A Goodly Heritage

It has been the lowly but the earnest attempt of the preceding pages to stir up the grace of God in the living, believing soul. There is not a moment in the history of the child of God- even those moments that would appear the most favorable to the progress of the Divine life- but there is a tendency in that grace to descend. We have seen how affluent the Word of God is in its metaphorical elucidation of this important subject. And if the figure of 'gray hairs' -of 'wells without water' -of the 'salt that has lost its savor,' can at all depict this melancholy condition of the soul's spiritual deterioration, then is the sad portrait presented to our view in its most vivid coloring, as drawn by the hand of a Divine master. Although we might have dwelt much longer on this part of our general subject- for we have by no means exhausted all the metaphors of the Bible illustrative of a relapsed state of the spiritual life- but anxious to apply to the disease we...

"He committed no sin, and no  deceit  was found in his mouth."  1 Peter 2:22 Purer than the purest crystal, more transparent than the brightest sun, was the character of Jesus. It needed but the visual organ purged from the blinding and distorting effects of sin to have looked into the deepest recesses of His heart, to have seen every pulse, to have read every thought, and to have fathomed every purpose of His soul--so open, transparent, and childlike was He. His foes sought with deception to ensnare Him, but He was too innocent to be ensnared. The moral atmosphere of His being was too pure and translucid for their wicked purposes to find a single fault. They could fix no thought, excite no passion, rouse no imagination within His breast that would have left a taint or a cloud upon that pure, bright spirit of His. What He declared of Satan could with equal truth have been affirmed of ungodly men-- "The prince of this world comes, and has nothing in me."  They...

 –John 12:27 In this lay our Lord's greatest suffering--His  soul-sorrow.  Compared with this, the lingering, excruciating tortures of the cross--the extended limbs, the quivering nerves, the bleeding wounds, the burning thirst--were, as nothing. This was physical, the other spiritual; the one, the suffering of the body, the other, the anguish of the soul. Let a vessel traversing the ocean keep afloat, and she may still plough the deep and brave the tempest; but let the proud waves burst in upon her and she sinks. So long as our blessed Lord endured outwardly the gibes and insults and calumnies of men, not a complaint escaped His lips; but, when the wrath of God, endured as the Surety-Head of His people, entered within His holy soul, then the wail of agony rose strong and piercing--"Save Me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to My neck. Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can't find a foothold to stand on. I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm Me. I am...

"King of kings, and Lord of lords. " –Revelation 19:16 The twofold nature of Jesus brought Him into the closest personal relation to, and sympathy with, the two great divisions of the race--the Commonalty and the Nobility--and thus He becomes a proper subject of instructive study to both. We have considered His obscurity and abasement as man; it remains that we study Him as possessing the highest rank and as wearing the noblest title as God-- "KING of kings, and LORD of lords."  The present reflection, therefore, addresses itself to those upon whom is conferred the honor, the duties, and the responsibilities of high birth and rank. It is not often that such are especially selected by the ministers of religion as objects of pious instruction. For every other class Christian sympathy is felt, and religious efforts made; while those of higher caste in society are passed by in cold neglect, as if their eternal interests were not equally as precious, and as if the...

"Is not this the carpenter's son?" --Matthew 13:55 What a remarkable fact in the history of Jesus does this question, asked with mingled surprise and contempt, betray! It presents Him in a point of light in which, perhaps, few have paused to study Him, and yet than which there is scarcely another more real and instructive. It invites us to consider Jesus as the Son of man, as the son of a carpenter, and in all probability, until He began to be about thirty years of age, assisting Joseph in his humble calling. Hence it was asked concerning Jesus, "Is not this the  carpenter?"  How truly did the Son of God identify Himself with the humanity and the curse He came to ransom and remove. And when we see those hands which built the universe building earthly dwellings for man--squaring the beam, plying the saw, thrusting the plane, driving the nail, constructing and raising the framework--we behold personally Him tasting the bitterness of that part of the curse whi...

Woe to me!" I cried. "I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty." Isaiah 6:5 What prostrated his soul thus low in the dust? What filled him with this self abasement? What overwhelmed him with this keen sense of his vileness? Oh, it was the unclouded view he had of the essential glory of the Son of God! And thus will it ever be. The beaming forth of Christ's glory in the soul reveals its hidden evil; the knowledge of this evil lays the believer low before God with the confession, "I abhor myself. Woe is me! for I am undone." Beloved, let this truth be ever present to your mind, that as we increasingly see glory in Christ, we shall increasingly see that there is no glory in ourselves. Jesus is the Sun which reveals the pollutions and defilements which are within. The chambers of abomination are all closed until Christ shines in upon the soul. Oh, then it is ...

As a system of 'consolation' Christianity has no equal. No other religion in the wide world touches the hidden springs of the soul, or reaches the lowest depths of human sorrow, but the religion of Christ. When your hearts have been overwhelmed, when adversity has wrapped you within its gloomy pall, when the broken billows of grief have swollen and surged around your soul, how have you fled to the Scriptures of truth for succor and support, for guidance and comfort! Nor have you repaired to them in vain. "The God of all comfort" is He who speaks in this Word, and there is no word of comfort like that which He speaks. The adaptation of His truth to the varied, the peculiar and personal trials and sorrows of His Church, is one of the strongest proofs of its divinity. Take to the Word of God whatever sorrow you may, go with whatever mental beclouding, with whatever spirit sadness, with whatever heart grief; whatever be its character, its complexion, its depth unsurpasse...

"Those who sleep in Jesus will God bring with Him.... Wherefore comfort one another with these words." -1 Thes. 4:14,18. We approach in the present chapter- and with a tremulous hand the delineation of a cloud shading for a moment the luster of spiritual life, than which, perhaps, none falls upon the heart so darkly and coldly as it- the shadow of bereaved grief. What believer has not experienced it? Our blessed Lord Himself- the Lord of life and glory- was not exempt from this cloud, veiling for the while the sunshine of His human soul. It was one of the bitter ingredients of His cup of woe, as the "Man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief." He tasted it, and WEPT!   "Friend after friend departs: Who has not lost a friend? There is no union here of hearts That finds not here an end." We speak of death as casting its cold shadow upon the brightness of spiritual life. Let us not be misunderstood. That the li...

It may, perhaps, be more difficult to define the nature of pain than to trace its origin--to analyze its subtle character than to describe its disquieting effects. Around both its nature and causes much obscurity exists not easy to dispel. But while the physiologist is in a perplexity, and the moralist in a mist, God's word steps in, and sets at rest all doubt and speculation by revealing the fact of its entire absence in that world of health and blessedness, which Christ won by His merits, and took possession of by His ascension on behalf of all His saints--the great distinctive features of which will be, the absence of all evil and the presence of all good. How many an eye, languid with suffering and dim with watching, will quicken into life and luster as it bends over this sweet, winning attraction of heaven-- "Neither shall there be any more PAIN." To aid his meditations on this delightful negative of the coming gl...

From where does the incense of prayer derive its true fragrance, power, and acceptance with God? Ah! beloved, the answer is near at hand. From where, but from the incense of our Great High Priest's atoning merit offered upon earth, and by ceaseless intercession presented in heaven. The opening of the seventh seal, in the apocalyptic vision, revealed this glorious truth to the wondering eye of the evangelist. "And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angels hand" (Rev. 8:3, 4). This angel is none other than the Angel of the covenant, Jesus, our Great High Priest who stands before the golden altar in heaven, presenting the sweet incense of his divine merits and sacrificial de...

God has a temple outside of heaven. Not all the worship, nor all the worshipers, are confined to that blissful world where he immediately dwells. He has another sanctuary upon earth―other worshipers and other services, where, with whom, and with which, the beams of his presence are as strictly promised and as truly shine as in the general assembly of the church gathered around him in glory. It is not the magnificent structure made with hands, with its splendid ritual and its ponderous ceremonial, flattering to the pride and captivating to the sense of man, but a temple and a temple-service far more beautiful in God's eye is that of which we speak. "Thus says the Lord, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that you build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? For all these things has my hand made, and all these things have been, says the Lord: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, a...

In proportion to our EXPERIENCE of the love of God in our souls, it will become a motive power in our lives. The outward holy life of a believer is the result of an inward principle of love to God. "The love of Christ constrains us." For this cause the apostle breathed that precious prayer in behalf of the Thessalonian saints: "The Lord direct your hearts into the love of God." Standing as upon the shore of this boundless, fathomless ocean, he prays that the Lord, the Spirit, might lead their hearts into its infinite depths. What a needed and holy prayer! What a vast and precious blessing! Their hearts were sinful, and sad, and weary; guilt tainted them, bereavement shaded them, conflict and service exhausted them; and now, just as their heart was, the apostle prays that it might be led into the sanctifying, soothing, life-refreshing love of God. Into this ocean of divine love, my reader, let your heart, just as it is...

With all earnestness and solemnity of feeling we urge the reader to avoid two extremes of error  , and to which we have thus opposed the word of God. Let him, on the one hand, be careful how he takes a step in sapping the foundation, or in impairing the influence, of an institution which Christ has so distinctly appointed, and so signally blessed. Second to none, but superior to all, as an instrumentality of promulgating truth and of promoting Christ's kingdom in the world, is the Christian Ministry, composed of Divinely called, spiritually taught, and holy men. Dark will be that day, when this holy bulwark of our country, this mighty engine of the truth, this powerful safeguard of virtue, and this distinguished glory of the Church, ceases to occupy that elevated and commanding position assigned to it by the "chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls." In placing yourself in opposition to it, you are not, perhaps, aware that ...