Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

been guilty and has been forgiven; reminded till he feels-so bitter is the obligation made-that he had rather not have been forgiven. And, indeed, that is not forgiveness at all. Mercy is not mercy when it remembers that it has been merciful. Many phrases of the prophets dwell on this, as part of the essence of God's mercy. "As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us."

Mercifulness, then, is a quality of the whole nature; a certain soft, sweet, tender, gentle, gracious atmosphere in which the whole man lives and breathes; in which he continually acts toward injury and wrong; and under its warm and sunny rays injury and wrong melt away day by day, like icebergs that come floating down into the tropical stream. And those are blest who have it. They live in soft sunshine of their own making, and in it all the simple charities of life, which are like the com-" mon flowers that adorn and make sweet the woods and fields, flourish until the whole world rejoices in the life of those who live by mercy. And their speech is delightful as the songs of birds, and their daily acts like the soft murmur of such streams as gently flow through meadows. In all this inward beauty of soul they are blest indeed, for mercy blesses him who gives it.

II. THE REWARD.

"For they shall obtain mercy." "What!" men say, "am I to be merciful in order that I may obtain mercy? Do I want a reward for doing good? Then it is a selfish effort, after all, and Christ puts it on a selfish ground!" It is almost fashionable now to make this accusation against the teaching of Christ; and no accusation can be more foolish. It is an accusation which partly arises from the use of the word "reward," which is taken to mean something given as a favor, not necessarily connected with the work done. The proper word would be fruit at least until we allot to the word "reward" its true meaning in the spiritual life-the exa result of the work done. Such is the

He

meaning Christ would have given to it. If ever there was a spirit and an intellect on earth that had a reverence for law, it was Jesus Christ, and He laid down the laws of the spiritual world— that is, He declared in words things that were constant in that world. was the preacher of a strict Science of Religion. And He did not mean here that a man was to be merciful for the sake of obtaining mercy from God, but that, if he were merciful, he would, as a necessary result, obtain mercy; and that he would be blessed because he was merciful, and because he obtained it. Each tree of goodness produces its own fruit, after its own kind. What a man sowed within he reaped within, and as certainly as, in the outward world, wheat produced wheat, and hemlock hemlock. A special grace practised produced its own special state of spirit, and that was its reward - its fruit, as I should call it: but the reward was necessarily and lawfully connected with it. And mercy was the reward of mercy. Those who gave mercy got

mercy.

And now, to enforce this further: Do the unmerciful obtain mercy from God? No; and I strengthen the law that the merciful obtain mercy by showing that the unmerciful cannot obtain it. Cursed are the unmerciful, for they shall obtain unmercifulness, is a law just as true as the other.

And if you call it selfish to live in mercy, to pursue it with the purpose of obtaining more mercy inwardly, with the desire to be more at one with the everlasting mercy of God-if that, in your eyes, can be called a selfish effort -why, then, Heaven have mercy on your intellect!

THE GLAD FAREWELLS. --There is yet time for all of us to make many hearts glad. Among all the farewells that are sad, let us scatter a few with glad hearts. Let us say good-by to selfishness, to unkindness, to bitter words, to evil thoughts, and let us welcome, with never a farewell, the dawn and day of charity and love. -Anon.

THE SPIRIT GLORIFYING JESUS. BY C. E. W. DOBBS, D.D., IN THE VINE STREET BAPTIST CHURCH, MADISON, INDIANA.

He shall glorify Me.-John xvi: 14. OUR text presents, very tersely, the mission of the Holy Spirit: "He shall glorify Me." So in chapter xv: 26: "He shall testify of Me." This is the grand purpose of the coming of the promised One. Dying under the ban of his countrymen; dying as a condemned evil-doer; "numbered with the transgressors;" to unbelieving Jew and mocking Gentile the name of Jesus was the synonym of imposture and "foolishness." But the coming Spirit of truth would so testify to His veracity and worth that He would be vindicated and glorified.

I. The Spirit glorified Jesus by guiding the disciples into the fullness of the truth concerning His divinity. In revealing truth, God has ever adapted His method and substance to the capacity and necessity of His people. Even the great Teacher taught as the disciples were "able to bear it." Ever has there been a "progress of doctrine" in the school of heaven. The promised Spirit was to "guide into all truth." While our Lord was with them they knew Him not in the fullness of His divinity. They, indeed, "beheld His glory." They hailed Him as the "Son of God," wonderfully endued with power from on high; yet they never fully grasped the grand truth of His essential divinity. He must be "glorified "before all the beauty of the Lord could flash into their hearts. The Spirit must come to glorify Him by guiding them into the fullness of doctrine concerning the Son of God. They were as those entering upon an unknown territory. They know not its scenes of historic interest, its landscapes of exquisite beauty. Some competent guide must direct. The disciples had but crossed the border of the territory of divine truth.

In this guidance our Lord promised: "He shall take of mine and shall de

clare it unto you. All things whatso

ever the Father hath are mine." How little did they yet know of the mystery of these words! But, taught by the Spirit, they came to know the glory of their Lord, and to worship Him in the fullness of His eternal fellowship with His Father, as "God over all, blessed forever."

[ocr errors]

II. The Spirit glorified our Lord in the work of the apostles. Never was so glorious a mission given unto men as that to which the disciples were called. How sublime the words of the risen Savior: Ye shall receive power when the Holy Spirit is come upon you; and ye shall be my witnesses, both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth." (Acts i: 8.) Witnesses to the glory of Jesus! Everywhere they were to tell men about Jesus; everywhere they were to proclaim His "sufferings, and the glory that should follow." So we find them ever, under the Spirit's guidance, fulfilling their mission, glorifying their Lord. On the first day of Pentecost, after they were filled with the Spirit, the burden of their testimony was the glory of Jesus. When, at the gate Beautiful, the lame man was made to leap in the vigor of his divinely-given strength, Peter and John took the crown of applause tendered them by the admiring multitude, and placed it on the head of Jesus. So, before the council: "Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said unto them, Ye rulers of the people, be it known unto you all, that in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even in Him doth this man stand here before you whole." (Acts iv: 8-10.) Thus, everywhere, the Spirit glorified Jesus in the ministry of the apostles.

*

III. The Spirit glorified Jesus by ever guiding the penitent to Him as the one only Savior. The "baptism in the Holy Spirit" that special and extraordinary inspiration whereby the soul was miraculously endowed-was peculiar to the apostles and the apostolic age. We may not claim that now; but the convicting, regenerating, and sanctifying

In

mission of the Spirit is continuous and conterminous with the Christian dispensation. And in His blessed agency the Spirit yet glorifies our Lord. regeneration He humbles the soul by convicting of sin; shows to the awakened conscience the sinner's carnal depravity and guilt; reveals his wretchedness and helplessness as lost. When these lessons, honestly received in the heart, have awakened genuine penitence, the Spirit guides to the cross, easts the soul at the feet of Jesus, and reveals Him as the sinner's Friendglorifies Him as the Prince and Savior who giveth remission of sins.

IV. The Spirit glorifies Jesus by ever presenting Him as the model and inspiration of the Christian life. The Spirit sanctifies the believer, as well as regenerates the sinner. In carrying forward that process of sanctification, He ever holds before the eye of the child of grace the holy life of our Lord. Paul assures us (Rom. viii: 29) that the glorious end of God's predestinating grace is that all who love Him may be "conformed to the image of His Son." "We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory by the Spirit." (2 Cor. iii: 18.) So Peter sets before us the two parallel lines along which our sanctification proceeds: "Grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now and forever." (2 Peter iii: 18.)

In this last discourse our Lord said to His disciples: "Herein is My Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit." Even so do we glorify our Master when we bring forth the fruits of the Spirit“love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, meekness, temperance." (Gal. v: 22.)

BEAUTIES HIDDEN IN TEXTS.-Texts have been compared to those flints which, when struck open by the hammer, reveal a Drusic cavity full of crystals of the color of amethyst-" purple with such a dawn as never was on land or a."-Canon Farrar

EARNEST EXPOSTULATION.

BY REV. C. H. SPURGEON, IN THE METROPOLITAN TABERNACLE, LONDON.

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.

I WILL give nothing for that preaching that is like the sheet-lightning, flaming over a broad expanse, but altogether harmless. The apostle fixes his eye on a single person who had condemned others for transgressions in which he himself indulged; one who did not place his candle on his table to light his own room, but held it out at the door, to inspect therewith his neighbors who passed by. He thinks he shall escape in the future, and so despises the present goodness and longsuffering of the Most High.

Let me speak to thee, unregenerate man, of

I. THE GOODNESS OF GOD WHICH THOU HAST EXPERIENCED.

1. In temporal things. You have, perhaps, been prospered above your fellows. God has granted you wealth and health. You are happy in your wife and children. A thousand evils have been kept from you.

2. In spiritual things. You are in the very focus of Christian light. The Word of God is on your table; you hear the earnest preaching of the Gospel. A tender conscience makes your road to perdition peculiarly hard. The Spirit has so striven with you that you were at times almost ready to drop into the Savior's arms.

3. He has been forbearing and longsuffering for your sins. Forbearance has to do with the magnitude of sin; longsuffering, with the multiplicity of it. Many have been snatched from vice only to return to its deep ditch of filthiness. They have trembled on the brink of death, yet God has permitted them to recover strength. They slight His love, yet He perseveres in it. How many years you have been heaping up the loads of transgession! Yet here

you are still, on praying ground and pleading terms with God.

Think, also, who and what God is, who displays this long-suffering. Think of His goodness: why should you provoke Him? Think of His omniscience: every transgression is committed in His very presence. Think of how powerful He is your wicked heart would cease to beat if He should withdraw His power. Think of His purity: sin is much more intolerable to Him than to us.

II. THE SIN OF WHICH THOU ART SUSPECTED.

Some despise God's goodness, forbearance, and long-suffering, because

1. They never even gave a thought to it. God has given you life, and indulged you with kindness; yet it has never occurred to you that this patience is worthy of the smallest thanks.

You have been of no service to your Maker, nor even thought of being of service to Him. Others have, perhaps, thought of it, but never meditated thereon.

2. Because they imagine God does not take any great account of what they do. So long as they avoid gross and open sin, they think it of light consequence not to love God.

3. They think the threatenings of God will never be fulfilled. They think, because the blow is long delayed, it never will

come.

III. THE KNOWLEDGE OF WHICH THOU ARE FORGETFUL.

The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance—

All

1. By giving opportunity to repent. these years have been given you, that you might turn to God: yet you are spared only to multiply your transgressions.

2. By suggestions to repent. Life and death, heaven and hell, call upon you so to do. Every page of the Bible, every sermon, calls you to repent. Nature is full of voices warning you.

3. By leading to repentance. His mercies lead you. If they fail, He turns you by admonition. He leads you; hence He will help you, and will accept your repentance.

THE MEDIATORSHIP OF CHRIST. BY REV. A. HUELSTER, PH.D., EVANGELICAL CHURCH, JOLIET, ILL.

For there is one God, and one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus; who gave Himself a ransom for all.-1 Tim. ii: 5, 6.

I. The mediatorship of Christ is conditioned upon the uni'y of God.

1. "There is one God." The great error of the pagan world is its polytheism. If there be a God at all, He can be but one. A plurality of gods would imply a diversity, an antagonism of governorship; there would be hostility, war, among them. But, "a house divided against itself cannot stand." There could not possibly be any unity of action regarding the whole human race.

2. It is certainly marvelous, in view of this fact, that men are so prone to make unto themselves many gods. Heathen nations number their deities by the hundred and thousand. The besetting sin, even of Israel, was idolworship-a "going after strange gods." And how many there are to-day who set their affections upon a thousand other things, thus making idols of them, but not on God, to whom alone they owe supreme obedience and love!

II. It is conditioned upon the unity of the human race.

1. If there were many gods there would be many races. The nations of antiquity had each their national gods, in contradistinction to those of others. (See 2 Kings, 18). Each nation would have to obtain special terms of agreement with its peculiar deities. There could be no atonement of universal significance.

2. Therefore, the great stress to be laid upon the generic unity of mankind from a Biblical standpoint. (See, e. g., Rom. v: 12; Acts xvii: 24.) There is one God, and all men are His offspring. Consequently, as sin and death entered by one man, so the free gift of grace and life from God can extend to all by Jesus Christ.

However depraved pagan nations may be, even the most degraded Bushmen

of Africa are members with us of the same human family. As regards the light thrown upon this question at least, we welcome the theory of evolution. All are circumscribed by the love of God, and included in the plan of redemption. What an incentive to missionary endeavor, Christian activity to rescue the perishing!

THE LORD'S SUPPER: A EUCHARIST.
BY THE REV. DAVID GREGG, IN THIRD RE-
FORMED PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH (SCOTCH
COVENANTER), NEw York.

Jesus took bread, and blessed, and brake it.
⚫ And He took the cup, and when
He had given thanks, He gave it to them.
-Mark xiv: 22, 23.

THE blessing of the bread and the giving of thanks over the cup, in the Lord's Supper, are similar acts. This is evident from the words of Paul. In 1 Corinthians x: 16, he calls the cup over which thanksgiving is offered, "the cup of blessing": "The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ?" If this be true, then Jesus offered two thanksgivings at the institution of the Lord's Supper-one over the bread and one Over the cup. In using the Passover wine, which stood as the index of the productiveness of the land, the Hebrews were vehement and prolonged in their expressions of gratitude and Thanksgiving to God. Jesus, in building up the Lord's Supper out of the Passover, carried the thanksgiving of he old ordinance into the new. Because of His emphatic twofold thanksgiving, the Lord's Supper was known to the early Church by the name of the Eucharist-i. e., "the Thanksgiving." The term Eucharist, which means "thanksgiving," is the Greek word Anglicized. As the Lord's Supper was a vast advance upon the Passover, the thanksgiving of Christ was a great remove beyond the thanksgiving of the Hebrews, He saw higher things; He

SAW

grander purposes of God. They Saw Canaan, He saw heaven. They saw thest, He saw the future.

not forget that Christ gives character to the ordinances which He institutes, and through which He communicates to His people His thoughts, His grace, His hopes, His feelings, His spiritHimself. Was the Lord's Supper a thanksgiving to Him? Then it must be a thanksgiving to His people who sit down with Him in this ordinance and receive of His fullness.

We want to look at the Lord's Supper as an ordinance of thanksgiving, that we may have greater desire and pleasure and profit in its celebration. God unfolds to us the different attributes of this beautiful ordinance, that we may be attracted to it. He means every attribute to be a persuasive argument enforcing obedience to the command: "This do in remembrance of Me."

I. IT MUST BE A THANKSGIVING ORDINANCE IN ORDER TO REPRESENT ARIGHT THE FEAST WHICH IT SUPERSEDES.

It supersedes the Passover. Why? Not because it is in contrast with the Passover: not for the reason that one man is made to supersede another in office, because his predecessor was wrong and an opposite policy must be followed. The Lord's Supper supersedes the Passover because it is in the same line and is an advance in the same direction. It comes in under the necessity of growth, just as the fruit follows the blossom. It is not without design that the Passover cup and bread are made the cup and bread of the Lord's Supper. There is a unity in the two ordinances. They are both social in character, and emblematical, in a large measure, of the same doctrines. They are both commemorative. The advance in the execution of God's great purposes, and the entrance of man upon the grander realities of an accomplished redemption, require an enlargement of the ordinance, and demand that the typo-symbolical Passover give place to the purely symbolical Lord's Supper. It is evident that the spirit of the old ordinance must be carried into the new, developed and intensified.

What was the reigning spirit of the Let us Passover? Joy and thanksgiving. We

« ForrigeFortsett »