A Goodly Heritage

 We  turn from our own RIGHTEOUSNESS. Before conversion, man seeks to cover himself with his own fig-leaves, and to make himself acceptable with God, by his own duties. He is apt to trust in himself, and set up his own righteousness, and to reckon his pennies for gold, and not to submit to the righteousness of God. But conversion changes his mind; now he counts his own righteousness as filthy rags. He casts it off, as a man would the verminous tatters of a nasty beggar. Now he is brought to poverty of spirit, complains of and condemns himself; and all his inventory is, 'I am poor, and miserable, and wretched, and blind, and naked!' [Rev 3:17]. He sees a world of iniquity in his holy things, and calls his once-idolized righteousness but filth and loss; and would not for a thousand worlds be found in it! Now he begins to set a high price upon Christ's righteousness. He sees the need of Christ in every duty, to justify his person and sanctify his performances; he cannot

"And now also the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which brings not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire."— Matthew 3:10 . This is the voice of one crying in the wilderness; the voice of a second Elijah; the man of the desert; the burning and shining light; the forerunner of Messiah; the prophet of warning. He spoke to Israel; he speaks to us. It is the voice of warning; a trumpet voice; prelude to the last trumpet; herald of coming wrath and woe. It spoke first to Israel; it speaks to the church; it speaks to Christendom; it speaks to the world; it speaks to each of us. I. The axe.   This is judgment; destruction. The axe is not for planting, or pruning, or dressing, or propping, or protecting, but for cutting down. It is spoken of as used for trees ( Deuteronomy 20:19 ); for the carved work of the temple ( Psalm 64:6 ); for towers ( Ezekiel 26:9 ); for a whole forest ( Jeremiah 66:22 ,   23 ); for a battle-axe ( Jeremiah

Man needs consolation– "man who is born to trouble;" specially a man in Job's condition; overwhelmed with calamity. Not one day's consolation, but many; no, constant; for, what between the little cares and the large sorrows of life, its ripples, and its waves, and its breakers, there is no day exempt from trouble. Life has many burdens, heavy or light. But much depends,  (1.) On the state of mind in which the calamity finds us, or produces in us. Where irritation, murmuring, rebellion, and unbelief prevail, it is idle to speak of consolation. We are not in a fit state to receive it. We repel the hand and the medicine of the physician.  (2.) On the people who administer it. If they are not thoroughly trusted or respected; if they are suspected of selfishness, or insincerity, or unkindness, their words are useless, perhaps worse.  (3.) On the kind of consolation administered. Sometimes it is hastily and thoughtlessly poured in, or rather flung at us, as water is hastil

"From the top of the rocks I see him." – Numbers 23:9  It was of Israel and Israel's glory that the false seer of Pethor spoke. He stood upon the top of Moab's barren rocks, and gazed down on the happy nation, whom God had delivered from Egypt, had brought through the desert, and was about to lead into the land flowing with milk and honey. It was with wonder, perhaps with envy too, that Balaam looked on the goodly tents beneath him. So, from this desert land and these desert hills, we gaze upon the church on her way to Canaan, about to be settled in the blessed land and holy city. And when we gaze, what do we see?  I. The ruggedness of the land of our present sojourn. It is the region of hostility as well as barrenness. This is not our rest. These dark mountains are not our home. We may pitch our tents among them for a season, or climb to the top to gaze around us. But they are no dwelling-place for us. We may look on Canaan from Pisgah, but Pisgah will not do for a

*' Marion Harvie, a young woman, not twenty years of age, on her way to the place of execution, was interrupted hi her devotions : on which she turned to her fellow-prisoner, Isabel Alison, and said, ' Come, Isabel, let us sing the 23d Psalm j' which accordingly they did, Marion repeating the psalm line by line without book. Being come to the scaffold, after singing the 84th Psalm, and reading the 3d of Malachi, she said, ' I am come here to-day for avowing Christ to be the head of his church, and King in Zion. They say I would murder; but I declare, I am free of all matters of fact ; I could never take the life of a chicken but my heart shrinked. But it is only for my judgment of things that I am brought here. I leave my blood on the council and the Duke of York.' At this the soldiers interrupted, and would not allow her to speak any."— Cloud of Witnesses.

Old men, and youths and simple maids.. 53. 1. 5 . " One morning, between five and six hours, John Brown, having performed the worship of God in his family, was going with a spade in his hand to make ready some peat- ground. The mist being very dark, he knew not until cruel and bloody Claverhouse compassed him with three troops of horse, brought him to his house, and there exa rnined him ; who, though he was a man of stammering speech, yet answered him distinctly and solidly ; which made Claverhouse to examine those whom he had taken to be his guide through the muirs, if they had heard him preach ? They answered, ' No, no, he never was a preacher.' He said, ' If he has never preached, meikle has he prayed in his time.' He said to John, ' Go to your prayers, for you shall immediately die.' When he was praying, Claverhouse interrupted him three times : one time that he stopped him, he was pleading that the Lord would spare a remnant, and not make a full end I

Truth and Liberty "Then said Jesus to those Jews who believed on him—If you continue in my word, then are you my disciples indeed; and you shall know the   truth , and the truth shall make you   free ."   John 8:31 ,   32 . "Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God"; accordingly we read in verse thirty, "As he spoke these words, many believed on him." So He taught, and so they believed; as the apostle puts it "So we preached, and so you believed." It is always in connection with the word of truth that the Holy Spirit works in us. Christ's voice and the Spirit's hand go together. We find this in our text; but we find more than this. I. The reception of Christ's word begins discipleship.   There may be many an anxious thought before this; many a tear; many a bitter groan. There may be alarm, and disquietude, and inquiry. But these are not discipleship. They are but as so many gropings after teaching; so many inquir

"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life."   John 3:14 ,   15 Let us here first read the history, and then mark the symbol. The HISTORY . The narrative begins with Israel's sin. It is the old sin of murmuring; distrust; dislike of God's provision; discontent with his dealings; preference of Egypt to the prospect of Canaan; disbelief of God's love, and denial of his faithfulness. And all this at the close of their forty years' desert sojourn! Forty years of the manna, of the water, of the pillar-cloud, and of all the love which these imply—had left them still the same! The narrative proceeds with Israel's punishment. It was death; death from the hand of the Lord; a death of agony; a death by poison and fire; death by the instrumentality of serpents, which would not fail to remind them of the serpent of Paradise, by which our fir

"We know that you are a teacher come from God."   John 3:2 We take Nicodemus as one of the best specimens of "religious humanity "; educated, moral, of high position and culture; a strict observer of religious rites, and seasons, and ordinances; a "ruler of the Jews," a "master of Israel," and a believer in Israel's promised Messiah. He ought to have known fully Messiah's errand, and to have recognized Him at once when He came. But even Nicodemus, this well-instructed religious ruler and master, one of the leaders of the straitest sect, fails to understand Him. He approaches Him only as a teacher. He accepts Him as such, but as nothing more. Like the rest of his nation and race, he was in quest of "knowledge"; and for such he went to Jesus. Like our first parents, he saw that "the tree was good for food, and pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise"; this was all. He had no deeper sense

 Slowness to anger, or admirable patience, is the property of the Divine nature. As patience signifies suffering, so it is not in God. The Divine nature is impassible, incapable of any impair, it cannot be touched by the violences of men, nor the essential glory of it be diminished by the injuries of men; but as it signifies a willingness to defer, and an unwillingness to pour forth his wrath upon sinful creatures, he moderates his provoked justice, and forbears to revenge the injuries he daily meets with in the world. He suffers no grief by men’s wronging him, but he restrains his arm from punishing them according to their merits; and thus there is patience in every cross a man meets with in the world, because, though it be a punishment, it is less than is merited by the unrighteous rebel, and less than may be inflicted by a righteous and powerful God. This patience is seen in his providential works in the world: “He suffered the nations to walk in their own way,” and the witness of

Intimacy with God is the very essence of religion, and the foundation of discipleship. It is in intercourse with Father, Son, and Spirit that the most real parts of our lives are lived; and all parts that are not lived in fellowship with Him, 'in whom we live, and move, and have our being,' are unreal, untrue, unsuccessful, and unsatisfying. The understanding of doctrine is one thing, and intimacy with God is another. They ought always to go together; but they are often seen asunder; and, when there is the former without the latter, there is a hard, proud, hollow religion. Get your teaching from God (Job 36:22; Jer 23:30); take your doctrine from His lips; learn truth upon your knees. Beware of opinions and speculations: they become idols, and nourish pride of intellect; they furnish no food to the soul; they make you sapless and heartless; they are like winter frostwork on your windowpane, shutting out the warm sun. Let God be your companion, your bosom-friend, your ins

"And he brought the other ram, the ram of consecration: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the ram. And he slew it; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put it upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot." Leviticus 8:22-23 By "the ram of consecration," is meant the ram by which Aaron and his sons were consecrated, or set apart for the service of God. The victim was selected by Moses, who was thus representing God. It was not Aaron and his sons who chose the sacrifice; it was God who made the choice for them, and presented the ram to them, that they might put their hands on it, and in so doing, acknowledge it as God's appointed sacrifice, and accept it as their substitute. Thus, the transaction of sacrifice is here, as elsewhere, shown to be  twofold . Moses, as acting for God, exhibits one part, and Aaron, as acting for the people, exhibits the other. Mose

"But he sweeps away his enemies in an overwhelming flood. He pursues his foes into the darkness of night." Nahum 1:8 It is of Nineveh and Assyria that this prophet utters his fearful burden. That city and its inhabitants were to bear the judgments of Jehovah. It was to be swept from the earth, and they were to be driven out, pursued by destruction from the Lord. "The Assyrian" was Israel's great enemy, God's great enemy; type of the Church's great enemy in the last days. The capital city had been warned, had repented, and had returned like the dog to its vomit. Now the last blast of the prophetic trumpet is sounded; a warning to Nineveh, a consolation to Israel. Darkness has settled down on Nineveh from that day to this, and has pursued its dwellers– a type and pledge of the blackness of darkness forever. Let us take Assyria as a specimen of sinners; and this prediction as a declaration of God's way of dealing with them.  I. A SINNER IS AN ENEMY TO