A Goodly Heritage

A SOLEMN QUESTION, not for His own information, but for Peter's examination, it is well, especially after a foul sin, that the Christian should well probe the wound. Note what this question was. 1. It was concerning Peter's love. He did not say, "Fearest thou Me?" "Dost thou admire or adore Me?" Nor was it even a question concerning his faith. That is because love is the best evidence of piety. He that lacks love must lack every other grace in proportion. If love be little, fear and courage will be little. 2. He did not ask Peter anything about his doings. He did not say, "How much hast thou wept? How often hast thou on thy knees sought mercy?" Though works follow love, yet love excelleth the works, and works without love are not evidences worth having. 3. We have very much cause for asking ourselves this question. If our Saviour were no more than a man like ourselves, He might often doubt whether we love Him at all. Let me lust remind y

"Children, have you any food?" John 21:5 It was a risen Christ who asked this question; thus He is shown to be the same Savior still. The cross and grave have not quenched His love; nor has resurrection made Him forget them, or raised Him above sympathy with them. The question pertained to the needs of the body. His resurrection-body was still in sympathy with their body. He felt their pain, and want, and cold, and hunger, just as He did before. The higher He rose, the deeper and more perfect were His sympathies. He could hunger no more, neither thirst any more, nor be weary more; yet all this but made Him the more keenly alive to such sufferings and privations in His brethren. The question which He asked is one which He did not need to ask; He could have answered it Himself; He knew they had no food—that all the night they had toiled—but caught nothing. Yet He wishes to speak to them

"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

"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 t

The uncertainty of the day bespeaks our preparedness. When the disciples asked Christ concerning the sign of His coming, He answers them with a how, not with a when. He describes the manner, but conceals the time; such signs shall go before. He does not determine the day when the judgment shall come after. Only He cautions them, with a "Take heed, lest that day come upon you unawares: for as a snare shall it come on all them that dwell on the face of the earth" ( Luke 21:34, 35 ). The bird little thinks of the snare of the fowler, nor the beast of the hunter; this fearlessly rangeth through the woods, the other merrily cuts the air: both follow their unsuspected liberty, both are lost in unprevented ruin. Against public enemies we fortify our coasts; against private thieves we bar our doors, and shall we not against the irremediable fatality of this day prepare our souls? It is favour enough that the Lord hath given us warning; the day is sudden, the warning is not sudden. T

Consider some of the different modes in which the rejection of God's call has been made. Far, all do not reject Him alike. I. Some will even rise up and say, "I Do NOT CONSIDER THAT I HAVE EVER YET BEEN CALLED." 1. Those who wish they could believe they had been called, but cannot think such good news true. 2. Those who are waiting for a louder, more irresistible call, saying, "Why does not God, if He would indeed save me, make some great interposition on my behalf?" Alas for the guilty unbelief of the one, and the awful, blasphemous presumption of the other! II. Those who, although conscious of having been called, yet treat the matter with INDIFFERENCE. These are "men at ease in Zion"; familiarized with stifled convictions; of secular habit of mind; to whom invisible things carry no reality in daily life. Three classes of them depicted in Luke 14:18-20 . III. Those who recognize the importance of the Divine call, BUT WHO PUT OFF THE AC

Oh that "how often"! Do not let it be a mere impassioned exclamation. Make it what it is, a distinct, definite question put to you this day — " how often?" And what arithmetic can write the answer? I never yet visited a man upon a sick-bed — I never talked with a single person in any of those moments which unlock the breast, and set it free to speak its secrets — that I did not receive this confession: "I have been greatly conscious all my life of the inward striving, and the oft-repeated calls of God in my soul." Sometimes, doubtless, those calls fall louder and deeper upon the spiritual ear than they fall at other times. They lie thickest, I believe, in early life. There are states of mind we can scarcely say how, and there are providential scenes we can scarcely say why, which give an intensity to those many voices, when a verse of Scripture will sometimes roll its meaning like thunder, or when a whisper of the soul will carry an accent tenfold with i

"A little while the fetters hold no more; The spirit long enthralled is free to soar, And takes its joyful flight, On radiant wings of light, Up to the throne, to labor or adore!" "They rest not day and night." —Rev. 4:8. What a seeming paradox is this! We last contemplated Heaven under the beautiful and significant figure of a state of rest —here it is spoken of as a state of un rest! "They rest"—"they rest not." It is what the old writers quaintly designate, "The rest without a rest." The combination of these two similitudes involves no inconsistency; they bring together two different but not antagonistic elements of earthly happiness, which will have their highest exemplification in the bliss of a perfect world. The emblem suggests TWO VIEWS OF A FUTURE HEAVEN— First, It is a state of ceaseless activity in the service of God. Constituted as we now a

He gives more grace ." —James 4:6 Many are the hindrances and discouragements which meet the Christian in his journey heavenward; and, if he had only his own strength to rely upon, he would soon become faint-hearted, and sink down in hopeless despair. But, conscious that there is a power on his side which can carry him over every obstacle—an Arm on which he may lean for support in every time of weakness—and a Refuge to which he can betake himself whenever danger threatens to overwhelm him, he pursues his onward and upward course, assured that He who has been his Guardian and Guide in the past, will not fail nor forsake him in the future. And, ever, as he finds his progress retarded—whether by temptations from without or from within—from daily interaction with the world, or a more close and constant communion with an evil heart, he resorts to to the throne of grace, that his faith may be invigorated—his love increas