Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

divine system of discipline under which we live, | perfection, can we tell the diversity of ways in than to know that it is administered in love, and which he seeks to regain his possession of our is at once a necessary and efficacious means of grace. lost souls, and restore them to the paradise from O! let that assurance be unto us the rainbow of which sin and misery has so estranged their imaail our tears; and, rising as upon eagles' wings, ginations as well as their desires. In the morning, to the contemplation of that living bow which we were contemplating the longings of divine encompasseth the throne of God; let us gather love manifested in the chastenings of his waystrength from the thought that our light afflic- ward children; and now in the evening we are tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for us called to meditate the tenderness of his affection, a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.' exhibited in the multitude of his loving-kindAnd with this thought lying warm and strong at nesses. In the eloquent scripture before us, the our hearts, let us render even now to the Lord Lord is represented as leading us to repentance, the justice, which, in the ripening of our judg- and to his own open arms, by a long continuance ment, we refuse not to our fathers and mothers, of goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering; and and bless the hand that corrects us. And, consequently by a permanent display of his love while we acknowledge the love that deals the in that very form and aspect which we think blow, may we mourn with a godly sorrow most congenial with our nature, as well as most over the sin that provoked it: for surely if efficacious in winning our affections. The light we love him who first loved us, and have in which the paternal tenderness of God is thus known what it is through the working of the represented is inexpressibly affecting; as we see Spirit within us to cry unto God, 'Abba, Father!' him varying his mode of working on our hearts, the whole bitterness of affliction will be gathered so as to suit himself to our varying sensibilities; together in the thought, that we have provoked and seeking at one time to accomplish, by a perour heavenly Father to strike us. severing gentleness of manner, what he attempts, at another, by apparent severity. And yet the |motive in both cases is the same; for the end is our ultimate glory; and the immediate effect our repentance. And surely when we consider that the subject of the repentance required of us, is simply sinning against God, and vexing his Holy Spirit, by leading a life of resistance to his will,

EIGHTH DAY.-EVENING.

'Or despisest thou the riches of his goodness, and forbearance, and long-suffering; not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance,' Rom. ii. 4.

MOURNING, as we all profess to do, the fall of man, and the woes in which the first transgression of the holy commandment has involved the entire posterity of Adam, it might naturally be expected, that the whole energy of our intellect would be concentrated in a great and continuous effort to regain our lost paradise, and raise ourselves to the lofty rank from which we have been degraded. Alas! to the shame and confusion of our fallen race, we learn from the oracles of God, and our own experience, that this reasonable order of things is all inverted; and that instead of mankind pressing in a continuous succession of generations against the walls of heaven, like waves on the rocks of the sea-shore, it is God who all the while is bowing his heaven and coming down,' and searching all around the hearts of man, to discover its soft side, that he may enter in-make of it a temple, and fill its enormous void with love, with heaven, and with -himself.

We may exhaust figures of speech; but just as little as by searching we can find out God to

we cannot imagine even the infinite wisdom and the untiring tenderness of our Father in heaven adopting a mode more likely to subdue our enmity, soften our hearts, and heap coals of fire upon our heads; or, in a single word, melt us into a repentance never to be repented of, than thus rendering good for our evil, friendship for our enmity, and love for our hatred. And all the more efficacious should we feel the power of this kindness to be, when we consider that it has an object in view beyond itself, and contemplates, not only our present gratification, but the working out of our salvation, and the raising of our fallen nature to a life of honour, glory, and immortality beyond the grave. The joys of the present life, however lavishly God may dispense them, are soon exhausted, because our lot in time is short; but there is an infinity of love and of riches in every token of the divine favour, and in every gift of God, which has for its ultimate object the well-doing of our souls throughout the endless ages of eternity.

What then shall we say to the scarlet sin of despising the riches of God's goodness? Can we conceive what God thinks of it? Surely if

NINTH DAY.-MORNING.

he that despised Moses' law died without mercy | ling of the feet on the dark mountains, when the at the mouth of two or three witnesses; of how light of God, sought too late, is turned into the much sorer punishment shall he be thought shadow of death.' worthy, who hath trodden under foot the Son of God, and hath counted the blood of the covenant wherewith he was sanctified an unholy thing, and hath done despite unto the Spirit of grace!' Yet unto that Spirit of grace is every soul of man doing most manifest spite, and openly despising the riches of divine goodness, who is still living in a state of sin; and deferring—be it from day to day, or from year to year-the simple but momentous step of turning to the Lord.

For where are they on whom the Lord has not lavished his goodness, times and ways without number; and who among us is not a living monument of his forbearance and long-suffering? Our own mouth condemns us if we plead an exception of our own case from the general rule, 'that the tender mercies of God are over all his works. For is it not a most eloquent testimony to the patience of God that we are this day alive? Why were we not slain in the moment of our first sin? Why did not the lightning of divine vengeance start from its slumber as we stretched out our hand, for the first time, to a forbidden fruit? or slay us, while the meat was in our mouth? Why did our second transgression escape the penalty due to every sin, and not overwhelm us at once in the curses of time, and of eternity? And now when we have sinned so often, that we cannot recollect the day when we gave up all thought of counting our wilful transgressions, can we pretend that with all our impenitence we are at least guiltless of sinning against the mercy of God, and despising the riches of his goodness! O! let us rather think, and feel, that, while the longsuffering of God affords time for repentance, while his goodness and mercy supply us with a motive; and the longer the time thus allowed, and the more copious the mercies vouchsafed, just so much the more scarlet-coloured is the sin of 'stopping our ear, like the deaf adder, that will not listen to the voice of the charmer, charming ever so wisely.'

I have surely heard Ephraim bemoaning himself thus; Thou hast chastised me, and I was chastised as a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke: turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God,' Jer. xxxi. 18. WHILE the scriptures denounce hypocrisy, and condemn every ostentatious display of sanctity as a homage rendered to man, and not to his Maker, they are full, to overflowing, with encouragement to the secret mourners in Zion, who bewail their wickedness with the deepest sorrow where they are least observed. The wounds which God has declared himself most willing to bind up, are those that bleed in the dark; and the groans that reach no human ear, are soonest heard in heaven. In the passage before us, we see the heart of a penitent laid open in the moment of turning to God, and have an opportunity of contemplating the anguish with which he reflects on the folly and wickedness of his past life. And just at this point of his repentance we are struck with a most interesting and remarkable truth, which unquestionably makes itself manifest in the personal experience of every one who can tell, from his own practical knowledge, what repentance unto life in reality means. In this first moment of awakening, from the long slumber of the soul, to a sense of sin and its heinousness, the penitent of our text feels that God has all the while been at work upon his conscience, and knocking loud and often at the door of his heart without obtaining an entrance, or so much as exciting a consciousness of the divine presence. Just as a person awakened by repeated cries out of a deep sleep, hears in the end, not only the successful call, but a series of preceding voices that grow the louder and the plainer, the more he thinks back upon them; so does it seem invariably to It were wise, moreover, to consider that while happen that every effectual calling of the Spirit, the riches of God are indeed inexhaustible, his in the very moment of making itself effectual, patience and long-suffering are limited; and sooner impresses upon the awakened sinner the convicor later must run themselves out. At the most tion that it is not the first, nor the second, nor they can last, as far as our individual cases are the third call that he has heard; but that in reality concerned, but the threescore and ten years that the Spirit of grace has been daily 'reproving hin make up the span of human life; while, for any of sin, of righteousness, and of judgment;'-aye, thing that we can tell, they may set for ever with and from the first burning of his fingers on forbidthe next setting of the sun; and leave the im- den things, daily calling unto him, 'Turn ye, turn penitent despiser of divine mercy to the stumb-ye, why will ye die?' O! for every prayer that

6

riseth up to heaven, to be treasured in the vials | our hearts are right with the Author of our being, full of odours, which are the prayers of saints,' there But just as the magnetic needle, while far away come down from on high a thousand incomparably on the quiet waters of the Pacific, points regularly more earnest warnings, admonitions, and entreaties, towards its pole; yet, from the moment the prow of urging us to turn from the evil of our ways, and the vessel is stedfastly turned to the north, begins seek the Lord while he is waiting to be gra- to vary the more, the farther it advances, and will cious.' The generality of us, however, go on settle on any point of the heavens, except the resisting and vexing the Spirit of grace, and stop-right one; till, at last, the navigator throws it aside ping our ears, like the Jews, when St. Stephen was declaring his vision of the glorified Redeemer; till either death puts an end to this waste of warnings for ever, and drops the curtain of eternity between the soul and its God; or till the Almighty Saviour, by a series of gracious afflictions, and a continuous pressure of sanctified calamities, crushes the heart into a sense of its own depravity, and subdues its resistance like a worm beneath the rolling of his chariot wheels.

In this state of enlightened humiliation, Ephraim compares himself with a beast of the stall, a bullock unaccustomed to the yoke, that stubbornly refuses to serve the master who feeds and protects it; or to answer the purpose for which it is kept. The more it is chastened, the more does it rebel; and only submits, in the end, when exhausted with the unequal struggle, and incapable of further resistance. And we would do well to regard ourselves frequently in those faithful mirrors, which the providence of God is continually presenting to our view, in some department or other of his creation; and judge ourselves by the feelings excited in our bosoms, when it is our turn to meet with resistance where we have a right to exact submission, and to harden a will by all our endeavours to subdue it. When we are wishing, like Balaam, that we had a sword in our hand to slay the creature that resists our will, it is time to remember that God has his sword always within reach; and to bow the head in submission, lest we perish in his anger.

The prayer of the penitent, in the eventful moment of spiritual life is, very remarkable; and may cast some useful light over the understanding of those who think they can turn at any time to God; and who therefore, defer their repentance till the day when 'desire fails,' with the prospect of turning their face to the wall, and to the Judge of all the earth, at the same time. Experience, however, is a faithful teacher; and from it do we soon learn, that of all bodies the heart is the most unwieldy and difficult to turn upon its course; and that of all points, moreover, in the compass it is slowest in turning to God. O! in our hours of ease, when we think little about the spiritual world, and far less about its greatest habitant, we are apt enough to suppose that

as useless; so does the human heart, when urged beyond the cold, quiet, and distant adoration, which it easily learns from natural piety, to a close communion with God, face to face--spirit to spirit-eye to eye-suddenly waver, recoil upon itself, and search, as it were, all around the horizon, for a refuge from the very thought of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

We find all this strikingly verified in the prayer of the penitent Ephraim. We might readily think within ourselves, that he is already turned to God, because he is praying. Alas! do we not know that it is mainly in prayer we gather our experience of the truth we have just been stating; and feel the tendency of the heart to turn away from God in every attempt to approach him. Hence is it just this aversion of the soul from its Maker that forms the subject of the penitent Ephraim's prayer, and just in the attempt at turning unto God in it, that he prays, "Turn thou me, and I shall be turned; for thou art the Lord my God.'

And happy is the heart which the Lord has turned to himself, for never again does it turn back to the ways of the world, or its own; but, once more, like the magnet, when brought close up to its pole, ceases from all its waverings; and rests secure on the rock of ages.

NINTH DAY.-EVENING.

Surely after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh: I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth,' Jer. xxxi. 19.

IN repentance unto life' there are two parts, equally essential to each other; the first of which is turning from sin, and the second turning to God. Without this second movement of the mind, the former is not only fruitless in regard to its results, but imperfect, and even false in its own nature. We may hate and abhor our most besetting sins, because of their bitter consequences; and by a violent effort tear ourselves loose from them, one after another; and then that tear

ing of our hearts on the thorns in which they are entangled, may we dignify with the name of repentance; but if we go no further-if our eye still continue in the direction of our relinquished vices we are not in reality hating sin, but merely its punishment; and our repentance is only remorse. If, on the contrary, we turn from it to God, there is not only a new feeling superadded to our previous emotions, but a new spirit infused into our abhorrence of sin: for we see it from that eventful moment in a totally different light, and regard it not only as injurious to our selves, but as a grief to the Spirit of grace.

It is just after this turning to God, and contemplating the august, the majestic, and righteous Sovereign, whose authority he has so long despised, that the soul of the penitent Ephraim is stricken with the real enormity of his guilt. What was shame and self-condemnation, before the Lord, in answer to his prayer, had turned him round to himself, is now the most poignant anguish that perhaps the flesh of the human heart can bear on this side of the grave. Surely after I was turned,' he exclaims, I repented; and after I was instructed, I smote upon my thigh. What is the instruction he has received in so short a space? He has seen as it were the face of his offended Father in heaven, and contemplated the sin of his long rebellion by the light of that pure eye that cannot behold evil; and it is just in this view of the divine countenance-in beholding for the first time, though but as through a glass, the beauty and majesty of his God, so long a stranger to his thoughts, and so different from all his previous imaginations, that he shrinks within himself, overwhelmed with shame and confusion; and yields up his soul to a sorrow which the world knows nothing of.

This anguish of the penitent Ephraim is undoubtedly a wonder and derision to the world, and to the great masses of mankind, who measure the iniquity of sin by the standards of the earth, or the judgments of a criminal court; and most unquestionably would they attribute such an extraordinary distress about sin, either to a morbid state of intellect, or a conscience troubled with the secret guilt of some enormous crime. Yet no one all the while ever wonders at the frenzy and despair of a gamester who has played away the last acre of his ample domains, in a den of thieves, or thinks it out of nature if he follow up the ruin of his heritage, not by ، smiting on his thigh ' or his forehead alone, but in the uttermost excess of remorse, doing violence to nature itself, and plunging a dagger to the hilt in his own bosom. Yet verily if there be cause of wonder

|

in either case, it is all in the sorrow that so seldom excites it. For what is the loss of an estate to him who has health and hands to earn, in common with the mass of mankind, his daily bread in the sweat of his face? But to gambol with the pearl of the soul; to frolic with the favour of God; to squander the infinite riches of redeeming grace, and throw away an eternity of glory, is a source of sorrow which no figure of speech can ever adequately express; and which can be a subject of wonder only to those in whose minds the whole spiritual world, with all its forms and features, is a mist. And yet this is not the main source of the sorrow manifested in the words of our text. It is the simple contemplation of God that is cutting the soul of Ephraim; and sharpening his sorrow for sin. We hear him saying, like David, in a moment of similar anguish, against thee, thee only, have I sinned; and done this evil in thy sight.'

In all this anguish of soul, however, poignant as it manifestly is, there is no misery. For just as repentance in its very beginning implies an apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ Jesus,' without which there might be a horror of sin, and of conscience, but no turning to God, so is there hope in the sorrow of Ephraim, which essentially distinguishes it from the misery characteristic of the sinful state. It is just in reality the very goodness of God that goes so sharp and deep into the heart which he has turned from sin to himself; and from that goodness does every returning sinner derive, even in the moments when it is most poignantly wounding him with the reproach of his youth, the highest encouragement to advance nearer and nearer to a throne of grace. O! most abundant authority have we for declaring that God is all the while watching our sorrow with an anxious eye; and will not suffer it to exceed, by an atom of dust in the balance, the measure necessary for its removal. For in the very front and forehead of our text, do we read, that God in the midst of anger remembers mercy, and that the very first manifestation of a godly sorrow for sin, on the part of the stricken sinner, is the signal for the return of divine favour, and the down-pouring of healing waters on the broken heart. Not a sigh of the penitent soul is lost. Not a moan of the mourner in Zion escapes the ever-waking ear of the Father, who has afflicted only to soften, and wounded only to bind up. It is the Lord himself, let us observe to our inexpressible comfort, that speaks throughout the whole of this remarkable passage. The very words of the penitent come to us at second hand; for they reach us-and there is not

in scripture a more touching circumstance than in cases of judicial blindness, or hardness of this-not as they passed from the lips of Ephraim, heart, in which the sinner is suffered to glide but from the mouth of God. We know then, smoothly down the stream without a thought of that God has all the while been listening to the future, till he be swallowed up of eternity; Ephraim; has not only heard him, but heard but extends even unto instances of indescribable because he was listening; and that he has been alarm and anxiety concerning the life which is to listening, moreover, with the tender anxiety of a come, when 'sinners in Zion are afraid, and fearFather, on purpose to convince himself that he fulness hath surprised the hypocrites;' and they 'has heard aright. Surely I have heard Ephraim begin to cry, who among us shall dwell with bemoaning himself thus.' And then because he has the devouring fire? who among us shall dwell heard aright, I will surely,' he declares, 'have with everlasting burnings? For then there is mercy on him.' rending of garments, and tearing of hair, and wringing of hands, and crying unto the Lord; but he will not hear them, for their season of grace is past; their sentence is already pronounced, its execution begun, and the mercies of God for ever clean gone. This awful truth,

[ocr errors]

TENTH DAY.-MORNING.

Seek ye the Lord while he may be found, call ye however little we may have familiarised it with upon him while he is near,' Isa. lv. 6.

our own meditations, is nevertheless abundantly revealed to us in scripture; but never without a most sufficient vindication of its equity, and ample directions for averting its infliction. Thus, in the book of Proverbs do we read, that prayers extorted by calamity, after a long contempt of divine counsel and mercy, shall be in their turn treated with scorn and derision. '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

mock when your fear cometh. . . . Then shall they call upon me, but I will not answer; they shall seek me early, but they shall not find me; for that they hated knowledge, and did not choose the fear of the Lord.'

We know that the time of our probation is limited at the utmost by the sum of the few and evil days' that make up our lot in the land of the living; for in the grave, unto which we are all hastening, there is no work nor device,' and 'as the tree falls, so it lies.' We are hence in full possession of the very awful truth, that when the silver cord is loosed, and the wheel is broken at the cistern, our disembodied soul is destined to find God seated, not on a throne of grace,-but of judgment, dispensing no longer mercy, but equal-reproof; I also will laugh at your calamity, and handed justice, according to the fruit of our doings, whether they have been good or evil. We know therefore at the same time, that with life ends the season of prayer; for there can be no praying at the judgment-seat, where they who are clothed with the wedding-garment have no more need of mercy; while unto those who appear in the filthy rags of their own righteousness, all the mercies of God are for ever clean gone. Warned and wilful do we therefore rush upon the sword of Divine justice, if deferring, from day to day, and from year to year, the duty of securing, by the prayer of faith, an interest in the all-sufficiency of Christ, till death, coming as a thief in the night, strip our souls of the knees that were made for kneeling on the footstool of grace, and the hands, and the eyes, and the voice that were given to be lifted towards heaven in prayer and devotion.

We are not so familiar, however, with the fact that, short as our portion of time is, the reign of divine mercy is sometimes still shorter; and that unto some the sun of Righteousness sets before their day is done. What casts a hue, moreover, of special fear and solemnity over this fact, is the circumstance, that not only is it true

We have the same principle just as clearly laid down in the passage immediately under consideration; for in exhorting us to seek the Lord while he may be found, and call upon him while he is near, we have a most significant intimation of a time when he is not found, and a place where he is no longer near; while over both are cast all the terrors of uncertainty and darkness; for not in more palpable obscurity is muffled the year and the moment of our death, than the instant when the cup of divine indignation shall overflow, and the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ cease for ever to be gracious.

But just as significantly, all the while, are we cheered in every scripture. that intimates the approaching sunset of divine mercy, with the assurance that, so long as the day of salvation endures, and the accepted time of the Lord is passing by, in the Father of our Saviour there is grace sufficient for our need, and mercy ready to flow in the most blessed abundance at every up

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »