as leading to a sound and legitimate conclusion. | and come snort of the glory of God, so, except But scripture teaches us to take a far larger and they should now repent, they must all likewise juster view of the divine government,- -a view perish. There is not one individual to whom this which forbids us to measure the exact merit or call to repentance-this solemn warning, as to demerit of men in the sight of God, by the amount the infinite importance, and absolute necessity of of outward prosperity or misfortune that may repentance, does not apply. And now is the befal them in the present world. In accordance accepted time. Have I then, seen my sins, and with this view, while Jesus abstained from pro- confessed them unto God, sorrowing over them nouncing any judgment concerning the Galileans after a godly sort? This is a matter that brooks who had been slain in the temple, he was evi- no delay. Death is continually at hand. None dently at pains to disabuse the minds of those know what a day or an hour may bring forth: who called his attention to the case, of the mis- and there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, taken ideas they had formed upon the subject. nor wisdom in the grave. In the system of divine providence, no man stands isolated and alone; and the events, accordingly, that happen to one individual, are often designed to have their chief bearing upon others. In order, there-Cast away from you all your transgressions, fore, to correct the erroneous opinions of those who told him of the Galileans, Jesus directed them to another case, in which they were likely to feel that the rule they had been disposed to apply would not hold. 'Think ye,' said he, 'that those eighteen on whom the tower of Siloam fell and slew them, were sinners above all men that dwelt in Jerusalem?' They were probably well enough inclined to apply that method of judging to the Galileans, against whom they had a prejudice; but would they decide in the same way as to these, their own townsmen, some of whom perhaps they had known and esteemed? The tower of Siloam stood, as is generally believed, near the pool of Bethesda; and some think it was built over the porches in which the victims of disease, who were waiting for the troubling of the waters, were wont to seek shelter. The falling of the tower on these poor sufferers, could hardly be supposed to have been intended to mark them as in a peculiar manner the objects of the divine displeasure. By that event, God may have been designing only to release them from their sufferings, and generally to warn men of the uncertainty of life. But while the Saviour thus sought to correct the views of those he was addressing, on the important subject of God's providential dealings with men in the present world, he reminded them at the same time, that though they might hitherto have been exempted from any such extraordinary visitations as these, though no such signal trials should ever befal them, they must not on that account conclude, that God had no cause of offence against them, that they were in no danger of his displeasure. God has appointed a day in the which he will judge the world in righteousness; and in that great and terrible day, he will render unto every man according to his deeds. And as all men have, without exception, sinned, SIXTH DAY.-EVENING. whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will yo die, O house of Israel?' Ezek. xviii. 31. THERE are three things very clearly taught by these words, and all of them are deserving of the most serious consideration. I. That there can be no turning unto God without forsaking sin. II. That there can be no living near to God without a regenerated nature. And, III. That those who die in their sins are responsible for their doom, that their blood is on their own heads. I. There can be no real turning unto God without forsaking sin. 'Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherewith ye have transgressed.' This is the first and fundamental step in every case of true conversion. Every expression here used is full of significancy and force. What is it we are to abandon? It is our transgressions. This directly accuses us of being breakers of the law of God. It does not tell us that if we have any sins we must renounce them. It assumes the fact. It addresses us at once as notorious offenders. It pronounces us to be in a state of rebellion against the divine commandments, and therefore, in imminent danger of the curse that cometh upon the children of disobedience. Moreover, that we may understand the odious nature of sin-how hateful it is in itself— how essentially evil and abominable, the text calls on us to fling it, like something deadly and loathsome, out of our presence. We are not to dally with it for a moment, we are not even to lay it gently aside, as if it were an indulgence, to which we might venture on some other occasion to return. We must 'cast away' our transgressions, as being alike dishonouring and destructive to our immortal souls. Nay more, this renunciation of sin, must be not only energetic and instantaneous, but complete. All' our transgressions where Ꮞ Ꮓ with we have transgressed, must be cast away. the sinner. There is here, no doubt, an irreconIt is not a matter that admits of compromise. The cilable hatred expressed against sin. The rightevil is not of a kind which half measures will eous Lord loveth righteousness, and hateth inicure. The law of God cannot condemn oue sin quity. Sin is the abominable thing which his and wink at another. Whosoever offendeth it in holy soul hateth. But this unchanging and one point, offendeth it in all. So long as the dis- unchangeable abhorrence of sin, is conjoined with position remains to do any single act which it for- the tenderest compassion for the sinner. 'God bids, or to neglect any single duty which it commendeth his love toward us, in that while we enjoins, there is there the spirit of rebellion; and were yet sinners, Christ died for us,' Rom. v. 8. though the Lord be indeed 'slow to wrath,' yet God is, 'in Christ, reconciling the world unto is he of great power, and will not at all acquit himself, not imputing their trespasses unto them,' the wicked. If then, we would truly turn unto 2 Cor. v. 19. God, we must begin by departing from all iniquity. II. But conversion implies, not only the putting off the old man, which is corrupt, with all his deceitful lusts, but the putting on the new man, which after God, is renewed in knowledge, righteousness, and true holiness. Make you a new heart, and a new spirit.' 'Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,' John iii. 3. True, indeed, this change of heart no man is either able or willing of himself to produce. To be born again, in this spiritual sense of the term, is to be born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of men, but of God: not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God that liveth and abideth for ever. But when the Lord addresses to us the call, 'make you a new heart, and a new spirit,' he at the same time provides the grace which is needful to enable the penitent believer to obey. When Jesus commanded the man that had the withered hand to stretch it forth, he at the same instant supplied to him, as one having faith to be healed, the vital energy that gave him strength to do as he was required. And while, therefore, the man was personally active in complying with the command, it was in such a sense, and in such a way, as gave all the glory to Christ. So is it with the cure of that spiritual disease which preys upon our souls. While the Lord requires us to work out our own salvation with fear and trembling, he at the same time himself works effectually in the believer, both to will and to do. Our concern, then, when we receive this call, 'make you a new heart, and a new spirit,' is to meet that call with the humble and earnest prayer, 'Lord, create thou a clean heart, renew a right spirit within us.' III. If we perish in our sins, our blood is upon our own heads. "Have I any pleasure at all that the wicked should die, saith the Lord God, and not that he should turn from his ways and live?' Ezek. xviii. 23. Why then will ye die, O house of Israel?' is the solemn and affecting appeal which ord is, in his word, continually making to Why then, O sinner, will ye die? God is waiting to be gracious. What excuse can you offer for persisting in your infatuated career? Think what it is 'to die,'—to die spiritually and eternally, to become an outcast from God and heaven,-to become the prey of the worm that dieth not, and of the fire that is not quenched;the companion of devils,—the tenant of that dark and dismal abode, where there shall be nothing but weeping, and wailing, and gnashing of teeth, and where all hope shall be clean gone for ever. O Lord, do thou turn us, and we shall be turned. Do thou draw us, and we shall be constrained to run after thee! SEVENTH DAY.-MORNING. 'Turn ye even to me with all your heart, and with fasting, and with weeping, and with mourning; and rend your heart, and not your garments, and turn unto the Lord your God: for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and of great kindness, and repenteth him of the ecil, Joel ii. 12, 13. I. WHETHER it be in the decisive moment of the sinner's first awakening to a sense of his guilt and danger, or in his subsequent recall from some temporary defection, there is nothing that ever did, or that ever can suffice to turn him from the evil and the error of his way, but a saving view of God in Christ;-a view of him as waiting to be gracious,-willing not that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. As seen through the medium of the law, God is, and must be to the sinner, a consuming fire; a sight that causes him exceedingly to fear and quake: a sight from which he shrinks and recoils in terror and dismay; and to escape the recollection of which, he likes not even to retain God in his knowledge. But when that glorious God speaks to him, not from amidst the thunders and the devouring flame that crowned the dark and tempestuous summits of Sinai, but from the persuasive cross of Calvary: speaks to him as so loving the world unexpected reverse of fortune; the disappointment of some fondly cherished hope; events like these, subduing and softening the mind, will oftentimes render it accessible, by a merely natural influence, to impressions of religious truth, such as for the time may be too readily mistaken for a saving spiritual change. The wound which has been inflicted, time may very soon heal; either the cloud that has shaded the path of life may disperse, or the eye may get used to look on a less sunny scene; and though not perhaps with the same keen relish as heretofore, still the world may become as much as ever all that is loved or sought. But when the truly awakened sinner, as to have spared not even his only begotten and | tions by the root, and writing vanity on all the well-beloved Son;-speaks to him in the strong pleasures and possessions of time; a heavy and crying and tears, in the humiliation, the agony, the death of Immanuel: when that bruised and bleeding Saviour, crowned with thorns, nailed to the accursed tree, is heard from that affecting, that soul-subduing position, exclaiming in accents of unutterable tenderness, 'look unto me and be ye saved,' 'come unto me and I will give you rest;' and when that voice is made to come home, not in word only, but in power, and in the Holy Ghost, then it is that the victory is won, that Satan is despoiled of another soul. The sinner looks on him whom he has pierced; and amazed and confounded by the contemplation of the love of God, his rebellious spirit is broken. In the light of the cross he sees that he has been wil-'with fasting, and weeping, and mourning,' 'turns fully and wickedly kicking against the pricks; and the very same evidence that serves to assure him, that the God whom he has so long and grievously offended, is still feeling towards him as a Father, serves equally and intensely to make him feel that he is no more worthy to be called a And, therefore, it is with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;' in other words, with a deep and godly sorrow for the sins which he hath done, that he comes, rending his heart, and not his garment, and 'turns now unto the Lord.' son. II. While, therefore, this lowly and contrite frame of spirit, is the natural and appropriate accompaniment of a realizing view of God's mercy to the sinner, let me further observe in illustration of the text, that wherever such a saving view of the divine mercy is obtained, the immediate and irresistible effect is, to 'turn' the sinner 'even to the Lord,'-to that very being whom he has so grievously offended. To 'turn even unto the Lord,' is to make a decided movement towards heaven. It is to forsake the broad way that leadeth to destruction, and to enter on the narrow path that conducts unto life everlasting. The resolution to begin such a course, forms, and will continue to form throughout all eternity, the grand crisis in the believer's spiritual history. Whether, therefore, that resolution has yet been truly taken, is manifestly a question of momentous importance to all; a question that bears directly on the safety of the soul. There are, it is believed, comparatively few living under the ordinances of the gospel, who have not experienced, in the course of their lives, feelings of concern about their souls. An alarming illness dissipating the day-dreams of a worldly mind, and presenting death, and judgment, and eternity, as already close at hand; the loss of beloved relations or friends, tearing up deep and tender affec even to the Lord,' that which inspires him to make this movement, is not so much that he has taken a different view of the world, as that he has obtained a different view of God. It is not any temporary distaste for, or disgust with the world, that will draw men in earnest unto him. That alone which will surely and necessarily attract them towards him, is a believing apprehension of his grace and mercy in Christ. The unregenerate man of the world, meeting with disappointment after disappointment in quest of happiness among the things of time, may be compelled to exclaim, almost in despair, 'who will show me any good?' but still he persists in his infatuated course. But once let the light of the glory of God, beaming from the countenance of a compassionate Redeemer, shine into his heart, and he feels that here is the one thing needful, the pearl of great price; that here at length he has found out a treasure which the world cannot give, and which it cannot take away. SEVENTH DAY.-EVENING. 'But when he was yet a great way off, his father 1. To be taken back into the family of God, implies a full deliverance from the curse of sin. And who can estimate the blessedness of being delivered from a state of wrath and restored to the favour of God. While the sentence of divine condemnation hung suspended over us, peace must have been banished from our breasts. For whither could we go from his Spirit or flee from 6 Let his presence?' Not in all the wide universe could | wherein he had seen evil, his father commanded the sinner find a shelter from the omniscient, the to receive him with the joys of a festival. omnipresent God. When David was hunted us eat and be merry,' said he, 'for this my son like a partridge upon the mountains by his was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is relentless persecutor Saul, assured of the divine found,' Luke xv. 23, 24. This it is to be taken favour and protection he could make even the back into the family of God! It is not such a rugged rocks of the wilderness re-echo as he measure of favour as David conferred on his swept his harp strings to the joyful strain, The rebellious son Absalom, when in compliance with Lord is my life and my salvation, whom shall I the urgent intercession of Joab, he said, ‘Behold fear? the Lord is the strength of my life, of whom now, I have done this thing: go therefore, bring shall I be afraid,' Psal. xxvii. 1. But who can the young man Absalom again. . and give peace to a mind at war with God? Men the king said, Let him turn to his own house, may forget all this amid the bustle of the world's and let him not see my face,' 2 Sam. xiv. 21, 24. business, or the intoxication of its pleasures. But Far different is it when the penitent sinner when the approach of death, and the prospect of returns to the Lord. To as many as God hath the judgment to come, force upon them the ap- predestinated to the adoption of children by Jesus palling conviction that living as they have done Christ unto himself—to one and all of them is this ⚫ without God in the world,' they are no better declaration made, 'I will be a father unto you, than hopeless outcasts, for whom the whole world and ye shall be my sons and daughters, saith the has no shield, no refuge from the wrath that is Lord Almighty,' 2 Cor. vi. 18. revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men-what would they not then give, durst they only venture to think and to say, 'Lord, though thou wast angry with me, but thine anger is turned away,' Isa. xii. 1. When the poor prodigal of the parable to which our text belongs, came to his right mind, came to see the wretchedness and ruin to which his own evil courses had brought him, he felt as if it would be enough to ensure his happiness if only his father would forgive him. To be restored to the privileges of a son was a distinction he durst not then hope to have. But if only his ingratitude and disobedience were pardoned, the place of the meanest servant in his father's household would be enough for him. · How unspeakable is the love of God! The prodigal who had wasted his father's goods in riotous living; who had forsaken his father's house; who had dishonoured his father's name; who had reduced himself to want and misery, is welcomed back again to his father's arms. He exchanges his filthy rags,' the memorials of a life of sin and shame, for the more than royal vestment of the righteousness of Christ. He exchanges the unsheltered field, where he lay exposed to every storm, to the tempest of the wrath of Almighty God,—for the refuge of the covenant of peace, for the protection of him who is a 'sun and shield.' He exchanges the husks which the swine did eat,' the deceitful pleasures of sin, the empty, unsatisfying enjoyments of sense and time, for the rich and exhaustless, provision of Zion.' For 'in this mountain shall the Lord of hosts make unto all people a feast of fat things, a feast of wine upon the lees; of fat things full of marrow, of wine on the lees well refined,' Isa. xxv. 6. The repentant sinner, restored to the favour of God through the merits and mediation of the Lord Jesus Christ, is fed with food convenient for him. Out of the fulness that is in Christ he daily receives, and grace for grace. He lives on Christ; for he is made of God unto the believer, wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, and redemption; that, according as it is written, He that glorieth, let him glory in the Lord,' 1 Cor. i. 30, 31. And being thus on earth nourished up unto eternal life, he is at length invited to sit down at the 'table which shall never be drawn, to eat of the hidden manna,' and 'to drink of the river of pleasure which flows 2. But to be taken back into the family of God, implies not only deliverance from the curse of sin:-it implies the being reinstated in all the privileges which it belongs to God's children to enjoy. When the prodigal received that tender embrace of a free forgiveness which the text describes, his father did not then turn away and leave him in the squalid poverty and abject distress in which he had returned to his paternal abode. The prodigal had returned naked,—and therefore the father gave instant command to bring forth, not simply a robe, but the best robe, and to put it on him, and a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet. The prodigal had returned faint with hunger and ready to die; and therefore the father gave instant command to kill the fatted calf, that his son might not simply be fed, but fed with the best his house contained. The prodigal had returned sad and disconsolate, and therefore to make him glad according to the days | from the throne of God and of the Lamb! EIGHTH DAY.-MORNING. ‹ As many as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent,' Rev. iii. 19. THAT 'man is born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward,' is a sad, though familiar truth, gathered from the accumulating experience of ages, and confirmed by the word of God. It is a saying more ancient than we can tell, that we come wailing into the world, and, if left to the course of nature, go groaning out of it. The way between is in strict keeping with its beginning and its end; and whether long or short, is darkened throughout by the meeting shadows of the cradle and an incomparably sweeter solace, or rather it changes their nature almost to its very essence, and converts them into positive blessings, to know that they are tokens of divine love, expressly contrived and commissioned to work, together with the many other measures of grace, in perfecting our spiritual education, and qualifying us for the unmingled enjoyment of God in the regions of his pure and perfect manifestations. And this happy knowledge do we imbibe from the very same oracles that teach us to look upon trouble as a necessary condition of our existence; and explain the instinctive tears that water our entrance upon life, with the revelation 'that we are born unto trouble as the sparks fly upward.' before us, as I love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent.' the grave. It is some advantage to make ourselves ac-For as many,' says the affectionate scripture quainted, at the very outset of life, with this necessary condition of human existence; that we may be armed, at least, with expectation: and, as we cannot avoid sorrow, may nevertheless escape the needless shock of its great surprises: for surely they who, in the primrose season of their life, clothe the entire field of the future with flowers and sunshine; and start on their fond career with the fancy that they are to be exceptions from the common lot of humanity, are far more likely to be crushed in their first encounter with woe, than he who, in firm and habitual contemplation of all its forms, has, in some measure, assimilated himself to its nature, and meets it, when it comes, as a kinsman. It is a much greater advantage, however, to know that affliction cometh not forth of the dust, neither doth trouble spring out of the ground;' but that every sorrow incident to human life is dispensed by the same Universal Father, 'unto whom all eyes look up, and who giveth unto every one his meat in due season.' Once in possession of this simple knowledge, we are saved at least from the despair of those who attribute their calamities to the choice and the guidance of chance, and regard the ills to which flesh is heir' as so many arrows flying at random in the dark. For surely we cannot mourn without hope' in the midst of our afflictions, while we believe that every sorrow of our few and evil days, so far from springing promiscuously out of the ground, cometh forth in reality from the counsels of heaven; and consequently must have at once a motive and a commission, worthy of infinite wisdom; though hidden, like its great Dispenser, in impenetrable darkness, from the understanding of the sufferer. If it be an alleviation of our sorrows, however, to know that they come from the benevolent Giver of every good and every perfect gift, it is In the very first sound of these stirring words we recognise the voice of a Father; and hear the Judge of all the earth addressing us as children. For neither in the promise nor in the down-pouring of the most abundant blessings, is this endearing relation made half so evident as in the paternal care, concern, and stedfastness of purpose manifested in these rebukes and chastenings of children. Bounty is an easy grace for God: his riches, like his own being, are infinite; and no giving ever makes them less. But rebukes are the striving of his Spirit with man; and judgments are his 'strange work.' And O! can there be a son who has lived to bless the hoary head—or, if not so fortunate the memory of a father, because he was wise in his tenderness, and shunned not the tear and the wear of his heart in the exercise of a painful but wholesome discipline; and yet feels not, understands not the meaning of a crushing calamity, or a sobering affliction, dispensed by the Father who is in heaven? Yet slow we are to comprehend the chastenings of God; because even in the full maturity of years and judgments we remain towards our heavenly Father, what, in the waywardness of childhood, we were to our mortal parents; when we rebelled, at heart, against every infliction of the rod, and falsely believed that we should have loved them more had they punished us less. So much the more have we reason to pray for grace to receive the rebukes of love in the spirit of docility and meekness, that we may the sooner be enabled to say with the Psalmist, it is good for me that I have been afflicted, that I might learn thy statutes: the law of thy mouth is better unto me than thousands of gold and silver.' What more can we require to reconcile all of us who are called by the name of the Lord, to the |
