Page images
PDF
EPUB

neighbouring clergy, and, above all, animated by that Presence which can only be realized by the power of faith and hope and love, his days of visitation were truly days of blessedness. The peace that passeth understanding was with him during the remnant of his life. It might be said of George Herbert, that he felt habitually certain of heaven; for the kingdom of heaven was already within him. He was never inflated with the vapours of spiritual presumption. That was far from him at all times; and even when death was at hand, his last words were expressive of a humble trust; but not of a positive confidence. On the day of his death he observed to a friend, "I am sorry I have nothing to present to my merciful God but sin and misery; but the first is pardoned, and a few hours will put a period to the latter." His friend reminded him of many of his acts of mercy, to which he replied, "They be good works if they be sprinkled with the blood of Christ, and not otherwise." As the last solemn hour approached, he was observed to be suffering from a severe mental agony; and in answer to the enquiries of his friends, he said, "That he had passed a conflict with his last enemy, and had overcome him by the merits of his Master Jesus." And now having given some directions respecting his will, he said, "I am now ready to die. Lord, forsake me not now my strength faileth me; but grant me mercy for the merits of my Jesus. And now, Lord, receive my soul."

Thus died this eminent saint; or rather, thus did he enter eternal life. Indeed, from the time of his ordination, he appeared to be as it were on the confines of heaven, for he lived in a perpetual atmosphere of love. Every thing he saw and heard supplied his heart with aliment: he found "sermons in stones, and good in every thing." To him flowers were the smiles of the beneficent Creator;

"The common air, the sun, the skies,
To him were opening paradise."

In him, and in his daily course of life, was developed the practical blessedness of church fellowship. This was the principal means of cherishing and keeping up the spirit of holy Christian dutifulness-that beautiful church temper which shines so brightly in our older divines-the temper which knows of no safety except when following in the holy train of apostles, prophets, martyrs, saints, and confessors. Isington.

J. Y.

EARTH PREFERRED TO HEAVEN.

BY THE REV. DR. CHALMERS.

PRACTICAL Christianity involves in it, not only the admission of a new hope, but also the acquisition of a new character. This cannot be effected without what is painful to nature-the surrender of old desires and aflections to the mastery of new ones which are substituted in their room. There is not merely a translation into a new hope, but a translation into a new practical habit. The hope, in fact, will induce the habit. The man who looks, with a delighted eye, on the open gate of heaven, and the now unobstructed path which leads to it-that man must, at the same time, be aspiring after heaven's graces, and must have entered on those moralities, both of heart and life, which give to heaven all its gladness. A man could no more rejoice in the prospect of the real heaven of eternity, without a taste and a desire towards its spiritual excellence, than he could rejoice in the prospect of entering for life into a foreign land, the government and customs and people of which were every way hateful to him. It is thus that the faith of the Gospel induces, or brings in a sure and speedy train after it, the character of the Gospel. The very entrance upon its hope implies a turning of the soul. There is not only a looking of the inner man after another portion, but there is a choice of that portion. The man who believes, takes up with heaven as his eternal habitation; and this he cannot do without a transference of the heart to other things than those with which it was wont to be occupied.

Now it is the aversion of men to this transference, which forms the great obstacle to their acceptance of the Gospel. They do not believe, because they "love the darkness rather than the light.' Their heart is engaged with things

VOL. XII.

present, and agreeably engaged; and hence their disinclination to things future. They have no other wish than to be as they are. The gravitation of their souls is toward earth; and they want not this to be thwarted or disturbed by any cause that would impress an aspiring tendency in the opposite direction. This is the real secret of their indisposition to the overtures of the Gospel. Their mind is darkened, just because their fond and "foolish heart" is "darkened." They labour under a blindness, no doubt; but it is because they labour under a moral unwillingness. They do not see the evidence which would give them faith; but it is because they shut their eyes; or, which is the same thing, they will not attend to the evidence. This world contents them; and they are utterly indisposed for any overtures about another world. It is vain to tell them that Christ makes a free offer of happiness to all, if it be not happiness, or pleasure, in the way they like it. They will not part with the earthly for the heavenly. They will not give up their carnal preferences, to which they are urged by nature, for those spiritual delights which are held out to every believer, for his recreation in time-for his full and satisfying enjoyment through eternity. They do not breathe with any kindredness of feeling in a spiritual atmosphere; and, children as they are of sense and secularity, they refuse to turn from their "own way." They "will not come unto" Christ that they may " have life;"§ and He, looking down upon them from the mediatorial throne to which He has been exalted, sees, that after all He has done to roll away the obstacles between earth and heaven, that after all the toil and the agony of the great propitiation have been expended, that after barriers have been levelled, and "crooked" places been made "straight" and "rough places plain," and a highway for sinners has been thrown across the dark and dreary infinite, which separated them from God—that after, by the strength of His own right arm, He hath forced this mysterious passage, and planted upon it the flag of invitation-He now sees, after He has thus brought eternity within their reach, that, fastened in the thraldom of their own base and inglorious affections, they remain immoveable; that they continue to grovel as before; and it matters not to then what facilities have been struck out, or what the avenues that are now opened to the aradise above, because earth is dearer to them than heaven, and the delights of this sensible, though passing world, are far more enchanting to their spirits, than all th splendid honours and all the offered joys of immortality.

.

And it is just because this rejection of the Gospel is a thing of will upon our side, that it is a thing of provocation upon His side. Had our unbelief been the blindness of those who could not see, there would have been no room for wrath on the part of the Saviour; but it is the blindness of those who will not see; and it is this which gives its moral force to the remonstrance-"Ye will not come (or, rather, ye are not willing to come) to me, that ye might have life!" We can be at no loss to perceive how the Saviour must stand affected by this treatment, on man's part, of that economy over which He now presides, and which He hath so laboriously instituted. The scorn, or (at least) the apathy, wherewith man puts the glories of the purchased inheritance away from him; the choice that he still makes of time, after immortality has been thus brought near him; the efficiency of the Gospel, with all its encouragements, to lure him from the world, and bring him to reconciliation with God; the sinful and sordid appetency for earth, which not even the now accessible heaven, with its pure and perpetual joys, can overcome; the inert and invincible sluggishness, wherewith he still adheres to the carnalities of the old man, and from which all the proclamations of grace cannot move him; the busy round of pleasure or of gain or of ambition, at which he keeps playing as assiduously as if earth were to be the platform on which he was to expatiate for ever; all these mark such an obstinate affinity to sense, such a rooted dislike and diversity of taste from all sacredness, as will go most effectually, on the day of judgment, to characterize and to condemn him. The free Gospel hath acted as a criterion, for fixing on which side of the question between earth and heaven it is that his affections lie. And He who sees him from the place of ascension which He now occupies, He who hath consecrated for him by His own blood a path by which the sinner, if he will, may return unto God-if, in the face of this, the sinner will not, might not the Saviour, on the day in which He comes down and takes account of the John iii. 12. + Romans i. 21.

Isaiah liii. 6. $ John v. 40. || Isaiah xl.4. ¶ John v. 40

world, fill His mouth with an overwhelming argument?* Will not that be clear justice, which shuts out from the high and holy abode him, who, all life long, persisted in the earthliness which he loved, and from which even the open gate of heaven, and the voice of welcome that issued therefrom, could not disengage him? In going up into heaven, Christ is said to have risen there for our justification; but in coming down from heaven, He will come for the enhanced condemnation of those, who have declined His grace, and so have kept by their own guiltiness. They shall be made to "eat of the fruit" of their own ways; and as they chose to walk in "their own counsels," by those "counsels" they shall "fall"‡

That prisoner is not to blame, who makes no attempt to escape from the dungeon, the gates of which are impregnably shut against him; but should he refuse the guidance of that benefactor, who has thrown open those gates, and who offers to conduct him to a place of enlargement, where he shall have air and light and liberty, he verily is the author of his own undoing, if he pine and perish among the noxious damps of his prison-house. And it is thus that Christ now offers to set the spiritual captive free. He hath cleared away all legal obstructions. He hath provided "an open door"§ of access unto God. He hath opened for us all a clear exit from the place of condemnation; and now invites us to that glorious liberty, which consists in the service of love and willingness. It is not easy to conceive the physical preference of a dark and dismal confinement, to a free range on the domain of nature; but we see exemplified, every day, the moral preference of a continued thraldom among the idolatries of sense and the world, to an outlet or emancipation of the soul into the regions of sacredness and of spiritual health and spiritual harmony. Ours is the era of a great embassy from heaven to earth; and men are beseeched to make good that escape from slavery, which has been provided in the Gospel; and Christ, from the eminence on which He now stands, is watching and witnessing how His messengers are received, and what is the effect of their solicitations. This is the character of our interesting period; and our doom for eternity hangs upon it. It is fixed by our own choice. Should we love to breathe in the atmosphere of spiritual death, it will be the only atmosphere we shall breathe in for ever; and if, now that Christ hath gone up "into heaven", we follow him not in faith and by upward aspirations, when He again comes down from heaven, He will recognise us to be still carnal, He will deal with us as enemies.T

NATIONAL ANTHEM
BY THE REV. DR. COLLYER.

O Thou, who reignest above,
In majesty and love,

And grace serene,
Sovereign of Sovereigns Thou
Before whom nations bow,
O bear Thy people now,
God save the Queen.
On this most solemn day,
How feebly words convey,

The thanks we mean:
But hearts all open lie,
To Thine omniscient eye,
While fervently we cry,

God save the Queen.
Around the Royal head,
Thy sheltering wing outspread,
Hath safety been :

Continue to defend,

And keep her to the end,
The general prayer attend,
God save the Queen,

When treason's twice-aimed blow
Would lay the Sovereign low,

Thy hand was seen :
Thy providence we own,
It was Thy power alone
Protected then the throne.

And saved the Queen.

In every dangerous hour,
May the same Guardian power,
Still intervene !

Long to the country spare,
And make the Royal pair
Thine own peculiar care,
God save the Queen!

I would-fill my mouth with arguments.-Job xxiii. 4.
They shall eat the fruit of their doings.-Isaiah iii. 10.
Let them fall by their own counsels-Psalm v. 10.
Revelation iii. 8.
Acts i. 11.

Extracted with slight modifications, from the third volume of Dr. Chalmers's "Congregational Sermons;" a volume new to the public. See the tenth volume of his works; Pages 161 to 166;

Sermon 9.

THE

FRUITS OF THE SPIRIT.

BY THE REV. T. APPLEGATE,

LECTURE III. PEACE,

"The fruit of the Spirit is peace."-Galatians v. 22.

you, My peace I give unto you." The apostles preached peace. Their example under persecution and death was peace. Christians are the sons of peace.

[ocr errors]

The spirit of contention, bickering, strife, jarring, and confusion is perpetually at variance with the peace with which Jehovah blesses His people. Too great a prominence cannot be given to this peaceful "fruit of the Spirit.' It is not a stupid, stoical, morbid insensibility, which leaves a man unmoved und unaffected with spiritual and Divine things. It is an active energetic principle, harmonizing with the most lively and zealous efforts to promote the glory of God, and the salvation of the human race. It is not like the tempest, or the hurricane; it is a river of living water, which makes the wilderness like Eden, and the desert like the garden of the Lord.

THE greatest evil with which our world can be afflicted, is that of war. It is one of the most hideous of all the train of sin. Ever since the death of Abel, it has been brandishing the torch of incendiary, and marching to the work of destruction; preceded by terror and flame, followed by devastation, creating the riot of death and the carnival of the grave. To witness the cries of the wounded, the shrieks of the dying, the clashing of weapons and the clang of artillery; to witness the march of an hostile army through a fertile country, and behold opulent cities plundered and abandoned to the reign of cruelty and lust, the habitation of peaceful industry consigned to the flames, and humanity itself expiring before its progress; to contemplate the diabolical character and influence of war, in annihilating the agriculture and the commerce of the richest nations that have ever been Our subject may be rendered interestpresented to our view by the history of ing and instructive, if we consider three the globe to reflect seriously on its things. The essential ingredients of this dreadful ravages, in emptying earth to peace; its peculiar value; and the impeople hell-should induce us to "sigh pressions it ought to produce. and cry for the abominations that are done in the land," and beseech the Most High to "break the bow and cut the spear in sunder and burn the chariot in the fire." The spirit of Christianity is essentially the spirit of peace. One of its fundamental principles and maxims is, "Love your enemies; do good to them that hate you; and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you. If thine enemy hunger, feed him; if he thirst, give him drink; for in so doing thou shalt heap coals of fire on his head." The holy embassy, that honoured the shepherds with their presence, at the birth of the Saviour, sang, "Peace on earth, good will to men.' "Christ is the "Prince of Peace." His walk was peace. His work His Gospel was peace. His legacy was peace; "Peace I leave with

was peace.

I. What are its essential ingredients? Reconciliation with God; faith in Christ; and the entire subjugation of the passions.

1. Reconciliation with God. The state of man by nature is that of rebellious revolt and alienation. He may strive to disguise and palliate the fact; he may clothe his thoughts of Deity with the gait of excessive veneration, and his words may seem to express the most unbounded respect and awe; but in the inmost recesses of his heart, there is a restlessness, which bespeaks that the carnal mind is enmity against God. Many an anxious hour, many a suppressed fear, many a bitter moment, have taught the full import of inspired truth, that "our iniquities, like the wind, have

C

carried us away;" that our trespasses have grown up into the very heavens, that they have provoked the Most High to anger. If He had told us, that He was about to send a special messenger, His own Son, into our fallen world, without acquainting us with the object of His mission, we should have foreboded the most fearful consequences. But "God sent not His Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world, through Him, might be saved." He removed every difficulty out of the way of our restoration to His favour. "He spared not His own Son; but delivered Him up for us all" He "made Him to be sin for us, who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him." "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them." "Now, in Christ Jesus, ye who sometimes were afar off, are made nigh by the blood of Christ." The peace-speaking blood of the Redeemer becomes applied to the heart, His grace and strength imparted, and the Christian filled with all joy and peace in believing. The kingdom of God within him is "righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." "The work of the Saviour's "righteousness is peace, and the effect of it quietness and assurance for ever." Who can meditate on the plan of reconciliation, with all its attendant blessings, and not feel a mental placidity, which no storm can ruffle: a peace the world can neither give nor take away? What is peace with a brother, what peace with a friend, what is peace with a father, what is peace with a king, compared to peace with God? "In His favour is life, and His lovingkindness is better than life." The Christian, throwing the arms of his faith around the Cross, can sing, "O Lord, I will praise Thee; though Thou wast angry with me, Thine anger is turned away, and Thou comfortest me." The calm, after such a storm, is unutterable. The thick and threatening clouds are exchanged for the clear shining of the sun, and the balmy atmosphere of holiness and peace. Such Divine serenity and composure can only be experienced when there is exercised

2. Faith in Christ. Peace is expressly promised to all who believe; "Being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ." "We who have believed do enter into rest."

[ocr errors]

"To show unto the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, He hath confirmed it by an oath; that by two immutable things, in which it was impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us." Faith is the instrumental cause of peace. "Thy faith hath made thee whole, go in peace,' was frequently the language of our Lord to those whose maladies He had healed. "To the upright there ariseth light in the darkness." "He shall not be afraid of evil tidings; his heart is fixed trusting in the Lord." "Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee, because he trusteth in Thee." "Oh! how great is Thy goodness, which Thou hast laid up for them that fear Thee, which Thou hast wrought for them which trust in Thee, before the sons of men. Thou shalt hide them in the secret of Thy presence, from the pride of man! thou shalt keep them secretly in a pavilion, from the strife of tongues." Happy is that people, whose God is the Lord.' The most favoured Christians will find occasion to mourn over repeated offences; but if they steadfastly look at Jesus, and trust in His atoning sacrifice, they are most likely to maintain habitual tranquillity, and assurance, that when they have accomplished their warfare ou earth, they shall enjoy everlasting peace, exempted from every cause of pain and disquietude.

66

Accompanying reconciliation and faith is, 3. The entire subjugation of the passions. There are passions and emotions in the bosoms of men, which must of necessity be sources of painful and distressing agitation. The most solemn and conclusive evidence exists, that all the children of unregeneracy carry the elements of hell within them. "The works of the flesh are manifest which are these: Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatre d variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like." strife and conflict of the passions have perpetuated most of the disorder and misery of our fallen world. It is the province of religion to subdue them, and to controul the mind by other and different affections; to mortify our members which are on the earth, and to introduce and establish the dominion of

The

« PreviousContinue »