direction and guidance every step. For this he prays, &c. 2. From the diversified paths which surround him. Sin has a thousand treacherous paths, many of them apparently good, and most of them fascinating, &c. There are paths of mere morality, self-righte ousness, &c. How necessary then to have a guide. 3. From the temptation to which he is subject. It is the work of Satan to allure and deceive, that he may ruin and destroy. He lays snares for the travellers' feet. He tries to turn them aside from the path of duty and safety, or to suggest that the way is tedious, embarrassing, and uncomfortable. 4. The tendency of our own hearts to evil. Only partially sanctified. Liable to err. Often willing to be deceived. Apt to turn aside (Heb. iii. 12). Let us now inquire 2. II. How GOD GUIDES HIS PEOPLE. 1. By the counsels of His truth (Ps. lxxiii. 24). Given to be the guide of our steps. Here is plainly and distinctively marked out the way we should go (Ps. cxix. 5, 9, 32, 35, 59, 104). By the ministry of His servants. Óf old He raised up Moses, &c. He also came to minister and to teach mankind in the person of His Son (Heb. i. 2, &c.). He has established the ministry of the Word with the Christian dispensation (Ephes. iv. 11; 1 Cor. xii. 28). 3. By the teaching of His Spirit (John xiv. 1626; xvi. 13). III. WHAT KIND OF A GUIDE GOD IS TO HIS PEOPLE. 1. He is an infallible guide. Incapable of error. Knows everything connected with the travellers, the way, and the perils to which they are exposed. Knows all things. 2. He is patient and forbearing. Remembers they are but dust. Endures their provocations-slow advances, &c. 3. He is affectionate and tender. As the shepherd kindly leads his flock. As the mother aids her infant child to walk. He breaks not the bruised reed, &c. 4. He is constant and unfailing. Never leaves. Guides their youth and mature years, and casts not off in the time of old age," nor forsakes when their strength faileth. He guides even to death, and conducts to glory. CONCLUSION. -1. Are you under the guidance of God? Have you yielded yourselves to Him, &c.? 2. Cherish a spirit suited to your character and condition-reverence and holy fear, confidence in God, fervent prayer, self-denial, &c. 3. Urge sinners to turn from the way of death and live.-Jabez Burns, D.D., LL.D.: Sketches on Types and Metaphors, pp. 112-115. (See p. 294, 296, 302.) THE CHURCH THE GARDEN OF THE LORD. lviii. 11. Thou shalt be like a watered garden. Sin blighted the moral creation of God, and turned the Eden of the Lord into a barren desert. Through the intervention of Divine mercy, God has set on foot a scheme of merciful renovation. United in the fellowship of the Gospel, the regenerate constitute His spiritual Church, and appear in our wilderness world as the "watered garden" of the Lord. As a garden the Church is I. SEPARATED FROM THE WORLD. Originally like the waste howling wilderness, now distinct and separated, called out of the world as to spirit and character. In, but not of it; not like it-separated. To be manifest as unlike the world as the garden is unlike the barren heath. II. SURROUNDED BY A PROTECTIVE FENCE. Otherwise it would be a prey to wild beasts; thoroughfare for every rude foot; would become a waste. Fenced round, as with a wall of adamant. God is its keeper and defence. He is round about in the energy of His omnific power (Ps. cxxv. 2). III. IN A STATE OF CULTIVATION AND IMPROVEMENT. For the Church's cultivation He sends His Word, messengers, and the benign influences of His benevolent providential administrations. IV. DISTINGUISHED BY ITS TREES AND PLANTS. The good man is likened to a lofty cedar, the useful olive, the fruitful vine, the fragrant myrtle, the thriving willow, &c. May be compared to flowers-adorned with the graces of the Spirit. Are said to be the Lord's planting (Matt. xv. 13; Ps. xcii. 12–14). V. RICHLY WATERED BY THE BLESSING OF HEAVEN. Water is indispensible to fertility and growth, &c. The Spirit of God is often presented under this figure (ch. xxxv. 6, 7; John vii. 37; Isa. xliv. 3; lv. 1; xxvii. 3). These communications are essential to our comfort, well-being, fruitfulness, &c. They keep the garden of the Lord ever verdant, and produce from the trees of the Lord an abundant increase. VI. THE LORD EXPECTS A RETURN OF FRUIT FROM IT. All the labour and outlay of God's goodness is to produce the fruits of holiness. This He expects; and how reasonable is the expectation, and how important to us! Do we render to the Lord the fruits of righteousness, &c.? APPLICATION.-Do we form part of the Lord's garden? Are we the plants of His right-hand planting? Are we flourishing, retaining our verdure, growing, yielding fruit to God? The impenitent, as briers and thorns, He will consume in the day of His fiery indignation.-Jabez Burns, LL.D.: Sketches on Types and Metaphors, pp. 208-211. A similar idea is presented in Jer. xxxi. 12. It forms one of the touches in the beautiful picture which the prophets give of the restored happiness and prosperity of the nation after the rigorous season of captivity and exile. Their experience in Babylon was one of drought and decay. It was like being driven into a wilderness where everything becomes parched and barren. The people had been prepared for this, during their state of declension, by the faithful messengers of Jehovah (ch. Ixiv. 10; Jer. x. 26; xii. 10, 11; Ezek. xx. 35). Yet we see throughout the history that bright hopes are blended with dark judgments, and the flock, though scattered, are followed by the loving purpose of God, who means to effect a great redemption. Even the wilderness is to be a scene of reconciliation and hope (Hosea ii. 14). Our text, then, presents the pleasant picture of the restored, united, and prosperous community, after their season of correction; and the image may well be used as suggestive, also, of Divine experiences in the individual soul. I. A well-watered garden indicates the presence of life. To speak of a garden without life would be unmeaning and absurd, however much may be done by art and skill to create a pleasing scene. This thought has a real application for human souls. We are too apt to confine our ideas of life to the outward and superficial aspects of mere existence. We see around us a great deal of the machinery and parade of life. But the suspicion will force itself upon us that much of this is but the fencing in of uncultivated regions-useless labour bestowed upon barren and unproductive spots which are not "rich towards God." There is the secret of the well-watered garden. Christ emphasises the life that is in it, and a life, too, which can be deep, and full, and abiding, only as it is centered in the Divine fulness itself. This suggests the value of the promise to ancient Israel. As long as they were a scattered flock, separated from God above all by their evil affections, they were losing life. Their spiritual strength was decaying, they were living in a wilderness where all their powers were parched and blighted, and they were doing what so many are doing now-they were losing their own souls in the mere materialism of a godless and undevout life. We may depend upon it that things are going badly, and even tragically with us, when the roots of a growth towards God are showing no signs. We are made for the achievements of faith: if that life of faith be not in us, "the world is too much with us." Only by being transformed as into "a watered garden" can our true life be secured. 66 II. A watered garden" is suggestive also of beauty. In the operations of nature, life and beauty go together. It is no mechanical labour, causing a sense of weariness; much less can we ever think of it as ugly and repulsive. Nature always allures us by her tenderness and her charms, and though always at work with marvellous energy, is always arrayed in garments of beauty. What numberless examples we have of this. To confine ourselves to the more limited image before us, what beauty is displayed by a "watered garden," in the unfolding of its numerous forms of life. This conception of beauty in life is not sufficiently pondered by Christian people. We have always been more ready to emphasise the sterner sides of religion than its tender aspects, &c. There has been considerable reason for this in the fact that the military and disciplinary elements of life are always very real with us. But this should be no excuse for driving out the sweeter elements that should give grace and beauty to character. Besides, we should remember that real strength, when rooted in the soil of love, is also beautiful. Our fault is in separating the graces as though they would not live together. But "strength and beauty are in his sanctuary." Many a well-meaning life is made harsh and repulsive because it has ruggedness and massiveness without tenderness and graee. How much more And III. Fruitfulness is another thought suggested by the watered garden. We naturally expect to see, not merely leaves and flowers, however beautiful, but also fruit. This idea is, of course, involved in the passages just quoted to enforce the need for beauty, but the thought specially intended here is that the religion of Christ shows itself in the form of active beneficence, working as a Divine leaven in the midst of human life. The life rooted in Christ feels itself to be related to others. It exists, not for its own selfish ends, simply to absorb and to keep, but loves by its very bountifulness to enrich others. It thus aims to be reproductive, by bringing others to repeat the same experiences as we ourselves enjoy, and upon still higher levels. Look around on your neighbours and friends, on the community, on the world: look with the eye of love, with the mind of Christ. Is there not room to impart some spiritual gift? (Rom. i. 11; John xv. 8). IV. I will put the thought in one other light. Our subject leads us to think of the need there is for cultured excellence. One of the main ideas suggested by such a garden as we have before our minds is, that it would be well tended and carefully cultivated, and therefore brought to yield the best of which it is capable. Weeds and noxious things, that only occupy valuable ground and prevent useful growth, are not tolerated: they are Let us not be satisfied with the littlenesses THE SABBATH (α). lviii. 13, 14. If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, &c. The first religious ordinance instituted by God in this new created earth was the Sabbath; the day of rest after six days work. Most remarkable was the manner of the institution by the example of Almighty God Himself (Gen. ii. 1-3). Instituted by God between two and three thousand years before the law was given upon Mount Sinai as an ordinance for the Jews, it was designed to promote man's temporal as well as his spiritual good; on its due observance man's welfare, both here and hereafter, very mainly depends; by its neglect God is dishonoured, and man is wounded and hurt. I. HOW THE LORD'S DAY IS TO BE BANCTIFIED. 1. By public worship. On men. that day especially we are to pay unto Him the worship due unto His name. Public worship is a debt we owe to God (Ps. xxix. 2; xcvi. 8); and we should be as careful to pay it as we are the debts we owe our fellow2. By private meditation and prayer. We are to regard it as a day of rest and cessation from the common business and occupation of life, as a season dedicated to God. Our conversation and our thoughts are to be directed, not to temporal, but to spiritual concerns. Let us reflect upon the things of which it reminds usthe creation of the world, the resurrection of Christ; and of that which it foreshadows-the everlasting rest which remaineth for the people of God. II. THE BLESSINGS WHICH FOLLOW UPON A DUE OBSERVANCE OF THE LORD'S DAY. 1. We shall grow in wisdom and grace. 2. Even in this imperfect and troublesome world, we shall learn to delight ourselves in the Lord. 3. When the number of earthly Sabbaths is complete, we shall be found, by God's grace, meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. III. THE EVIL EFFECTS WHICH ALWAYS FOLLOW PROFANED AND NEG LECTED SABBATHS. 1. The world, with its drying, withering influence, will take entire possession of the heart. Even when the Lord's Day is only occasionally neglected, the natural result does not fail to follow-religion is at a stand-still. But where it is habitually profaned, irreligion, hardness of heart, utter indifference and carelessness about the soul, about God, and about eternity, inevitably ensue. 2. The natural faults and corruptions of our nature, being never checked by the wholesome bridle of God's Word, will run away with us, and never stop until they have urged us into perdition. Sabbaths spent in idleness and bad company have often to young men and women, in the highest as well as the lowest walks of life, been the first links of a chain, of which the middle were vice, crime, shame, death; and the last link, the tormenting flame! 3. We shall find unbroken toil a sore burden. 4. Death, instead of bringing us rest, will increase our burden a thousandfold in the kingdom of darkness.-Bishop Hervey: Sermons for the Sundays and Principal Holydays throughout the Year, vol. i. 122-133. (a) See outlines on ch. lvi. 2, 6; and Dr. Barnes' Commentary in loco. The law of the Sabbath, as instituted at the creation, and subsequently inserted in the Decalogue, instead of being repealed, retains its full authority. The sacredness of the obligation of its observance is now transferred, with undiminished force, from the seventh day of the week to the first. The sanctification of the Sabbath is still required on the same principles, VOL. II. in the same spirit, and for the same purposes. The only difference is, that the motives which impel to its due observance have acquired an accession of strength. Most important, therefore, is the inquiry on which we are now about to enter: In what manner should the Sabbath be observed? The due sanctification of the Sabbath requires, I. A cessation from the ordinary labours and occupations of life. II. A consecration of the entire day to the spiritual engagements and delights which peculiarly belong to it. "Remem ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy;" that is, let the entire day be separated from the occupations of other days, and consecrated to the service and enjoyment of God. 2 s III. The public acknowledgment and adoration of our God and Saviour, in acts of social worship. IV. The conscientious and diligent discharge of the domestic duties of religion. With much prayer, tenderness, perseverance, and ingenuity, let Sabbath opportunities be used for the purposes of Christian education (H. E. I., 803– 806). Let not your servants be lected. They have many claims on your Christian regard. Let them have reason to bless God for entering your family. Consult and adopt the best means of promoting their eternal in terests. neg V. The performance of the works of charity and mercy.-H. P. Burder, D.D.: Sermons, pp. 426-448. I. Our first object must be to see what God's Word tells us respecting the origin, meaning, and importance of the primitive Sabbath. II. How far do these things apply to us? Is it God's will that we should still set apart one day in seven as a season of holy rest? III. What are some of the purposes of the institution of the Lord's Day?-C. J. Vaughan, D.D.: Sermons, pp. 255-291. I. The true Sabbath. II. Its obligation. III. Advantage. I. In what light we should regard 637 the Sabbath. II. How we should employ it. III. The benefits arising from its proper observance. I. The proper observance of the Sabbath. Its rest, pleasures, occupations, conversation. II. The consequent blessings. 1. Delight in the Lord. 2. Exaltation-victory over enemies, freedom from all false systems of wor ship (2 Chron. xxxiv. 3; Eph. vi. 12). 3. Prosperity-abundance of spiritual food (Deut. xxxii. 13, 14; ch. xlix. 9); assurance of final security (Ps. xxviii. 9). III. The confirmation. God is faithful, cannot deceive; He will do as He has said (Num. xxiii. 19; Ps. xxii. 5; Job xxiii. 13).-J. Lyth, D.D. THE SUPPOSED AND THE REAL CAUSE OF FAILURE IN THE CHURCH. lix. 1, 2. Behold the Lord's hand is not shortened, &c. As the Church is essentially an aggressive institution, at some periods her success has been most marked; at other times her energies have seemed paralysed. It behoves us not only to inquire into the conditions of the Church's growth and expansion, but to be most careful as to our spirit and conduct, lest we by any means should prevent her development. In certain conditions, on the testimony of God's Word, we may be sure of her growth; in certain others we may be as sure of her failure. Her expansion depends upon her purity, &c.; while her failure is as inseparably associated with her. sins. The excuses that are often made for the Church's non-success would be amusing had they not reference to so very solemn a subject. To us we confess they appear alarming, as they seem in many instances to indicate ignorance in regard to the very fundamental conditions of growth and prosperity. If she does not accomplish her soulsaving work something must be wrong. Excuses for her failure generally reflect more or less on the Divine Being and government, an issue from which thoughtful and devout minds ought at once to recoil. The text rebukes those who would so think or speak. Israel in the days of Isaiah attended to the outward forms of religion; and yet tokens of the Divine favour were withheld; and when these favours did not come as in the olden time, the people blamed God, instead of charging it to their own sins. The text is an answer to their utterances (ch. lviii.). Consider I. THE SUPPOSED CAUSE OF THE CHURCH'S NON-SUCCESS. This has reference to the work of the Spirit, and to unanswered prayer. Dwell— 1. On the work of the Holy Spirit in the Church. Upon His grace all prosperity in the Church depends. In some periods God has been pleased to pour out very abundantly His Holy Spirit. At other times He seems strangely to withhold this necessary gift. The all-important question then is: Why is the Divine Spirit withheld? Some affirm-(1.) Because it is God's will. Is this true? It is contradicted by experience. Church history and observation teach that every great revival in the Church has been preceded by the action of the Church herself. Prayer has become more fervent and constant, &c. It is also contradicted by the clear teaching of Holy Scripture. We are not directed to wait till God shall in His sovereign wisdom determine to send us the Holy Ghost; but we are taught distinctly to pray for Him (Luke xi. 13, with Matt. vii. 7; Jas. iv. 3). (2.) We are not to expect any extraordinary manifestations of spiritual power in these days. Though we do not need the "cloven tongues," &c., we know of no scripture that would discourage the expecta tion of the conversion of even three thousand in one day. Pentecost was the type and pledge of something greater and better. We are living in the "latter days," and there are many plain indications that we ought now to expect the fulfilment of Joel's prophecy. Plainly, then, if the Spirit is withheld it is not because the "Lord's arm is shortened." |