A Goodly Heritage

Among the manifold improvements in the Westminster Revision, we are happy to find that our Lord's discourse against  sinful worrying  is given in the right English. Our common version of the closing portion of the sixth chapter of Matthew has always been very misleading to the average reader. Christ never commanded us to "take no thought for the morrow"; such counsel would contradict common sense, rational prudence, and other explicit commands in the Bible. What our Lord so emphatically forbade—was  sinful anxiety , or the overloading of today's work with worry—about the day that has not yet come. The revisers have hit the nail exactly on the head, by introducing the word "anxious" into a half-dozen verses of that portion of the Sermon on the Mount. "Be not  anxious  for your life—as to what you shall eat," etc. "Which of you by being  anxious  can add one cubit to the measure of his life?" This whole remonstrance against borrowing tr

The smallest verse in the Bible, is one of the largest and deepest in its heavenly pathos. "Jesus wept." What mysterious meanings may have lain behind those tears—no one need try to fathom! But, for one, I prefer to see in them the honest expression of grief for a friend who was dead, and of sympathy for two heart-broken women. Christ's   power   displayed at that sepulcher overwhelms me—it was the power of God. But His   pity   touches me most tenderly—it was the pity of a man. Those moistened eyes are my Elder Brother's. The sympathy that walked twenty miles to Bethany, that drew Him to those desolate women, that started the tears down His cheeks and choked His voice with emotion—that sympathy links us to Him as the sharer and the bearer of our own sorrows! There is something vicarious in those tears, as there is in the precious blood shed on the cross a few days afterwards. His love seems to "insert itself vicariously right into our sorrows," and He

Today as I sit in my lonely room, this passage of God's Word flies in like a white dove through the window, "And now men see not the sun which is in the   clouds ; but the wind passes and clears them." Job 37:21. To my weak vision, dimmed with tears, the   cloud   is exceeding dark, but through it stream some rays from the infinite love which fills the Throne with an exceeding and eternal brightness of glory. By-and-by we may get above and behind that cloud—into the overwhelming light. We shall not need comfort then; but we do need it now. And for our present consolation, God lets through the clouds some clear, strong, distinct rays of love and gladness. One truth which beams in through the vapors is this—God not only reigns, but He governs His world by a most beautiful   law of compensations . He sets one thing over against another. Faith loves to study the illustrations of this law, notes them in her diary, and rears her pillars of praise for every fresh discovery

A great many precious spiritual truths lie concealed under the out-of-the-way passages of God's Word, like Wordsworth's "violet by a mossy stone, Half hidden from the eye." If we turn to a certain verse in 2 Samuel 14, we shall find such a truth hidden under a historical incident. The incident goes this way: Absalom, the deceitful aspirant to his father's throne, wishes to have an interview with Joab, the commander of David's army. He sends for Joab to come to him, but Joab refuses. Finding that the obstinate old soldier pays no heed to his urgent request, he practices a stratagem. He says to one of his servants: "See! Joab's field is next to mine, and he has barley there. Go and set it on fire!" And Absalom's servant set the field on fire. Then Joab arose and came to Absalom. Now, just as the shrewd young prince dealt with Joab in order to bring him unto him—so God employs a regimen of discipline very often in order to bring wayward

One season  in the life of a Christian, requiring more than common diligence to keep his heart, is the time of  adversity.  When Providence frowns upon you, and blasts your outward comforts, then look to your heart; keep it with all diligence from repining against God, or fainting under his hand; for troubles, though sanctified, are troubles still. Jonah was a good man, and yet how fretful was his heart under affliction! Job was the mirror of patience, yet how was his heart discomposed by trouble! You will find it hard to get a composed spirit under great afflictions. O the hurries and tumults which they occasion even in the best hearts I—Let me show you, then, how a Christian under great afflictions may keep his heart from repining or desponding, under the hand of God. I will here offer several helps to keep the heart in this condition. 1. By these cross providences God is faithfully pursuing the great design of electing love upon the souls of his people, and orders all these a

To point out those special seasons in the life of a Christian which require our utmost diligence in keeping the heart. Though (as was observed before) the duty is always binding, and there is no time or condition of life in which we may be excused from this work; yet there are some signal seasons, critical hours, requiring more than common vigilance over the heart. 1. The  first season is  the time of prosperity, when Providence smiles upon us. Now, Christian, keep thy heart with all diligence; for it will be very apt to grow secure, proud and earthly. “To see a man humble in prosperity,”(says Bernard,) “is one of the greatest rarties in the world.” Even a good Hezekiah could not hide a vain-glorious temper in his temptation; hence that caution to Israel: “And it shall be, when the Lord thy God shall have brought thee into the land which he aware to thy fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give thee great and goodly cities which thou bulkiest not, and houses full of all

 Song of Songs 5:16 I. Christ is to be loved At the ninth verse of this chapter, you have a question put forth by the daughters of Jerusalem, "What is your beloved more than another beloved?" The spouse answers, "He is the chief among ten thousand." She then recounts many of the things she finds so excellent in her beloved and then concludes with these words: "Yes, he is altogether lovely." The words set forth the transcendent loveliness of the Lord Jesus Christ, and naturally resolve themselves into three parts: First,  Who he is : the Lord Jesus Christ, after whom she had been seeking, for whom she was overcome by love; concerning whom these daughters of Jerusalem had enquired: whom she had struggled to describe in his particular excellencies. He is the great and excellent subject of whom she here speaks. Secondly,  What he is , or what she claims of him: That he is a lovely one. The Hebrew word, which is often translated "desires,"