Зображення сторінки
PDF
ePub

and stifling, reproachful convictions. And hence it comes to pass that vice will ordinarily feel rebuked and overawed by virtue, and that the men, whom you would think dead to all noble principle, will be disturbed by the presence of an upright and God-fearing character. The voice of righteousness will find something of an echo amid the disorder and confusion of the worst moral chaos; and the strings of conscience are scarcely ever so dislocated and torn as not to yield even a whisper, when swept by the hand of a highvirtued monitor. So that the godly in a neighborhood wield an influence which is purely that of godliness; and when denied opportunities of direct interference, check by example, and reprove by conduct. You could not then measure to us the consequences of the withdrawment of the salt from

mensurate with malice, would sweep from the globe all knowledge of the Gospel, we can venture to assert that the unrighteous owe the righteous a debt of obligation not to be reckoned up; and that it is mainly because the required ten are still found in the cities of the plain that the fire-showers are suspended, and time given for the warding off by repentance the doom. And over and above this conservative virtue of godliness, it is undeniable that the presence of a pious man in a neighborhood will tell greatly on its character; and that, in variety of instances, his withdrawment would be followed by wilder outbreakings of profligacy. It must have fallen, we think, within the power of many of you to observe, how a dissolute parish has undergone a species of moral renovation, through the introduction within its circles of a God-fearing individual. the mass of a population; nor calcuHe may be despised; he may be scorned; he may be railed at. The old may call him methodist, and the young make him their laughing-stock. But, nevertheless, if he live consistently, if he give the adversary no occasion to blaspheme, he will often, by his very example, go a long way towards stopping the contagion of vice: he will act, that is, as the salt: and if he succeed not-for this is beyond the power of the salt-in restoring to a wholesome texture what is fatally tainted, he will be instrumental to the preserving much which would otherwise have soon yielded to the destructive malaria. It is not merely that his temporal circumstances may have given him ascendancy over his fellows. There is in the human mind-we dare not say, a bias towards virtue, but-an abiding, and scarcely to be overborne consciousness, that such ought to be the bias, and that, whensoever the practical leaning is to vice, there is irresistible evidence of moral derangement. Whatever the extent of human degeneracy, you will not find that right and wrong have so changed places, that, in being the slaves of vice, men reckon themselves the subjects of virtue. There is a gnawing restlessness in those who have most abandoned themselves to the power of evil; and much of the fierceness of their profligacy is ascribable to a felt necessity of keeping down,

late the rapidity with which, on the complete removal of God-fearing men, an overwhelming corruption would pervade all society. But this is exactly what must occur, if a system, opposite to the present, were introduced, so that salvation were not a thing to be hoped and waited for. If as soon as a man were justified, through being enabled to act faith upon Christ, he were translated to the repose and blessedness of heaven, he could exert nothing of that influence, and work nothing of that benefit, which we have now traced and exhibited. And, therefore, in proportion as the influence is important and the benefit considerable, we must be warranted in maintaining it "good, that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

It is, however, the goodness of the arrangement to the individual himself which seems chiefly contemplated by the prophet, and upon this, therefore, we shall employ the remainder of our discourse. Now, under this point of view, our text is simpler at first sight than when rigidly examined. We can see, at once, that there is a spiritual discipline in the hoping and waiting, which can scarcely fail to improve greatly the character of the christian. But, nevertheless, would it not, on the whole, be vastly for his personal advantage that he should leave speedily this theatre of conflict and trouble, and

advantageousness of this arrangement? Thirty years, which might have been spent in the enjoying, are spent in the hoping and waiting for salvation: and unless the reality shall fall short of the expectation, how can it be true that "it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord ?"

be admitted, without a wearisome delay, into the mansion which Christ has prepared for his residence? We have already shown you that there can exist no actual necessity, that he who is justified should not be immediately glorified. We are bound to believe that a justified man-and, beyond all question, a man is justified in this life-is consigned to blessedness by an irreversible We think that no fair explanation can appointment, and that, consequently, be given of our text, unless you bring whensoever he dies, it is certain that into the account the difference in the he enters into heaven. The moment portions to be assigned hereafter to the he is justified, heaven becomes un-righteous. If you supposed uniformity doubtedly his portion; and if, therefore, in the glory and happiness of the future, he die at the instant of justification, we should be at a loss to discover the he will as surely obtain immortality, as goodness of the existing arrangement. if many years elapse between the out- If, after the thirty years of warfare and putting of faith and the departure from toil, the man receive precisely what he life. And how then can it be good might have received at the outset of for him, certified as he thus is of hea- these years, is he benefited, nay, is he ven, to continue the war with sin and not injured by the delay? If the delay corruption, and to cut painfully his afford the means of increasing the blessway through hosts of opponents, in edness, there is a clear advantageousplace of passing instantaneously into ness in that delay. But if the blessedthe joy of his Lord? If you could prove ness be of a fixed quantity, so that at it in every case indispensable that a the instant of justification a man's porjustified man should undergo discipline tion is unalterably determined, to asin order to his acquiring meetness for sert it good that he should hope and heaven, there would be no room for wait, is to assert that thirty years of debate as to the goodness asserted in expectation are more delightful than our text. But you cannot prove the thirty years of possession. discipline indispensable, because we know the possibility that a man may be justified at the last moment of life; so that, no time having been allowed for preparation, he may spring from a death-bed to a throne. And thus the question comes back upon us in its unbroken force, wherein lies the good ness of hoping and waiting for salvation?

We take the case, for example, of a man who, at the age of thirty, is enabled, through the operations of grace, to look in faith to the Mediator. By this looking in faith the man is justified: a justified man cannot perish: and if, therefore, the individual died at thirty, he would "sleep in Jesus." But, after being justified, the man is left thirty years upon earth-years of care, and toil, and striving with sin-and during these years he hopes and waits for salvation. At length he obtains salvation; and thus, at the close of thirty years, takes possession of an inheritance to which his title was clear at the beginning. Now wherein can lie the

[ocr errors]

We bring before you, therefore, as a comment on our text, words such as these of the apostle, our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory." 2 Cor. 4 : 17. We consider that when you set the passages in juxta-position, the working-power, ascribed by one to affliction, gives satisfactory account of the goodness attributed by the other to the hoping and waiting. It is unquestionably good that a man should hope and wait, provided the delay make it possible that he heighten the amount of finallyreceived blessedness. And if the affliction, for example, which is undergone during the period of delay, work out "a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," it follows necessarily, that delay makes possible the heightening future glory; and therefore it follows, just as necessarily, that it is "good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord."

We consider it easy, by thus bring

ing into the account an undoubted doctrine of Scripture-the doctrine that the future allotments of the righteous shall be accurately proportioned to their present attainments-to explain the goodness of an arrangement which defers, through many years, full deliverance from trial. We are here, in every sense, on a stage of probation; so that, having once been brought back from the alienations of nature, we are candidates for a prize, and wrestlers for a diadem. It is not the mere entrance into the kingdom for which we contend the first instant in which we act faith on Christ as our propitiation, sees this entrance secured to us as justified beings. But, when justified, there is opened before us the widest field for a righteous ambition; and portions deepening in majesty, and heightening in brilliancy, rise on our vision, and animate to unwearied endeavor. We count it one of the glorious things of christianity, that, in place of repressing, it gives full scope to all the ardor of man's spirit. It is common to reckon ambition amongst vices: and a vice it is, under its ordinary developments, with which christianity wages interminable warfare. But, nevertheless, it is a stanch, and an adventurous, and an eagle-eyed thing: and it is impossible to gaze on the man of ambition, daunted not by disaster, wearied not by repulse, disheartened not by delay, holding on in one unbroken career of effort to reach a coveted object, without feeling that he possesses the elements of a noble constitution; and that, however to be wept over for the prostitution of his energies, for the pouring out this mightiness of soul on the corrupt and the perishable, he is equipped with an apparatus of powers which need nothing but the being rightly directed, in order to the forming the very finest of characters. And we think it nothing better than a libel on christianity, to declare of the ambitious man, that, if he become religious, he must, in every sense, cease to be ambitious. If it have been his ambition to rise high in the dignities of a state, to win to himself the plaudits of a multitude, to twine his forehead with the wreaths of popular favor, to be foremost amongst the heroes of war or the professors of science-the introduced humility of a dis

ciple of Christ, bringing him down from all the heights of carnal ascendancy, will be quite incompatible with this his ambition, so that his discipleship may be tested by its suppression and destruction. But all those elements of character which went to the making up this ambition-the irrepressible desire of some imagined good, the fixedness of purpose, the strenuousness of exertion-these remain, and are not to be annihilated; requiring only the proposition of a holy object, and they will instantly be concentrated into a holy ambition. And christianity propounds this object. Christianity deals with ambition as a passion to be abhorred and denounced, whilst urging the warrior to carve his way to a throne, or the courtier to press on in the path of preferment. But it does not cast out the elements of the passion. Why should it? They are the noblest which enter into the human composition, bearing most vividly the impress of man's original formation. Christianity seizes on these elements. She tells her subjects that the rewards of eternity, though all purchased by Christ, and none merited by man, shall be rigidly proportioned to their works. She tells them that there are places of dignity, and stations of eminence, and crowns with more jewelry, and sceptres with more sway, in that glorious empire which shall finally be set up by the Mediator. And she bids them strive for the loftier recompense. She would not have them contented with the lesser portion, though infinitely outdoing human imagination as well as human desert. And if ambition be the walking with the stanch step, and the single eye, and the untired zeal, and all in pursuit of some longed-for superiority, christianity saith not to the man of ambition, lay aside thine ambition: christianity hath need of the stanch step, and the single eye, and the untired zeal; and she, therefore, sets before the man pyramid rising above pyramid in glory, throne above throne, palace above palace; and she sends him forth into the moral arena to wrestle for the loftiest, though unworthy of the lowest.

We shall not hesitate to argue that in this, as in other modes which might be indicated, christianity provides an antagonist to that listlessness which a

feeling of security might be supposed to engender. She does not allow the believer to imagine every thing done, when a title to the kingdom has been obtained. She still shows him that the trials of the last great assize shall proceed most accurately on the evidence of works. There is no swerving in the Bible from this representation. And if one man becomes a ruler over ten cities, and another over five, and another over two-each receiving in exact proportion to his improvement of talents it is clear as demonstration can make it, that our strivings will have a vast influence on our recompense, and that, though no iota of blessedness shall be portioned out to the righteous which is not altogether an undeserved gift, the arrangements of the judgment will balance most nicely what is bestowed and what is performed. It shall not be said, that, because secure of admission into heaven, the justified man has nothing to excite him to toil. He is to wrestle for a place amongst spirits of chief renown: he is to propose to himself a station close to the throne: he is to fix his eye on a reward sparkling above the rest with the splendors of eternity: and, whilst bowed to the dust under a sense of utter unworthiness to enter the lists in so noble a contest, he is to become competitor for the richest and most radiant of prizes. We tell him, then, that it is good that he hope and wait. It is telling him there is yet time, though rapidly diminishing, for securing high rank in the kingdom. It is telling the wrestler, the glass is running out, and there is a garland not won. It is telling the warrior, the night shades are gathering, and the victory is not yet complete. It is telling the traveller, the sun is declining, and there are higher peaks to be scaled. Is it not good that I hope and wait, when each moment may add a jewel to the crown, a plume to the wing, a city to the sceptre? Is it not good, when each second of effort may lift me a step higher in the scale of triumph and majesty? Oh, you look on an individual whose faith in Christ Jesus has been demonstrated by most scriptural evidence, but unto whom life is one long series of trials, and disasters, and pains; and you are disposed to ask, seeing there can rest no doubt on the man's title to salvation,

[ocr errors]

whether it would not be good for him to be freed at once from the burden of the flesh, and thus spared, it may be, yet many years of anxiety and struggle. You think that he may well take as his own the words of the Psalmist : "Oh that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be at rest.' But we meet you with the assertion of an instituted connection between our two states of being. We tell you that the believer, as he breasts the storm, and plunges into the war, and grapples with affliction, is simply in the condition of one who contends for a prize; ay, and that if he were taken off from the scene of combat, just at the instant of challenging the adversary, and thus saved, on your short-sighted calculation, a superfluous outlay of toil and resistance, he would miss noble things, and things of loveliness, in his everlasting portion, and be brought down from some starry eminence in the sovereignties of eternity, which, had he fought through a long life-time "the good fight of faith," 1 Tim. 6: 12, might have been awarded him in the morning of the first resurrection.

Now we may suppose that we carry with us your admission of the fairness of the reasoning, that, inasmuch as the continuance of the justified upon earth affords them opportunity of rising higher in the scale of future blessedness, there is a goodness in the arrangement which is vastly more than a counterpoise to all the evils with which it seems charged. The justified man, translated at the instant of justification, could receive nothing, we may think, but the lower and less splendid portions. He would have had no time for glorifying God in the active duties of a christian profession; and it would seem impossible, therefore, that he should win any of those more magnificent allotments which shall be given to the foremost of Christ's followers. But the remaining in the flesh after justification, allows of that growth in grace, that progress in holiness, that adorning in all things the doctrine of the Savior, to which shall be awarded, at the judgment, chief places in the kingdom of Messiah. And if, on the supposition that no period intervene, there can be no augmentations of happiness, whereas, on that of hoping and wait

ing, there may be daily advances in holiness, and therefore daily accessions to a never-ending bliss; who will deny the accuracy of the inference, that "it is good that a man should both hope and quietly wait for the salvation of the Lord?"

There would seem nothing wanting to the completeness of this argument, unless it be proof of what has been all along assumed, namely, that the being compelled to hope and to wait is a good moral discipline; so that the exercises prescribed are calculated to promote holiness, and, therefore, to insure happiness. We have perhaps only shown the advantageousness of delay; whereas the text asserts the advantageousness of certain acts of the soul. Yet this discrepancy between the thing proved, and the thing to be proved, is too slight to require a lengthened correction. It is the delay which makes salvation a thing of hope; and that which I am obliged to hope for, I am, of course, obliged to wait for; and thus, whatever of beneficial result can be ascribed to the delay may, with equal fitness, be ascribed to the hoping and waiting. Besides, hope and patience-for it is not the mere waiting which is asserted to be good; it is the quietly waiting; and this quiet waiting is but another term for patience-hope and patience are two of the most admirable of christian graces, and he who cultivates them assiduously cannot well be neglectful of the rest. So that, to say of a man that he is exercising hope and patience, is to say of him, that, through the assistance of God's Spirit, he is more and more overcoming the ruggedness and oppositions of nature, and more and more improving the soil, that lovely things, and things of good report, may spring up and flourish. In the material world, there is a wonderful provision against the destruction of the soil, which has often excited the admiration of philosophers. The coat of vegetable mould with which this globe is overspread, and the removal of which would be the covering of our fields with sterility, consists of loose materials, easily washed away by the rains, and continually carried down by the rivers to the sea. And, nevertheless, though there is this rapid and ongoing waste, a waste which seems sufficient, of it

self, to destroy in a few years the soil, there is no sensible diminution in the layers of mould; but the soil remains the same, or nearly the same, in quantity; and must have done so, ever since this earth became the home of animal or vegetable life. And we know, therefore, that there must be causes at work which continually furnish a supply just equal to the waste of the soil. We know that God, wonderful in his forethought and contrivance, must have arranged a system of mechanical and chemical agencies, through whose operations the ravages of the flood and storm should be carefully repaired: and we find accordingly, that, whilst the soil is swept away, there goes on continually, through the action of the elements, a breaking up and pounding even of the hardest rocks, and that thus there is strewed upon the earth's surface by the winds, or brought down in the sediments of mountain torrents, a fresh deposit in the room of the displaced and far-scattered covering.

Now it is only necessary to allude to such an arrangement in the material world, and you summon forth the admiration and applause of contemplative minds. It is a thing so surprising, that the waste and loss, which the most careless must observe, should be continually and exactly repaired, though by agencies whose workings we can scarcely detect, that the bare mention of the fact elicits, on all sides, a confession, that creative wisdom and might distance immeasurably the stanchest of our searchings. But we think that, in the spiritual economy, we have something, analogous indeed, but still more beautiful as an arrangement. The winds of passion, and the floods of temptation, pass fiercely over the soil of the heart, displacing often and scattering that mould which has been broken up by the ploughshare of the Gospel. But God's promise is, that he will not suffer believers "to be tempted above that they are able;" 1 Cor. 10: 13; and thus, though the soil for a while be disturbed, it is not, as in the material system, carried altogether away, but soon resettles, and is again fit for the husbandman. But this is not all. Every overcome temptation, ministering, as it must do, to faith, and hope, and patience, is virtually an assault on the

« НазадПродовжити »