A Goodly Heritage

 "So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom."--Psalm 90:12 Casting our eyes back upon the year now past and gone, are there no mercies which claim a note of thankful praise? It is sweet to see the Lord's kind hand in providence, but sweeter far to view his outstretched hand in grace. Are we then so unwatchful or so unmindful of the Lord's gracious hand in his various dealings with our soul as to view the whole past twelve months as a dead blank in which we have never seen his face, nor heard his voice, nor felt his power? "Have I been a wilderness unto Israel? a land of darkness?" (Jer 2:31,) the Lord tenderly asks. Has he been such to us also for twelve long and weary months? What! No help by the way, no tokens for good, no liftings-up of the light of his countenance, no visitations of his presence and power, no breakings-in of his goodness for all that long and dreary time--for dreary it must indeed have been for a living sou...

Look at the giddy multitude. Do they think upon God? Is he in all their thoughts? Are their minds ever fixed upon the solemn things of eternity? Is Jesus ever felt to be precious to their souls? Do they pant after him as the deer after the waterbrooks? No! their language is, "There is no God." It is not their spoken language, but it is their inward language. But through mercy you can say, that you think upon God; and thus there is some evidence, though you cannot rise up to the assurance of it, that he thinks upon you. And if he thinks upon you, his thoughts are thoughts of good, thoughts of peace, and not of evil. Does he not read your heart? Does he not know your trials? Does not his holy eye look into the very secret recesses of your soul? And if he thinks upon you, will he leave you, give you up, abandon you in the hour when you need him most? No! he who thought upon you in eternity, will think on you in time, in every hour of trial, every scene of temptation, every s...

But what they could not find in chemistry, is to be found in the gospel. Nature, however tortured in the furnace, could work no such miracle as they sought to wrest from her bosom; but grace freely and without constraint has worked and still daily works them. There is a medicine which in the hands of Jehovah-rophi, the great Physician Ex 15:26, cures all diseases and dispels all complaints. As David speaks--"Who heals all your diseases," Ps 103:3 And what is this "panacea?" The precious blood of Christ, which "cleanses from all sin." Is not sin a disease? And if this precious blood cleanse from all sin, must it not be a universal medicine, and all the more valuable as curing soul disease, which must be infinitely more deadly and destructive than any bodily malady? Disease struck down the alchemist amid his extracts and essences, and with all the more deadly stroke from his sacrificing his own health in the vain attempt to cure other's sickness. But ou...

Are you a poor broken-hearted child of the living God? Is there any measure of the Spirit of Christ in you? Is there any faint resemblance of his meekness and holy image stamped upon you? Then you feel yourself bound with cords to the horns of the altar. You feel the strong ties of necessity, and you feel the strong ties of affection binding you there. But with this, you feel also that you are a struggling victim; that you would gladly escape the troubles and trials that being bound to the horns of the altar brings upon you; you would gladly get into an easier path if you could; or if you dared, would willingly set up some altar yourself, made after the pattern of Damascus (2 Kings 16:10); and would gladly, like the Roman Catholic, worship with your body a material cross, instead of worshipping in your soul the adorable God-man who hung and bled there. You would gladly, if you could, step out of a self-loathing, exercised, tried, harassed, and tempted path, to get into the flowery mea...

And thus a living soul "receives" Christ; not merely as driven by necessity, but also as drawn by affection. He does not receive Christ merely as a way of escape from "the wrath to come," merely as something to save a soul from "the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched," but mingled with necessity, sweetly and powerfully combined with it, and intimately and intricately working with it, there is the flowing forth of genuine affection and sincere love , that goes out to Him as the only object really worthy of our heart's affection, our spirit's worship, and our soul's desire. And we cannot say that less than this comes up to the meaning of the Scripture expression--" to receive Christ ." If we cannot, then, trace out in our hearts more or less of this work, which I have attempted feebly to describe, we cannot yet be said spiritually to have "received Christ."

keep yourselves from idols ." 1 John 5:21 Idolatry  is a sin very deeply rooted in the human heart. We need not go very far to find of this the most convincing proofs. Besides the experience of every age and every climate, we find it where we would least expect it—the prevailing sin of a people who had the greatest possible proofs of its wickedness and folly, and the strongest evidences of the being, greatness, and power of God. It amazes us sometimes in reading the history of God's ancient people, as recorded in the inspired page, that, after such wondrous and repeated displays of his presence, glory, and majesty, they should again and again bow down before stocks and stones. That those who had witnessed all the plagues of Egypt had passed through the Red Sea by an explicit miracle, were daily living on manna that fell from heaven and water that gushed out of the rock, who had but to look upward by day to behold the pillar of the cloud, and by night the pillar of fire to...

"But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost." Jude 20 By the words "most holy faith," we may understand chiefly the grand truths of the everlasting gospel which are revealed unto and embraced by faith. And they are called "our most holy faith," because they are imbued with all the holiness of God; and not only so, but as they are received into believing hearts, communicate sanctification, because they have a liberating, sanctifying efficacy. The words "build up" assume that there is a foundation laid. Christ is that foundation which God hath laid in Zion, a chief corner- stone, elect, precious; and where Christ is revealed to the soul by a divine power, a foundation is laid in the heart on which every subsequent truth is to be built up. The grand thing to be clear of in our own experience is, whether Christ has been laid as a foundation in our souls or not, and if he has, we have been driven from e...

"And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested." 1 Chron. 4:10 Here, in the prayer of Jabez, should the Lord the Spirit lead us into the sweet and rich experience of the passage, we may find in it some green pastures to feed in, and some still waters to lay down by. All the family of God may, more or less distinctly, read their experience in the prayer of Jabez, and see clearly portrayed in it the desires and breathings of their own souls. But who was Jabez? We read nothing of him beyond these two features, which the Holy Spirit has stamped his name with: first, that he was "more honorable than his brethren;" secondly, that "his mother called his name Jabez which means "sorrowful", because "she bore him with sorrow." As names were gene...