Laws from Heaven for Life on Earth.
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF THE
BOOK OF PROVERBS.
BY THE
REV. WILLIAM ARNOT,
ST. PETER'S FREE CLIMB, GLASGOW.
First Series.
Vol. 1.
LONDON;
T. NELSON AND SONS, PATERNOSTER ROW;
EDINBURGH; AND NEW YORK.
MDCCCLXIII.
TO THE READER.
THESE illustrations of the Proverbs are not critical, con-
tinuous, exhaustive. The comments, in imitation of the
text, are intended to be brief, practical, miscellaneous,
isolated. The reader may, however, perceive a principle
of unity running through the whole, if he takes his stand
at the outset on the writer's view point—a desire to
lay the Christian System along the surface of common
life, without removing it from its foundations in the
doctrines of Grace. The authority of the instructions
must be divine: the form transparently human. Al-
though the lessons should, with a pliant familiarity, lay
themselves along the line of men's thoughts and actions,
they will work no deliverance, unless redeeming love be
everywhere the power to press them in. On the other
hand, although evangelical doctrine be consistently main-
tained throughout, the teaching will come short of its
purpose unless it go right into every crevice of a corrupt
heart, and perseveringly double every turn of a crooked
path. Without "the love wherewith He loved us" as
our motive power, we cannot reach for healing any of the
deeper ailments of the world: but having such a power
within our reach, we should not leave it dangling in the
air; we should bring it down, and make it bear on every
iv TO THE READER.
sorrow that afflicts, and every sin that defiles humanity.
The two extremes to be avoided are, abstract unpractical
speculation, and shallow, powerless, heathen morality; the
one a soul without a body, the other a body without a
soul—the one a ghost, the other a carcass. The aim is
to be doctrinal without losing our hold of earth, and
practical without losing our hold of heaven.
Most certain it is that if the Church at any period, or
any portion of the Church, has fallen into either of these
extremes, it has been her own fault; for the Bible, her
standard, is clear from both imputations. Christ is its
subject and its substance. His word is like Himself.
It is of heaven, but it lays itself closely around the life
of men. Such is the Bible; and such, in their own
place and measure, should our expositions of it be.
Had our object been a critical exposition of the Book,
it would have been our duty to devote the larger share of
our attention to the more difficult parts. But our aim from
first to last has been more to apply the obvious than to
elucidate the obscure, and the selection of texts has been
determined accordingly. As there is diversity of gifts,
there should be division of labour. While scientific
inquirers re-examine the joints of the machine, and
demonstrate anew the principles of its construction, it
may not be amiss that a workman should set the machine
a-going, and try its effects on the affairs of life.
W. A.
CONTENTS.
Page
I. THE PREACHER 9
II. THE BOOK—PROVERBS 15
III. THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE 19
IV. THE FAMILY 25
V. FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY 30
VI. THE FOE AND THE FIGHT 34
VII. FILTHY LUCRE 57
VIII. THE CRY OF WISDOM 64
IX. A REVIVAL 72
X. SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT 78
XI. SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND 88
XII. PERILS IN THE DEEP 97
XIII. THE MEANS OF SAFETY 104
XIV. A GOOD MEMORY 106
XV. THE ART OF PRINTING 110
XVI. TRUST 116
XVII. THE HEALTH OF HOLINESS 121
XVIII. CAPITAL AND PROFIT 123
XIX. A FATHERLY WORD ON FATHERLY CORRECTION 126
XX. TREASURES FOR THE TAKING 134
XXI. GAINFUL MERCHANDISE 136
XXII. LENGTH OF DAYS IN THE HAND OF WISDOM 139
XXIII. A PLEASANT PATH 142
vi CONTENTS.
Page
XXIV. WISDOM MAKING AND MANAGING WORLDS 144
XXV. CONFIDENCE IN GOD THE TRUE SAFEGUARD FROM
TEMPTATION 147
XXVI. THE RIGHT THING DONE AT THE RIGHT TIME 152
XXVII. THE CURSE AND THE BLESSING UPON THE HOUSE 158
XXVIII. PRECEPT AND EXAMPLE 161
XXIX. HOLD FAST 163
XXX. THE PATH OP THE JUST 166
XXXI. THE FOUNTAIN AND ITS STREAM 171
XXXII. FAMILY JOYS 179
XXXIII. THE METHOD OP PROVIDENCE FOR RESTRAINING EVIL 185
XXXIV. SEVEN HATEFUL THINGS 188
XXXV. MOTHER'S LAW 190
XXXVI. THE WORTH Or WISDOM 197
XX XVII. HATE EVIL 200
XXXVIII. RANK AND RICHES 202
XXXIX. THE REDEEMER ANTICIPATING REDEMPTION 205
XL. THE MARRIAGE SUPPER FOR THE KING'S SON 200
XLI. REPROOF 213
XLII. THE TALENT AND ITS PRODUCT 219
XLIII. THE PLEASURES OF SIN 221
XLIV. THE PLACE AND POWER OF A SON 229
XLV. DILIGENT IN BUSINESS 234
XLVI. POSTHUMOUS FAME 236
XLVII. THE WISE TAKE ADVICE: FOOLS ONLY GIVE IT 238
XLVIII. THE CENTRE OF GRAVITY 240
XLIX. THE WELL OF LIFE 242
L. EXPERIENCE KEPT FOR USE 245
LL THE MONEY POWER 247
LII. THE LIPS AND TONGUE 251
LIII. THE BLESSING OF THE LORD MAKETH RICH 254
LIV. A FOOL'S SPORT 261
CONTENTS. vii
Page
LV. FILM REALIZED, AND HOPES FULFILLED 263
LVI. THE PAINING WHIRLWIND AND THE SURE FOUNDATION 273
LVII. THE GREATNESS OF LITTLE THINGS 274
LVIII. HONESTY IS THE BEST POLICY 279
LIX. ASSORTED PAIRS 285
LX. DIPLOMACY 288
LXI. THE DESTROYER OF A NEIGHBOUR 290
LXII. A TALEBEARER 292
LVIII. DEBTS AND SURETIES 294
LXIV. VIRTUE ITS OWN REWARD 303
LXV. EVERY SEED BEARS FRUIT OF ITS OWN KIND 305
LXVI. GOD'S PEOPLE ARE GOD'S DELIGHT 307
LXVII. A JEWEL ILL SET 308
LXVIII. THE DESIRE OF THE RIGHTEOUS 312
LXIX. SCATTERING TO KEEP, AND KEEPING TO SCATTER 315
LXX. THE WATERER IS WATERED 319
LXXI. RAISING THE MARKET—THE PRACTICE AND THE
PENALTY 323
LXXII. THE TREE AND ITS BRANCH 327
LXXIII. THE WISDOM OF WINNING SOULS 333
LXXIV. A BITTER BUT HEALTHFUL MORSEL 336
LXXV. A HUSBAND'S CROWN 340
LXXVI. THE TENDER MERCIES OP THE WICKED 343
LXXVII. LIES, THE SNARE THAT LIARS ARE CAUGHT IN 345
LXXVIII. HOPE DEFERRED 347
LXXIX. GOD'S WORD THE PRESERVER OF NATIONS 350
LXXX. THE HARD WAY 352
LXXXI. THE CHOICE OF COMPANIONS 355
LXXXII. THE FATHER WHO HATES HIS SON 359
LX XXIII. SECULARISM 367
LXXXIV. FLIGHT, THE SAFETY OF THE WEAK 373
LXXXV. SYMPATHY 375
viii CONTENTS.
Page.
LXXXVI. A MAN IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HIS BELIEF 378
LXXXVII. THE BACKSLIDER 384
LXXXVIII. THE TRUSTFUL AND THE TRUTHFUL 388
LXXXIX. THE FOOL'S CONFIDENCE 392
XC. WITNESS 396
XCI. THE PLACE OF REFUGE 401
XCII. ENVY, THE DISEASE AND THE CURE 406
XCIII. THE MERCIFUL 410
XCIV. THE TWO DEPARTURES—THE HOPEFUL AND THE
HOPELESS 417
XCV. THE TRUTH IN LOVE 424
ILLUSTRATIONS
OF THE
BOOK OF PROVERBS.
I.
THE PREACHER
"The Proverbs of Solomon the son of David, king of Israel."—i. 1.
GOD'S word is like God's world: it combines unity of
pervading principle, with endless variety in detail. The
whole Bible, considered as one book, stands entirely apart
from all other writings; and yet every several portion of
it is distinguished from every other portion, as much as
one merely human writing is distinguished from another.
This combination results from the manner in which it has
pleased God to make known his will. One Divine Spirit
inspires; hence the unity of the whole. Men of diverse
age, taste, and attainments write; hence the diversity of
the parts. Although the books are written by Moses,
David, Solomon, they are all alike the word of God:
therefore they exhibit a complete separation from all
other writings, and a perfect consistency among them-
selves. Again, although they are all one as being the
word of God, they are as much the genuine product of
different human minds, as the ordinary writings of men
are the work of their authors: therefore there is in matter
10 THE PREACHER.
and manner, an unconstrained, natural, life-like diversity.
It was God who "spake unto the fathers," but it was "by
the prophets" that he spoke; not by their tongues only,
but their understandings, memories, tastes; in short, all
that constituted the men. There is as much individuality
in the books of Scripture as in any other books. There
is as much of Moses shining through the Pentateuch, as
of Gibbon in the Decline and Fall. As are the articulat-
ing lips to the soul whose thoughts they utter, so are the
prophets to the Holy Spirit, whose mind they reveal.
Every writer was chosen by God, as well as every word.
He had a purpose to serve by the disposition, the acquire-
ments, and the experience of each. The education of
Moses as one of the royal race of Egypt was a qualifica-
tion necessary to the leader of the exodus, and the writer
of the Pentateuch. The experience of David, with its
successive stages, like geologic strata, touching each other
in abrupt contrast, first as a shepherd youth, then as a
fugitive warrior, and last as a victorious king, was a quali-
fication indispensable to the sweet singer of Israel. God
needed a human spirit as a mould to cast consolation in,
for every kindred in every age. He chose one whose ex-
perience was a compound of meekness and might, of deep
distress and jubilant victory. These, when purged of
their dross, and fused into one by the Spirit's baptism of
fire, came forth an amalgam of sacred psalmody, which
the whole church militant have been singing ever since,
and "have not yet sung dry."
Solomon did not, like David, pass his youth in pastoral
simplicity, and his early manhood under cruel persecution.
THE PREACHER. 11
Solomon could not have written the twenty-third psalm-
"The Lord is my Shepherd;" nor the fifty-seventh—A
psalm of David when be fled from Saul in the cave. His
experience would never have suggested the plaintive strains
of the ninetieth psalm—A prayer of Moses the man of
God—"Lord, thou hast been our dwelling-place." But,
on the other hand, Solomon went through a peculiar ex-
perience of his own, and God, who in nature gives sweet
fruit to men through the root sap of a sour crab, when a
new nature has been engrafted on the upper stem, did not
disdain to bring forth fruits of righteousness through
those parts of the king's experience that cleaved most
closely to the dust. None of all the prophets could
have written the Proverbs or the Preacher; for God is
not wont, even in his miraculous interpositions, to make
a fig-tree bear olive berries, or a vine figs: every crea-
ture acts after its kind. When Solomon delineated
the eager efforts of men in search of happiness, and
the disappointment which ensued, he could say, like
Bunyan, of that fierce and fruitless war, "I was there."
The heights of human prosperity he had reached: the
paths of human learning he had trodden, farther than any
of his day: the pleasures of wealth and power and pomp
he had tasted, in all their variety. No spring of earthly
delight could be named, of whose waters he had not deeply
drunk. This is the man whom God has chosen as the
schoolmaster to teach us the vanity of the world when it
is made the portion of a soul, and He hath done all things
well. The man who has drained the cup of pleasure can
best tell the taste of its dregs.
12 THE PREACHER.
The choice of Solomon as one of the writers of the
Bible, at first sight startles, but on deeper study instructs.
We would have expected a man of more exemplary life
a man of uniform holiness It is certain that in the main;
the vessels which the Spirit used were sanctified vessels.
"Holy men of old spoke as they were moved by the Holy
Ghost." But as they were all corrupt at first, so there
were diversities in the operation whereby they were called
and qualified for their work. There were diversities in
the times, and degrees of their sanctification. Some were
carried so near perfection in the body, that human eyes
could no longer discern spot or wrinkle; in others the
principle of grace was so largely overlaid with earthli-
ness, that observers were left in doubt whether they had
been turned to the Lord's side at all. But the diversity
in all its extent is like the other ways of God; and He
knows how to make either extreme fall into its place in
the concert of his praise. He who made Saul an apostle,
did not disdain to use Solomon as a prophet. Very
diverse were the two men, and very diverse their life
course; yet in one thing they are perfectly alike. To-
gether in glory now they know themselveselves to have been
only sinners, and agree in ascribing all their salvation to
the mercy of God.
Moreover, although good men wrote the Bible, our
faith in the Bible does not rest on the goodness of the
men who wrote it The fatal facility with which men
glide into the worship of men may suggest another reason
why some of the channels chosen for conveying the mind
of God were marred by glaring deficiencies. Among
THE PREACHER. 13
many earthen vessels, in various measures purged of their
filthiness, may not the Divine Administrator in wisdom
select for actual use some of the least pure, in order by
that grosser argument to force into grosser minds the con-
viction that the excellency of the power is all of God?
If all the writers of the Bible had been perfect in holiness
—if no stain of sin could be traced on their character,
no error noted in their life, it is certain that the Bible
would not have served all the purposes which it now serves
among men. It would have been God-like indeed in
matter and in mould, but it would not have reached down
to the low estate of man—it would not have penetrated
to the sores of a human heart. For engraving the life
lessons of his word, our Father uses only diamonds: but
in every diamond there is a flaw, in some a greater and
in some a less; and who shall dare to dictate to the Omni-
scient the measure of defect that blinds Him to fling the
instrument as a useless thing away?
When God would leave on my mind in youth the
lesson that the pleasures of sin are barbed arrows, he uses
that same Solomon as the die to indent it in. I mark
the wisdom of the choice. I get and keep the lesson, but
the homage of my soul goes to God who gave it, and not
to Solomon, the instrument through which it came. God
can make man's wrath to praise him, and their vanity too.
He can make the clouds bear some benefits to the earth,
which the sun cannot bestow. He can make brine serve
some purposes in nature which sweet water could not
fulfil. So, practical lessons on some subjects come better
through the heart and lips of the weary repentant king,
14 THE PREACHER.
than through a man who had tasted fewer pleasures, and
led a more even life.
Two principles cover the whole case. "All things are
of God;" and "All things are for your sakes." We can
never be sufficiently familiar with these two: (1.) The
universality of God's government; and (2.) The special
use for his own people to which he turns every person
and every thing. All Solomon's wisdom, and power,
and glory and pleasure were an elaborate writing by the
finger of God, containing a needful lesson to his children.
The wisdom which we are invited to hear is Divine wis-
dom; the complicated life-experience of Solomon is the
machinery of articulation employed to convey it to the
ears of men. In casting some of the separate letters, the
king may have been seeking only his own pleasure, yet
the whole, when cast, are set by the Spirit so that they
give forth an important page of the word of truth.
The thought recurs, that the king of Jerusalem was not
from his antecedents, qualified to sit in the chair of autho-
rity and teach morality to mankind. No, he was not:
and perhaps on that very account the morality which he
taught is all the more impressive. Here is a marvel;
NOT A LINE OF SOLOMON'S WRITINGS TENDS TO PALLIATE
SOLOMON'S SINS. How do you account for this? The
errors and follies were his own; they were evil. But out
of them the All-wise has brought good. The glaring im-
perfections of the man's life have been used as a dark
ground to set off the lustre of that pure righteousness
which the Spirit has spoken by his lips.
THE BOOK—PROVERBS. 15
II.
THE BOOK—PROVERBS.
"To understand a proverb, and the interpretation;
the words of the wise, and their dark sayings."—i. 6.
IT is safer and better to assume that all men know what
a proverb is, than to attempt a logical definition of it.
As a general rule, the things that are substantially best
known are hardest to define.
Proverbs are very abundant in all languages, and
among all peoples. Many of them, though they seem
fresh and full of sap on our lips to-day, have descended
to us from the remotest antiquity. They deal with all
manner of subjects, but chiefly with the broadest features
of common life. The peculiar charm and power of the
proverb are due to a combination of many elements.
Among others are the condensed antithetic form of
expression and the mingled plainness and darkness of
the meaning. Often there is something to startle at first;
and yet, on closer inspection, that which seemed paradox,
turns out to be only intenser truth. Like those concen-
trated essences of food, which are so much used by tra-
vellers in our day, the proverb may not present to the
eye the appearance of the wisdom that it was originally
made of; but a great quantity of the raw material has
been used up in making one, and that one, when skil-
fully dissolved, will spread out to its original dimensions.
16 THE BOOK—PROVERBS.
Much matter is pressed into little room, that it may
keep, and carry. Wisdom, in this portable form, acts an
important part in human life. The character of a people
gives shape to their proverbs; and again, the proverbs
go to mould the character of the people who use them.
These well worn words are precious, as being real gold,
and convenient, as being a portable, stamped, and recog-
nised currency.
As a general rule, proverbs spring from the people at
large, as herbage springs spontaneously from the soil, and
the parentage of the individual remains for ever unknown.
Very few proverbs are attached, even traditionally, to the
name of any man as their author. From time to time
collections of these products are made, and catalogued
by the curious; and the stock is continually increasing
as the active life of a nation gives them off. In other
cases, books of proverbs have an opposite origin. Persons
who appreciate the proverbial form cast their own thoughts
in that mould, and so make a book of sentences, which
are proverbs in their nature, although not, in point of
fact, generated by casual contact of mind with mind in
miscellaneous human life. It is altogether probable that,
as to its construction, the Book of Proverbs partook of
both kinds. It is probable that Solomon gathered and
recast many proverbs which had sprung from human ex-
perience in preceding ages, and were floating past him on
the tide of time; and that he also elaborated many new
ones from the material of his own experience. Towards
the close of the book, indeed, are preserved some of
Solomon's own sayings, that seem to have fallen from
THE BOOK—PROVERBS. 17
his lips in later life, and been gathered by other
hands.
Even in this one book the proverb appears under con-
siderable diversity of form. Both in the beginning and
towards the close, occur arguments, more or less length-
ened, of continuous texture. But even in these the seve-
ral links of the connected chain are cast in the proverbial
mould; and the great central mass of the book consists
of brief sayings, more or less arranged, indeed, but almost
entirely isolated.
Considering how great a place proverbs hold in human
language—how great a part they act in human life—it
was to be expected that the Spirit would use that instru-
ment, among others, in conveying the mind of God to
men. Proverbs, like hymns and histories, are both in
human life and in the Bible—in the Bible, because they
are in human life. If you wished to convey a message
to a number of countrymen in France, you would not
speak in Latin in order to display your own learning; you
would speak in French in order to accomplish your object.
God's will to man is communicated by means of instru-
ments which man already uses, and therefore understands.
A greater than Solomon spoke in proverbs. He who
knew what was in man sometimes took up that instru-
ment, to probe therewith the secrets of the heart. Some
he gathered as they grew in nature, and others he created
by his word; but the old and the new alike are spirit
and life, when they drop from the lips of Jesus.
Of the proverbs current in the world many are light, and
some are wicked. Those of this book are grave and good.
18 THE BOOK—PROVERBS.
God's words are pure, whether he speaks by the prophets
of old, or by his own Son in the latter day. "More
be desired are they than gold, yea, than much fine gold;
sweeter also than honey, and the honey-comb. Moreover,
by them is thy servant warned."—Psalm xix. 10, 11.
The book from which the following studies are selected
is peculiarly rich in "warnings," and the age in which
we live peculiarly needs them. "Speak, Lord, for thy
servant heareth."
THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE. 19
III.
THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE.
"The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:
but fools despise wisdom and instruction."—i. 7.
THE royal preacher begins his sermon at the beginning.
He intends to discourse largely of knowledge and wisdom
in all their aspects, and he lays his foundation deep in
"the fear of the Lord." This brief announcement con-
tains the germ of a fair-reaching philosophy. Already it
marks the book divine. The heathen of those days pos-
sessed no such doctrines Solomon had access to a
Teacher who was not known in their schools
"The fear of the Lord" is an expression of frequent
occurrence throughout the Scriptures. It has various
shades of meaning, marked by the circumstances in which
it is found; but in the main it implies a right state of
heart toward God, as opposed to the alienation of an
unconverted man. Though the word is "fear," it does not
exclude a filial confidence, and a conscious peace. There
may be such love as shall cast all the torment out of the
fear, and yet leave full bodied, in a human heart, the
reverential awe which all, creatures owe to the Highest
One. "There is forgiveness with thee, that thou mayest be
feared." "Oh fear the Lord, ye his saints; for there is
no want to them that fear him!" "I am the Lord thy
God;" behold the ground of submissive reverence:
20 THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE
"which brought thee up from the land of Egypt;" be-
hold the source of confiding love. What God is inspires
awe; what God has done for his people commands affec-
tion. See here the centrifugal and centripetal forces of
the moral world, holding the creature reverently distant
from the Creator, yet compassing the child about with
everlasting love, to keep him near a Father in heaven.
The whole of this complicated and reciprocal relation is
often indicated in Scripture by the brief expression, "the
fear of God."
"Knowledge" and "wisdom" are not distinguished
here; at least they are not contrasted. Both terms may
be employed to designate the same thing; but when they
are placed in antithesis, wisdom is the nobler of the two.
Knowledge may be possessed in large measure by one
who is destitute of wisdom, and who consequently does
no good by it, either to himself or others. A lucid defi-
nition of both, in their specific and distinct applications,
is embodied in a proverb of this book, xv. 2, "the tongue
of the wise useth knowledge aright" We take the two
terms of this text as in effect synonymous,—the best
knowledge wisely used for the highest ends.
What is the relation which subsists between the fear
of the Lord and true wisdom? The one is the founda-
tion, the other the imposed superstructure; the one is
the sustaining root, the other the sustained branches;
the one is the living fountain, the other the issuing
stream.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge:
the meaning is, he who does not reverentially trust in
THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE. 21
God, knows nothing yet as he ought to know. His know-
ledge is partial and distorted. Whatever acquisitions in
science he may attain, if his heart depart from the living
God, he abides an ignorant man. He who in his heart
says "no God," is a fool, however wise he may be in the
estimation of the world, and his own.
But how does this judgment accord with facts?
Have not some Atheists, or at least Infidels, reached the
very highest attainments in various departments of know-
ledge? It is true that some men, who remain willingly
ignorant of God, who even blaspheme his name, and
despise his word, have learned many languages, have
acquired skill in the theory and application of mathema-
tics, have stored their memories with the facts of history,
and the maxims of politics—this is true, and these
branches of knowledge are not less precious because they
are possessed by men whose whom life turns round
on the pivot of one central and all-pervading error; but
after this concession, our position remains intact. These
men possess some fragments of the superstructure of
knowledge, but they have not the foundation; they
possess some of the branches, but they have missed the root.
The knowledge of God—his character and plans, his
hatred of sin, his law of holiness, his way of mercy—
is more excellent than all that an unbelieving philo-
sopher has attained. If it be attainable, and if a Chris-
tian has reached it, then is a Christian peasant wiser
than the wisest who know not God. It is a knowledge
more deeply laid, more difficult of attainment, more fruitful,
and more comprehensive, than all that philosophers know.
22 THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE.
What right has an unbelieving astronomer to despise a
Christian labourer as an ignorant man? Let them be
compared as to the point in question, the possession of
knowledge. Either is ignorant of the other's peculiar
department, but it is an error to suppose the astronomer's
department the higher of the two. The Christian knows
God; the astronomer knows certain of his material
works. The Christian knows moral, the astronomer phy-
sical laws. The subjects of the Christian's knowledge are
as real as the heavenly bodies. The knowledge is as dif-
ficult, and perhaps, in its higher degrees, as rare. It
reaches further, it lasts longer, it produces greater results.
The astronomer knows the planet's path; but if that
planet should burst its bonds, and wander into dark-
ness, his knowledge will not avail to cast a line around
the prodigal and lead him home. He can mark the
degrees of divergence, and predict the period of total
loss, but after that he has no more that he can do. The
Christian's knowledge, after it has detected the time,
manner, and extent of the fallen spirit's aberration, avails
farther to lay a new bond unseen around him, soft, yet
strong, which will compel him to come in again to his
Father's house and his Father's bosom. The man who
knows that, as sin hath reigned unto death, even so grace
reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus
Christ our Lord, possesses a deeper, more glorious, and
more potential knowledge, than the man who calculates
the courses of the planets, and predicts the period of the
comet's return.
Men speak of the stupendous effects which knowledge,
THE BOOK OF KNOWLEDGE. 23
in the department of mechanical philosophy, has produced
on the face of the world, and in the economy of human
life; but the permanence of these acquisitions depends on
the authority of moral laws in the consciences of men.
If there were no fear of God, there would be no reverence
for moral law in the bulk of mankind. If moral re-
straints are removed from the multitude, society reverts
to a savage state. Inventions in art, though once at-
tained, are again lost, when a community feed on venison,
and clothe themselves with skins. So, "the fear of the
Lord" is a fundamental necessity, on which high attain-
ments, even in material prosperity, absolutely depend.
True knowledge in the spiritual department, as to the
authority, the sanction, and the rule of morality, is a
greater thing than true knowledge in the material depart-
ment, for the moral encircles and controls the economic
in the affairs of men.
The man whose knowledge begins and ends with
matter and its laws, has got a superstructure without a
foundation. In that learning the enduring relations of
man as an immortal have no place, and the fabric topples
over when the breath of life goes out. But this begin-
ning of knowledge, resting on the being and attributes of
God, and comprehending all the relations of the crea-
ture, is a foundation that cannot be shaken. On that
solid base more and more knowledge will be reared, high
as heaven, wide as the universe, lasting as eternity.
The knowledge of God is the root of knowledge.
When branches are cut from a tree and laid on the
ground at a certain season, they retain for a time a por-
24 THE ROOT OF KNOWLEDGE.
tion of their sap. I have seen such branches, when the
spring came round, pushing forth buds like their neigh-
bours. But very soon the slender stock of sap was
exhausted, and as there was no connection with a root,
so as to procure a new supply, the buds withered away.
How unlike the buds that spring from the branches grow-
ing in the living root! This natural life is like a severed
branch. The knowledge that springs from it is a bud
put forth by the moisture residing in itself. When
life passes, it withers away. When a human soul is, by
the regeneration, "rooted in Him," the body's dissolution
does not nip its knowledge in the bud. Transplanted
into a more genial clime, that knowledge will flourish for
ever. Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, what it will
grow to.
THE FAMILY. 25.
IV.
THE FAMILY.
"My son, hear the instruction of thy father,
and forsake not the law of thy mother."—i. 8.
THE first and great commandment is the fear of God, and
the, second, which is next to it, and like to it, is obedience
to parents. Wherever the root is planted, this is the first
fruit which it bears.
The teaching of the Decalogue, and of the Proverbs,
though circumstantially different, is essentially the same.
On the one hand we have the legislator formally record-
ing a code of laws; on the other, the aged, prosperous,
and witty monarch collecting the best sayings that had
been current at his court in that Augustan age of Hebrew
literature. The cast of the writings corresponds with
the position of the men; yet there are evident marks
of the same spirit as the teacher, and the same truth
as the lesson. The ten commandments are divided into
two tables. The first lays the foundation of all duty
in our relation to God, and the second rears the super-
structure in the various offices of love between man and
his fellow. In the Decalogue the fear of God, lies deepest
as the root; and of the manifold duties which man owes
to man, the branch that springs forth first is filial love.
It is precisely the same here. The beginning of the com-
mandment is "Fear the Lord" and the earliest outcome is,
26 THE FAMILY.
"My son, hear the instruction of thy father." This verse
of the Proverbs flows from the same well-spring that
had already given forth the fifth commandment.
God honours his own ordinance, the family. He gives
parents rank next after himself. Filial love stands near,
and leans on godliness.
God is the author of the family constitution. He has
conceived the plan, and executed it. Its laws are stamped
in nature, and declared in the word. The equal num-
bers of the sexes born into the world, the feebleness of
childhood at first, and the returning frailty of age, are
so many features of the family institute left by the
Creator indented on his work. They intimate not ob-
scurely the marriage of one man with one woman, the
support of children by parents, and the support of decayed
parents by ther children grown. There are many such
laws deeply imprinted in nature; and in nature, too, a
terrible vengeance is stored up, which bursts with uner-
ring exactitude on the head of the transgressor.
One of the wonders of that little world in the dwelling
is the adaptation by which all the powers of the elder
children are exerted for the protection of the youngest.
A boisterous and impulsive boy, able and willing to main
tain his rights by force of arms against a rival older than
himself, may be seen to check suddenly the embryo man-
hood that was spurting prematurely out, and put on a
mimic motherliness, the moment that the infant appears,
bent on a journey across the room, and tottering unsteady
by. A condescending look, and a winning word, and a
soft arm around,—all the miniature man is put forth in
THE FAMILY. 27
self-forgetting benevolence. How exquisitely contrived is
this machinery in nature, both for protecting the feeble
thing that receives the kindness, and softening the rude
hand that bestows it! There is fine material here for
parents to watch and work upon. The stem is soft, you
may train it; the growth is rapid, you must train it
now.
In proportion as men have adopted and carried out the
ordinance in its purity, have the interests of society pros-
pered. All deviations are at once displeasing to God and
hurtful to men. The polygamy of Eastern peoples has made
the richest portions of the earth like a howling wilderness
The festering sores opened in the body of the community
by the licentiousness of individuals among ourselves, make
it evident, that if the course, which is now a too frequent
exception, should become the general rule, society itself
would soon waste away. It is chiefly by their effects in
deranging the order of families, that great manufactories
deteriorate a community. Though the socialist bodies,
being so sickly and diseased in constitution, have never
lived much beyond infancy amongst us; yet, as they are
founded on a reversal of the family law, their effects,
as far as they have produced effects, are misery and ruin.
The Romish priesthood, abjuring the divinely provided
companionship of the household, and adopting solitude, or
something worse, have ever been like a pin loose in the
circling machinery of society, tearing every portion as it
passes by. In the constitution of nature there is a self-
acting apparatus for punishing the transgression of the
family laws. The divine institute is hedged all round.
28 THE FAMILY.
The prickles tear the flesh of those who are so foolish as
to kick against them.
In practice, and for safety, keep families together as
long as it is possible. When the young must go forth
from a father's house, let a substitute be provided as
closely allied to the normal institution as the circum-
stances will admit. Let a sister be spared to live with
the youths, and extemporize an off-shoot family near the
great mart of business, with a dwelling that they may call
their own. The cutting, though severed from the stem,
being young and sapful, will readily strike root, and imi-
tate the parent. This failing, let a lodging be found in a
family where the youths will be treated as its members,
participating at once in the enjoyments and restraints of
a home. When the boy must needs be broken off from
the parental stem, oh, throw him not an isolated atom on
the sea of life that welters in a huge metropolis. Nor
pen him up with a miscellaneous herd of a hundred men
in the upper flat of some huge mercantile establishment,
a teeming islet lapsed into barbarism, with the waters of
civilization circling all around. If you do not succeed
in getting the severed branch engrafted into some stock
that shall be an equivalent to the family, and so exercise
the natural affections, the natural affections checked, will
wither up within, or burst forth in wickedness. The
youth will be ruined himself, and the ruined youth will
be an element of corruption to fester in the heart of the
society that neglected him.
Honour thy father and thy mother. This is the
pattern shown in the mount. The closer we keep to it,
THE FAMILY. 29
the better will it be both for the individual and the com-
munity. God is wiser than men,
Children obey your parents in the Lord, for this is
right, and all right things are profitable. To violate the
providential laws is both a crime and a blunder.
Love to parents ranks next under reverence to God.
That first and highest commandment is like the earth's
allegiance to the sun by general law; and filial obedience
is like day and night, summer and winter, budding spring
and ripening harvest, on the earth's surface. There could
be none of these sweet changes, and beneficent operations
of nature on our globe, if it were broken away from the
sun. So when a people burst the first and greatest bond
—when a people cast off the fear of God, the family rela-
tions, with all their beauty and benefit, disappear. We
may read this lesson in the fortunes of France. When
the nation threw off the first commandment, the
second went after it. When they repudiated the fear of
God, they could not retain conjugal fidelity, and filial love.
Hence the wreck and ruin of all the relations between
man and man. As well might they try to make a new
world, as to manage this one wanting the first and second,
the primary and subordinate moral laws of its Maker.
30 FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY.
V.
FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY.
"For they shall be an ornament of grace unto thy head,
and chains about thy neck."-i. 9.
IT seems an instinct of humanity to put ornaments upon
the person. It is greatly modified in its development
by circumstances, but it is certainly a uniform tend-
ency of our nature. It does not rank high among the
exercises of the human faculties, yet it is quite above
the reach of all inferior creatures. The propensity is fully
developed in tribes that lie lowest in the scale of human-
ity; yet no germ of it can be traced in species that form
the culminating point in the brute creation. By so many
and so various marks may be known the abrupt and
absolute separation between men who have fallen the
lowest, and other sentient beings that occupy the summit
of their scale.
Ornaments on the fallen, like many other innocent
things, become the occasions of sin, but they are not in
their own nature evil. It is probable that the pleasure
which we derive from them springs originally from some
association with moral qualities. There is some connec-
tion between sensible beauty and moral goodness, although
the instances of deception are so numerous as to deprive
that connection of all value as a rule of life. To deck
with external beauty that which is morally corrupt within,
FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY. 31
is a cheat which men practise on themselves and others;
but adornment of the person, modest in measure, and
adopted instinctively by an innate sense of propriety, is
conducive to virtue, and consistent with Scripture.
Ornaments, however, are mentioned here not for their
own sakes, either to commend or forbid them, but as a
form of expression to convey emphatically the truth that
moral qualities, after all, are the true adornments of a
human being. All the graces of the Spirit are lovely;
but here the foremost of relative duties, a child's reveren-
tial regard for a parent, is recommended as an ornament
of surpassing beauty. Young men and young women,
put that ornament on your heads—twine that chain of
gold around your necks! These jewels from heaven, set
deep within your souls, and glancing at every turn
through the transparency of an unaffected life, will do
more to make your persons attractive than all the
diamonds that ever decked a queen.
The world and its history teem with types of heaven.
Beauty, and the love that fastens on it, are types, and
they have their antitypes on high. The ransomed Church
is the bride of the Lamb, and she is adorned for her hus-
band. When the adorning is complete, she is all glorious,
and the King greatly desires her beauty. When he pre-
sents unto himself a church without spot or wrinkle, or
any such thing, then shall he see of the travail of his
soul and be satisfied.
Put on now, oh son! daughter! put on these beautiful
garments; love, obey, cherish, reverence your parents.
These are in God's sight of great price. They are valued
32 FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY.
not only by the spiritually minded disciples of Jesus, but
even by every man of sense around you. They are
thought becoming by all but fools. These ornaments will
not be out of date when time has run its course. They
will be worn on the golden streets of the New Jeru-
salem, when the fashion of this world shall have passed
away.
Over against this beaming beauty, of similar shape and
size, a dark shadow stands. Whithersoever that comely
body turns, this ghastly spectre follows it. It is a daughter,
emerging into womanhood, with ruddy cheek and spark-
ling eye,—with beads on her neck and bracelets on her
arms,—who has so crushed a mother's heart, by con-
stantly trampling down its desires, that the disconsolate
mother never utters now the reproof which she knows
would be despised. Personal beauty, aided by costly orna-
ments, cannot make that creature gainly. The deformity
within will make itself felt through all the finery.
The evil spirit that possesses the heart will glance from
the eye, and tinkle on the tongue, in spite of every effort
to act the angel. Every mind that retains in any mea-
sure a healthful moral tone will, in close contact with
such a character, infallibly be sensible of a discord. Felt
repulsive, she will be repelled. The disobedient daughter
will gravitate down to the companionship of those who,
having no sense of harmony, recoil not from a spirit out
of tune. She is miserable, and knows not what ails her.
She has broken that commandment which holds a pro-
mise in its band, and been thrown over on the barbs of
the counterpart curse. Those who see her impaled alive
FILIAL LOVE A BLOSSOM OF BEAUTY. 33
there, should learn that the moral laws of God have
avenging sanctions, even in the powers of nature. God-
liness is profitable unto all things. The first command-
ment is fruitful, even in this life; and the second is like
it,—like it in its heavenly origin,—like it in its holy
character,—like it in its glad results. Honour thy father
and thy mother,—this is an ornament of solid gold.
Unlike the watering of superficial accomplishments, the
more rudely it is rubbed, the more brightly it glows.
34 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
VI.
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.*
"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."--i. 10.
THE verse, in brief compass and transparent terms, reveals
the foe and the fight. It is a Father's voice. It speaketh
unto us as unto children. With a kindness and wisdom
altogether paternal, it warns the youth of the Danger
that assails him, and suggests the method of Defence.
A glance at the three preceding verses will fix the
character of the persons whom Solomon has here in his
eye. They are not the ignorant, the outcast, the profli-
gate. The stages over which he travels before he reaches
this warning, show that he addresses the well-conditioned
and hopeful portion of the community. In the seventh
verse we have "the beginning of wisdom" laid in the
fear of God; in the eighth, the earliest outcome from
that unfailing source, the obedience of children to their
parents; in the ninth, the beauty of this filial obedience,
as the most winsome ornament that the young can deck
themselves withal. We have wisdom presented first in
its sustaining root, next in its swelling buds, and last in
its opening bloom of beauty. The preacher fastens upon
persons who have had the fear of God early implanted in
their hearts, who have reverently obeyed their parents
______________________________________________
* This chapter, with some additions, is published separately, as an Address
to Young Men.
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 35
during childhood, and who in youth have been observed
by others as adorning the doctrine of the Saviour. To these,
as they are passing out of youth into the responsibilities
of manhood, and from a father's house to the wide theatre
of the world, he addresses this plain and pungent exhorta-
tion, "My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."
The Danger is, "if sinners entice thee. "There are
enticers and enticements; the fowler and his snare.
The enticers of youth may be divided into two great
classes, the internal and the external. There are a mul-
titude of evil thoughts in the little world within, and a
multitude of evil men in the great world without.
The sinners that entice from within are the man's
own thoughts and desires. There is quite an army of
these sinners in a young man's breast. Thoughts have
wings. They pass and repass unobserved. They issue
forth from their home in the heart, and expatiate over
every forbidden field, and return like doves to their win-
dows, through the air, leaving no track of their path.
These thoughts become acquainted with sin. They are
accustomed to visit the haunts of vice without detection.
They revel unchecked in every unclean thing. They
open up the way, and prepare a trodden path on which
the man may follow. A gossamer thread is attached to
an arrow, and shot through the air unseen, over an im-
passable chasm. Fixed on the other side, it is sufficient
to draw over a cord; the cord draws over a rope; the
rope draws over a bridge, by which a highway is opened
for all corners. Thus is the gulf passed that lies between
the goodly character of a youth fresh from his father's
36 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
family, and the daring heights of iniquity on which vete-
ran libertines stand. The sober youth stands on the solid
platform of religious and moral worth. No one can think
it possible that he should go over to the other side. But
from the brink on this side he darts over a thought which
makes itself fast to something on these forbidden regions.
The film no one saw, as it sped through the air; but it
has made good a lodgment in that kingdom of darkness,
and the deeds of wickedness will quickly follow when the
way has been prepared. "Out of the heart," said He
who knows it (Matt. xv. 19), "proceed evil thoughts."
Yes; that is what we expected; but what come out
next? "Murders, adulteries, fornication, thefts, false
witness, blasphemies." A horrible gang! How quickly
they come on! How closely they follow their leaders!
Murders and adulteries march forth unblushingly; but
they follow in the wake of evil thoughts. Oh, if the
fountain were cleansed, the streams of life would be
pure! So thought David, when, in an agony of grief
despairing of his own efforts, he cried, "Create in me a
clean heart, O God!" This is the root of the evil, and
no cure will be thorough or lasting that does not reach
and remove it.
The sinners that entice from without are fellow-men,
who, having gone astray themselves, are busy leading
others after them. The servants of Satan seem to be
diligent and successful. When a society, associated for
economical or benevolent purposes, desires to enlarge the
number of its members, a common method is to request
every one to bring in two others. Thus the membership
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 37
is tripled by a single effort. This seems to be the prin-
ciple of administration adopted by the god of this world.
All his subjects are busy. "Ye are of your father the
devil, and the deeds of your father ye will do." The
deed most characteristic that the father of lies ever did,
was to lead others after him into sin. To entice into
sin is specifically "the deed " of the devil, and that deed
his children will instinctively do. An evil-doer has a
craving for company in his wickedness. He cannot enjoy
solitary crime. He is impelled to seek company, as a
thirsty man is impelled to seek water. It is his vocation
to draw others after him into sin. By a natural neces-
sity, the licentious recruit among the ranks of the virtu-
ous; the drunken among the ranks of the sober. An
enemy is amongst us: let the inexperienced beware.
How great the danger that every youth incurs as he
issues forth from his parents' control, to take his place in
the race of life, and on the stage of time! A dreadful
conspiracy is organized against him. It is designed and
directed by spiritual wickedness in high places; its agents
swarm unseen in his own heart, a legion of evil spirits,
as it were, possessing him already. Co-operating with
these intestine foes, are the whole host of evil-doers who
come in contact with him in the world. Young man,
this life is not the place to walk at ease in. If you slum-
ber there, the Philistines will be upon you. Though you
have a Samson's strength, they will put out your eyes,
and make you grind in meanest slavery, and triumph in
your misery and death.
It is a power of nature that is taken and employed to
38 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
enslave men. The disposition in youth to go together is
a law of the human constitution. Men are gregarious.
The principle of association is implanted in their nature,
and is mighty, according to the direction it gets, for good
or evil. This great power generally becomes a ready
agency of ill. How faithfully a youth clings to a com-
panion who has obtained an influence over him! It
often happens that the more vigorous mind has been
imbued with wickedness. The very abandonment of that
leading spirit adds to his power. There is a reckless
hardihood attained, where the restraints of conscience are
unknown, that acts like a charm on softer minds. One
bold, bad spirit often holds many gentler natures, as it
were, in a mesmerised state. They are not masters of
themselves. They have been drawn into the vortex of
the more powerful orb: destitute of an independent will,
they flutter fascinated around him.
The enticements, like the enticers, are manifold. As
addressed to well-educated, well-conducted youth, they
are always more or less disguised. The tempter always
flings over at least his ugliest side some shred of an angel's
garment. An enemy who desired to destroy you by your
own deed, would not lead you straight to a yawning pre-
cipice, and bid you cast yourself down. He would rather
lead you along a flowery winding path, until you should
insensibly be drawn into a spot which would give way
beneath you. Enticements to moral evil will generally
take that form. You will not be persuaded all at once
to plunge into deeds of darkness, knowing them to be
such. Few young men who have enjoyed a religious
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 39
education come to a sudden stand, and at once turn their
back upon God and godliness. Most of those who do
fall, diverge at first by imperceptible degrees from the
path of righteousness. When it is intended, by a line of
rails, to conduct a train off the main trunk, and turn it
aside in another direction, the branch-line at first runs
parallel with the trunk. It goes alongside for a space in
the same direction; but when it has thus got fairly off,
then it turns more rapidly round, and bounds away at
right angles to its former course. As engineers avoid the
physical, so the tempters avoid the moral difficulty. An
abrupt turn is not attempted in either case. The object
is far more surely attained by a gently graduated diver-
gence. The importance of the ancient rule, Obsta prin-
cipiis (resist the beginnings), can never be over-rated.
The prize is great. Everything is at stake. Life is at
stake, —both the lives. Time and eternity, body and
soul; all that you have or hope, is to be lost or won.
Watch the beginnings of evil. "Watch and pray, that
ye enter not into temptation."
We must name and briefly describe some of these
snares. Their name is Legion. They cannot be num-
bered. We shall uncover and expose two from among
the multitude of betrayers that lurk beside your path,
one peculiar to large towns, the other common to all
places.
High in the list of dangerous enticements to the young
stands the theatre. We shall not waste time in a dispute
regarding the possibility of obtaining innocent and harm-
less dramatic entertainments. Enough for our present
40 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
purpose is the fact that there are none such. The idea,
wherewith some would fain excuse their sin, is a stage
managed in accordance with pure morals. It is a vain
imagination. Those who build and manage theatres do
so with the view of a good investment and profitable
employment. They know the tastes of their customers.
They must either conform to these tastes, or lose money
by opposing them. A theatre conducted on such prin-
ciples as would make it safe to the morals of youth
would not pay its proprietor. There are many enlight-
ened and benevolent citizens who rear and maintain
institutions which do not bear their own charges. They
submit to loss from zeal for the public good: but these
men never choose theatres as the instruments of elevating
the community.
We scarcely know anything that would make us fear
more for a young man than to hear that he was in the
habit of attending the theatre. We know that the prac-
tice, besides its own proper evil, would not long stand
alone. A man cannot take fire into his bosom without
being burned.
Does the impatient spirit of youth attempt to ward off
our word, by averring that we would smother the joys of
the young under the gloomy cloud of religion? Oh, for
a balance that could nicely discriminate the degrees of
happiness that each enjoys! We would enter the com-
petition with the merriest frequenter of the stage. We
would set any sensible, God-fearing youth in competition
with him, and show that, even as to present gladness, the
theatre is a cheat and a lie. Once, on a Sabbath morn-
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 41
ing, as the writer was going to church through the streets
of a large city, he saw, flaunting gaudily on the walls, the
stage placards of the preceding Saturday evening. In
large, lying letters, they announced, "A Cure for the
Heartache." Avaunt, deceivers! Ye often inoculate
your victims with the poison of that disease, but ye have
no power to take it away. Can the company of rakes
and courtezans minister consolation to a mind distressed?
Will they parody the griefs that wring a human heart?
Will they make sport of that deep-set disease that Jesus
died to heal? When a sinner's heart is aching, he must
bend his steps to another place—he must seek the skill
of another Physician! We have sometimes thought the
matter of attending the theatre, and similar scenes of
midnight merriment, might be profitably put in the form
of a dilemma, thus:—
The unconverted (having other work before them) have
no time to be there.
The converted (having other joys within them) have no
inclination.
The customs of society encouraging the use of intoxi-
eating drinks constitute one of the most formidable dan-
gers to youth in the present day. All are aware that
drunkenness, in our country, is the most rampant vice.
How broad and deep is the wave whereby it is desolating
the land. It is not our part, at present, to register
an array of facts tending to show how many are held
helpless in its chain, and how deeply that chain cuts into
the life of the victim. The extent and the virulence of
the malady we shall not prove, but assume to be known.
42 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
Our special business is to remind the young of the entice-
ments by which they are led into that horrible pit. It
is specially true of this potent enemy, that it makes its
approaches unsuspected and by slow degrees. We have
known many drunkards. We have witnessed scenes of
wretchedness which haunt our memory in shapes of terror
still! We have seen a youth brought down by it from a
place of honour and hopefulness, laid upon his bed utter-
ing hideous groans, twisting himself, in mingled bodily
and mental agony, like a live eel upon a hook. We have
seen an old man, who knew that drink was making his
life-springs fail fast away, yet, in spite of threats and per-
suasion, going drunk to bed every night. We have heard
that man, when sober, say, "If there is one place of hell
worse than another, it must be mine, for I know the
right, and do the wrong;" and yet he drank himself to
death. We have seen a female, with a gentle air and a
tender frame, stand and tell that she had a batch of
demons within her, uttering loud voices, and declaring
that they had her surely bound over to hell. Reason had
fled. Drink had brought madness on. And yet, when-
ever the delirium abated, she returned to the drink again.
What need of cases? We have seen drunkenness in most
of its stages, and forms, and effects; but we never yet met
a drunkard who either became a drunkard all at once, or
who designed to become one. In every case, without ex-
ception, the dreadful demon vice has crept over the faculties
by slow degrees, and at last surprised the victim. The
sinners with whom he kept company did not entice him
to become a sot in a single night. They only invited him
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 43
to go into cheerful company. They suggested that reli-
gion, when rightly understood, did not forbid a merry
evening. He went; and the evening was merry. Strong
drink contributed to its merriment He was sober. He
had no intention of becoming a drunkard, either then or
on any subsequent occasion. A drunkard, however, he
now is. He is in the pit, and who shall pull him out!
May God have mercy on the lost immortal, for he is
beyond all help of man!
Let young men, as they value their souls, beware of
these Satan-invented customs prevalent in society, which
multiply the occasions of tasting strong drink. These
habits of sipping so frequently, on every occasion of joy
or sorrow, of idle ease or excessive toil, in freezing cold
or in scorching heat—these habits of a little now and a
little then, seem to have been invented with fiendish in-
genuity, to beget at last, in the greatest possible number,
that fiery thirst which, when once awakened, will merci-
lessly drag its subject down through a dishonoured life to
an early grave.
Leaning on the bank of the majestic river a few miles
above Niagara, a little boat was floating on a summer
day. A mother plied her industry in a neighbouring
field. Her daughter, too young yet for useful labour,
strolled from her side to the water's edge. The child
leaped into the boat. It moved with her weight The
sensation was pleasant. Softly the boat glided down on
the smooth bosom of the waters. More and more plea-
sant were the sensations of the child. The trees on the
shore were moving past in rows. The sunbeams glittered
44 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
on the water, scarcely broken by the ripple of the
stream. Softly and silently, but with ever-growing speed,
the tiny vessel shot down the river with its glad uncon-
scious freight. The mother raised her bended back and
looked. She saw her child carried quickly by the current
toward the cataract. She screamed, and ran. She
plunged into the water. She ventured far, but failed.
The boat is caught in the foaming rapids—it is carried
over the precipice! The mother's treasure is crushed to
atoms, and mingles with the spray that curls above
Niagara. This is not a fiction; it is a fact reported in
the newspapers of the day. But, though itself a sub-
stantive event, it serves also as a mirror to see the sha-
dow of others in. The image that you see glancing in
that glass is real. It is not single. It may be seen,
thousand upon thousand, stretching away in reduplicat-
ing rows. Pleasant to the unconscious youth are the
merry cup and the merry company. Lightly and happily
he glides along. After a little, the motion becomes un-
easy. It is jolting, jumbling, sickly. He would fain
escape now. Vain effort! He is rocked awhile in the
rapids, and then sucked into the abyss.
If many thousands of our population were annually
lost in Niagara, the people, young and old, would con-
ceive and manifest an instinctive horror of the smooth
deceitful stream above it, which drew so many to their
doom. Why, oh, why do the young madly intrust them-
selves to a more deceitful current, that is drawing a
greater number to a more fearful death?
Such, young men, are some of your dangers. You
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 45
should be ready to consider earnestly the means of
escape. Even this brief glance at the breadth of the
battle-field, and the array of the foe, should stir us up to
"prove" both the armour that we wear, and our aptitude
in using it. If the result of such survey should be a
sense of utter weakness in presence of the adversary, and
a cry from the helpless to the Lord God of hosts, it will
be well: our labour will not be lost.
The Defence prescribed is, "consent thou not." How
may one successfully contend against these formidable
foes? Observe the form of the Scripture injunction, "If
sinners entice thee, consent thou not." It is a blunt, per-
emptory command. Your method of defence must be
different from the adversary's mode of attack. His
strength lies in making gradual approaches; yours in a
resistance, sudden, resolute, total. For example, let a
man who is now a drunkard look back on his course.
He will find that he came into that state by impercep-
tible, unsuspected advances. But if ever he get out
of that state, it is not by slow degrees that he will
make his escape. It is not by lessening gradually the
quantity of strong drink till he wean himself from the
poison, and creep back from madness into himself
again. The enemy can play at the graduated system
better than he. His only safety lies in an abrupt, reso-
lute refusal.
The same method that is best suited for recovery is
also best for prevention. It is not by partial compliance
and polite excuses that you are to repel enticements to
sin. This is an adversary with whom you are not obliged
46 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
to keep terms. Gather from Scripture the attitude you
should assume, and the language you should hold, "Get
thee behind me, Satan!" "Save yourselves from this
untoward generation." "Come out from among them,
and be ye separate, and I will receive you." Much
depends on the round, blunt refusal,—the unfaltering,
undiluted, dignified "No" of one who fears God more
than the sneer of fools. Many stumble from neglect of
this principle. They intend to refuse. They will not go
all the way into sin; but they will resist politely—they
will keep terms with the enticers. They are not wining
to let it be known that they are so timid about their own
integrity. It might not be reckoned manly. They are
like those who were disciples secretly for fear of the Jews.
Your enticers are honourable men, and they would be
hurt if you should meet their invitation by a prompt
negative, and give your reasons. Well: and is it not
enough for the disciple to be "as his Lord?" He was
in the same position; "Master, in so saying thou con-
demnest us also." Out with it unreservedly, whenever
and wherever companions would wile you into evil. If
you begin to pare away the edges of your dedinature,
lest it should bear too hardly upon your tempters—if
you make excuses that are not the real reasons, in order
that under cover of them you may glide out of the way
without the disagreeable shock of a direct collision—you
may escape for that time; but some day your excuse will
fail, and your foot will be taken. If sinners entice thee,
consent not. The shortest answer is the best.
They speak of consecrated places. We believe there
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 47
are consecrated spots on this earth, and desecrated spots
too. That spot is consecrated in the eye of God and all
the good, where a condemned transgressor has been born
again, and taken into the number of God's children; that
spot is desecrated which has been the turning-point where
an immortal chose death rather than life. Many such
places there are, both in rural lanes and in the city's
thoroughfares. A youth is leaving his place of business
in the evening, and making his way homewards. At a
crossing he meets a knot of companions, who hail and
stop him. They are convening to a place of danger, and
deeds of sin. They invite him to go. He replies that
he is going home. They insist—they cannot go without
him. As he hangs back and hesitates, a leading spirit
of the club suddenly cries out he knows the reason:
"Our friend is going to set up for saint—he is going
home to pray." A loud laugh runs round the ring. The
youth is not prepared for this. He desired rather to go
home, but he is not yet a good soldier of Jesus Christ.
He cannot endure hardness. He gives way at this last
thrust, and goes with them. That night he parts with a
good conscience; and it is but another step to make ship-
wreck of his faith. That spot where evil spirits embodied
formed a circle round the youth, and won him—that spot
is desecrated. The blood of a soul is there. The writer
was standing one day lately among a crowd of visitors
under the dome of St. Paul's in London, gazing upward
in silence on its grandeur, when a gentleman touched him,
and requested him to remove his, foot; he then pointed
to a small cross mark made by a mason's chisel on the
48 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
marble pavement, informing the bystanders that a person
who cast himself from the dome aloft, had fallen there
and died. The group of living beings who had gathered
round our informant stood instinctively back and sighed.
The living were awed in spirit when they found them-
selves, standing on the spot that had been stained by the
blood of a self-murdered man. Oh, if there were marks
made in the ground at every place stained by the suicide
of a soul, how thickly dotted the world would be with
the startling symbols—how fearfully and tremblingly
would the living thread their way between!
How much of the low spirits, the moody mind, the
miserable incapacity, which abound, has been induced by
violation of God's laws—both the natural marked in our
constitution, and the moral revealed in the Bible!
Appetites indulged grow strong. Beware lest the cub
which you fondle and feed, insensibly become the lion
which devours you.
Friendship sealed by companionship in sin will not
last long. It is not worth having. It deserves not to
be known by that noble name. Friends that are glued
together by the slime of their lusts will be torn asunder
soon; and these foul exudations that seem now to bind
them into one, will become the fuel to a flame of mutual
hate, when first a spark of disagreement falls. They will
bite and devour one another. The degree of their privacy
to each other's wickedness will be the measure of their
dislike and distrust.
After all, above all, including all, a reason why you
should not consent to go with sinners is, you thereby
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 49
displease God, crucify Christ, grieve the Spirit, and cast
your own soul away.
The means of resisting.—We address those who have
obtained a religious education. We do not speak here of
the first and best means, the word of God and prayer.
We assume that you know all that we could tell you
regarding these, and only offer some suggestions on subor-
dinate topics—such as refinement of manners, profitable
study, benevolent effort, and improving company.
Refinement of manners.—I know well that it is the
state of the heart within that decides the outward de-
meanour; but I know also that the outward demeanour
has a reflex influence back upon the heart. I do not say
that politeness will do as a substitute for religion; but
politeness is of use as the handmaid of religion. Indeed,
rude speech and manners are both the signs of moral evil
already existing, and the causes of increasing it. In
many districts of country, and among certain classes, rude
habits are the open inlets to great crimes. To cultivate
a refined and tasteful form of speech and manners would
become a shield to protect from many prevailing tempta-
tions. Christianity, with its living power in the heart,
will produce refinement in the manners; and outward
refinement will throw a shield round inward principle,
and keep it out of harm's way. We do not mean to
encourage show and fashion. The fop is most wretched
himself, and most repulsive to an onlooker; but we would
not avoid this extreme by leaping into the extreme of
vulgar rudeness. We would not like a youth to be
gilded; but neither would we like him to be rough and
50 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
foul with rust. We would have him polished that is
the medium. Some people are rusty: their harsh, un-
gainly manners eat out whatever is good in their own
character, and saw the very flesh of those who come near
them. Some people, again, are gilt: a very brilliant
exterior they present, but the first brush of hard usage
rubs off the gilding and reveals the base material beneath.
A third class are polished; the polish, indeed, is on the
surface, but it is a polish on the surface of solid worth;
and, in the multifarious crosses of human life, the more it
is rubbed the brighter it grows. This is the thing: not
a gilding to hide the baseness, but a polish to set off and
make more useful the real substantial excellence of the
inner man. Even when the material is sound to the
core, a polish on the surface both fits it for use and pro-
tects it from injury. If we have two youths equal as to
strength and soundness of Christian principle within, but
unequal as to habits of refinement in intercourse with
others, he who has outward polish added to inward worth
will be more useful and more safe.
Profitable study.—Occupation goes far as a means of
safety. Add every day something to your store of know-
ledge. Study alternately books, and men, and things,
Mere book-reading is not enough, without reflection and
observation. Again, mere observation is not enough, if
you do not enlarge your resources by the treasures which
books contain. Both are best. You have many oppor-
tunities. You need not at any time be in want of a use-
ful book. From experience we are able to say that a
book perused intelligently, and with appetite in youth,
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 51
will retain its hold better than information acquired at
a later day. The few books to which we had access
when we were young are fresh in our memory still, both
the good and the bad. The “Pilgrim's Progress” was
greedily devoured, and indelibly impressed; but so also
were other books in which a like genius glowed, without
a like baptism of holiness The young of this generation
may always, have a book to read, and may choose a book
that is worthy. Never let the machinery of your mind
become rusty. The way to keep it sweet is to keep it
going.
We have two opposite experiences to look back upon.
In our retrospect are times of intellectual idleness, and
times of intellectual diligence. We remember precious
hours spent by a circle of youthful companions in silly,
useless conversation, —a sort of slang which was directly
vulgarizing, and indirectly demoralizing. We remember
too, times devoted to useful study. We mean the leisure
hours of a labour-day. The writer remembers the days
when, as the dinner-hour was announced, and all gladly
threw their work aside, he satisfied a fresh appetite
during the first five minutes, and stretched beneath
the shade of a tree, occupied the remaining fifty-five
reading the wars of Caesar, and the songs of Virgil, in
the language of ancient Rome. It made his afternoon's
toil lighter. It made his neighbours respect him; and
what is more, young men, it made him respect himself.
In virtue of that employment, the enticers did not so
frequently assail him; and he was supplied with an
auxiliary means of defence. There are many branches of
52 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
useful knowledge, easily accessible, from which you may
choose, each according to his taste. We earnestly counsel
young men to scour up, and keep in use all the powers of
understanding and memory which God has given them.
It will sweeten your labour. It will be something softer
to lean on between your flesh and the iron instruments of
toil. How great the privileges of youth in this country,
and at the present day! How great is the waste, if the
museums, libraries, and public reading-rooms be not turned
to good account!
Benevolent effort.—Every one, young and old, rich and
poor, should always be trying to do some good. There is
abundant opportunity, if there be the willing mind. Try
to live in the world so that you will be missed when you
leave it.
More especially if any young man trusts in Jesus, and
loves souls, these affections will supply the impulse, and
keep him going. Providence on God's part, and prudence
on his, will soon shape out some useful work that he is
able to do. You have not the gifts and graces to conduct
with effect missionary work among the godless and
ignorant? Well, if you have not the ten talents, are you
willing, without the shame of pride, to labour away in
the laying out of one? Will you become librarian, and
distribute a few soiled books into more soiled hands in a
needy district, at a stated hour on a Saturday evening?
You are not clever enough to teach a school of destitute
children, nor rich enough to pay another ? Well, will
you be the whipper-in of the ragged parliament for a given
lane, and see that none of the honourable members be
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 53
absent from the lesson? If there were but the willing
mind, every volunteer could be put into harness, so that
his strength would not be overtasked on the one hand,
nor wasted on the other. Over on the enemy's side all
hands are called out, and every one is made to contribute
to the mass of evil. The children of light should be wiser
than they.
Improving company.—It is of great practical import-
ance that young men have friends who will encourage and
direct them. Union is strength. In the battle of life
the want of a sympathizing companion may be the very
point on which an otherwise brave combatant may at last
give way. In this fight as well as others, "shoulder to
shoulder" is a most potent principle, both for the defence
and the onset. Here and there in history you may read
of some hero, who single-handed has foiled an army; but,
taking the common standard of humanity, even a brave
man is easily overpowered by numbers when he stands
alone. There are some points of analogy between that
warfare and ours. To most men the sympathy of tried
friends is a substantial support in the conflict with moral
evil. Right-principled, true-hearted companions are often
"the shields of the earth," which the all-ruling God has
at his disposal, and throws around a youth to protect him
from the fiery darts of the wicked one.
But, though the society of the good is an instrument
of protection not to be despised, it is still subordinate.
There is another Companion. There is a Friend that
sticketh closer than a brother. "Call upon me in the
day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify
54 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
me" (Ps. 1. 1.5). That He might get into communion
with us, and we with him, God was manifested in the
flesh. The man Christ Jesus, God with us,—this is the
companion by whose side a young man will be infallibly
safe. We believe never youth could be more strongly
assailed than Joseph in Potiphar's house. A sinner enticed
him, —and oh, how many things conspired to give force
to the temptation, as if Satan had concentrated all his
strength, to break through the chain of purposed mercy
for Israel in the fall of Joseph!—a sinner enticed him,
but he consented not. How? Whence did this stripling
derive strength to defy and repel such a cunningly-devised
and well-directed onset? He was weak like another
man, but he had help at hand. He had a companion
whom he had chosen, and with whom he walked. God
was not far from Joseph; Joseph was not far from God.
His answer was, "How can I do this great evil, and sin
against God?" There—there is Joseph's strength. Young
man, you will be as strong as he was, if you lean on the
Arm that supported him.
The best way of moving a young heart is to please it.
The surest way of turning a person from one pleasure is to
give him a greater pleasure on the opposite side. A weep-
ing willow, planted by a pond in a pleasure-garden, turns
all to one side in its growth, and that the side on which
the water lies. No dealing, either with its roots or with
its branches, will avail to change its attitude; but place
a larger expanse of water on the opposite side, and the
tree will turn spontaneously, and hang the other way.
So it is with the out-branching affections of the human
THE FOE AND THE FIGHT. 55
heart. Follies and vices on this side are sweet to its
depraved nature. The joys are shallow at the best, but
it knows no other, and to these it instinctively turns; to
these it grows forth. It acquires a bent in that direction
which no human hand can turn. It will never be turned
unless you can open a rival joy, wider and deeper, on the
other side. And, blessed be God, greater are those joys
that are for us, than all that are against us! The entice-
ments on the side of holiness and safety are in themselves
greater than all that Satan can spread out; and when a
distracted mind can see, and a ladened heart can feel them
as they are, it is forthwith won. "The love of Christ
constraineth us." It is pleasure that can compete with
pleasure. When you are entangled by the allurements of
sin, and oppressed by the terror of wrath, "the joy of the
Lord is your strength."
The lowliness of the prodigal's place, the hunger he
endured, the loathsome appearance of the husks and the
swine,—these things, doubtless, made some impression;
but, alone, they could not save him. They might have
crushed him in despair to the ground, but could not have
borne him home in hope. It was the yearning of his father's
love, it was the image of his father's open embrace, it
was the presentiment of his father's weeping welcome, that
drew the prodigal at once from his miseries and his sins.
Even the truth of God entering the heart, and fasten-
ing on the conscience, has not power to turn a sinner
from the error of his ways, so long as it comes in simply
as a terror. What the law could not do God did by
sending his Son. What naked righteousness, with ven-
56 THE FOE AND THE FIGHT.
geance at its back, failed to do, manifested mercy in
Christ achieved. Righteous mercy—justice satisfied by
Emmanuel's sacrifice, and divine compassion flowing free
upon the lost—this is the thing of Christ which the
Holy Spirit wields as the weapon to win a human heart.
This heart, young man, is a space that must and will
be occupied. It is the battle-field between Satan and
Satan's manifested Destroyer. Within you this holy war
must be waged. How long halt ye between two
opinions? Who is on the Lord's side? let him come.
Unless Christ dwell in your heart by faith, the enemy
will return, or abide, in triumph. You cannot fight the
enticements of sinful pleasure in your own strength.
These iniquities, like the wind, will carry you away; but
under the Captain of your salvation you may fight and
win. The deceits and corruptions of your heart, which
your own resolutions cannot overcome—bring forth these
enemies and slay them before Him Drag forth these
enticements of sinners that seemed so fresh and sweet to
the carnal eye—drag them forth and expose them there;—
their root will become rottenness, and their blossom will
go up like dust. The faces of these tempters that beamed
with mirth in the glare of kindled passions, will, when
seen in the light of His love, appear hideous as spectres of
the night.
His entrance into the heart will turn the tide of the
conflict; and He is willing: "Behold I stand at the
door and knock. If any man open, I will come in."
"Even so: come, Lord Jesus!"
FILTHY LUCRE. 57
VII.
FILTHY LUCRE.
"So are the ways of every one that is greedy of gain;
which taketh away the life of the owners thereof."—i. 19.
THESE "ways," as described by Solomon in the preceding
verses, are certainly some of the very worst. We have
here literally the picture of a robber's den. The persons
described are of the baser sort: the crimes enumerated
are gross and rank: they would be outrageously disreput-
able in any society, of any age. Yet when these apples
of Sodom are traced to their sustaining root, it turns out
to be greed of gain. The love of money can bear all these.
This scripture is not out of date in our day, or out of
place in our community. The word of God is not left
behind obsolete by the progress of events. "All flesh is as
grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The
grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away: but
the word of the Lord endureth for ever." —1 Peter i. 21,
25. The Scripture traces sin to its fountain, and deposits
the sentence of condemnation there, a sentence that fol-
lows actual evil through all its diverging paths. A spring
of poisonous water may in one part of its course run over
a rough rocky bed, and in another glide silent and smooth
through a verdant meadow; but, alike when chafed into
foam by obstructing rocks, and when reflecting the flowers
from its glassy breast, it is the same lethal stream. So
58 FILTHY LUCRE.
from greed of gain—from covetousness which is idolatry,
the issue is evil, whether it run riot in murder and rapine
in Solomon's days, or crawl sleek and slimy through cun-
ning tricks of trade in our own. God seeth not as man
seeth. He judges by the character of the life stream that
flows from the fountain of thought, and not by the form
of the channel which accident may have hollowed out to
receive it.
When this greed of gain is generated, like a thirst in
the soul, it imperiously demands satisfaction: and it takes
satisfaction wherever it can be most readily found. In
some countries of the world still it retains the old-fashioned
iniquity which Solomon has described: it turns freebooter,
and leagues with a band of kindred spirits, for the prose-
cution of the business on a larger scale. In our country,
though the same passion domineer in a man's heart, it
will not adopt the same method, because it has cunning
enough to know that by this method it could not succeed.
Dishonesty is diluted, and coloured, and moulded into
shapes of respectability to suit the taste of the times. We
are not hazarding an estimate whether there be as much
of dishonesty under all our privileges as prevailed in a
darker day: we affirm only that wherever dishonesty is,
its nature remains the same, although its form may be
more refined. He who will judge both mean men and
merchant princes requires truth in the inward parts.
There is no respect of persons with Him. Fashions do
not change about the throne of the Eternal. With Him
a thousand years are as one day. The ancient and
modern evil doers are reckoned brethren in iniquity.
FILTHY LUCRE. 59
despite the difference in the costume of their crimes.
Two men are alike greedy of gain. One of them being
expert in accounts, defrauds his creditors, and thereafter
drives his carriage: the other, being robust of limb, robs
a traveller on the highway, and then holds midnight revel
on the spoil. Found fellow sinners, they will be left fellow
sufferers. Refined dishonesty is as displeasing to God, as
hurtful to society, and as unfit for heaven, as the coarsest
crime.
This greed, when full grown, is coarse and cruel. It
is not restrained by any delicate sense of what is right or
seemly. It has no bowels. It marches right to its mark,
treading on everything that lies in the way. If necessary
in order to clutch the coveted gain, "it taketh away the
life of the owners thereof." Covetousness is idolatry. The
idol delights in blood. He demands and gets a hecatomb
of human sacrifices.
Among the labourers employed in a certain district to
construct a railway was one thick-necked, bushy, sensual,
ignorant, brutalized man, who lodged in the cottage of a
lone old woman. This woman was in the habit of laying
up her weekly earnings in a certain chest, of which she
carefully kept the key. The lodger observed where the
money lay. After the works were completed and the work-
men dispersed, this man was seen in the grey dawn of a
Sabbath morning stealthily approaching the cottage. That
day, for a wonder among the neighbours, the dame did
not appear at church. They went to her house, and
learned the cause. Her dead body lay on the cottage-
floor: the treasure-chest was robbed of its few pounds
60 FILTHY LUCRE.
and odd shillings; and the murderer had fled. Afterwards
they caught and hanged him.
Shocking crime! To murder a helpless woman in her
own house, in order to reach and rifle her little hoard,
laid up against the winter and the rent! The criminal
is of a low, gross, bestial nature. Be it so. He was a
pest to society, and society flung the troubler off the earth.
But what of those who are far above him in education and
social position, and as far beyond him in the measure of
their guilt? How many human lives is the greed of gain
even now taking away, in the various processes of slavery?
Men who hold a high place, and bear a good name in the
world, have in this form taken away the life of thousands
for filthy lucre's sake. Murder on a large scale has been,
and is done upon the African tribes by civilized men for
money.
The opium traffic, forced upon China by the military
power of Britain, and maintained by our merchants in
India, is murder done for money on a mighty scale.
Opium spreads immorality, imbecility, and death, through
the teeming ranks of the Chinese populations. No
opium is cultivated on their own soil. The governments,
alike the Tartar dynasty and the patriot chiefs, have
prohibited the introduction of the deadly drug. Our
merchants brought it to their shores in ship-loads not-
withstanding, and the thunder of our cannon opened a
way for its entrance through the feeble ranks that lined
the shore. Every law of political economy, and every
sentiment of Christian charity, cries aloud against nur-
turing on our soil, and letting loose among our neigh-
FILTHY LUCRE. 61
bours, that grim angel of death. The greed of gain alone
suggests, commands, compels it. At this hour the patriot
army in China, who, with all their faults and their igno-
rance, certainly do circulate the Bible, and worship God,
oppose the introduction of opium, with all their moral
influence and all their military force. How can we
expect them to accept the Bible from us, while we
compel them to take our opium? British Christians
might bear to China that life for which the Chinese seem
to be thirsting, were it not that British merchants are
bearing to China that death which the Chinese patriots
loathe. It is an instance of the strong coveting the
money of the weak, and, in order to reach it, taking
"away the life of the owners thereof"
A bloated, filthy, half naked labourer, hanging on at
the harbour, has gotten a shilling for a stray job. As
soon as he has wiped his brow, and fingered the coin, he
walks into a shop and asks for whisky. The shopkeeper
knows the man—knows that his mind and body are
damaged by strong drink—knows that his family are
starved by the father's drunkenness. The shopkeeper
eyes the squalid wretch. The shilling tinkles on the
counter. With one band the dealer supplies the glass,
and with the other mechanically rakes the shilling into
the till among the rest. It is the price of blood. Life is
taken there for money. The gain is filthy. Feeling its
stain eating like rust into his conscience, the man who
takes it, reasons eagerly with himself thus;—"He was
determined to have it; and if I wont, another will." So
he settles the case that occurred in the market-place on
62 FILTHY LUCRE.
earth; but he has not done with it yet. How will it
sound as an answer to the question, “where is thy bro-
ther” when it comes in thunder from the judgment-
seat of God?
Oh that men's eyes were opened to know this sin
beneath all its coverings, and loathe it in all its disguises!
Other people may do the same, and we may never have
thought seriously of the matter. But these reasons, and
a thousand others, will not cover sin. All men should
think of the character and consequences of their actions.
God will weigh our deeds. We should ourselves weigh
them beforehand in his balances. It is not what that
man has said, or this man has done; but what Christ
is, and his members should be. The question for every
man through life is, not what is the practice of earth, but
what is preparation for heaven. There would not be
much difficulty in judging what gain is right, and what
is wrong, if we would take Christ into our counsels. If
people look unto Jesus, when they think of being saved,
and look hard away from him when they are planning
how to make money, they will miss their mark for both
worlds. When a man gives his heart to gain, he is an
idolater. Money has become his god. He would rather
that the Omniscient should not be the witness of his
worship. While he is sacrificing in this idol's temple, he
would prefer that Christ should reside high in heaven,
out of sight, and out of mind. He would like Christ to
be in heaven, ready to open its gates to him, when death
at last drives him off the earth; but he will not open for
Christ now that other dwelling-place which he loves—a
FILTHY LUCRE. 63
humble and contrite heart. "Christ in you, the hope of
glory;" there is the cure of covetousness! That blessed
Indweller, when he enters, will drive out—with a scourge,
if need be—such buyers and sellers as defiled his temple.
His still small voice within would flow forth, and print
itself on all your traffic,—"love one another, as I have
loved you."
On this point the Christian Church is very low. The
living child has lain so close to the world's bosom, that
she has overlaid it in the night, and stifled its troublesome
cry. After all our familiarity with the Catechism, we
need yet to learn "what is the chief end of man" and
what should be compelled to stand aside as a secondary
thing. We need from all who fear the Lord, a long, loud
testimony against the practice of heartlessly subordinating
human bodies and souls to the accumulation of material
wealth.
64 THE CRY OF WISDOM.
VIII.
THE CRY OF WISDOM.
"Wisdom crieth without; she uttereth her voice in the streets she crieth in
the chief place of concourse, in the openings of the gates: in the city she
uttereth her words, saying, How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?
and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge?"—
i. 20-22.
THE evil doers are not left without a warning. The
warning is loud, public, authoritative. But who is this
monitor that claims the submissive regard of men? WIS-
DOMS. —Wisdom from above is the teacher: the lesson
that follows is not after the manner of men. We recog-
nise already the style of that Prophet who came in the
fulness of time, speaking as never man spake. It was in
this manner that Jesus, in the days of his flesh, stood
and cried to the multitude—to the simple who loved
simplicity, and the scorners who loved scorning—"if any
man thirst, let him come unto me and drink." Before
He was manifested to Israel, His delights were with the
sons of men. In the provisions of the well ordered cove-
nant, He had the means of sounding an alarm in human
ears before He became incarnate. He found and used a
willing messenger to preach righteousness to rebellious
spirits in Noah's days. Neither did He leave Himself
without a witness in the time of Solomon. The eternal
Son of God is not only wisdom in himself, He is "made
unto us wisdom." He who was seen by Abraham afar
THE CRY OF WISDOM. 65
off, was heard by Abraham's seed in later days. In the
beginning was the Word, and the Word was God. The
Word and Wisdom of God made Himself known to men
at sundry times, and in divers manners, before He took
flesh and dwelt among us.
In the Scriptures, Wisdom cried to men. "They tes-
tify of me," said Jesus. The prophets all spake of his
coming, and prepared his way. The sacrifices offered
year by year, and day by day continually, proclaimed
aloud to each generation the guilt of men, and the way
of mercy. The history of Israel, all the days of old, was
itself Wisdom's perennial articulate cry of warning to the
rebellious. The plains of Egypt and the Red Sea, Sinai
and the Jordan, each had a voice, and all proclaimed in con-
cert the righteousness and mercy that kissed each other
in the counsels of God. The things that happened to
them, happened for ensamples; and the things were not
done in a corner. In the opening of the gates, in the
city's busiest haunts, the proclamation was made to
unwilling listeners. The cry of Wisdom, in those days
of old, if it did not turn the impenitent, was sufficient to
condemn them. It was so manifestly from God, and so
intelligible to men, that it must have either led them
out of condemnation, or left them under it, without
excuse.
But the wisdom of God is a manifold wisdom. While
it centres bodily in Christ, and thence issues as from its
source, it is reflected and re-echoed from every object, and
every event. There is a challenge in the prophets, "Oh,
earth, earth, earth, hear the word of the Lord!" The
66 THE CRY OF WISDOM.
receptive earth has taken in that word, and obediently
repeats it from age to age. The stars of heaven, and the
flowers of earth, facing each other like the opposite ranks
of a choral band, hymn, alternate and responsive, the
wisdom of God. He hath made all things for Himself.
He serves Himself of criminals and their crimes. From
many a ruined fortune, Wisdom cries, "Remember the
Sabbath-day, to keep it holy." From many an outcast
in his agonies, as when the eagles of the valley are picking
out his eyes, Wisdom cries, "Honour thy father and
mother that thy days may be long." From many a
gloomy scaffold Wisdom cries, "Thou shalt not kill."
Every law of nature, and every event in history, has a
tongue by which Wisdom proclaims God's holiness, and
rebukes man's sin.
But is there any prophet of the Lord besides these?
Is there any other organ by which Wisdom cries to men?
There is one. Giving force to all other intimations there
is a prophet of the Lord within every man—his own
conscience. We are fearfully made. That witness within
us is often feared and shunned, more than armed men,
more than gates and bars, more sometimes than the
dungeon, the scaffold, and the drop. It is the case of the
ancient king over again. He is a prophet of the Lord,
"but I hate him because he never prophesies good con-
cerning me."
But it is not conscience proclaiming God's anger against
the man's evil, that has power to make the man good.
All the instincts of the transgressor's nature are leagued
in an effort to smother the disturber, and they generally
THE CRY OF WISDOM. 67
succeed. It is the conscience sprinkled with the blood
of Christ that at once speaks peace, and works purity.
Three classes of persons seem to be singled out here,
and to each is administered an appropriate reproof:
1. The simple who love simplicity; 2. The scorners who
delight in scorning; 3. The fools who hate knowledge.
1. The simple who love simplicity. Probably we
would not be far from the truth if we should accept this
term in the Proverbs as intended to indicate that class of
sinners whose leading characteristic is the absence of good,
rather than positive activity in evil. The root of bitter-
ness has not shot forth in any form of outrageous vice,
but it remains destitute of righteousness, They do not
blaspheme God indeed, but they neglect his salvation,
and they cannot escape. Their hearts by a law of
inherent evil depart from Him; He in judgment lets them
go, and gives them over.
The simple for time are always a numerous class.
They cannot be intrusted with money, for it will all go
into the hands of the first sharper whom they meet.
They will let the day pass, with no provision for the
night, and never think it needful until the darkness has
fallen down. They will let the summer come and go
without laying up a store for the time to come. When
the winter arrives they have neither house nor clothing,
neither money nor food. Somehow they did not think
of these things. The sunshine was pleasant while it
lasted; they basked in its rays; and it did not occur to
them that a cloud might soon darken the face of the
sky.
68 THE CRY OF WISDOM.
But the simple for eternity are more numerous still.
While they have food and raiment they pass the time
pleasantly and never think of sin. As for righteousness,
they do not feel the want of it, and form no high estimate
of its worth. As to the judgment-seat of God, they have
lived a long time, and have never seen it yet; they don't
trouble themselves with anticipations of evil. The great
white throne has always kept out of their sight, and they
keep out of its sight. How many simple ones are going
fast forward to death, with no life to triumph over it!
How many are drawing near the border in utter listless-
ness, as if there were no sin, and no judgment—no God,
no Heaven, no Hell!
2. The scorners who love scorning. This is another
feature of the fallen—another phase of the great rebellion.
This class meet the threatening realities of eternity not
by an easy indifference, but by a hardy resistance. They
have a bold word ever ready to ward solemn thought
away,—a sneer at the silliness of a saint, an oath to
manifest courage, or a witty allusion to Scripture which
will make the circle ring again with laughter.
There have been scorners in every age. There are
not a few amongst us at the present day. They may be
found on both the edges of society. Poverty and riches
become by turns a temptation to the same sin. It is not
only the shop of the artizan that resounds with frequent
scoffs: the same sound is familiar in the halls of the
rich. Many of the young men who have been educated
in affluence, belong to this class. They have large pos-
sessions, and larger prospects; they wish to enjoy what
THE CRY OF WISDOM. 69
they have. The triumph of grace in their hearts would
dethrone the god of this world, and spoil his goods. The
running fire of profane jests proceeds from advanced
earth-works which Satan has thrown up around his
citadel, in his earnestness not only to keep his goods in
safety from the overthrowing power of conversion, but in
peace from the troublesome assaults of conviction.
Scorners love scorning. The habit grows by indulgence.
It becomes a second nature. It becomes the element in
which they live. And what gives them confidence? Have
they by searching found out that there is no God? Or
have they ascertained that He has no punishment in store
for the wicked? No they have not settled these ques-
tions at all, either to the satisfaction of mankind, or their
own. These scoffs are generally parrying strokes to keep
convictions away. These smart sayings are the fence to
turn aside certain arrows which might otherwise fix their
tormenting barbs in the conscience. The scorner is
generally not so bold a man as he appears to be. He
keeps the truth at arms length. He strikes at it
vehemently before it gets near him. All this be-
trays a secret sense of weakness. He cannot afford to
come into close contact with the sword of the Spirit.
These violent gesticulations against the truth indicate the
unerring instinct of the old man resisting that which
advances to destroy him. "What have we to do with
thee thou Jesus, art thou come to torment us before the
time?”
3. The fools who hate knowledge. By a comparison
of various scriptures in which the term occurs, it appears
70 THE CRY OF WISDOM.
that fools are those who have reached the very highest
degrees of evil. Here it is intimated that they hate
knowledge; and knowledge has its beginning in the fear
of God. All the branches springing from that root, and
all the sweet fruit they bear, are hateful to fools. The
knowledge has come to men, in so far as to be presented
to their minds, and pressed on their acceptance. Some,
the simple, never think of it at all; and others, the
scorners, bar its faintest approaches; but these fools,
after it has made its way into the conscience, exclude it
from their hearts. They have not been able to keep
Truth's heavenly form out of their minds, but they hate it
when it comes in. Others only live without Christ,
keeping Him at a distance; but these are against Him,
after He has been revealed in majesty divine. The
emphatic "No God" of the Fourteenth Psalm indicates,
not the despair of a seeker who is unable to find truth,
but the anger of an enemy who does not like to retain
it. It is not a judgment formed in the fool's under-
standing, but a passion rankling in his heart.
How long is all this to last?
"How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity?"
God is weary of your indifference; how long will it
cleave to you? How long will a man continue to be
regardless of his soul? Till death? It will certainly be
no longer. He who would not cry in hope for mercy to
pardon his sin, did cry without hope for a drop of water
to cool his tongue.
"How long will the scorners delight in their scorning?"
Will they not cease from blaspheming God, until God,
THE CRY OF WISDOM. 71
ceasing to be gracious, stop their breath, and take them
away? If you continue this scorning till your dying
day, do you expect to continue it longer? Will you
make merry with the judgment-seat? Will you be able
to argue against the wrath of the Lamb? Depart from
me, ye cursed—that word will crush the scorning out of
the boldest blasphemer. Would that the profane might
make the discovery now; for it will be too late to make
it when the day is spent.
“How long shall fools hate knowledge?” Unless
they learn to love it soon, they will hate it for ever.
They might learn to love it now; for the same word
that rebukes sin reveals mercy. Well might the fool
learn to love the knowledge which presents Christ cruci-
fied as the way of a sinner’s return; but if a man do not
love knowledge revealing mercy, how shall he love it
denouncing wrath? The only knowledge that can reach
the lost is the knowledge that the door is shut. How
long
will they hate that knowledge? Evermore.
72 A REVIVAL.
IX.
A REVIVAL.
"Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my Spirit unto you."—i. 28.
"TURN you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my
Spirit;"—the command and the promise joined, and con-
stituting one harmonious whole. How strictly in con-
cord are the several intimations of the Scriptures! "Work
out your own salvation; for it is God that worketh in
you" (Phil. ii. 12). To him that hath shall be given,
and he shall have abundance. It is to those who turn
that the promise of the Spirit is addressed. These two
reciprocate. The Spirit poured out arrests a sinner, and
turns him; then, as he turns, he gets more of the Spirit
poured out. The sovereignty of God, and the duty of
men, are both alike real, and each has its own place in
the well ordered covenant. It is true, that unless a man
turn, he will not get God's Spirit poured out; and it is
also true, that unless he get God's Spirit poured out, he
will not turn. When the dead is recalled to life, the
blood, sent circling through the system, sets the valves of
the heart a-beating, and the valves of the heart, by their
beating, send the life-blood circling throughout the frame.
It would be in vain to inquire what was the point in the
reciprocating series to which the life-giving impulse was
first applied. The mysteries of the human spirit are
A REVIVAL. 73
deeper still than those of the body. The way of God, in
the regeneration of man, is past finding out. One, part
of it He keeps near himself, concealed by the clouds
and darkness that surround his throne; another part
of it He has clearly revealed to our understandings, and
pressed on our hearts. His immediate part is to pour
out the Spirit; our immediate part is to turn at his
reproof if, instead of simply doing our part, we pre-
sumptuously intrude into his, we shall attain neither. If
we reverently regard the promise, and diligently obey
the command, we shall get and do—we shall do and get.
We shall get the Spirit, enabling us to turn; and turn,
in order to get more of the Spirit. The command is
given, not to make the promise unnecessary, but to send
us to it for help. The promise is given, not to super-
sede the command, but to encourage us in the effort to
obey. Turn at his reproof and hope in his promise;
hope in his promise, and turn at his reproof
Religion, when it is real, is altogether a practical
thing. It disappoints Satan; it crucifies the flesh; it
sanctifies the character; it glorifies God. It is a thing
that acts, and acts mightily. It is a thing, not of words,
but of deeds. There is an enormous amount of mere
imitation religion amongst us. If there were as great a
proportion of counterfeit coin circulating in the kingdom,
we would be all on the alert to detect and destroy it.
We would feel the danger of being ourselves deceived,
and losing the riches for which we care. There ought to
be greater jealousy of a spiritless form, a gilded word
religion, passing current in the Church; for he who is
74 A REVIVAL.
taken in by this "name to live," though he should gain
the whole world, will lose his own soul.
A valorous hand to hand struggle with inherent cor-
ruptions is distressingly rare, in the wide spread religious
profession of the day. You read and pray, and worship
in the assembly, and complain that, notwithstanding,
your souls do not prosper; you have not comfort; you
are not sensible of growth in grace. But all this is mere
hypocrisy, if you be not "turning"—tearing yourself
asunder from besetting sins, as from a right arm or a
right eye. The evil speaking, watch it, catch it on your
lips, crush it as it swells and germinates in the seed-bed
of your thoughts within. The equivocations, the half-
untruths, down with them. Out with the very truth,
although it should break off the nearly completed bar-
gain—although it should freeze the friendship that seems
necessary to your success. Anger, malice, envy,—seize
these vipers, that twist and hiss in your bosom; strangle
them outright there. Your religion is nothing better
than a cheat, if you are not busy with the work of ceas-
ing to do evil. "Herein do I exercise myself:" said
Paul, "that I may have a conscience void of offence."
How can the feeblest learners of the truth attain, by an
idle wish, that actual progressive purification, which its
greatest human teacher only strove after by incessant
exercise?
In the manifold diversities of sin, there is such a
thing as the pride of self-righteousness. You fall into
this error when you pretend to turn from evil without
trusting in God. You fall into the opposite snare of
A REVIVAL. 75
hypocrisy, when you pretend to trust in God, and do
not turn at his command. Getting freely and doing faith-
fully, together constitute true religion. Get and do, do
and get. Nor is it a partitioning of salvation be-
tween God and man, as if a part of it were his gift,
and a part of it man's act. The turning which consti-
tutes salvation is, supremely, all God's gift, and, subordi-
nately, all the doing of the man. From the spring-
head in the heart, to the outermost streams of life, He
makes all things new; and yet the man himself must, at
God's bidding, turn from all iniquity.
We speak of a revival; we pray for it; perhaps we
long for it. But all this, and an hundredfold more in
the same direction, will not bring it about. God's arm
is not shortened: his ear is not heavy. Our iniquities
separate between us and Him. The way to invite his
presence is to put away the evil of our doings: for He
cannot dwell with sin. And if any one, conscious of his
knowledge and jealous of orthodoxy, should say in oppo-
sition, it is God's presence, sovereignly vouchsafed, that
makes the visited man put away his evil, we answer, that
is a glorious truth, but is not an argument against our
injunction. That is the upper end of a revealed truth
which reaches from earth to heaven. It is too high for
us. If you put forth your hand to touch it at the top,
it will consume you. That high thing is for God to
handle, and not man. The end that leans on earth and
lies to your band is—turn, you at my reproof. The
only safe way of moving the heaven-high extreme of the
divine sovereignty for revival, is by throwing ourselves
76 A REVIVAL.
with our whole weight on this which is the visible, tan-
gible, lower end of that incomprehensible mystery—this
turning from our own evil in obedience to the command
of God.
The grand hinderance to a revival by the Spirit poured
out is the general conformity of Christians to the fashion
of the world. The short road to a revival is to turn
from the error of our ways. If there were more of the
doing which religion demands, there would be more of
the getting which it promises.
Turn at my reproof. God looketh on the heart. He
measures the motive as well as the deed. There is such
a thing as a proud atheistic morality, which is as offen-
sive to God as more vulgar vice. To abstain from com-
mon and gross transgressions, is not holiness. It is a
partial process. It is to diminish the bulk of wickedness
on one side, by directing all the stream of internal cor-
ruption to the other side. When a man turns from
wickedness because God hates it, he will turn alike from
every sin. If we reform ourselves, we will select despised
and shameful lusts of the flesh to be sacrificed, but retain
and cherish certain favourite lusts of the mind. If we
permit God's word to search, and God's authority to rule,
idols alike of high and low degree will be driven forth of
the temple. If the turning be at His reproof, it will be
a turning both complete in its comprehension and true in
its character—a turning without partiality and without
hypocrisy.
When we turn at his reproof, He will pour out his
Spirit: when He pours out his Spirit we will turn at
A REVIVAL. 77
his reproof. Blessed circle for saints to reason in. He
formed the channel wherein grace and duty chase each
other round. He supplied the material alike of the get-
ting and the doing. He set the stream in motion, and
He will keep it going, until every good work begun shall
be perfect in the day of Christ Jesus.
Hear that voice from heaven, "I will pour out." Yea,
Lord; then we must draw away. We are placed at the
open orifice in the lowest extremity of the outbranching
channel: the fountain head is with God on high. When
He pours out, we draw forth: when we draw forth, He
pours out. It is because there is a pressure constant and
strong from that upper spring of grace, that we can draw
any here below for the exercises of obedience; but the
covenant is ordered so that, if we do not draw for the
supply of actual effort, none will gravitate toward us from
the fountain head. It is the still stagnant dead mass of
inert profession, sticking in the lower lips of the channel,
that checks the flow of grace, and practically seals for us
its unfathomable fountain. If there were a turning, a
movement, an effort, an expenditure, a need, a vacancy,
at our extremity below, there would be a flow of the
divine compassion to make up the want, and charge every
vessel anew with fresh and full supply. Prove Him
now herewith; exert and expend in his service, and see
whether He will not open the windows of heaven and
pour out a blessing, greater than the room made vacant
to receive it.
78 SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
X.
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
"Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no
man regarded; but ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of
my reproof: I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear
cometh; when your fear cometh as desolation, and your destruction cometh as
a whirlwind; when distress and anguish cometh upon you. Then shall they
call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall
not find me."—i. 2 4-28.
AT sundry times and in divers manners, the Omniscient
Witness of men's wickedness has invited the evil doers to
draw near, ere yet the judgment should be set and the
books opened, that He may "reason together" with them
on their state and prospects. One of those marvellous rea-
sonings of the Judge with the criminal is recorded here.
I. God in mercy visits a rebellious generation.—There
are four terms employed to describe this visit, and although
they are arranged to suit the exigencies of Hebrew poetry,
they follow each other in natural order and issue in a
climax. He calls, stretches out His hands, gives counsel,
and administers reproof.
1. The call. Men with one consent were departing
from the living God. They had turned the back on Him,
and not the face. He does not leave Himself without a
witness. He has many ways of uttering His voice. It
is in the earthquake and in the storm. Day unto day
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT. 79
proclaims it, and night unto night. There is no speech
nor language where it is not heard. Even where its only
effect is to drive the scared culprit to superstitious ob-
servances, it has been heard, and the superstitious are
accountable. The call has come with more distinct arti-
culation from the lips of prophets and apostles. It sounds
with authority in a human conscience. Whether men
obey the call or disobey it, they are secretly conscious that
the call has reached them, and are left without excuse.
2. The hands stretched out.—When the call has come
and startled the prodigal; when the prodigal, aroused,
looks toward the quarter whence the voice proceeds, lo, a
Father whom he has offended is opening his arms wide
to clasp the outcast in the embrace of an everlasting love.
Is. lxv. 1, 2. When busy men lift up their heads from
the dust to which their souls are cleaving, and listen to
the voice of God, they find out that He is not yet against
them a consuming fire. His hands are outstretched:
there is a way, and the way is open unto the Father.
There is no obstruction: there is no forbidding: there is
no upbraiding. Chief sinners are even now entering. in.
Behold, they are arising and going to the Father. They
are converging frequent and swift, as doves to their win-
dows, They are neither kept back, nor thrust down
among hired servants. They are welcomed as sons and
daughters. They are made heirs of God, and joint-heirs
with Christ. Their sins are remembered no more.
3. The counsel.—Some who have heard the call and
lifted up their heads and looked, and seen the door of
mercy open, are glad, and take encouragement to continue
80 SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
a little longer far from God and righteousness. They see
the arms of mercy stretched out all day long, although a
people continue disobedient. Seeing this, they secretly
feel, if they do not venture to say, that there is no cause
for alarm. The door will remain open to-day, and, to-
morrow, and the next day: we shall run in before it be
shut. What does God do for these deceivers? He does
not let them alone. He counsels them. "Flee to the
stronghold, prisoners of hope." "Wherefore spend ye your
money for that which is not bread?" "Come unto me, ye
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest"
If they resist still, will He shut the door now, and shut
them out? No, not yet: He will administer,
4. Reproof—Mercy interposes with the plea, let them
alone yet this once. There is One yearning over the cal-
lous, who have no mercy on their own souls. "How can
I give thee up?" He remembers mercy, and makes
judgment stand back. He makes judgment his strange
work, not permitting it to appear early or often to strike
the decisive blow. He has yet another resource. When
counsel is despised, He will bring forward reproof. If they
will not be enticed by the promise of heaven, He will
threaten them with the fear of hell. "The wicked shall
be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God."
"Except ye repent, ye shall perish." "Except a man be born
again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." Inconceivably
great is the weight of that wrath which is treasured up
against the day of wrath, to be poured all on the impeni-
tent then. But that reserved wrath is not left meantime
lying useless in its treasure-house. Everlasting love needs
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT. 81
a strong hard instrument wherewith to work out her
blessed purposes on an unpliant race. Mercy, in this the
day of her reign, sovereignly seizes judgment before its
time, and works that mighty lever to move mankind.
The terrors of the Lord are not permitted to sleep un-
noticed and unknown, till the day when they shall over-
flow and overwhelm all his enemies: they are summoned
forth in the interval, and numbered among the all things
that work together for good. Though kept like it reserve
in the rear, their grim hosts are exposed to view, in order
that they may co-operate with kindlier agencies in per-
suading men to yield, and fight against God no more.
"Him that cometh to me, I will in no wise cast out"
Kindly plies the sweet promise next to a wounded heart:
but the gentle promise is backed by a terrible reproof.
Cast out—there it is; judgment looming in reserve;
serving meantime by its blackness to make the invitation
more winning, but there, unchangeable, omnipotent, to
receive on its awful edge, the crowds that rush reckless
over the intervening day of grace, and fall into the hands
of the living God.
He suffers long, and pleads: but even in Him compas-
sions will not, cannot farther flow. He calls, stretches
out his hands, counsels, and, when men still refuse, He
makes the threat of wrath mercy's instrument to compass
them about, and compel them to come in: but He stops
there. God will not put forth a hand to lift a man to
heaven in his sleep; or drag him in against his will.
When counsel and reproof are rejected, then "there re-
maineth nothing but a fearful looking for of judgment
82 SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversary."
Those who withstand all these means and messages, will
be left like Esau without the blessing. "He cried with
an exceeding great and bitter cry, and said unto his
father, Bless me, even me also, oh, my father:" but the
time was past, and the door was shut.
II. A rebellious generation neglect or resist the gracious
visitation of God. "I have called, and ye refused: I have
stretched out my hand, and no man regarded: Ye have
set at nought all my counsel; and would none of my re-
proof." This is an appalling indictment uttered by the
God of truth. Who are the guilty? "Lord, is it I? Lord,
is it I?"
“He that hath an ear to hear let him hear what the Spirit
saith.” Men have ears and stop them. The Lord made
the ear of man, and a wonderful work it is. Strange that
it should be open to every voice but the entreaty of its
Maker. In times when vile men held the high places
of this land, a roll of drums was employed to drown
the martyr's voice, lest the testimony of truth from the
scaffold should reach the people. Thus they closed the
ears of the multitude against the voice of the servants.
Not by a roll of drums at a single tyrant's bidding, but
by a strong deep hum of business, kept up through com-
mon consent, is the ear closed now against the Master's
own word. So constant is the noise of mammon, hum-
ming day and night, that the partial silence of the Sab-
bath is felt an unwelcome pause. As arts advance, and
more is crammed into the six days, so much the more
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT. 83
eager are mammon's worshippers to fill the Sabbath with
the same confused noise. The word says, "Be still and
know that I am God:" those who don't want this know-
ledge are afraid to be still, lest it should steal in and dis-
turb their peace. God's mighty hand sometimes inter-
feres to quiet this hubbub in a heart, or a house. It is
when the inmates are compelled to go about the house
with whispers, that his voice is best heard. I know of
nothing more fitted to touch a conscience than this ten-
der complaint from our Judge. He stretched out his
hands: no man regarded. What then? He complains
of the neglect, and addresses his complaint to the ne-
glecters. Here is mercy full, pressed down, and run-
ning over. He whom men reject, pleads with men for
rejecting him. When he so stretched out himself to us,
how shall we answer if we turn our back on Him?
III. They shall eat the fruit of their own ways, and be
filled with their own devices.
This life is the spring time of our immortal being; the
harvest is eternity. Harvest is not the time for sowing.
We shall reap then what we sow now. This law is of
God. It is like the laws by which He regulates all nature.
If a man sow tares or thistles in his field in spring, it is
probable that a bitter regret will seize upon him in the
harvest day. He will loathe the worthless crop that he
gets to fill his bosom. But he cannot, by a sudden and
energetic wish, change all the laws of nature, and make
his field wave with ripened grain. As certainly as a hus-
bandman in harvest reaps only what he sowed in spring,
84 SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
shall they who in life sow sin, reap wrath in the judg-
ment. The provisions of his covenant are steadfast as
the laws of his world. His promises are sure as the ordi-
nances of heaven, and his threatenings too.
It is true that God destroys his enemies: but it is also
true that they destroy themselves. They throw themselves
into the fire, and by his laws they are burned. He has
laws that are everlasting and unchangeable. He has not
hidden them from men. He has plainly declared them.
"The soul that sinneth, it shall die." Those who cast them-
selves on revealed wrath are their own destroyers. These
outstretched hands of his are clear of a sinner's blood.
Judgment will be an exact answer to disobedience, as
fruit answers the seed, or an echo the sound. The
stictness of retribution at last will correspond to the
freeness of mercy now. There would be no glory in God's
present compassion, if it had not the full terror of immut-
able justice behind it to lean upon. Even the divine long-
suffering would lose its loveliness if it did not stand in
front of divine wrath. You cannot paint an angel upon
light: so mercy could not be represented—mercy could not
be, unless there were judgment without mercy, a ground of
deep darkness lying beneath, to sustain and reveal it.
That there may be a day of grace pushed forward within
the reach of men on earth, there must be a throne of judg-
ment as its base in eternity. When the day of grace is
past, the throne of judgment stands alone, and the impeni-
tent must meet it.
The anguish comes first within the conscience of the
ungodly, when the life course is drawing near its close.
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT. 85
Desolation comes like a whirlwind. The body is drooping:
the grave is opening: the judgment is preparing. He has no
righteousness, and no hope. Behold now the prospect be-
fore the immortal, when death, like a rising wave, has blot-
ted out the beams of mercy that lingered to the last. It is
now the blackness of darkness. Hope, that flickered long,
has gone out at length. And how rigidly strict must the
retribution be. They would not hear God in the day of
mercy: in the day of vengeance God will not hear them.
They laughed at His threatenings: He will mock their cry.
This reciprocity is the law of his kingdom. It cannot be
changed.
Let those who live without God in the world mark
what it is that He counts the heaviest retribution upon
sin. It is this--"They shall call upon me, but I will not
answer." When, groping darkling on the shore of eternity,
they cry in terror, "O God, where art Thou?" only their
own voice, mocking, will return from, the abyss, "Where
art thou?" A man's life has a language which the Judge
understands. The life utterance of the carnal, when
divested of all its pretences, and gathered into one, is
"No God!" That concentrated intensified expression,
issuing forth from time, has generated an echo in the
receptive expanse of eternity. That echo meets the
entrant on the border, and conscience, not clouded now,
is constrained to acknowledge it a truthful answer to the
essence of his life. It is a fruit exactly after the kind of
the seed which he had sown. "No God!" was the mean-
ing of his course in time: "No God!" rebounding from
the judgment-seat, at once fixes his place for eternity,
86 SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT.
and proclaims that it is the fruit of his own doing
Consider this all ye who live for your own pleasure,
and leave the long-suffering Saviour stretching out his
hands to you all day in vain: your life, thrown up, a
sullen, bold, defiant no, from you to God in the day of
his mercy, will rebound from the throne a no unchange-
able, eternal, from God to you in the day of your need.
Reciprocity runs through. When mercy was sovereign,
mercy used judgment for carrying out mercy's ends.
When mercy's reign is over, and judgment's reign begins,
then judgment will sovereignly take mercy past and
wield it to give weight to the vengeance stroke.
This terror of the Lord in eternity is clearly set forth
in time with the gracious design of persuading men to flee
to the hope set before them.
At the close of this line of terrors there is a sweet and
gentle word. It is a Father's voice, this still small voice
that speaks when the storm and the thunders have passed
by. "Whoso hearkeneth unto me shall dwell safely, and
shall be quiet from the fear of evil." A safe dwelling-place!
There is now no condemnation to them that are in Christ
Jesus. No plague shall come nigh them there. One
would think this is enough. Himself our everlasting por-
tion, if now we yield unto Him; and a rest remaineth for
the people of God. Enough indeed: sinners saved could
not of themselves expect more: but He provides and pro-
mises more. He will give them not only deliverance from
death at last, but freedom from fear now; safety from
evil to come, and safety from the apprehension of its
coming; justification at the throne of God, and peace
SOWING DISOBEDIENCE, REAPING JUDGMENT. 87
within the conscience. When Christ came to work de-
liverance for all his own, he expressly provided both these
blessings. It is not only to deliver them from death by
receiving himself its sting; but also to deliver them from
that fear of death, which otherwise would have held them
all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. ii. 15). "Godli-
ness is profitable unto all things." Eternal life secure in the
world to come casts a beam of bright hope across, sufficient
to quiet the anxieties of a fainting fluttering heart, in all
the dangers of the journey through. For his Redeemed
Israel, who have already passed over the divided sea, he
has provided a safe dwelling-place beyond the Jordan;
and under the shade of the Almighty, the pilgrims, even
in the wilderness, will be quiet from the fear of evil.
88 SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
XI.
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
"If thou seekest her as silver . . . thou shalt find the knowledge of God."—
ii. 4, 5.
WISDOM continues still to cry unto men with the affec-
tionate authority of a parent. The incarnation of the Son
is God's grand utterance to mankind. The Word was made
flesh, and dwelt among us. He came to make known the
Father. "No man hath seen God at any time: the only
begotten Son who is in the bosom of the Father, He hath
declared him."
Such is the speaker, and such the theme. Wisdom
cries, "Incline thine ear unto wisdom." Christ calls on
men to come unto Christ. It was He who opened the
Scriptures; and He taught from them the things concern-
ing Himself He is Prophet and Priest. He gives the
invitation; and the invitation is "Come unto me." It is
Christ offering Christ to sinners; the teacher and the lesson
alike divine. The preacher and the sermon are the same.
He is the beginning and the ending. He is all in all.
The matter of the whole passage, ii. 1-9, consists in a
command to seek, and a promise to bestow. The same
speaker, at a later day, condensed his own discourse into
the few emphatic words, "Seek, and ye shall find." In
this passage there is a needful expansion and profitable
repetition of these two great pillar thoughts.
SEER AND YE SHALL FIND. 89
The seeking is in verses 1-4; the finding in verses 5-9.
A Father speaks, and He speaks as unto children. He
demands a reasonable service, and promises a rich reward.
In the fourfold repetition of the command there seems
an order of succession; and the order, when observed, is
both comely and instructive. It combines the beauty of
the blossom and the profit of the fruit
1. Receive my words, and hide my command-
ments.
2. Incline thine ear, and apply thine heart
3. Cry after knowledge: lift up thy voice for un-
derstanding.
4. Seek her as silver: search for her as for hid
treasure.
1. "Receive my words.” This is the first thing. Prac-
tical instruction must ever begin here. The basis of all
religion and morality is the word of the Lord, taken into
the understanding and heart When the sower went
forth to sow, some fell by the wayside, and the fowls
came and devoured it. This is the first danger to which
the published truth is exposed. It does not enter the
ground at all. It tinkles on the surface of the mind,
like seed on a beaten path, and next moment it is off, no
one knows whither. It never penetrated the soil; it
was never received. Corresponding to that first danger
is the first counsel, "My son receive my words;" and if
there should be any doubt about the meaning of the
precept, the clause which balances it on the other side
supplies the comment, "hide my commandments with
90 SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
thee." Our adversary the devil goeth about like a roar-
ing lion, or ravening bird, seeking whom he may devour.
He carries off the word from the surface of listless minds
as birds carry away the seed that lies on the surface of
unbroken ground. The word of God is a vital seed, but
it will not germinate unless it be hidden in a softened
receptive heart. It is here that Providence so often
strikes in with effect as an instrument in the work of
the Spirit. Especially, at this point, bereaving provi-
dences work together for good. Even these, however,
precious though they have been in the experience of all
the saved, are only secondary and subordinate agencies.
Sorrow is not seed. A field that is thoroughly and
deeply broken may be as barren in the harvest as the
beaten pathway. The place and use of providential visi-
tation in the divine administration of Christ's kingdom, is
to break up the way of the word through the incrustations
of worldliness and vanity that encase a human heart and
keep the word lying hard and dry upon the surface.
Every one is capable of perceiving the difference, be-
tween merely hearing the word and receiving it. It is
a blessed thing to have that word dwelling richly within
you; felt in all its freshness touching your conscience
and enlightening your mind, during the busy day and in
the silent night, giving tone to your spirit within, and
direction to your course through life.
The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us. Be-
hold, He stands at the door and knocks; if any man
open, He will come in. To as many as receive Him,
He gives power to become the sons of God.
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND. 91
2. "Incline thine ear." The entrance of the word
has an immediate effect on the attitude of the mind and
the course of the life. The incoming of the word makes
the ear incline to wisdom; and the inclining of the ear
to wisdom lets in and lays up greater treasures of the
word.
In practice it will be found that those who hide the
word within them, feeding on it as daily bread, acquire
a habitual bent of mind towards things spiritual. On
the other hand, when the truth touches, and glances
off again, like sunlight from polar snows, it is both a
symptom and a cause of an inclination of the mind away
from God and goodness. The great obstacle to the power
and spread of the gospel lies in the averted attitude of
human hearts. The mind is turned in another direction,
and the faculties occupied in other pursuits. How hope-
ful the work of preaching becomes when the lie and the
liking of the listener's soul is towards saving truth.
When the heart is applied to it, some portion of the
word goes in, and that which has obtained an entrance
prepares the way for more. To him that hath that little
will be given much, and he shall have abundance. A man
inclines his ear to those sounds which already his heart
desires; again to turn the ear, by an exercise of will at
God's high command, to the word of wisdom, is the very
way to innoculate the heart with a love to that word
passing the love of earthly things. The lean of the
disciples' hearts in the days of old drew them to Jesus;
and Jesus near, made their hearts burn with a keener
glow. The ear and the heart!—precious gifts. He
92 SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
that hath an ear to hear, let him hear what the Spirit
saith. He that hath a heart to love, let him love with
it the altogether Lovely. The ear inclined to divine wis-
dom will draw the heart; the heart drawn will incline
the ear. Behold one of the circles in which God, for his
own glory, makes his unnumbered worlds go round.
3. "Cry after knowledge." The preceding verse ex-
pressed the bent heavenward of the heart within and the
senses without: this verse represents the same process at
a more advanced stage. The longing for God's salvation
already begotten in the heart, bursts forth now into an
irrepressible cry. It is not any longer a Nicodemus
inclined toward Jesus, he cannot tell how, and silently
stealing into his presence under cloud of night; it is the
jailor of Philippi springing in, and crying with a loud
voice, "What must I do to be saved?" While the man
was musing, the fire burned; and now it no longer
smoulders within, it bursts forth into a flame. He who
gave Himself for his people loves to feel them kindling
thus in his hands. Men may be offended with the fer-
vour of an earnest soul—God never. "Hold thy peace,"
the prudent will still say to the enthusiastic follower of
Jesus: but he feels his want, and hopes for help; he
heeds them not: he cries out all the more, "Jesus, thou
son of David, have mercy on me." Even disciples, appa-
rently more alarmed by what seem irregularities in the
action of the living than they were by the silence of the
stiffened dead, may interpose with a frown and a re-
buke; but compression will only increase the strength of
the emotion struggling within. That word hidden in
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND. 93
the heart will swell and burst and break forth in strong
crying and tears, "Whom have I in heaven but Thee?
and there is none upon earth that I desire besides Thee.
My flesh and my heart faileth, but God is the strength
of my heart, and my portion for ever." Psalm lxxiii.
25, 26.
4. "Seek her as silver." Another and a higher step.
The last was the earnest cry; this is the persevering
endeavour. The strong cry is not enough: it is a step
in the process, but the end is not yet. It might be
Balaam's cry, "Let me die the death of the righteous,"
while in life he loved and laboured for the wages of ini-
quity. Fervent prayer must be tested by persevering
pains.
Seek wisdom. Not only be inclined to spiritual things,
and earnestly desire salvation, but set about it. Strive
to enter in; lay hold on eternal life. Work out the sal-
vation. "The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and
the violent take it by force." The Christian life is a
battle to be fought: the reward at last is a crown to
be won.
More particularly, the search for wisdom is compared
to another search with which we are more familiar. Seek
her as silver. Those who seek the treasures that are at
God's right hand are referred to their neighbours who are
seeking treasures that perish in the using, and told to go
and do likewise. The zeal of mammon's worshippers
rebukes the servants of the living God. We are invited
to take a leaf from the book of the fortune-seeker.
Besides the pursuit of money in the various walks of
94 SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
merchandise, there is, in our day, much of a direct and
literal search for treasures hid in the earth. A prominent
part of our daily public news, for years past, has been the
stream of emigration from the settled countries of Europe
to the western shores of America, and the great Australian
Continent in search of hid treasure. The details are most
instructive. Multitudes of young and old, from every
occupation, and every rank, have left their homes, and tra-
versed stormy seas, and desert continents, to the place
where the treasure lies. Not a few have perished on
the way. Others sink under privations on the spot.
The scorching sun by day, and the chill dews at night;
labour all day among water, and sleeping under the im-
perfect shelter of a tent; the danger of attack by uncivil-
ized natives on the one hand, and by desperately wicked
Europeans on the other,—all these, and a countless mul-
titude more, are unable to deter from the enterprise, or
drive off those who are already engaged. To these re-
gions men flock in thousands, and tens of thousands.
Those shores lately desolate are in motion now with a
teeming population.
Search for her as for hid treasure! He knows what
is in man. He who made the human heart, and feels
every desire that throbs within it, takes the measure
of men's earnestness in their search for silver. He pro-
nounces it sufficient for the object which he has at heart,
the salvation of sinners. He points to it as a fit measure
of the zeal with which a being, destitute by sin, should
set out in the search for the salvation by grace. He
intimates this will do—this earnestness, if directed upon
SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND. 95
the right object. How all this puts to shame the languid
efforts of those who do seek the true riches! There
may be an inclination on the whole rather to the im-
perishable riches—a wish to be with Christ rather than
left with a passing world for a portion. There may be
the desire in that direction, but another question comes
in, what is the strength of that desire? That blessed
portion in Christ is what you desire; well, but how much
do you desire it? Will not the far reaching plans, and
heroic sacrifices, and long enduring toil of Californian
and Australian gold diggers rise up and condemn us who
have tasted and known the grace of God? Their zeal is
the standard by which the Lord stimulates us now, and
will measure us yet. Two things are required in our
search—the right direction, and the sufficient impulse.
The Scriptures point out the right way; the avarice of
mankind marks the quantum of forcefulness, wherewith
the seeker must press on.
But the search for hid treasure, which reads a lesson
to the Church, is not confined to the gold regions, and
the gold diggers. They dig as hard at home. It cannot
be told how much of plan and effort, of head and hand,
are expended in making money. It is no business of ours
here to draw the nice distinctions between the rightful
industry of a Christian merchant, and the passage through
the fire of mammon's child. This is not our present
theme at all. What we want is to get our slackness
in seeking a Saviour rebuked and quickened by the
parallel movement of a more energetic search. Our
question here is not how much is gold worth? but is
96 SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND.
gold worth as much as the grace of God in Christ to a
sinner? You answer, No. This is our unanimous reply.
It is true in its own nature; and sincerely it is uttered
by our lips. Out of our own mouths then will we be
condemned, if He who compasseth us about like air in all
our ways, feels that we strive with our might for the less,
and but languidly wish for the greater. Seek first the
kingdom.
Those who seek thus shall not seek in vain; we have
the word of the true God for it in many promises. Among
the gathered multitudes in the great day, it will not be
possible to find one who has sought in the right place
for the right thing, as other men seek money, and who
has nevertheless been disappointed. No doubt there are
some who seek after a fashion, and gain nothing by it;
who vent a wish to die the death of the righteous, and
never attain to the object of their desire. But none fail
who seek according to the prescription of the word, and
after the example of the world.
Many people proceed upon a principle the very reverse
of that which the word inculcates. They search for
money as if it were saving truth, instead of searching
for saving truth as if it were money. These must be
turned upside down ere they begin to prosper. There
is no promise to indolence. The hand of the diligent
maketh rich. As to what ye should seek, hear what the
Lord says: as to the earnestness of the search, observe
how the world does. Those who keep between these
two lines are sure to gain in godliness.
PERILS. IN THE DEEP. 97
XII.
PERILS IN THE DEEP.
"To deliver thee from the way of the evil [man], from the man that speaketh
froward things; who leave the paths of uprightness, to walk in the ways of
darkness; who rejoice to do evil, and delight in the frowardness of the wicked;
whose ways are crooked, and they froward in their paths: to deliver thee
from the strange woman, even from the stranger which flattereth with her
words; which forsaketh the guide of her youth, and forgetteth the covenant of
her God: for her house inclineth unto death, and her paths unto the dead.
None that go unto her return again, neither take they hold of the paths of
life."--ii. 12-19.
"THE wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot
rest." Here an arm of that sea is spread out before us,
and we are led to an eminence whence we may behold
its raging. We must one by one go down into these
great waters. We see many of our comrades sinking
beneath the surge. It is good to count the number, and
measure the height of these ranks of raging waves, that
we may be induced to hold faster by the anchor of the
soul, which is sure and steadfast
The dangers are delineated here in exact order, con-
tinuous succession, and increasing power. They come as
the waves come when the tide is flowing; they gradually
gain in strength until they reach their height; then, when
Satan has done his worst, he retires sullenly, leaving all
who have not been overwhelmed, high, and safe, and
triumphing..
1. "The way of the evil." Whether they be persons or
98 PERILS IN THE DEEP.
principles, whether they be men or devils, the word does
not expressly say. The announcement, in the first place,
is couched in terms the most general; the particulars are
enumerated in the verses following. The way of the
evil is the way which Satan trod, and by which all his
servants follow. It is the way whereon all the wicked
travel to their doom.
2. But more specifically, the first item of the evil is "the
man that speaketh froward things." "The tongue can no
man tame, it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison"
This little fire kindles a flame which spreads and licks
up all that is lovely and of good report in a wide circle
of companionship. The man who speaks froward things
is one of the foremost dangers to which the young are
exposed at their first start in life. In a workshop, or
warehouse, or circle of private friendship, there is one
who has a foul tongue. It is difficult to conceive how
quickly and how deeply it contaminates all around.
There may be much specific variety in the forms of fro-
wardness. In one case the pollution assumes the shape
of profane swearing. In another it is the frequent in-
jection of obscenities amidst the conversation of the day,
feathered with wit to make them fly. In a third it is
infidel insinuation. In a fourth it is one huge mass of
silliness, a shapeless conglomorate of idle words, injuring
not so much by the infliction of positive evil, as by occu-
pying a man's heart and his day with vanity, to the ex-
clusion of all that is substantial either for this world or
the next.
It is hardly possible that one who is much in con-
PERILS IN THE DEEP. 99
tact with these froward words should come off unscathed.
Even when a person does not sympathize with the evil,
and imitate it, his conscience gets a wound. Only one
has ever appeared on earth who was entirely safe under
the fiery darts of the wicked. "The prince of this
world cometh, and hath nothing in Me" (John xiv. 30).
If there were perfect purity within, these onsets from
without would leave no stain. But upon our impure
hearts, even when the temptation in the main is resisted,
and the tempter put to flight, the marks are left behind.
Some of the filth sticks, and will not off, to the dying
day. For us even in our best estate it is not good, in
that experimental way, to know evil. The foul tongue
of the froward is one grand cause of dread to godly
parents in sending their youths to a business, and even
in sending their children to school.
How good are pure words! Set a watch upon your
mouth. "Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned
with salt." Bad as it is to hear froward words, it is in-
conceivably worse to speak them. It is more cursed to
give temptation than to receive it
3. "Who leave the paths of righteousness." When
the imagination is polluted, and the tongue let loose, the
feet cannot keep on the path of righteousness. Thinking,
and hearing, and speaking evil, will soon be followed by
doing it. The world is startled from time to time by
the report of some daring crime. But if the history
of the criminal were known, however much grief there
might be, there would be no surprise at the culmination
of his wickedness. When you see a mighty tree in the
100 PERILS IN THE DEEP.
forest, you assume that it did not leap into maturity in a
day, although you saw not its gradual growth. You may
as confidently count that full-sized crime did not attain
its stature in a day. In all of us are the seeds of it, and in
many the seedlings are growing apace. The ways fol-
low the thoughts and words, as trees spring from seeds.
He who would be kept from the path of the destroyer,
must crucify the flesh with its affections and lusts. Out
of the heart proceed evil thoughts, and soon after mur-
ders and adulteries follow. In the matter of watching
for one's soul, as in all other matters, the true wisdom is
to take care of the beginnings.
4. "To walk in the ways of darkness." There is a,
strictly causal and reciprocal relation between unrighteous
deeds and moral darkness. The doing of evil produces
darkness, and darkness produces the evil-doing. Indulged
lusts put out the eye-sight of the conscience; and under
the darkened conscience the lusts revel unchecked.
"From him that hath not, shall be taken away."
5. "Who rejoice to do evil." This is a more advanced
step in guilt. At first the backslider is ashamed of his
fall. He palliates, alleges the strength of the temptation,
and promises amendment. As the hardening process
goes on, however, he begins to feel more easy. He
ceases to make excuses, and at last he glories in his
shame. "Were they ashamed when they had committed
abomination? Nay, they were not at all ashamed,
neither could they blush" (Jer. vi. 15). This is a mea-
sure of evil which should make even the wicked tremble.
He has become the very essence of antichrist, when it
PERILS IN THE DEEP. 101
is his meat and his drink to oppose the will of our
Father who is in heaven.
6. Profligacy can yet one step farther go. They who
"delight in the frowardness of the wicked," are more
abandoned than the wicked themselves. To take plea-
sure in sin is a characteristic of fallen humanity; to de-
light in seeing others sinning is altogether devilish.
Some monsters in human form have presided over the
process of torture, and drunk in delight from a brother's
pain; but it is. a still clearer evidence that a man is of
his father the Devil, when he lays snares for a brother's
soul, and laughs at his own success. There are not a
few amongst us who have reached this stage of depravity,
and yet have no suspicion that they are in any way
more guilty than others. They have so drunk into the
spirit, and been changed into the image of the first
tempter, that they relish as dainty food the pollution of
a neighbour, and let never perceive that there is any-
thing out of the way. “Blessed are they that hunger
and thirst after righteousness, for they shall be filled.”
Cursed are they that hunger and thirst after wickedness,
for they shall be filled too. They shall be filled with
food convenient for them. It is the Lord's way both in
mercy and judgment to provide for every creature abun-
dance of that which it loves and longs for. This prin-
ciple is announced with terrific distinctness in the pro-
phet Habakkuk (ii. 15, 16). Those who have a relish
for the sin of others, will be filled with the food they
have chosen; and although the horrid sweet pall upon
the taste by reason of its abundance, there is no variety,
102 PERILS IN THE DEEP.
and no diluting of sin by fragments of good in the place
of the lost. The same—the same that they loved on
earth, the lost must abide for ever; sin—nothing but
sin, within and around them.
To complete the picture of the danger, one other peril
of the world's deep is marked on the chart which is mer-
cifully placed in the voyager's hands—it is "the strange
woman." Thanks be to God for his tender care in kind-
ling these beacon-lights on the rock to scare the coming
passenger away from the quicksands of doom.
The deceiver is called a "strange" woman. Whore-
dom is distinguished from marriage, which God appointed
and approves. When man and woman are given to
each other as helps meet from the Lord, they become
"one flesh." They are not only known to each other,
but, in an important sense, they lose their individual
personality, and are merged into one. "A man shall
leave father and mother and cleave unto his wife." To
follow the "strange woman" is the Satanic reversal
of this divine ordinance. There is no love, no holy
union, no mutual helpfulness; but wild, selfish passions,
followed by visible marks of God's vengeance. For it is
not his word only; with equal clearness his providence
frowns on licentiousness. That vice eats in like a fester-
ing sore on the body of society. If all should act as
libertines do, the very nation would dwindle away. We
are fearfully and wonderfully made; we are fearfully
and wonderfully governed. It is in vain that the pot-
sherds of the earth strive with their Maker. His anger
will track lust through all its secret doublings. He
PERILS IN THE DEEP. 103
makes sin generate its own punishment. Vengeance
against that evil thing circulates through the veins, and
dries up the marrow in the heart of the bones. Verily,
there is a God that judgeth in the earth. Of the strange
woman, it is said, "Her house inclineth unto death, and
her paths unto the dead." Mark well this description,
ye simple ones who are enticed to follow her. There is
an "incline on the path. It goes down. She leads the
way, you follow. It is easy to go down—down a slip-
pery, slimy path; but its issue is death. What death?
The death of the soul, and the body too. It leads to
"the dead." It brings you to the society of libertines,
and they are dead while they live. This lust is a canker-
worm that quickly withers the greenness of spring in the
soul of youth. We have no trust in the patriotism, the
truth, the honesty, the friendship of a licentious man.
When you get down into their company, you are among
the dead. They move about like men in outward
appearance, but the best attributes of humanity have dis-
appeared—the best affections of nature have been drained
away from their hearts.
104 THE MEANS OF SAFETY.
XIII.
THE MEANS OF SAFETY.
"When wisdom entereth into thine heart, and knowledge is pleasant unto thy
soul; discretion shall preserve thee, understanding shall keep thee."—ii.
10, 11.
CHRIST'S prayer for his disciples was not that they should
be taken out of the world, but that they should be pre-
served from the evil that is in it. Life is a voyage on
the deep: there are perils which we must pass; how
shall we pass them safely? The grand specific is the
entrance of wisdom into the heart. As already ex-
plained, you may understand by Wisdom either the Sal-
vation or the Saviour. The entrance of the word giveth
light, and chases away the darkness. If the truth as it
is in Jesus come in through the understanding, and make
its home in the heart, it will be a purifier and preserver.
"Sanctify them through the truth." The word of God
and the way of the wicked are like fire and water; they
cannot be together in the same place. Either the flood
of wickedness will extinguish the word, or the word will
burn and dry up the wickedness.
If we understand the Word personally of Christ, the
same holds good. Where He dwells, the lusts of the flesh
cannot reign. Evil cannot dwell with Him. When the
Light of the world gets entrance into the heart, the foul
spirits that swarmed in the darkness disappear. His
coming shall be like the morning.
THE MEANS OF SAFETY. 105
The other strand of the two-fold cord which keeps a
voyager in safety amid all these perils is, "when know-
ledge is pleasant to thy soul." The pleasantness of the
knowledge that comes in, is a feature of essential importance.
Even the truth entering the mind, and fastening on the
conscience, has no effect in delivering from the power of
evil, while it comes only as a terror; what the law could
not do by all its fears, God did by sending his Son. The
love of Christ constraineth us, when all other appliances
have been tried in vain. The Spirit employs terror in
his preparatory work; but it is only when the redemp-
tion of Christ begins to be felt sweeter than the pleasures
of sin that the soul is allured, and yields, and follows on
to know the Lord. It is pleasure that can compete with
pleasure. It is "joy and peace in believing" that can
overcome the pleasure of sin. Felix trembled under Paul's
preaching, yet offered to sell justice for money, and, to curry
favour with the multitude, kept the innocent in bonds.
The word of God, though it ran through him like a sword
in his bones, left him wholly in the power of his lusts.
A human soul, by its very constitution, cannot be fright-
ened into holiness. It is made for being won; and won it
will be, by the drawing on this side, or the drawing on that.
The power on God's side is greater than all on the side of
sin. As long as that power is felt to be repelling, the
sinner creeps still farther and farther from the consum-
ing fire. But whenever the love of God in the face of
Jesus becomes "pleasant" to his soul, that love keeps
and carries him, as the central sun holds up a tributary
world.
106 A GOOD MEMORY.
XIV.
A GOOD MEMORY.
"My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments."—
iii. 1.
WISDOM—the wisdom from above—continues still to cry.
How gentle and winsome is the voice of this monitor!
"My son, forget not." Such pity as a father hath, like
pity shows the Lord. Throughout his dispensations, the
Eternal wears the aspect of a Father to his creature
man. In the Bible, the parental regard is seen glancing
through at every opening. When Jesus taught his dis-
ciples how to pray, Father was the foremost word of the
inspired liturgy. With this tender name is the arrow
pointed that is to penetrate the heavens. Those who
have skill to read the hieroglyphs of nature, will find many
a parallel text in earth and sea. The world is full of his
goodness. The fatherliness of the Creator is graven on all
his works.
The matter thus tenderly commended to the pupil's
regard is nothing less than "my law." He who made
us knows what is good for us. Submission to his will is
the best condition for humanity. What shall be the
guide of our life—our own depraved liking, or the holy
will of God? Our own will leads to sin and misery.
The law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul, and
making wise the simple. The two rival rules are set
A GOOD MEMORY. 107
before us. Choose ye whom ye shall serve. His servants
ye are whom ye obey, whether of sin unto death, or of
obedience unto righteousness.
"Forget not my law;" another evidence that the In-
spirer of the word knows what is in man. Silently to
forget God's law is amongst us a much more common
thing than blasphemously to reject it. To renounce God's
law because your reason condemns it, is the infidelity that
slays its thousands: to forget God's law because your
heart does not like it, is the ungodliness that slays its ten
thousands. The deceitfulness of the heart is a form of
sin's disease much more widely spread and much more
fatal than the hostility of the understanding. In the Bible,
God displays more of jealousy than of wrath. He can-
not endure that any idol should possess the dwelling-
place which He has made for Himself. The very key-
note of the Scriptures is, "My son, give Me thine heart."