down a piece of silver on the gaming-table when passing through the room, and from that moment their ruin has been sealed. They will be seen from day to day staking their hundreds, till the last fatal roll of the ball leaves them penniless. For the while gamblers live, and move, and have their being in the game: their eyes are quick, and their brains are sharp, to see each turn of the play: they are the willing, abject slaves of what is called amusement. Thus doth sin begin with littles, and glide into more serious faults; till the sinner is spellbound, and finds himself engrossed with folly, which he has no will to leave. Be it ours to give no place to the devil. Let him not have a spot whereon to set up his enchantment and work his diabolical arts. If we never venture a farthing upon Satan’s table, we shall never be made beggars by his devices. If he is not allowed to spin a spider’s web about us, he will never be able to hold us with the cords of iniquity. If we never wade into sin we shall never drown in it. Lord, keep us from the appearance of evil.

INWARD BLEEDING

“Many die of inward bleeding as well as by outward wounds.”

Every surgeon can give give instances of such deaths. Not an abrasion of the skin was visible: the dying man had neither gash, nor cut, nor even a pin’s prick, and yet his life oozed away in secret. Thus, without an open fault, a man’s soul may perish. If wrath rage within, it is fatal, though no revengeful act has been perpetrated; if lust be burning in the heart, the man is lost, though he has never advanced to a lascivious deed; if unbelief proves an inward enmity against God, the man is condemned already, though no blasphemous word has crossed his lip. Sin is a bleeding at the heart. It is a disease which destroys the true life within, as well as the fruit of it without; therefore let every man beware of flattering himself that he is right with God because no glaring vice is manifest in his daily conversation. The worm none the less surely destroys the apple because its first operations are at the core, and quite out of sight. If fire be utterly hidden among combustible materials, it will not therefore be any the less sure and rapid in its devouring work.

“Sin, which dwelleth in me,” is the enemy that I must fight against, as well as sin which goeth out of me. O Lord, help me to be healthy in the fountain of my being. Heal my heart, and so I shall be healed. Heart-disease baffles all physicians but thyself. This, however, is thy specialité. Lord, display thy sovereign power and skill in the centre of my being.

A CHILD ASKING AN APPLE

“Prayers to God for spiritual things are the most acceptable, but prayers for temporals are not despised. A child pleaseth his father more when he desireth him to teach him his book than when he begs for an apple; yet this request is not refused when it will do him no ill to grant it.”

A pretty, simple picture, rightly drawn upon divine authority; for the Lord himself teaches us to judge what our heavenly Father will do for us by that which we would do for our children. If I go to God, and ask for spiritual blessings, he will be pleased with my request, and most surely grant it, even as a father will readily give his boy a lesson in some useful work or book. But I may also beg for temporal mercies, as a child asks for its bread and butter. More than this, as a child may ask for an apple, or a sweet, so may I make request for that which I desire. Only in this latter case I am bound to remember that a child is not bidden to ask for the apple, though he is allowed to do so. “Give me this day my daily bread,” is a petition prescribed: if I ask for more it must be as a petition permitted. Moreover, the child’s request is one which must be left entirely to the Father’s own discretion: he is bound by promise to give his offspring necessaries, but he is under no bonds to grant them luxuries. Here is a difference ever to be noted between prayers commanded and prayers tolerated. As we are children of the great Father, we have a large liberty of request; if we delight ourselves in the Lord he will give us the desires of our hearts; but still when we are praying, it is well for us to press our suit just so far as it may be pressed, an no further. A child asking for necessary food may be vehement even unto tears; but if what he wishes for is only a sugar-stick, he will be a naughty child if he be passionately importunate. Mind this, ye babes in grace, when next ye pray. Ask, seek, knock, according as the promise invites; but in temporal matters consider the way of the Lord’s house, and submit your will unto the will of the Father.

THE SHOWMAN’S JEST

“Austin speaketh of a jester who boasted that at the next fair he would undertake to show every one what they did desire; and when there was a great concourse and expectation, he told them, ‘Hoc omnes vultis, vili emere, et caro vendere,’—You all desire to buy cheap and sell dear. Another showman, on like occasion, said, ‘Ye all desire to be praised.’ But Austin saith rightly, these were but foolish answers, because many good men desire neither, the one being against justice, and the other against sincerity; but, saith he, ‘Si dixisset, omnes beati esse vultis, If he had said,—Ye all desire to be happy, he had said right. Every one may find this disposition in his own heart, every man desireth happiness.”

No doubt this is true, and it is equally true that the notion of happiness is as varied as the wish for it is universal. What is my view of happiness? This is a question of the highest importance; for as I am sure to seek after that which I desire, and am sure to desire that which I conceive to be happiness, it is clear that my conception of happiness will largely regulate my whole course of life. Remember this, O my soul, and take good heed that thou seek not happiness apart from holiness, nor rest apart from Jesus, nor pleasure apart from pleasing God.

Lord, teach men that thou art their bliss, and then draw them to seek after thee with their whole hearts.

CONSCIENCE LIKE THE EYE OR THE STOMACH

“The least dust, if it get into the eye, will pain it; so will conscience at first smite us for lesser failings and excesses; but afterward when you make bold with it, it is like the stomach of the ostrich, which digesteth iron; or like a part or member of the body which is seared with a hot iron, it hath no feeling (1 Tim. 4:2); or, like freezing water, which at first will not bear a pin, but afterward it freezeth, and freezeth, till it bear a cart-load. Some men lose their tender sense of sin by frequency of sinning.”

If our offending against right did us no worse turn than this it would be bad enough, for to lose sensitiveness of conscience is to lose the excellence of our being. What is the eye worth when it can no longer feel pain, or the hand when its touch is gone, or the head when sensation has departed? As well take away from the goldsmith all his tests as from man his conscience. What is the use of a watchman who is in a dead sleep? How far any one of us may be proceeding in this direction it will be prudent for us to know at once, that by repentance we may arrest the process, and by faith may put ourselves into the hands of the Lord Jesus, that he may give back to us the heart of flesh. Let us entreat the Holy Spirit to continue his softening operations even to the end.

“Sin has been hammering my heart
Unto a hardness void of love:
Let suppling grace to cross its art
Drop from above.”

THE EAR-RING

“Reproof is an ear-jewel; now an ear-jewel must not be too weighty and heavy, lest it tear and rend, rather than adorn the ear.”

Rebuke requires delicacy. It is never wise to box a man on the ear to win his attention to a whisper. Too much zeal in this case is its own hindrance. It is only a dainty bit of pure gold, garnished with a rare jewel, that a lady will think fit for her ear: it would be idle to offer her a quoit, or even a curtain-ring. It was said of a good man that if he wished to brush off a fly from a friend’s forehead he would look round for a beetle and wedges; and of another that he washed off spots from a brother’s face with scalding water. A man should note how reproofs affect himself, and he may from this observation discover that they need to be administered very tenderly. The rebukes of the righteous should always be as a precious ointment, sweet and gentle; never should they break the head. Whenever it is our reader’s duty to attend to this painful business, let him remember Manton’s figure of the earring, and act accordingly. A friend who wished a lady to wear an ear-ring would go down to the jeweller’s, and with dainty fingers examine various jewels, and select on of the best, suited for that exquisite piece of living coral which is such an adornment to a fair head. This he would not fling at the lady, nor force into her ear with violence, but he would proffer it with due courtesy, and leave her to fix it in its place herself. If a reproof be thus selected, and be really precious, it should be wisely presented to the person for whom it is intended; and much of the application must be adroitly left to the person’s own conscience. Thus will the gem reach the ear, and the reproof reach the heart.

Lord, make us wise in this and all other things by thy Spirit. Let us not shun the duty of reproof, but help me to do it well, lest I do harm when I mean to do good, and thus myself need to be rebuked.

THE YOKE LINED

“The yoke of Christ will be more easy than we think of, especially when it is lined with grace.”

We well remember an old man who carried pails with a yoke, and as he was infirm, and tender about the shoulders, his yoke was padded, and covered with white flannel where it touched him. But what a lining is “love!” A cross of iron, lined with love, would never gall the neck, much less will Christ’s wooden cross. Lined with Christ’s love to us! Covered with our love to him! Truly the yoke is easy, and the burden is light.

Whenever the shoulder becomes sore let us look to the lining. Keep the lining right, and the yoke will be no more a burden to us than wings are to a bird, or her wedding-ring is to a bride. O love divine, line my whole life my cares, my griefs, my pains; and what more can I ask?

PRESCRIPTIONS NOT TO BE ALTERED

“The prescriptions of a physician must not be altered, either by the apothecary or the patient; so we, the preachers, must not alter God’s prescriptions, neither must you, the hearers. We must not shun to declare, nor you to receive, ‘The whole counsel of God.’ ”

It is as much as a man’s soul is worth to alter a word of the Lord’s own writing: to take away from the book, or to add to it, is forbidden; and threatened with the heaviest penalties.

It is not ours to improve the gospel, but to repeat it when we preach, and obey it when we hear. The gospel, the whole gospel, and nothing but the gospel, must be our religion, or we are lost men. Imagine a dispenser altering the ingredients of a medicine to suit his own notions! We should soon have him on trial for manslaughter; and surely he would deserve to be tried on a still higher charge should a patient die through his folly. The gospel prescription is such that an omission or an addition may soon make that which was ordained to life to be unto death. We may not attempt to be wiser than God, for the idea involves constructive blasphemy. No, it is ours to follow our copy to the letter, come what may of it.

Lord, in my teaching I have ever kept to what thou hast said; and therefore men think me old-fashioned, and behind the age. Give me grace to continue so. Never may I aspire to practise a new pharmacy, but may I faithfully dispense thine own ancient and unvarying prescription of salvation by grace through faith.

TRUSTING AFTER FAILURE

“As a prodigal, that hath once broken after he hath been set up, is not trusted with a like stock again; so God’s children may not recover that largeness of spirit, and fulness of inward strength and comfort, which they had before. Many after a great disease do not regain that pitch of health which formerly they had, but they carry the fruits of their disease with them to their graves.”

This is not always the case, for it may happen, as with Peter, that the bankrupt believer may so prosper in grace as to be richer than before his failure; but we fear that Manton here mentions the general rule. Men do not care to ride a broken-kneed horse: if it has been down once, it may be down again. A wise father does not care to restore a son to a position for which he has proved himself to be unfit. Even so has the Lord dealt with many backsliding ones: like David, they have been restored, but never to their former peace, prosperity, and power. Into the army of our Lord the deserter is received with gladness; but he must begin in the ranks, and must prove his fidelity before he is again intrusted with a commission. A fallen one, when restored, may have gained in self-knowledge, but he must necessarily be a loser in many other respects.

A little boy, who had fallen into the habit of falsehood, was made by his father to drive a nail into a post every time he had exaggerated, or told a lie. At last the habit was conquered, and in several trials the boy had displayed complete truthfulness. Then his father allowed him to draw out some of the nails, and this was repeated till no nail was left in the post. The little fellow, so far from being proud when every nail was gone, exclaimed, “Alas, father, the holes are there, where the nails used to be!” Just so does evil leave its marks. However fully restored, the fallen professor seldom loses the memory of impurity, and does not easily regain his injured influence. He is always weak in those points which led to his former fall, and, for the most part, weaker all round.

O Lord! if thou hast counted me faithful, putting me into thy service, I pray thee keep me from being either unfaithful to my charge, or negligent in my life. Let me be so upheld that I shall not have need to be picked out of the mire, and set on my feet again.

THE DEN OF THE COCKATRICE

“If we play about the cockatrice’s hole, no wonder we are bitten.”

An old proverb advises us not to play with edged tools lest we cut our fingers. It is a sin to trifle with sin. If we must play, we had better find harmless toys: that evil which caused Christ a bloody sweat is no fit theme for any man’s sport. Playing with wickedness is a hazardous game. Sooner or later, if we pluck the lion of sin by the beard, it will arouse itself, and we shall be torn in pieces. This is true of indulgence in strong drink: “Look not thou upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth his color in the cup, when it moveth itself aright. At the last it biteth like a serpent, and stingeth like an adder.” It is equally true of all other forms of evil, especially of the lusts of the flesh. Lewd words soon lead to foul deeds. Yet such is the folly of men that they run dreadful risks in sheer wantonness, as though asps and cobras were fine playmates, and devils rare merry-makers.

“Lord, keep back thy servant from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me; then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.”

SUNSHINE WITH RAIN

“An many times the sun shineth when the rain falleth, so there may be in the soul a mixture of spiritual rejoicing and holy mourning; a deep sense of God’s love, and yet a mourning because of the relics of corruption.”

All spiritual persons understand this. The inexperienced ask how a man can be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing.” But this is no puzzle to a Christian. Our life is a paradox. Never in the world elsewhere is there such sunshine of delight as we enjoy, and never such rain as that which damps our joys. It seems at times as if heaven and hell met in our experience. Ours is a joy unspeakable, and yet an ageny unutterable. We rise to the heavenlies in Christ, and sink to the abyss in ourselves. Those who have seen fire burning on the sea, trees living and flourishing upon a rock, feathers flying against the wind, and doves vanquishing eagles, have begun to see a list of marvels, all of which are to be found within the believer, and much more of equal or greater singularity.

Lord, when my own experience puzzles me, be comforted by the thought that it does not puzzle thee. What I know not now thon hast promised to make me know hereafter; and there I leave it.

THE SHIP AND ITS PASSENGERS

“Look, as in a ship some sleep, and some walk contrary to the ship’s motion, so in the world; some men are negligent, others keep bustling and stirring, and seek to resist the designs of God; but the ship goes on, and the world goes on.”

Yes, a passenger may walk to the north along the deck, but the ship keeps on due south; he may sleep, but the vessel speeds over the waves; he may denounce its motion, but it holds on its way. So the heathen may rage, and the people imagine a vain thing, but the counsel of the Lord standeth fast forever. Men are free to will and to act, but omnipotent wisdom rules over them despite their free agency. Not as if they were logs and stones does God govern men, but as rational, intelligent, free agents he permits them to do their own will, and works his own purposes notwithstanding. This is a great marvel. Men are as free as if there were no predestination, and predestination is accomplished as surely as if there were no free agents in the universe. We are full of wonder at this, but it is true.

The figure before us is not perfect, but it has many merits; and, at any rate, it sets out the one idea that the rebellions and wilfulnesses of mankind do not thwart the eternal purposes of the Most High. The royal vessel pursues its way whether men delight in its glorious progress, or rail against it. “The Lord reigneth; let the earth rejoice.”

THE INSULTED MERCHANT

“A merchant that hath a precious commodity, and one biddeth a mean price, he foldeth up his wares with indignation.”

We have seen the exhibitor turn away in utter disgust when some uninitiated spectator has offered pence where pounds would not have been accepted. The jeweller or artist has been as much offended as if he had been personally insulted by such a depreciation of his valuables. Do you wonder that the Lord God is grieved when men set a base price upon his priceless grace, and begin to bargain and chaffer as to what sins they will give up, and what duties they will perform? Do you wonder that he should take his gospel away from such a people, and turn to others who will set more store by his goodness? Not forever will Jesus cast his pearls before swine. Woe to that man who at last angers his God into turning from him, and taking the despised gospel elsewhere! He well deserves to perish who counts eternal life to be of less value than a passing pleasure, or reckons the righteousness of God to be no better than his own poor works.

PROVISIONED FOR A SIEGE

“When a city is besieged, the prince who would defend it doth not leave it to its ordinary strength and the standing provisions which it had before, but sendeth in fresh supplies of soldiers, victuals, and ammunition, and such things as the present exigence calleth for. So doth God deal with his people; his Spirit cometh in with a new supply, that they may better repel sin, and stand out in the hour of trial.”

What supplies of food, medicine, and ammunition are poured into a city which has to sustain a siege; and seldom do they prove to be more than are required! Even so, in our time of temptation, the Lord bestows vast stores of grace, strength, comfort, and wisdom; and yet there is need of them all ere the assault is over. It were well if we had a clearer idea of the needs of a beleaguered soul. We think far too lightly of the necessities which arise out of the attacks of Satan, and the blockade of the flesh. The City of Mansoul has no provision within itself, and if its commerce with heaven be cut off, black famine stares the inhabitants in the face. While the coast is clear it will be well to get in stores, and specially on those great market-days, the Sabbaths. None can fit us to stand a siege but that Universal Provider who daily feeds countless myriads of needy creatures.

Lord, thou knowest all things, thou knowest when next my nature shall be beleaguered by the adversary. Provision me, I pray thee, against the siege. Give me to rejoice because thou hast prayed for me that my faith fail not.

BLOWN INTO HARBOR

“Men in a tempest are sometimes cast upon a place of safety which they had not made for by intention and foresight.”

Happy mariner, who is forced into port! Blessed is that wave which throws the drowning sailor upon the rock of safety! Such propitious forces are abroad at times, and especially in the spiritual world. We mean not to exclude the agency of the will when we speak of certain compulsions which have driven men into a happiness for which they had not looked. “Had I not lost my eyes,” said one, “I had never seen my Saviour.” Another attributed his spiritual riches to the fact that he lost all his property, and so was driven to his God for consolation. The utmost faith in God has sometimes been created by the Holy Spirit by means of the utter and entire failure of all visible help. Many a wayward mind has been set free from the bonds of its own obstinate will by being yet more firmly bound by a sacred impulse which would not be denied.

When we reach the heights of glory we shall ascribe our felicity, not to our own will or merit, but to those sweet forces which drew us to heaven with cords of love and bands of a man; and perhaps not less to certain ruder agencies, which beat like hurricanes upon our pride, and sank our self-confidence in the foods, wrecking us into rest, destroying us into salvation.

A PEARL OF UNKNOWN VALUE

“If a man find a pearl of great price, and knoweth not what it is, he maketh no more esteem of it than of a piece of glass or a common bead, and is ready to sell it for a few pence But if upon the offer of it to a skilful lapidary, the jeweller at first sight biddeth two or three thousand crowns for it, doth he not change his mind, and think this jewel is of greater value than he took it to be? So here: a man knows not the value of his soul, and does not greatly set by it. Adam lost his own soul and the souls of all his posterity for an apple, and we sell our birthright for a mess of pottage. But when Christ, who made souls, and knoweth the value of them, came to recover lost souls, he gave himself for us; did he not hereby teach us to set a higher price upon them; for nothing but his precious blood could redeem them?”

This is a suggestive simile, and may suggest the framework of a sermon on “the estimate which men set upon their souls, and the hints which God has given them as to their real value by what he has done in reference thereto.” In the shop of a diamond-merchant at Amsterdam we saw great machinery and much power all brought to bear on what seemed to be a small piece of glass. One might be sure of the value of that transparent morsel if he would but look around and see what skill and labor were being expended upon it. God has laid out for the good of a soul the watchfulness of angels, the providence of this world, the glory of the next, the councils of eternity, himself and all that he hath, the Holy Spirit and all his divine influences—yea, he spared not his only Son. Say, soul, what must thou be worth thus to have all heaven’s thought, and power, and love laid out for thee? “What shall a man give in exchange for his soul?” Let not a man attempt to answer the question till he hath heard the Lord himself say, “I gave Egypt for thy ransom, Ethiopia and Seba for thee.”

A POOR MAN ROBBED

“If a poor man be robbed of twenty or thirty shillings, no wonder if he cry and take on, because he hath no more to help himself with; but now, if a rich man be robbed of such a sum, he is not much troubled, because he hath more at home. So a man that is justified by faith, and hath assurance of the favor of God, he can comfortably bear up against all the troubles and crosses he meets with in his way to heaven.”

Remember the apostle’s reckoning in Romans 8:18: “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” He was so rich in grace that all his losses were as nothing to him. One of old got his living by his losses, for he said, “By these things men live, and in all these things is the life of my spirit:” thus spiritual riches enable us to bear temporal losses with great patience. It is far otherwise with the worldling, whose goods are his god; for when these are taken he cries out like Micah, “Ye have taken away my gods which I made, and what have I more?” He to whom God is all things cannot be robbed, for who can overcome and despoil the Almighty?

Lord, lead me to count nothing my treasure but thyself, and then I may defy the thief. If I have suffered loss, let me make a gain thereby by prizing thee the more.

A TANNED FACE

“As a man that walks in the sun, unawares, before he thinks of it, his countenance is tanned; so our hearts are defiled by the slightest contact with sin.”

We have seen men who were quite fair where their hats covered their foreheads, and thoroughly bronzed where the sun had looked upon them. A man’s heart had need be covered with a veil of holy carefulness all over, or the world will get at it, and brown it with evil. Some trades and callings are like a tropical climate, and their blackening effect is soon visible: certain companies are still more so; they make their mark upon the best of men, and that mark is not to their improvement. With difficulty can a man prevent the world’s influencing him for evil; evil communications will corrupt good manners unless a sacred remedy is heartily used. See the effect of evil upon professors in Jeremiah’s day; he says: “Her Nazarites were purer than snow, they were whiter than milk, they were more ruddy in body than rubies, their polishing was of sapphire: their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become like a stick.”

Let us, as much as we can, keep ourselves to ourselves, and go quietly through life. A man of eminence, who outlived the French Revolution, was asked how he escaped the guillotine, and he replied, “I made myself of no reputation, and kept silence.” Let us, like him, stay within doors. If we must go forth abroad, it is well to walk on the shady side of the street, by keeping as much out of the world’s influence as we can; and it is also wise to carry with us such holy thoughts and feelings as may act as a screen to ward off the excessive power of evil. We have no wish to become as black as the inhabitants of this sun-burnt clime, seeing we are not numbered with them, but are here as strangers and foreigners.

Wash me, most blessed Jesus, in that sacred bath which thou hast prepared; for it will make me fair forever. Black as I now am, I shall then be whiter than snow. Renew me, and I shall be without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing.

THE FOOT-RACE

“A true racer does not use to stand still, or look behind him, to sea how much of the way is already past, or to see how much the other runners come short of him, but he sets to his business to get through the remainder of the race.”

The claim to perfection, which some have started, raises a serious question as to whether they have ever entered that race, of which the apostle Paul said, “Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Surely these men must be of another order to St. Paul, or must be upon another race-course. He saw much which he had not attained, and they see nothing; he was all for pressing on, and they are at the mark already. They speak fluently of their perfection, and he groaned over his imperfection.

As for us, we have no belief in these pretenders, nor do we wish to think about them. We would have nothing to consider but the goal and the prize. We may not rest in what we are, we must hasten on to what we ought to be. Attainments and successes will breed no pride if we treat them as Paul did, when he regarded them as “things which are behind,” and therefore forgot them. “Onward” be our watchword. Satisfaction, glorying, ease—these are not to be mentioned among us. Swift as arrows from the bow we would speed toward the mark of our high calling. The last thing that a man may utter is that fatal “Rest and be thankful;” for it marks the end of a progress which ought to last through life.

Lord, if I am ever tempted to be satisfied, scourge me into a holy restlessness, and make the very ground beneath me burning to my feet. With my Lord before me, I am a traitor to him if I chink the pieces of silver in my hand, and accept a present satisfaction in barter for higher things.

THE WARRIOR’S THOUGHTS

“A certain Grecian warrior, wherever he walked, was thinking of battles; he asked himself continually, if he should be assaulted on such a piece of ground how he would model and dispose his army for his defence. A Christian should be thinking of heaven, how he may get thither, and what he shall enjoy there.”

To be engrossed in a pursuit is the readiest way to success in it. We are thoroughly alive unto God when we get so far as even to eat, and drink, and sleep eternal life. Where our treasure is there will our heart be also. The object which is supreme in our heart will continually make itself prominent in our life. When Joshua saw the angel of the Lord, he gave him a military challenge, for his whole soul was in the war. The color of our chosen occupation will tinge our whole existence. “For to me to live is Christ,” saith the apostle. The musician will be moving his fingers upon the table as if he were playing a tune; the sailor will roll about in his walk on shore as if he were still on board ship; and even so will the soul that communes with God rehearse its joys when it is busy with other matters. When God and heaven bear our thoughts away, it is good evidence that we are preparing for eternal felicity; for he must needs be soon in heaven who already hath heaven in him. When heavenly things take up our souls, our souls will soon be taken up to heaven.

Lord, let me think of thee and thy word all the while I am awake; and when I sleep, if I dream at all, let my imagination still tend thy way. Oh that I were fully and only filled with thee, till everywhere and at all times my every thought were thine! With all thy ransomed ones I would sing—

“In full and glad surrender we give ourselves to thee,
Thine utterly, and only, and evermore to be!
O Son of God, who lovest us, we will be thine alone,
And all we are, and all we have, shall henceforth be thine own!”

NATURE TENDS TO ITS AUTHOR

“Trees, that receive life from the earth and the sun, send forth their branches to receive the sun, and spread their roots into the earth, which brought them forth. Fishes will not live out of the water that breedeth them. Chickens are no sooner out of the shell but they shroud themselves under the feathers of the hen by whom they were at first hatched. The little lamb runneth to its dam, though there be a thousand sheep of the same wool and color; as if it said, ‘Here I received that which I have, and here will I seek that which I want.’ By such a native inbred desire do the saints run to God to seek a supply of strength and nourishment.”

This is an excellent lesson for every believer. All our instincts should lead us to our God. We ought not to need so much as directing, much less impelling, toward the great source of our spiritual life. We ought as naturally to seek after the Lord from day to day as the spark seeks the sun, or the river the ocean, or the sheep its pasture, or the bird its nest. “O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee,” should be the perpetual cry of our heart. Onward and upward be still our movement, a secret ardor ever burning in us toward the Lord our God.

To whom else should we go? This question has never received an answer, and never will receive one. We are bound to dwell in God or perish. As we find all in God, so we find nothing out of him. What the fish would be without water, or the chick without the hen, or the tree without the earth—that we should be without our God. It is the height of folly for us to attempt a thought alone; there is but one greater absurdity, and that is to venture upon an act without him. “Abide in me” is the voice of him in whom our life abides. Let us not be deaf to his tender warning.

SUNSHINE

“A little sunshine enliveneth the poor creatures, the birds fall a singing that were melancholy and sad before in cloudy weather; all things are cheered and comforted when the sun shines.”

Just so. How often have we seen the change which is wrought by clear shining after rain! It has seemed as though heaven had come down in love to dry earth’s tears and bedeck her with raiment of fair colors. Spiritually, the type is carried out in delightful fashion. The Lord’s appearing sheds a glory upon our infirmities, and transforms our trials into triumphs. His presence removes the dulness which else hangs like a cloud on the best of our conditions, and in this way lightens all our glooms. His countenance is to his saints as a morning without clouds, it brings with it a surprise of joy. Till Jesus communed with me I did not know that I could be so happy. I heard more birds singing in my soul than I had ever dreamed could have dwelt within me. Never had my sad soul imagined that human life was half as capable of divine bliss, or earth within a thousand leagues so near to heaven. Truly it is worth while to have lived, if for nothing more than to have had an hour’s fellowship with the Well-beloved. Earthly joy is no more to be compared with it than a lamp in a coal-mine can be likened to the sun in the heavens.

Oh, my God, I thank thee for having made me, because thou hast made me able to walk in the light of thy countenance. Now thou dost shine upon me, my summer-tide has come.

DOGS AND CATS WHERE THERE ARE NO CHILDREN

“They that lack children take pleasure in little dogs and cats.”

We have known houses turned into stables or menageries by those whose love, which should have gone out to human beings, went out to dogs and cats. People must have objects of affection, and if they have not the better they choose the worse. Those who disdain to live for God will live for their own bellies. Those who do not care for the great doctrines of revelation are usually disputatious over trifling opinions. Those who do not spend their time and strength in winning souls for Jesus often attach an inordinate importance to a national habit or a sanitary regulation. If we do not live in all seriousness for a noble object, the probability is that we shall industriously trifle our lives away in doing nothing. Are we prepared for this? Will we be numbered with cat-worshippers and dog-adorers?

My God, grant me grace to love thy children, and make much of them. Save me from petty and paltry objects. May the objects of my life’s pursuit be worthy of an immortal spirit, worthy of an heir of heaven. Deliver me from whims and hobbies, and nerve me for the infinite possibilities which are opening up before me!

THE GARDENER AND THE ROOTS

“A gardener knoweth what roots are in the ground long before they appear, and what flowers they will produce.”

Look over the garden in winter, and you will not know that there is any preparation for spring; but the gardener sees in his mind’s eye—here a circle of golden cups, as if set out for a royal banquet, and there a cluster of snow-white beauties, drooping with excess of modest purity. His eye knows where the daffodils and anemones lie asleep, waiting to rise in all their loveliness; and he has learned the secret of the primroses and the violets, who wait in ambush till the first warm breath of spring shall bid them reveal themselves. Even thus doth the Lord know his hidden ones long before the day of their manifestation with him. He sees his church before his ministers see it, and declares concerning heathen Corinth, “I have much people in this city.”

The figure may be applied to the garden of the soul What graces are planted in the renewed heart, waiting their season, the Creator of those graces knows right well! He sees our faith, and love, and hope, and patience, long before we can see them; yea, and he discerns them when we ourselves question their existence. He not only knows them that are his, but all that is his within them. Nothing of his implanting is hidden from his inspection. Bulbs and seeds of holiness are sown in the righteous, and therefore are out of their sight; but he that placed them where they are has marked the spot, and not one of them shall die. Expectantly he waits to see his people’s lives become “as beds of spices, as sweet flowers.”

Lord, it is because thou knowest all things that thou knowest that I love thee. Wert thou not omniscient, I fear thou hadst not discovered my sadly feeble love, buried as it is beneath so much sin and carnality. Lord, cause the sacred seed to grow, and then I too shall be assured of its existence, and my present questions and doubts shall flee away!

RESPONSIBILITY OF SERVANTS

“If a rich farmer set a poor man to work to dig a ditch, or cast up a bank; if he be afterward troubled for it, his master is concerned to bear him harmless. David saith, ‘O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.’ While we are engaged about our Master’s business, and in his work, he is engaged to protect us, and bear us out in it.”

If what we do is done under the command of God, the responsibility of its result does not lie with us. He who made the law will answer for those who keep it. If a man should, through obedience to the law of the Sabbath, lose his situation, his poverty would be no fault of his. If through strict honesty he should be despised of his employer, and forfeit his place, he need not blame himself for his dismission. These things are to be taken joyfully as a part of our living sacrifice to God. We need not fear that God will fail to justify us if we walk in the way of his commandments. Our quarrel is his quarrel if it be occasioned by our following his orders. Jesus asks of every persecutor, “Why persecutest thou me?” When his servants are molested he is wounded. He will see us through with the business, and teach our opposers that in us they oppose him also.

When we go a way of our own choosing, we must bear our own hazard; but when our path is mapped out for us, we have the Lord engaged with us, and his name and honor would be compromised should we fail. Oh, happy condition! We are in the same boat with Jesus. He bade us trust, promising us salvation by faith, and, as we have trusted, he must and will save us. He bade us come out from the world, and, as we have come out, he must be a Father unto us. He bids us preach the gospel, and, as we do preach it, he must save men thereby. Let us more and more pledge the honor of his name, resting sure that he will never allow his orders to be discredited.

ASKING IN A PERSON’S NAME

“If you send a child or servant to a friend for a thing in your name, the request is yours; and he that denieth the child or servant, denieth you. Jesus Christ hath bidden you ask in his name; so that in effect your request becomes Christ’s request. God can no more deny your request in Christ’s name than he can deny Christ himself.”

This is the true meaning of asking in Christ’s name. It is a higher plea than—for Jesus’ sake. The one pleads the Saviour’s merit as a penitent sinner; the other urges his authority as a favored friend. Jesus permits his disciple to make request in his Master’s stead, using the name and dignity of Christ as his warrant. Armed with this argument our prayers become akin to the intercession of the Lord himself. Herein lies at once the power of prayer and also its limit. For who will dare to use “the name which is above every name” except with surest right to do so? I may beg for Christ’s sake when my petition is somewhat doubtful; but the royal seal must only be set to requests which the most searching examination commends to our judgment as according to the divine promise, and needful for God’s glory. We are trusted with the Prince’s signet-ring, but gracious discretion must be used in its employment. When the Spirit of God prompts the desire, and faith sees how well Jesus deserves the blessing, and how surely he himself would have sought it of the Father, then prayer is power invincible, for it is the pierced hand held open before the Father’s approving heart. Cannon have been called “the last arguments of kings;” but the name of Jesus is the master-argument of the King’s children.

Lord Jesus, cause me to know in my daily experience the glory and sweetness of thy name, and then teach me how to use it in my prayer, so that I may be even like Israel, a prince prevailing with God. Thy name is my passport, and secures me access; thy name is my plea, and secures me answer; thy name is my honor, and secures me glory. Blessed name, thou art honey in my mouth, music in my ear, heaven in my heart, and all in all to all my being!

A FATHER’S LOVE AND A CHILD’S LOVE

“A father cannot forget how many children he hath. He that leadeth us by the hand wherever we go knoweth where and how we go.”

This is a very simple statement, bit exceedingly full of consolation. We, being evil, do not forget our children; we know our own, and do not omit even the last little one from our tender memory; how much more shall our heavenly Father think upon all his own, and have them under his watchful eye! It is a pleasure to us to think of our children, for they are parts of ourselves. We could almost as soon cease to be as cease to remember them. Our Father above is all a Father can be and more: we are poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon us.

It were well if the converse of all this were true. We, alas! as children, too often forget our Father, and bear ourselves toward him otherwise than is meet. If we treated our God as good children do a loving father, our conduct toward him would lead us to a holy, happy life. We should long to be with him, and to be happy in his company; we should be jealous for the honor of his name, and feel pleased when we heard others extol him. He would be our rest, confidence, pattern, love, and delight. Miss Havergal, in her own sweet way, has worked out the ideal treatment of a father, and we can readily spiritualize it.

“How do you love your father?
Oh, in a thousand ways!
I think there’s no one like him
So worthy of my praise.
I tell him all my troubles,
And ask him what to do;
I know that he will give to me
His counsel kind and true.”

Nor does the relationship merely lead us to expect from him, it helps us to yield to him anything which he desires from us.

“Then every little service
Of hand, or pen, or voice,
Becomes, if he has asked it,
The service of my choice.
And from my own desires
’Tis not so hard to part,
If once I know I follow so
His wiser will and heart.”

How it helps us in the hour of trial to find a father near in all the tenderness of his love! The same charming poetess tells us in a succeeding verse—

“Once I was ill and suffering
Upon a foreign shore,
And longed to see my father
As I never longed before.
He came: his arm around me;
I leaned upon his breast;
I did not long to feel more strong,
So sweet that childlike rest.”

Whatsoever a tender daughter would be to a kind, considerate father, that we should spiritually be unto our Lord. Let us muse over the model, and learn from it what our highest relationship deserves at our hand.
Lord, I would reflect thy love! Help me to remember thee, because thou dost without fail remember me.

LOOKERS-ON AND PLAYERS

“They that stand upon the shore may easily say to those that are in the midst of the waves, and conflicting for life or death. Sail thus and sail thus! But what of that? When we are well we give counsel to the sick; but, if we were ill ourselves, how should we act?”

Yes, we are usually ready with our good advice for others; but what are we willing to do ourselves? Men who never smelt powder know exactly how a commander should have acted in a battle; probably they would themselves have run away at the first shot. Safely on land, the wiseacre decides most positively how the pilot should steer—which sail should be hoisted, and which should be put away. If he were on board the laboring bark, he would be lying down below, forgotten as a dead man out of mind. This ought to render us a little more diffident in our advising. It is rather awkward when, after having prescribed for others, we fall sick ourselves, and then refuse our own remedies: yet many have done so. It is sad when the preacher of patience is himself petulant, and the advocate of faith is himself dubious. No: we must teach more by our example than by our advice, or else we shall be poor pleaders for the right.

Few things are more galling than to be at our wits’ end in managing a difficult matter, and then to be charged and counselled by some intermeddling novice who could not even understand our difficulty, much less assist us out of it. When Balaam’s ass spoke, it uttered sound sense, and we shall never welcome the speech of another such animal until it has as weighty a message to deliver. Alas! we do not always suffer fools gladly: though suffer them we do. We have wished ourselves deaf at times when the most idle nonsense has been proffered us in the moment of greatest suspense.

O Lord Jesus, we bless thee that thy counsel comes to us as that of experience! Thou art on the sea with us. Thou hast the tone and manner of one who is tied in us and with us. Our Counsellor art thou; and thus our surest helper, because thy counsel is infallible.

THE LUTE UNTUNED

“As a lute that is not played upon, but hangs by the wall, soon grows out of order for want of use; so, if we do not constantly and diligently exercise ourselves in godliness, our hearts grow dead and vain.”

It is the old story of the unused key. It would seem that there is no worse abuse of a good thing than to abstain from its use. While it lies idle it lies ill. Grace must be exercised toward God in devout contemplation, wrestling prayer, or adoring praise; and it must be exercised among men in patience, zeal, charity, and holy example; or, like an arm which has long been bound by a man’s side, it will become withered. Some enemies were left in Canaan for the sole reason that the armies of Israel might not forget the art of war; and we, too, may expect troubles to exercise our graces in conflict, if we do not ourselves exercise them in happier service. The Lord will not allow the inner life of his people to degenerate because of inaction; nor ought we to allow it. Loud calls to energy are sounding forth on every hand. A curse will come upon us, like that invoked upon Meroz of old, if we come not to the help of the Lord, to the help of the Lord against the mighty.

To return to our author’s figure. Are we like a lute upon the wall? Are the strings all out of order? Tune us, Lord, and then bring music out of us. Why should a single instrument in the whole concert be silent when the Lord is to be praised? “Awake up, my glory; awake, psaltery and harp: I myself will awake early.”

“Be near me, Lord, and tune my notes,
And make them sweet and strong,
To waft thy words to many a heart,
Upon the wings of song.
I know that men will listen,
For my very heart shall sing,
And it shall be thy praise alone,
My glorious Lord and King.”

THE FISH IN A PAIL

“We are now imperfect and straitened; like a fish in a pail, or small vessel of water, which cannot keep it alive: it would fain be in the ocean, or swimming in the broad and large rivers. So we are pent up, and cannot do what we would; but we long for a larger estate, namely, to be filled with all the fulness of God. That holiness which we have now, maketh us look and long for more; and, surely, this desire after holiness was never designed for our torment; there must be something to answer to the desire excited.”

It is even so; we are now cribbed, cabined, and confined, and our renewed spirit feels itself in bondage. The fish cannot half so much desire the river as we desire a nobler sphere wherein the better life may have due scope and range. As a lion goeth to and fro in his den, impatient of restraint, so doth our spirit move restlessly after better things. We are not content with the measure of our liberty, the tether of our range. We are like the young chick which is pecking at the shell which shuts it in; we perceive that there is very much outside of our prison-wall, and we are anxious to break forth. Is not this the testimony of all saintly men? Are not the bonds felt? Are we not groaning under them?

The argument of our author is well drawn, and incontrovertible. God does not create desires without also providing corresponding objects: for thirst there is drink, for hunger there is food, for the eye there is light. So also for the soul which hungers and thirsts after righteousness there is a filling. The renewed heart shall yet see the perfection for which it pines, and the holy mind shall enjoy the communion with God for which it pants.

Be glad, O my heart, because of thine own pangs! If thou wert now content, there would be in thee no ensigns and evidences of better things yet to be revealed. Thy groanings and yearnings are prophecies of guaranteed perfection. If thou wert of the earth, thou wouldst be satisfied with earth; but because thou hast a higher nature, thou art not at home amid these lower things. There remaineth therefore a rest for thee a home for thee, a heaven for thee.

THE SENTINEL

“When a sentinel is set upon the watch, he must not come off without the commander’s leave, and till he is discharged by authority. God hath set us in a watch, and we must not leave our ground till we lave done all that is enjoined upon us, and receive a fair discharge.”

The instance of the sentinel in Pompeii, whose skeleton was found erect at the city gate, when all but he had fled, need not be repeated in words; but it should be copied by each one of us in his life. If the earth should reel, it is ours to keep our place. If set to preach the gospel, let us maintain the truth, though philosophy should thin the number of our comrades till we remain alone. If commanded to teach a few little children, let us be as faithful to our trust as if we had been set to lead a legion of angels. Imagine what the universe would be if the stars forsook their marches, and the sun forbore to shine; yet this would only be among inanimate objects an imitation of the conduct of men who quit their posts, and leave their work undone. This is the spirit out of which fiends are made: first neglect, then omission, then treachery and rebellion.

It is such an honor to bear his Majesty’s commission that King Jesus should have around him the most joyously faithful band of servants. “Whatsoever he saith unto you, do it” was Mary’s advice in her day, and the spirit of it should abide with all Christians to the end of time. Where God’s command has fixed us, there let us abide at all hazards. Our life, our honor, and our heaven lie, not in rising out of the place which our Master has allotted to us, but in fulfilling its duties to the uttermost. A sentinel must not leave his post even to gather pearls or diamonds; nor must we forsake our duty in order to acquire the highest honors. It matters nothing how well we have done other things if we neglect the thing. God bids us do this, and if we fail it will be no excuse to be able to say—we have done that. If the watcher forsakes his post it will not avail that he climbed a mountain, or swam a river: he was not where he was ordered to be.

MARTYRS IN BEARS’ SKINS

“It was a fashion, in the primitive persecutions, to invest Christians with bears’ skins, and then to bait them as bears; and it is a usual practice of Satan and his instruments, first to blast the reputation of religious persons, and then to persecute them as offenders.”

It is written of the worthies of old that “they had trial of cruel mockings.” Tertullian says that in the primitive times the saints were called herds of asses, vile fellows, the disciples of a man crucified, Galileans, Nazarites, eaters of men’s flesh, and drinkers of men’s blood. The heathen painted the God of the Christians with the head of an ass, and with a book in his hand, to signify that, though Christians pretended to knowledge, they were a company of fools.

The like custom remains still. Good men are first slandered and then censured. They lay to our charge deeds which we never dreamed of, and then they pile on the adjectives of denunciation, and condemn us without mercy. Thanks be to God, a saint in a bear’s skin is none the less a saint: the Lord knows the wolf in the sheep’s skin, and the sheep in the bear’s skin: he is not deceived by falsehood so as to judge his children unjustly. Not even for the present are the reputations of the godly injured in the sight of God, and as for the future, they shall suffer no tarnishing. Soon there shall be a resurrection of good names as well as of bodies: the Lord shall restore the honor and renown of each slandered believer.

Meanwhile, let us not be so easily led into harsh judgments as we have been. Let us refuse to regard our own brethren as wild beasts because wicked men thrust the bear’s skin upon them. From us, at least, let them receive tokens of the charity which thinketh no evil. Persistently let each follower of the Lord Jesus say of reproach cast upon a brother, “I will not believe it.” A believer in Christ should be an unbeliever in the world’s many lies: this rule would rob slander of half its power. By holy confidence in our fellow-Christians we should snap the bowstring of malice, and burn its arrows in the fire.

As for ourselves, we are not made of such pliant stuff that we would alter our course to escape the calumny of men. We will not move a hair’s-breadth because of

“the dread of tyrant custom, and the fear
Lest fops should censure us, and fools should sneer.”

PRIMING

“A lower degree of faith maketh way for a higher, as the priming of the wood maketh it receptive of other colors.”

Painters often use a paint at the first which is to be the preparation for quite another color; red is commonly thus employed. So, in the work of grace, there may come first a dogmatical faith (as Manton calls it), which receives the doctrine of the word of God as truth. This does not save the soul, but it is a needful preparative for that receptive and trusting faith, by which salvation is actually received. Dogmatic faith is the priming upon which faith of a saving color is laid by the Master-workman.

Much the same is true of those gracious influences by which a man is made a willing and attentive hearer, and a respecter of the Sabbath and of the worship of God. All this may exist and yet there may be no saving faith; still it is the “priming” for the higher work. Faith cometh by hearing. Hence the value of all healthy moral influence, instruction, and example. None of these can save, but they may lead up to salvation. The paralyzed man was not cured by his friends, or by the bed, or by the ropes, but these brought him where Jesus was, and so he was healed. Make a man sober, and he is all the more likely to mind the preacher’s admonitions: give him the power to read, and he may study the Scriptures. These things are not grace, but they may be stepping-stones to grace: they are not the permanent color, but only the priming; yet it would never do to neglect them for that reason. He would be an unwise painter who put on the woodwork nothing but the priming; and he would be far more unwise who rested content with mere preparatory reforms. Yet in order to avoid this evil it is not necessary to forego the priming altogether, or to neglect anything by which a man is made even the least better.

Oh that I may be willing to do anything by which souls may be helped to a blessing! If I cannot actually heal the man’s wounds, let me not refuse to wash them, or to set the wounded man upon my beast. He who will only do those works which are of the highest and utmost use is not so humble as he should be. Lord, make me willing to wash men’s feet, if for the present I cannot win their souls. Incline me, my Lord, to teach a child his letters, or to reason with a drunkard, or to instruct a peasant in thrift, since any one of these may help to something better; for I know that everything which is pure and honest is on the side of Christ and his salvation.

MALICIOUS WASTE

“He would be a cruel man who should cast his provisions and superfluities into the street, and deny them to the poor; or should allow his drink to run into the kennel, rather than that the thirsty should taste a drop of it. Such are we to God; we know not what to employ our thoughts upon, and yet we will not think of his name. We will go musing upon vanity all the day long, and thus grinding chaff rather than we will take good corn into the mill.”

Well put! We meet with persons upon whose hands time hangs heavily; they have nothing to do, and are dying of ennui. Why will they thus spend their time in waste? Yet all the while they give not God a thought, nor spend a little time in reading his word, or in conversing with him in prayer. Have they all their days on hand, and yet will they not afford their God an hour? Are they full of time even to a surfeit, and yet cannot they give ten minutes’ space to their Maker? Well does our author speak of cruelty. Was ever such cruelty on earth as this denial of an hour of our superfluous time to God? Will we rather waste it, or defile it, than give him a portion of it? Must we invent pastimes to pass time away, and yet refuse ten minutes for meditation?

Oh that this little parable might meet some careless eye, and through the eye pierce the heart! What, will you sooner kill time at cards, or with a novel, or in utter idleness, than do your greatest Benefactor the honor of thinking of him? Is he so distasteful to you that you count it a bore, a burden, a bugbear even to hear his sacred name? Come, do thyself this favor—to give the next hour to God and to thine own soul. Your cruelty to your God will prove to be cruelty to yourself. Do not persevere in it, but yield to your heavenly Friend a portion of your weary time. May be yon will thus find out a way of never being weary again in this fashion—find out, in fact, the way to make time pass like a river which flows over golden sands, with a paradise on either bank.

SQUABBLING WITH A SERVANT

“Many a time a brabble falleth out between a man and his lusts; but he delayeth, and all cometh to nothing. In a heat we bid a naughty servant begone; but he lingereth, and before the next morning all is cool and quiet, and he is again in favor.”

Ungodly men have their quarrels with their favorite sins on various accounts; but these are like children’s pets with one another, soon over, because they come of passion, and not from principle. An unholy person will fall out with sin because it has injured his health or his credit, or has brought him into difficulties with his neighbors; but when these temporary results are ended he falls in love again with the same iniquity. Thus we have seen the drunkard loathing his excess when his eyes were red, and his head was aching; but ere the sun went down the quarrel was ended, and he and Bacchus were rolling in the gutter together. Our enmity to sin should be based upon sound knowledge and solid reason, and be wrought in us by the Spirit of God, and then it will lead us to join in solemn league with the Lord who hath war with Amalek throughout all generations. We must have no peace with sin; nay, not with the least sin. Our hate of evil must be as everlasting as the love of God.

Of old, converted Israelites cast their idols to the moles and to the bats—away from sight with the moles, away from light with the bats. Our detestation must lead us to put sin among the dead and the forgotten. So far from ever entering into amity with it, we must regard it as a dead and corrupted thing, forever abandoned to silence and the worm. As heaven and hell will never unite, so must it be plain that a saint and sin will never come together on any terms whatever.

Lord, I pray thee keep me ever in desperate earnest in my war with sin. Forbid that I should trifle in this conflict, or grow cold in it. Let me be bound to never-ending warfare with my own sin, and never may I be pacified till Christ has utterly crushed the foe. Like thy servant David, I would hate every false way.

THE RIVER SWOLLEN BY BEING DAMMED

“Corruption, the more it is opposed the more it stormeth and groweth outrageous; as a river swelleth by reason of dams and banks, which are raised against it. Corruptions rage against restraints till the floods break loose.”

This figure is a good one. Corrupt desires will often lie quiet till they are earnestly opposed, and then they swell and rage. The gracious man sets himself with resolution to overcome a habit, and, like a beast at bay, it fights tooth and nail as if for dear life. The more he prays, the more he mortifies himself; the more he avoids the sin, the more does it appear to force itself upon him. The water flows easily enough down the unimpeded bed of the river, and it will readily enough overflow and cover the meadows; but once put up an embankment, or attempt to stem the torrent, and it chafes and rages, and displays all its force. So sin may be quiet; but when grace enters the heart it revives, resists, and raises rebellion, setting the soul into a horrible tumult.

We must not think that the work of sanctification has ceased because impetuous passions are more clearly perceived, and the power of the flesh is more deeply deplored. It is possible that the energy of inbred sin may become all the more apparent because through divine grace it is more strenuously resisted. When the vital energy is great, it throws out upon the surface diseases which, with a feebler vitality, would have lain smouldering within: when spiritual life is forceful, it hunts to the surface evils which else would have festered in the heart.

There are times with the ungodly man when all goes smoothly, and the current of his life flows placidly; but, nevertheless, the whole stream is polluted from the fountain-head to the outfall, though he knows it not. With the godly man life’s inward stream is seldom thus deceitfully smooth. The Christian’s old nature is opposed at every turn by his faith, repentance, prayers, and other dams and embankments of grace; and hence the dashing of the waves, and the roaring and the swelling of the evil torrent. Even the pure stream of the river of the water of life, which flows into him from the throne of God, for a while only creates a greater tumult. The waters will not blend, and hence they contend one with another till the man is placed in the position of Paul’s ship when it fell into a place where two seas met. Truly, the entrance of Christ into the heart, though it ends in ultimate rest, yet for a while brings not peace, but a sword.

When a man dreams that he is perfect, and therefore ceases to fight against his secret sins, all seems well; but let him look into the depths of his heart, and behold the corruptions which slumber there, and let him seek to expel them; and a battle will begin, compared with which the strife of the warrior and the garments rolled in blood are as nothing. The heart is rent in pieces by the opposing parties, neither does it seem possible to live because of the conflict. Let us not despair while this fierce contest is going on: we are but suffering with the universe of which we form a part, for “the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.” These groans and pangs are bringing on that glorious birth out of which shall come the new heavens and the new earth. Even so it is with us: our inward travail and sore conflict will work out an immortal perfection, which is the consummation of the work of the Spirit in the soul. When the waves rage terribly, let us remember that “the Lord on high is mightier than the noise of many waters, yea, than the mighty waves of the sea.” He will quell the opposition, and in due time dry up the rivers of inbred sin, destroying the very fountains thereof, and giving to his people ineffable rest and unutterable delight.

O my Lord, give me grace to curb every evil tendency within myself, and the more I perceive that these evil affections chafe and rebel, the more determined may I be that I will dam them up, and that they shall not have their way. Only help thou me, and as the struggle grows more arduous, let thy grace become more plenteous. Surely in this conflict all power must come from thee, for thou alone canst impart the strength that I need. Hast thou not said, “Behold, at my rebuke I dry up the sea, I make the rivers a wilderness?” Arise, O Lord, let not sin prevail, but get to thyself the victory in me.

RABBI JOSEPH’S LOVE TO THE SYNAGOGUE

“I have once and again read of one Rabbi Joseph, who, being allured by the hope of great gain, to teach, Hebrew, at a place where there was no synagogue, is said to have brought forth this Scripture as his reason for refusing: ‘The law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.”

Well done. Rabbi Joseph! We greatly fear that there are few of thy kindred who are of thy mind; for the heart of Israel seems to be set upon the precious metals. Nor can we blame Israel much for the same is all too true concerning those who call themselves Christians. The chink of guineas is rare music even to them.

The greatest worldly advantages cannot compensate for the loss of spiritual privileges, and yet we know many who scarcely take this matter into consideration in the choice of their pursuits and positions in life.
A tradesman is earning a competence, and is able to attend the house of God, and to give part of his time and talents to the service of the church; and yet he thinks it to be advisable to cumber himself with extra worldly servitude, and thereby to render himself unable either to profit the church or to be profited himself by the services of the Lord’s house. Is this the way of wisdom! Can this man say that God’s words are more desired by him than gold, yea, than much fine gold?

A young man is in a fair position, where he has godly surroundings, and very opportunity for spiritual progress; and yet, for the sake of a few prounds more he puts himself into an un-Christian household, and loses every opportunity of uniting with his brethren in holy work and worship. Is this as it should be! Does not Rabbi Joseph greatly shame such a backsliding Ephraim?

If I were to choose a dwelling-house I would wish to be known as Justus was—for he was “a man that worshipped God, whose house joined hard to the synagogue.” I would hope to reverse the proverb, and prove that the nearer the church the nearer to God. Of course one’s calling, health, or circumstances might compel another choice; but I would ever give preference to a habitation near to a gospel ministry. If I were to choose a trade, I would select one which gave me leisure for the service of the Lord Jesus. If I had the option of my condition in life, I would rather have less earth and more heaven than more earth and less heaven. It argues a poor state of spiritual health when the mass of Christian professors estimate their position solely and entirely by the money which it yields them. Surely they know, unless they are hypocrites ingrain, that a man’s life consists far more in the devotion which he enjoys than in the treasure which he accumulates.

My God, grant me grace ever to put the first first, and the last last. Let me use Paul’s scales, which were the balances of the sanctuary, and reckon that gain to be loss which is gained by loss of communion with thee, and that profit to be unprofitable which renders me less profitable to thee.

A LEAN-TO SHED

“Many men owe their religion, not to grace, but to the favor of the times; they follow it because it is in fashion, and they can profess it at a cheap rate, because none contradict it. They do not build upon the rock, but set up a shed leaning to another man’s house, which costs them nothing.”

The idea of a lean-to religion is somewhat rough, but eminently suggestive. Weak characters cannot stand alone, like mansions; but must needs lean on others, like the miserable shops which nestle under certain Continental cathedrals. Under the eaves of old customs many build their plaster nests, like swallows. Such are good, if good at all, because their patrons made virtue the price of their patronage. They love honesty because it proves to be the best policy, and piety because it serves as an introduction to trade with saints. Their religion is little more than courtesy to other men’s opinions, civility to godliness.

Alas for an age when this sort of thing abounds! It is an injury to the architecture of godliness to be encumbered with these pitiful hovels. As parasites suck the life out of the goodly tree, so do these pretenders injure those to whom they cling with the servile homage of hireling adulation. To themselves their vain profession and man-pleasing are a presage of destruction: for at the last day all must fall into eternal ruin which has not its own foundation on the rock. Our lives will be weighed one by one in personal judgment, and no other man can add an ounce to aid us if we are found wanting. The well-founded and well-compacted structure of the sincerely gracious will survive the time when once more the Lord shall shake not only earth but also heaven; but that frail fabric which leans on mortal aid will perish in that dread convulsion.

Lord, make me a self-contained man. Supported by thee, and by thee alone, may I be unmoved, though all other men should leave thee, and though the fashion of my company should be opposed to all godliness. Then shalt thou have glory through me.

RICHES OF CHILDREN AND MEN

“The more abundance of truly valuable things a man hath, the more he hath of true riches; a child counteth himself rich when he hath a great many pins, and points, and cherry-stones, for these suit his childish age and fancy; a worldly man counteth himself rich when he hath a great store of gold and silver, or lands and heritages, or bills and bonds; but a child of God counteth himself rich when he hath God for his Portion, Christ to be his Redeemer, and the Spirit for his Guide, Sanctifier, and Comforter; which is as much above a carnal man’s estate in the world, as a carnal man’s estate is above a child’s toys and trifles; yea, infinitely more.”

It is above all things desirable that we adopt a correct scale of estimates. When we make our personal audit, we shall fall into grievous error if the principles of our reckoning are not thoroughly accurate. If we reckon brass as silver, and silver as gold, we shall dream that we are rich when we are in penury. In taking stock of our own condition, let us be sure only to reckon that for riches which is really riches to us. Wealth to the worldling is not wealth to the Christian. His currency is different, his vaulables are of another sort.

Am I to-day poorer in money than I was ten years ago; and am I at the same time more humble, more patient, more earnest, more believing? Then set me down as a richer man. Have my worldly goods largely increased during the last few years? Am I some thousands of pounds in advance of my former position? but am I also more proud, more carnal-minded, more lukewarm, more petulant? Then I must write myself down as a poorer man, whatever men may think of my estate. A Christian’s riches are within him. External belongings are by no means a sure gain to a man. A horse is none the better off for gilded trappings; and a man is, in very truth, none the richer for sumptuous surroundings. Paul was richer than Crœsus, when he was able to say, “I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.” Such contentment surpasses riches. Outwardly Paul was “poor,” but inasmuch as he was “making many rich” he must have been rich himself; for nothing can come out of a man which is not in him. Solomon was a very Lazarus, when, after summing up all his possessions and delights, he was compelled to add, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

If a man should labor to be rich after the African fashion, and should accumulate a large store of shells and beads; yet when he came home to England he would be a beggar, even though he had a shipload of such rubbish. So he who gives his heart and soul to the accumulation of gold and silver coin is a beggar when he comes into the spiritual realm, where such round medals are reckoned as mere forms of earth, non-current in heaven, and of less value than the least of spiritual blessings.

We have read that when Bernard visited a monastery of ascetic monks, they were shocked because the saddle on which he rode was most sumptuously adorned. They thought that this ill became his profession as a meek and lowly man. Judge of their surprise and satisfaction when he told them that he had never so much as noticed what it was whereon he sat. The fact was, that the horse and saddle were not his own but had been lent to him by his uncle, and their nature had not been perceived by him during the whole of his journey. This is the way to use all earthly treasure, making small account whether we have it or not; even as Paul says, “It remaineth, that both they that have wives be as though they had none; and they that weep, as though they wept not; and they that rejoice, as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy, as though they possessed not; and they that use this world, as not abusing it: for the fashion of this world passeth away.” Our goods are good if we do not account them our highest good. Even Jonah’s gourd did him good until he quarrelled with God about it.

O, my Lord, let me not merely talk thus, and pretend to despise earthly treasure, when all the while I am hunting after it; but grant me grace to live above these things, never setting my heart upon them, nor caring whether I have them, or have them not; but exercising all my energy in pleasing thee, and in gaining those things which thou dost hold in esteem. Give me, I pray thee, the riches of thy grace that I may at last attain to the riches of thy glory, through Christ Jesus.

A PRINCELY CARVER

“To be carved for at table by a great prince would be counted as great a favor as the meal itself. To take outward blessings out of God’s hand, to see that he remembereth us, and sendeth in our provision at every turn; this endeareth the mercy, and increaseth our delight therein.”

What, indeed, would most men give if they could say, “The Queen herself carved for me, and was most anxious, that I should be well supplied?” But each believer has the Lord himself for his Provider. He loads our table, and fills ours cup. Providence is no other than God providing. He measures out our joys, weighs our sorrows, appoints our labors, and selects our trials. There is no morsel on the saint’s plate which is not of the Lord’s carving, unless he has been so foolish as to put forth his hand unto iniquity.

Is it not delightful to know that our Father’s hand broke for us the bread which we have eaten this day; that the Saviour’s own fingers mingled our cup, and that every blessing has come direct from God’s own table? Surely we are as dear to God as the little ewe lamb in Nathan’s parable was to the poor man; for we are told that “he had nourished it up, and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drank of his own cup, and lay in his bosom.” Does not this make our meat, and drink, and lodging more than royal? Are we not more than content with such fare?

Yea, Lord, my portion tastes of love, for thy hand has sweetened it. A sacred perfume is on my raiment and in my chamber, for thou hast prepared both for me. And this would be true if I wore rags, and lay in a dungeon, in sore sickness. What a heritage is mine! One said, “I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinketh upon me.”

In this passage the second sentence underwrote the first, and undermined its meaning: how can he be poor and needy of whom it can be said that the Lord thinketh upon him? O Lord, thou art my all, and my all in all: my all is more than all because it comes of thee, and is dealt out to me by thine own self.

SNOW SOFT, BUT SOAKING

“Passionate outcries do only frighten easy and over-credulous souls, and that only for the present; proofs and arguments do a great deal more good. Snow that falleth soft soaketh deep. In the tempest, Christ slept; when passion is up, true zeal is usually asleep.”

How gently fall the snowflakes, but how surely they penetrate into the ground; a driving rain hath not half such efficacy! The voice of the snowflakes is not heard, but their influence is felt. Proofs from Scripture, winsomely put, carry all before them, because Jesus loves to reach men’s minds by such means, and not by wrath and fury.

This is a word to hasty disputants. Violent words appear to them to be forcible, but they are not. Hard arguments are best couched in soft language; the force of the lightning is not increased by the thunder. Wrath weakens reason, but gentleness gives double force to arguments. Alas, we too often forget this, and call in our evil passions to aid our holy principles. Then the Christ within us sleeps, and the devil is wide awake. It is to be feared that Protestantism has been rather hindered than furthered by the ferocity with which some have maintained it.

Our present controversies are some of them essential to fidelity; but it will be well if we all remember that to be faithful to truth we need not be wrathful toward opponents. Truth and charity are of the same heavenly family, and are loveliest when they walk hand in hand. It has happened that some have been so charitable that they would not lift a finger to save truth’s life lest they should wound one of another opinion. This is a sad practical error. But we shall not mend matters if we fight truth’s battles so savagely that we hurl shot and shell upon the abode of love.

Lord, teach us, for we are fearfully apt to err in this matter. Give us bold and clear words, taken from thine own word; and let us use these with the lowly confidence which comes of being filled with thy Spirit; but never allow our own spirit to get the upper hand, so that we breathe out threatenings and utter bitter expressions. Let our sword be always like that which cometh out of Christ’s mouth; sharp but salutary; flaming, but only with the fire of love.

THE MALICIOUS GUEST

“Sin is an ill guest, for it always sets its lodging on fire.”

Entertained within the human breast, and cherished and fondled, it makes its host no return but an evil one. It places the burning coals of evil desire within the soul with evident intent to fire the whole man with fierce passions. Let these passions be suffered to rage, and the flame will burn even to the lowest hell.

Who would not shut his door on such a guest? Or if he be known to be lurking within, who would not drag him out? How foolish are those who find delight in such an enemy, and treat him with more care than their best friend!

KEEPING UP A SUIT

“Keep up the suit, and it will come to a hearing-day ere it be long.”

In a suit at law there are many and grievous delays, and yet the man who has been forced into the court does not dream of relinquishing his case. He urges on his solicitor, and entreats him to lose no opportunity of getting the business settled; but he does not in a pet take the case out of his hands, for he expects that the judge will sooner or later decide the matter. It would be a pity not to continue steadfast in prayer, for it is certain that now is our salvation nearer than when we believed. Every hour of importunity brings us nearer to the time when the Judge shall avenge his own elect. To waste all the cost of former tears and entreaties, and to let months of praying go for nothing would be a sad waste of effort. Let us hope in the Lord, and wait patiently for him, abiding still at the mercy-seat. Has he not himself said, “Though the vision tarry, wait for it; because it will surely come, it will not tarry?”

Sometimes, before we call, God hears us, and while we are yet speaking he answers us. This is to encourage us to a further trust in him; perhaps to prepare us for waiting times. Frequently the richest answers are not the speediest. Ships may return all the more quickly because they have a slender lading; and a prayer may be all the longer on its voyage because it is bringing us a heavier freight of blessing. Delayed answers are not only trials of faith, but they give us an opportunity of honoring God by our steadfast confidence in him under apparent repulses.

He that will only believe because he sees the answer to his prayer immediately hath but little faith. He is the man after God’s own heart who can cry day and night unto the Lord by the month together, and yet never swerve from the full conviction that God is good to Israel, and that in waiting upon him there is great reward. David says, “I waited patiently for the Lord, and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.” This patience in waiting is the attribute of the full-grown saint, and perhaps it gives more glory to God than the songs of cherubim and seraphim. Jonah says, “When my soul fainted within me I remembered the Lord: and my prayer came in unto thee, into thine holy temple.”

Desponding brother, keep up the suit. Perhaps this very day may be the hearing-day. Go again seven times. The little cloud, like a man’s hand, may be visible on that last time of asking. Knock, and knock again, till the gate of heaven reverberates your blows. The door must open, and it will open all the wider because you have knocked so long. “Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart. Wait, I say, on the Lord.”

CLOSE WRITING

“When men have much to say in a letter, and perceive that they have little paper left, they write closely.”

Looking at the shortness of life, and the much that has to be written upon its tablets, it becomes us also to do much in a short space, and so to write closely. “No day without a line,” is a good motto for a Christian. A thoroughly useful life is multum in parvo: it is necessarily little, for it is but a span; but how much may be crowded into it for God, our souls, the Church, our families, and our fellows! We cannot afford wide blanks of idleness; we should not only live by the day but by the twenty minutes, as Wesley did. He did not keep a diary, but a horary; and each hour was divided into three parts. So scanty is our space that we must condense, and leave out superfluous matter; giving room only to that which is weighty, and of the first importance.

Lord, whether I live long or not, I leave to thee; but help me to live while I live, that I may live much. Thou canst give life more abundantly; let me receive it, and let my life be filled, yea, packed and crammed, with all manner of holy thoughts and words and deeds to thy glory.

THE MIRROR

“Take a looking-glass and put it toward heaven; there you shall see the figure of heaven, the clouds and things above. Turn it downward toward the earth, you shall see the figure of the earth, trees, meadows, men. So doth the soul receive a figure from the things to which it is set. If the heart be set toward heaven, that puts thee into a heavenly frame; if thou appliest it to earthly objects, thou art a man of the earth.”

Are our thoughts and our affections full of worldliness? Let us make good use of Manton’s figure, and turn the looking-glass the other way. Our mind will readily enough reflect divine things if we turn it in that direction. Let us see if it be not so. Reach down the Bible, look at the biography of a holy man, or some lively book of devotion, and see if the heart be not straightway filled with holy and heavenly images. At any rate, if we spend our time on the newspaper, or sit hour after hour reading trashy novels, we have no reason to wonder that thought and heart go after vanity. This turning of the mind upward is half the battle. We cannot expect it to reflect that toward which it does not turn. Those who mind earthly things are earthly, those who set their affection upon things above are heavenly. Paul shows how practically useful it is to turn the mind God-ward when he says that denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in this present world, “looking for that blessed hope, and the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ.”

We may well cry concerning this matter, “Turn us, O Lord, and we shall be turned.” If we cannot see divine truth to our enjoyment, let us nevertheless look that way; for that eye is blessed which looks in the direction of the light. It is well to have our window open toward Jerusalem. He who would behold the sun at his rising must not look to the west. He that would see God to his delight must look God-ward. If the mirror of the soul be resolutely set toward the Lord, we shall all with open face behold, as in a glass, the glory of the Lord, and be changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.

O, my blessed Master, help me I pray thee to keep the mirror of my mind in the right position, that evermore I may see thee. True, it will be but as in a glass darkly, but even that will be a marvellous preparation for beholding thee face to face.

THE OLD HOUSE TAKEN DOWN TO BE REBUILT

“If we lived in a house of our own, and the walls became decayed, and the roof ready to drop down upon our heads, we would desire to remove and depart for a while, but we should not therefore give up the ground, and the materials of the house. No, we would have it built up in a better manner.”

Even thus the soul desires to leave the poor frail tenement of the body, but not that the body may be utterly destroyed: it quits it with the hope of having the house of clay rebuilt in more glorious form. “Not that we would be unclothed,” saith the apostle, “but clothed upon with our house which is from heaven;” not that we would be turned out of house and home; but that we would enter upon our better and permanent abode, which the Lord will surely provide for us.

The Lord doth not despise this house of clay: he will rebuild it, and we shall inhabit it forever. Wherefore let us be comforted when the wind blows through the chinks, and the rain drips through the roofs; it will all the sooner come down, and all the sooner will it be restored. The little while in which we shall be unhoused will cause us no inconvenience, for even then we shall be with the Lord; wherefore let us in all things be of good cheer.

O, my Lord, thou hast made me to know that this body will soon cease to be a body for me, therefore I will not pamper it. But thou promisest it a resurrection, therefore I will not defile it. Teach me how, in the body or out of the body, to dwell in thee, and honor thy holy name.

CHILDREN THANKING THE TAILOR FOR THEIR CLOTHES

“As children will thank the tailor, and think they owe their new clothes to him rather than to their parent’s bounty, so we look to the next hand, and set up that instead of God.”

Second causes must never be made to stand before the first cause. Friends and helpers are all very well as servants of our Father, but our Father must have all our praise.

There is a like evil in the matter of trouble. We are apt to be angry with the instrument of our affliction, instead of seeing the hand of God over all, and meekly bowing before it. It was a great help to David in bearing with railing Shimei, when he saw that God had appointed this provocation as a chastisement. He would not suffer his hasty captains to take the scoffer’s head, but meekly said, “Let him alone, and let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him.” A dog when he is struck will bite the stick; if he were wise, he would observe that the stick only moves as the hand directs it. When we discern God in our tribulations we are helped to be quiet and endure with patience.

Let us not act like silly children, but trace matters to their fountain-head, and act accordingly. May the Spirit of wisdom make us men in understanding.

PASSING SHIPS AT SEA

“When we are on board ship, if another vessel passes us at sea, we think that it is sailing more swiftly than we are. Though both ships are passing along at the same rate, we do not so clearly discern our own motion. In like manner we see that others are mortal, but we do not number our own days.”

This is an ordinary observation concerning that which is really an extraordinary piece of folly. What can it matter to us how other men’s lives are going? Our main concern is our own conduct, and the spending of our own days. Come, friend, you too are getting old; snowflakes here and there upon those once raven locks are prophetic of coming winter. Those spectacles, too! “First sight,” you say. Just so; but you were not once dependent on them. Why, you will never see fifty again! Half a century have you lived, and more: surely it is time to be wise.

Friend Brown is getting quite the old man. No doubt; but you are moving onward, too. Brown does not get a year older in less time than you do. We are all sailing at the same rate. Is it not time that we took observations, and found out our longitude and latitude? At any rate, it were well to know what port we are bound for. Some have not even so much knowledge as this implies.

PLEASURE FORGETS LABOR

“In hunting, fowling, and fishing, though there be as much labor as in our ordinary employments, yet we count the toil nothing, because of the delight we have in them.”

It is wonderful what fatigue men will bear to hunt a fox or shoot a partridge, and yet they make nothing of it, but call it sport. In like manner many a zealous worker for the Lord Jesus will preach, and teach, and labor, and call it his recreation, with which he fills up his leisure hours. We know many such, and we hope we shall yet know more. Love makes labor light. Men will do voluntarily that which they would never undertake for pay, and they will keep up freely under an amount of pressure which would crush the hireling. There lies the grand secret. Make holy service a delight, and you can do any amount of it.

Lord, thy servant has no need to reckon thy service to be this pleasure, for it is indeed so. Could he but serve thee perfectly, without hindrance and without mistake, it would be heaven to him. No avocation is like our divine vocation for pure delightfulness. It would be far more wearisome not to serve thee, O my God, than it ever can be to perform the most arduous labor for thy love’s sake.

IN TRAINING

“By running and breathing yourselves every day, you are the fitter to run in a race; so the oftener you come into God’s presence the greater confidence, and freedom, and enlargement it will bring.”

No doubt by praying we learn to pray, and the more we pray the oftener we can pray, and the better we can pray. He who prays by fits and starts is never likely to attain to that effectual, fervent prayer which availeth much. Prayer is good, the habit of prayer is better, but the spirit of prayer is the best of all. It is in the spirit of prayer that we pray without ceasing, and this can never be acquired by the man who ceases to pray.

It is wonderful what distances men can run who have long practised the art, and it is equally marvellous for what a length of time they can maintain a high speed after they have once acquired stamina, and skill in using their muscles. Great power in prayer is within our reach, but we must go to work to obtain it. Let us never imagine that Abraham could have interceded so successfully for Sodom if he had not been all his lifetime in the practice of communion with God. Jacob’s all-night at Peniel was not this first occasion upon which he had met his God. We may even look upon our Lord’s most choice and wonderful prayer with his disciples before his Passion as the flower and fruit of his many nights of devotion, and of his often rising up a great while before day to pray.

A man who becomes a great runner has to put himself in training, and to keep himself in it; and that training consists very much of the exercise of running. Those who have distinguished themselves for speed have not suddenly leaped into eminence, but have long been runners. If a man dreams that he can become mighty in prayer just when he pleases, he labors under a great mistake. The prayer of Elias, which shut up heaven and afterward opened its floodgates, was one of a long series of mighty prevailings with God. Oh that Christian men would remember this! Perseverance in prayer is necessary to prevalence in prayer. Those great intercessors, who are not so often mentioned as they ought to be in connection with confessors and martyrs, were nevertheless the grandest benefactors of the church; but it was only by abiding at the mercy-seat that they attained to be such channels of mercy to men. We must pray to pray, and continue in prayer that our prayers may continue.

O thou, by whom we come to God, seeing thou hast thyself trodden the way of prayer, and didst never turn from it, teach me to remain a suppliant as long as I remain a sinner, and to wrestle in prayer so long as I have to wrestle with the powers of evil. Whatever else I may outgrow, may I never dream that I may relax my supplications; for well I know that—

“Long as they live should Christians pray,
For only while they pray they live.”

TASTERS, NOT BUYERS

“The hearer’s life is the preacher’s best commendation. They that praise the man but do not practise the matter are like those that taste wines that they may commend them, not buy them.”

What a worry such folk are to dealers who are in earnest to do business! Time is wasted, labor lost, hopes disappointed. Oh that these loafers and idlers would take themselves off from our market! We set forth the precious produce of heaven’s own vintage, and hope that they will buy of us; but no, they lift the glass, and talk like thorough connoisseurs, and then go off without coming to a bargain. Sermons which we have studied with care, delivered with travail, prayed over, and wept over, are praised for such minor matters as taste, accuracy, and diction, and the truth they contain is not received. We cannot bring our hearers to a decided bargain, though our wares are the best that heaven can supply. Will it always be so? Reader, has it been so with you? Is it to be so still?

THE PLAISTER

“A plaister may be of sovereign efficacy, but when you are still pulling it off and on it doth you no good.”

Faith applies Christ to the soul; but what if unbelief tears him away? A promise is a great heal-all, but what if we believe and disbelieve, trust and distrust? How can the surest promise comfort us? Men turn to God in their fashion, and before any benefit can come of it they turn away from him. What do they expect from such folly? Instability in saving concerns is a deadly evil, a mockery of God, and a robbery of ourselves.

Lord, thy Son’s atonement is the blessed plaister which has healed my soul’s sore. Thou hast applied it, and I will keep it on my heart forever, whatever may happen, and whoever may ridicule. This hope I have by thy grace, and none shall take it from me.

A MEETING-HOUSE FOR BEGGARS

“If a charitable man should see a company of beggars wandering in the street during the time of worship, under pretence that there was no room for them, and he should build a chapel for them, they would then be without excuse. God hath been at so great a cost to provide a throne of grace, that we must not now neglect prayer.”

The mercy-seat under the law was overlaid with pure gold to foreshadow the costliness of its antitype. It cost the death of Christ to erect a mercy-seat for men. To neglect it is a shameful ingratitude to God, and a wanton rejection of one of his costliest blessings. If there were no throne of grace, men might die of despair because they could not approach to God; but now that God has prepared a way of access for all who desire to approach him, the refusal to draw near must rank among the grossest and most wilful of rebellions. There is no conceivable excuse for the prayerless. A man who dies of starvation with bread before him, and perishes with disease when the remedy is in his hand, deserves no pity; and he who sinks down to hell beneath the burden of his sins because he will not pray, “God be merciful to me a sinner,” deserves all that damnation means. Pardon, life, salvation, heaven, are all to be had for the asking; and if he that asketh not receiveth not, who shall blame either the justice or the mercy of God?

Reader, has this day passed without a prayer from your heart? Tremble lest it should bring wrath upon yon. One said, “Perhaps the day in which the world shall perish will be the day unsanctified by a prayer.” What if the day of your death and final ruin should be a day in which yon did not even turn a glance toward heaven?

A PIECE OF BARK, NOT THE TREE

“A man that keeps the law only outwardly, can no more be said to keep the law, than he that hath undertaken to carry a tree, and only takes up a little piece of the bark.”

The essence of the law lies in the things of the heart: external acts are as the outward bark. The Pharisees were great barkmongers, but the solid timber was too heavy for their shoulders. David was the man to carry the whole of the blessed load. He said, “I will delight myself in thy commandments, which I have loved. My hands also will I lift up unto thy commandments, which I have loved; and I will meditate in thy statutes.”

He who does not love the whole law is not holy. He who does not regard the law in his heart has no heart to the law. As he is not a Jew who is only one outwardly, so he is not a doer of the law who only attends to its externals. He would not have sacrificed a bullock unto the Lord, who should only have brought its horns and hoofs; and he has not yielded himself as a servant unto the Most High, who only brings his lips and hands.

O Lord, I would love all thy law, but especially those precepts of it which concern my inward parts. I beseech thee, therefore, to write thy law upon my heart, and engrave it upon my mind. Let its spiritual commands have full command of my spirit.

THE DOLE

“Wisdom’s dole is given at wisdom’s gates.”

Those who wish for it must go there for it. Go to the gate of hearing if you would obtain the gift of faith. Resort to the beautiful porch of the temple if you would obtain that healing which is given by the gospel. Search the Scriptures if you would find eternal life. Hasten humbly to the gate of prayer if you would obtain God’s covenant blessings. Above all, wait at the cross-foot for the purchased boons of Jesus’ love. The dole is free and large, but God hath his place appointed for its distribution: be often there.

Lord, I would not be out of the way when thine alms are being distributed, for I am as poor as poverty itself. See, I am even now waiting at the portal of thy grace. Give me, I pray thee, my daily bread from heaven, and send me on my way rejoicing.

READY FOR THE BREEZE

“By tacking about men get the wind, not by lying still; many times a supply of grace cometh ere we are aware.”

When we do not seem to have the favoring gale in our voyage toward heaven, let us not therefore cast anchor, and idly lie still, but let us use what wind we have, employing that measure of grace which is vouchsafed to us. Let us put up the sail to catch side winds, that we may be aided by indirect helps till we get where more propitious breezes blow.

If I cannot pray, let me read a chapter. It may be that while I hear God speak to me I shall learn how to speak to him. If in my private reading I feel no unction upon the word, let me go forth and attend the meeting of the saints; perhaps God intends to bless me by the ear, or in company with others. If this fails, let me go and visit the sick, or perform some deed of charity. Perhaps in helping others I may find succor for my own soul: God has often saved a man from freezing by setting him to rub a brother into warmth and life. If all this shall not have succeeded, let me hold converse with some choice servant of God; and if this should fail me, let me get to my knees again, or begin to sing a psalm, or tell to others what I have experienced of God’s love in times past.

How often it will happen that or ever I am aware my soul will make me like the chariots of Ammi-nadib. “While I was musing,” said one, “the fire burned.” “The wind bloweth where it listeth,” and a heavenly gale often comes upon a sudden; but it seldom or never comes to idle souls, or to those who are indifferent about it, listless, inactive, dead, careless whether it comes or not. Come then, brother, tack about. Complain not of the want of heavenly wind, rather complain of want of consecrated energy. Lord, grant that what I preach to others I may always practise myself.

MILK FOR BABES

“As warm milk is fitter to nourish a babe than that which is cold, so the word of God delivered by a lively voice hath a greater congruity and suitableness to the work of grace.”

Moreover, there is no milk for a babe like that which comes warm from the mother’s breast. Reading the word, or hearing a borrowed sermon, is like a child’s sucking from a bottle; but as that child grows best which takes its nutriment fresh from the mother, so hearing warm-hearted discourses, fresh from the preacher’s heart, is the most nourishing to the child of God. There is no warmth like heart-warmth, and no testimony like that of experience.

This is the grand distinction between one preaching and another. One sermon is delivered with a cold propriety, as if the preacher had no concern in it, nor his hearers either, and as a rule it fails to satisfy the soul. Another discourse may have less food in it than the first, but as it comes from the preacher’s inmost soul, and he speaks it with warmth of zeal and melting affection, it enters into the auditor, is assimilated by him, and makes him grow thereby. Surely there can be no greater farce than dull, lifeless preaching. As by taking the soul out of a man we cause him to become a loathsome and offensive corpse, so has the doctrine of the gospel, when it has been divorced from the affection of the minister, become a heartless creed, bringing more of bondage to men’s intellects than of sustenance to their souls. If the shepherd is not alive, what will the sheep be? If men are compelled to feed upon ice, and to dwell among icebergs, they will be frozen; while those who are warmed by an ardent ministry are likely to become fervent Christians.

Lord, let me rather be dumb than so preach thy word as to deprive it of that holy warmth which makes it nourishing food for thy children. Let me not set thy sick ones down to cold meats for which they will have no stomach. If I be not eloquent, yet let me be affectionate; if I cannot speak with the wisdom of a father, yet let me speak with the heart of brother.

COMPLEXION

“We do not judge of men’s complexions by the color they have when they sit before the fire. We cannot judge of a man by a holy fit which he hath when he is under the influence of a sermon, or in good company; but when at all times he labors to keep up a warmth of heart toward God.”

If all were truly good who are occasionally good, good men would not be scarce. See how people weep under a moving sermon! Think not, therefore, that their hearts are changed, for even marble drips in certain weathers. A man fresh from a revival-meeting looks like a zealous Christian; but see him when he goes to market. As a face rendered red by the fire soon loses all its ruddiness, so do numbers lose all their godliness when they quit the society of the godly.

Lord, let me never be what l cannot be forever. Give me a complexion which I shall wear all my lifetime, and when time shall be no more.

THE MASTER’S EYE

“As soldiers fight best in their general’s presence, and scholars ply their books most attentively when under their master’s eye, so, by living always in the sight of God, we are the more studious to please him. The oftener we consider the Lord, the more we see that no service can be holy enough or good enough for such a God as he is.”

This needs no comment, but it needs to be realized. See, soldier of the cross, the eye of the Captain of our salvation is fixed upon thee! Jesus cries, “I know thy works.” Will not this incite thee to valorous deeds, and make a hero of thee? If not, what will?

A BLIND EYE AS DANGEROUS AS A LAME FOOT

“We should as carefully avoid errors as vices; a blind eye is even worse than a lame foot; yea a blind eye may cause a lame foot, for he that hath not light is apt to stumble.”

Very few seem to think so, but there is solemn truth in this statement. Men fancy that their minds are their own, and that they may do what they will with them, thinking and believing just as their conceit suggests. But who gave them a release from the authority of God as to this part of their nature? True, they are not bound by the opinions of their fellow-men; but does this give them a dispensation from the supremacy of God? There are revealed truths: have we license to receive or reject them at our pleasure? If we set up our own conceptions as equal or superior to the teachings of the Holy Spirit, are we justified in so doing? One would fancy from the talk of the wiseacres of the period that God did not know his own mind when he wrote the Scriptures, or that, like an old almanac, divine revelation is out of date, and superseded by “modern thought.”

Doctrinal laxity has led to moral license: professors now wander in ways which their sober forefathers would have shuddered at. They will soon be given over to return to the old idolatries of Rome, since they are growing weary of the grand truths of Protestantism. Falsehoods of belief are fitly followed by superstitions in ritual: those who slay the doctrines are not ashamed to mangle the ordinances. We wonder what next, and next!

O Lord, I am willing to be thought a simpleton for believing as reformers, confessors, and martyrs believed, and as thy word teaches. Do not allow me to be blind to thy truth, lest I stumble in my daily life, and become scandalous as well as heretical.

A LONG LEASE ENHANCES VALUE

“If a man might have a cottage on a hundred years’ lease, he would prize it much more than the possession of a palace for a day.”

Of course he would; and this it is which adds so much preciousness to the joys of heaven, for they are eternal. The pleasures of this world, however bright they seem, are but for this one day of life, which is already half over. If they were all they profess to be, and a thousand times more, they would not be worthy to be mentioned in comparison with “pleasures for evermore” at God’s right hand.

O Thou who fillest eternity, impress me with the solemn import of that word, and let me feel that all time’s fleeting cares and caresses are as dreams; while the things of eternity alone have substance in them. Give me thy grace that I may “lay hold on eternal life.”

C. H. Spurgeon, Flowers from a Puritan’s Garden, Distilled and Dispensed