A Goodly Heritage

In connection with the knowledge of what lies beyond the grave the moment of dying is deeply significant. The way in which we see others die, and in which we die ourselves, contributes to our knowledge of God. In this hour many things that stood between God and the soul fall away. We then stand on the threshold of the unseen life, and the words of the Psalmist: "Our feet stand within thy gates, O Jerusalem," are applicable to the entering in through the gates of the new Jerusalem. Let us take dying in this connection in its real true sense. Dying is an act. In our birth we are passive. Life then only begins. But when God has privileged us to reach the years of maturity, and the end has come, the servants and handmaidens of the Lord should not be dragged out by death against their will, but of themselves they should face it with a will. And by the way in which they do this, they should reveal the fruit of their labors of faith. The first Christians sang hymns of praise...

"I dwell in the high and holy places." -- Isa. lvii.15. Holiness inheres in man's being. There is external holiness, e.g., that of the Levitical order, effected by washing or sprinkling with sacrificial blood; or official holiness, denoting separation for divine service, in which sense the prophets and apostles are called holy, and church-members are called holy and beloved. But these have nothing to do with the sanctification now under discussion. Sanctification as a gift of grace refers to a man's personal holiness. As the divine holiness is God's exaltation above, and angry recoil from all impurity and defilement, so is human holiness man's essential disposition by which spontaneously he loves purity and hates the unclean. Victory over temptation after a long and painful conflict, in which our feet had wellnigh slipped, is not holiness. Holiness signifies a disposition, an inherent quality, or, by another manner of speaking, a tint or shade adopte...

There is a peculiar charm about the thing which we have made. Not because of any intrinsic value it may have, but just because we have made it. The new beginner at the art of portrait-painting, who practices his art by copying celebrated originals, will think more of his own copy than of the more excellent original. Flowers which the young lad plucks from his own little garden are much more interesting to him than the bouquet from the florist. The country gentleman prefers vegetables from his own grounds or hothouse, even if less fine, to the produce imported from abroad. He who writes for the press deems his own article, published in some monthly or quarterly, the best of the edition. This holds good in every department of life. Produce raised ourselves interests us greatly. Cattle bred on our own stock farm is preferred to any other. We are more happy in the house which we have built. Of course, this implies some self-complacency, which especially in youth is apt to breed conceit...

The origin and awakening of eternal life are from above; not from the creature, but from the Creator, and are rooted in His free and soverign choice. And it remains not merely a choice, but is followed by a divine  act  equally decisive that enforces and realizes that choice. That is God's spiritual  omnipotence . He is not as a man who experiments, but He is God who, never forsaking the work of His hands, is persistant and irresistible in the doing of all His pleasure. Hence His counsel becomes history; and the Church, whose form is outlined in that counsel, must in the course of ages be born, increase, and perfect itself according to that counsel; and since that counsel is indestructible the gates of hell shall not prevail against the Church. This is the ground of the security and consolation of the saints. They have no other ground of trust. From the fact that God is God, and that therefore His pleasure shall stand, they draw the sure conviction with which they p...