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BIBLE THOUGHTS 
 
 / OP 
 
 REV. HENRY 
 
 MINISTER OF CAMDEN CHAPEL, CAMBERWELL, NEAR LONDON. 
 
 SELECTED FROM HIS PUBLISHED DISCOURSES. 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THB 
 
 AMERICAN TRACT SOCIETY, 
 
 150 NASSAU-STREET, NEW-YORK. 
 
 U. Eaoakaw, riiiuor. 
 

INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 The author of the Discourses from which 
 these Selections have been made, is esteemed 
 one of the most able and eloquent of the Evan- 
 gelical Clergy of the Church of England. He ia 
 constantly listened to with breathless attention, 
 by crowded and intelligent audiences; and 
 though sometimes, in the fervor of a warm 
 imagination and glowing religious affections, 
 he may be considered as somewhat transcend- 
 ing the limits of a pure and chastened style, it 
 is believed all who possess any measure of that 
 spirit by which the preacher appears to be ac- 
 tuated, must admire and be profited by his pul- 
 pit efforts. 
 
 No doubt those who have the means of ac- 
 cess to the original Sermons, will desire to pe- 
 ruse them at large as they were preached by 
 this eminent minister of Christ ; but it has been 
 
4 INTRODUCTORY NOTICE. 
 
 thought, that a collection of a portion of his 
 beautifully expressed thoughts on particular to- 
 pics would be an acceptable present to those 
 who may not be thus favored, and that the pas- 
 sages which are here presented are calculated 
 to promote the interests of evangelical truth 
 and righteousness. 
 
 May the Divine blessing attend their perusal, 
 and make them instrumental in exciting in- 
 creased reverence for the Holy Scriptures as a 
 Divine revelation, love to God their Author, 
 faith in the adorable Redeemer, attachment to 
 the great doctrines of salvation, and a sacred 
 regard to,that holiness of heart and life, which 
 is the only decisive evidence of their sanctified 
 
 impression on the soul of the believer. 
 
 J. M. 
 
CONTENTS, 
 
 L The Bible page 11 
 
 2. Value of the Bible in reference to the present life. . . .12 
 
 3. Sufficiency of the Evidences of Christianity, . . . .13 
 
 4. Past and present Evidences of Christianity compared, . . 15 
 
 5. Self-evidencing power of Scripture, 19 
 
 6. Testimony of Experience to the truth of Scripture, . . .21 
 
 7. Testimony of uneducated believer to the truth of Scripture, . 22 
 
 8. The poor man's evidence of Christianity, ..... 24 
 
 9. Testimony of a Deist to the Bible, 28 
 
 10. The Bible emphatically the poor man's book, .... 29 
 
 11. Language of Scripture, 32 
 
 12. Apocryphal writings, ........ 33 
 
 13. Reason, 30 
 
 14. Credulity, 37 
 
 15. Moral and intellectual benefits of the Bible, .... 41 
 
 16. The Bible a promoter of social happiness, . . .47 
 
 17. Difficulties of Scripture, 49 
 
 18. Apostolic Epistles, . . ... . . . * . .53 
 
 19. Unavoidable that there should be things in Scripture hard to 
 
 be understood,' 58 
 
 30. What we know not now we shall know hereafter, . . .57 
 SI. Immortality of the Soul clearly discovered only by the Gospel, 59 
 
 22. Atheist and worldly-minded man compared, . . . .61 
 
 23. Gospel addresses itself to the fears of men, . • • .63 
 
 24. Aduptedneu of the Gospel to the Poor 6* 
 
 1 
 
 * 
 
6 CONTENTS. 
 
 25. Neglect of the Gospel , page 66 
 
 26. Ingratitude of rejecting the Gospel, 67 
 
 27. Awfulncss of being deprived of the Gospel, . . . .69 
 
 23. Advantages of religious instruction, 70 
 
 29. Cautions against scepticism, 74 
 
 SO. Preaching, . ... 7 75 
 
 31. Ineffectiveness of Sermons, 76 
 
 32. Parable of the Sower, 78 
 
 33. Preaching always profitable to the right-minded hearer, . . 79 
 
 34. Effects of a view of the works of creation, . . . .80 
 
 35. Heathen before Christ, 82 
 
 36. Universal acknowledgment of Deity, . . . . .83 
 
 37. Unity of the Godhead, 84 
 
 38. Persons in the Trinity, 84 
 
 39. Mystery, 87 
 
 40. God's Eternity, • 87 
 
 41. God's Omnipresence, . 88 
 
 42. God's Omnipresence wonderful, . 90 
 
 43. Disregard of God's Omniscience, 92 
 
 44. Foreknowledge of God, 94 
 
 45. Justice of God manifested in the visible creation, . § . - 98 
 
 46. Justice of God fully proved only by revelation, ... 99 
 
 47. The love of God fully demonstrated only by Revelation, . . 102 
 
 48. Tenderness of God, 105 
 
 49. Mistaken notions of God's love, . .... 106 
 
 50. Providence of God 107 
 
 51. No man independent, 112 
 
 52. God's special Providence, . . . . 113 
 
 53. God's attributes bind him to punish the Guilty, . . 114 
 
 54. God the Universal Proprietor, . . -115 
 
 55. Dependence of nil upon God. . . .118 
 
 \ 
 
CONTENTS. 7 
 
 56. God's goodness in providing for the Poor, . . . . page 117 
 £7. Claims of God, 119 
 
 58. God all in all 121 
 
 59. God the Founder of his church, . . . . # . .123 
 
 60. Human Misery, 124 
 
 61. Depravity and inability of Man, 126 
 
 62. Redemption, * ... 128 
 
 63. Fullness of Redemption, 130 
 
 64. Enmity between Man and Satan, . . . . . . 132 
 
 65. Conflicts of the Church with Satan 134 
 
 66. Salvation— its greatness, 137 
 
 67. Christ the image of the Invisible God, 139 
 
 68. All things created by and for Christ, 143 
 
 69. Christ's Humiliation, 144 
 
 70. Humanity of Christ, 145 
 
 71. Poverty of Christ, . .147 
 
 72. Christ our pattern in humility, 150 
 
 73. Purity of Christ's character the cause of his rejection, . .151 
 
 74. Christ humbling himself to the death of the Cross, . . .154 
 
 75. Christ's Victory over Satan, 157 
 
 76. Christ the Resurrection and the Life, 159 
 
 77. Intercessorship of Christ, 160 
 
 78. Christ both Redeemer and Judge, 162 
 
 79. Mediatorial Kingdom of Christ, 166 
 
 80. Mediatorial Kingdom of Christ not Eternal, .... 171 
 
 81. Believer's experience of Christ's sufficiency, . . . .173 
 
 82. Merit, 175 
 
 83. Men's disposition to claim Merit, 177 
 
 84. Self-Righteousness, 178 
 
 85. Angels cannot Merit, 182 
 
 86. Man's Works not Meritorious, . . . . . . . 185 
 
8 CONTENTS. 
 
 87. The Holy Spirit, page 186 
 
 88. Universality of the strivings of the Holy Spirit, . . .189 
 
 89. Danger of Stifling Conviction, 193 
 
 90. Repentance, 195 
 
 91. Repentance — its proper place, 198 
 
 92. Repentance not Meritorious, ....... 200 
 
 93. Conviction and Conversion, 201 
 
 91. Faith, 203 
 
 95. Experience the Touchstone of Faith, 204 
 
 96. Justification, . .205 
 
 97. Why is the justified Man not at once removed to Glory ? . . 205 
 
 98. Believers triumph over Satan, 206 
 
 99. Faith of experienced Christians proof against the assaults of 
 
 Infidelity, . . 209 
 
 100. Believers the salt of the earth 212 
 
 101. Hope', 214 
 
 102. Hope the Anchor of the Soul, 215 
 
 103. The Anchor within the Vail, 217 
 
 104. Hope the Anchor of the Christian's soul against false doctrine, 220 
 
 105. Hope the Anchor of the Christian's Soul under trouble, . . 222 
 
 106. Assurance, 224 
 
 107. Election, 226 
 
 108. Election and Free Agency, 227 
 
 109. Abuso of the doctrine of Election, 230 
 
 110. Case of Pharaoh applied to the Impenitent, . . . 233 
 
 111. Freeness of Grace no encouragement to Sin, . . . .237 
 
 112. "Whatsoever a man so weth that shall he reap," . . .238 
 
 113. The Lord's Supper, 240 
 
 114. The Resurrection of the Body not a doctrine of Natural Religion, 243 
 
 115. Resurrection of the body— Christ its Author, . . . 246 
 
 116. The Believer as«ured of his Resurrection* .... .247 
 
CONTENTS. 9 
 
 117. Resurrection of the body, its wonderful character, . page 249 
 
 118. Heaven, 252 
 
 119. Happiness of Heaven, 255 
 
 120. Holiness of Heaven, 257 
 
 121. Final Rewards proportioned to the Works of the Believer, . 253 
 
 122. Future Punishment, 260 
 
 123. Fearful doom of the Wicked, . . . 262 
 
 124. Piety a strengthener and enlarger of the Mind, . . .264 
 
 125. A National Wickedness, its effects on the Righteous, . . 267 
 
 126. The Christian's feelings at the aboundings of Wickedness, . 269 
 
 127. Christian zeal increased by the prevalence of Wickedness, . 270 
 
 128. Christian Influence, , ... 272 
 
 129. Strive, . . .273 
 
 130. Parable of the two Sons, 275 
 
 131. Present rewards of Well-doing, 277 
 
 132. Ambition, 279 
 
 133. Men's abuse of the Divine Forbearance, ; 262 
 
 134. Warning, 284 
 
 135. Consideration, ........... 285 
 
 136. Want of Consideration, 286 
 
 137. Futurity, ........... 287 
 
 138. Socinianism, ■ „ 290 
 
 139. Backslider, ' . . . . .290 
 
 140. Dauger of the removal of the Candlestick 292 
 
 141. Believer profited by the experience of others, . . . 295 
 
 142. Religious Biography, 297 
 
 143. Inequality of worldly Condition, 299 
 
 144. " The rich and the poor meet together," . . . .301 
 
 145. Existence of Poverty promotive of social Virtues, . . . 302 
 
 146. Pious Tover ty, .' 305 
 
 147. Spiritual advantages of Poverty, . . . » .307 
 
10 CONTENTS. 
 
 148. Industry, . page 310 
 
 149. Popular Education, / .316 
 
 150. Afflictions of the Righteous, . 317 
 
 151. Consolations of Religion on the loss of Friends, . . 319 
 J 52. Persecution, 323 
 
 153. Trials of the Christian, . 324 
 
 154. Death-bed of the Righteous, 323 
 
 155. Parents, 320 
 
 156. The Young, . 331 
 
 157. Missions, 333 
 
 158. Past and present Times, . 335 
 
 159. Insanity, 330 
 
 160. Controversy, 337 
 
 161. Memory 339 
 
 162. The Jews, ..341 
 
 163. Christ's denunciation of the Jews, . . . 347 
 
 164. Christ's lamentation over Jerusalem, . ' . . . 350 
 
 165. Conversion of the Jews 353 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 1. The Bible. 
 
 We are bound to sit down to the study of 
 Scripture with a meek and chastened understand- 
 ing. We tell the young more especially, who, 
 in the pride of an undisciplined intellect, would 
 turn to St. Paul as they turn to Bacon or Locke, 
 arguing that what was written for man must be 
 comprehensible by man — we tell them that no- 
 thing is excellent out of its place 5 and that, in the 
 examination of Scripture, then only does reason 
 show herself noble, when, conscious of the pre- 
 sence of a king, the knee is bent, and the head 
 uncovered. The docility and submissiveness of a 
 child alone befit the student of the Bible ; and if 
 we would not have the whole volume darkened, 
 its simplest truths eluding the grasp of our un- 
 derstanding ; or gaining, at least, no hold on our 
 affections, we must lay aside the feelings which 
 we carry into the domains of science and philo- 
 sophy ; not arming ourselves with a chivalrous re- 
 solve to conquer ; but with one which it is a thou- 
 sand-fold harder either to form or execute, to 
 yield. 
 
12 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 2. Value of the Bible in reference to the 
 present life. 
 
 If it be certain — certain on the confession of its 
 enemies — that a pure and high morality is to be 
 gathered only from the pages of the Bible, what 
 an advantage is there in the possession of the 
 Scriptures, even if death were the termination 
 of human existence. Take away the Bible from 
 a nation, so that there should no longer be the 
 exhibition and inculcation of its precepts, and 
 there would be a gradual, yea, and a rapid, intro- 
 duction of false principles and spurious theories, 
 which would pave the way for a total degeneracy 
 of manners. You would quickly find that honesty 
 and integrity were not held in their former re- 
 pute, but had given place to fraud and extortion ; 
 that there was an universal setting up of the idol 
 of selfishness, before which all that is generous, 
 and disinterested, and philanthropic, would be 
 forced to do homage; that there was attached 
 little or none of that sacredness to domestic re- 
 lationships which had heretofore been the chief 
 charm of families ; and that there was departing 
 from our institutions all that is glorious in liberty, 
 and from our firesides all that gives them their 
 attractiveness. Whatever had been introduced 
 and matured by the operations of Christianity, 
 would, in process of time, decay and disappear, 
 
BTBLE THOUGHTS. 13 
 
 were those operations suspended ; and since we 
 can confidently trace to the influences of true re- 
 ligion, our advancement in all that concerns the 
 public security, and the private tranquillity 5 wo 
 can with equal confidence affirm our speedy re- 
 lapse, if these influences were suddenly with- 
 drawn. 
 
 3. Sufficiency of the Evidences of Christianity. 
 
 We are never afraid of subjecting the external 
 evidences of Christianity to the most sifting pro- 
 cesses which our adversaries can invent. We do 
 not receive a religion without proof; and oifr 
 proof we will bring to the best touch- stones of 
 truth. Christianity is not the grave, but the field 
 of vigorous inquiry. And we see not, therefore, 
 why scepticism should claim to itself a mono- 
 poly of intellect. The high road to reputation 
 for talent seems to be boldness in denying 
 Christianity. 
 
 But evidences are not to be set aside by a sneer. 
 We will take our stand as on a mount thrown up 
 in the broad waste of many generations 5 and one 
 century after another shall struggle forth from 
 the sepulchres of the past ; and each, as its mo- 
 narchs, and its warriors, and its priests walk 
 dimly under review, shall lay down a tribute at 
 the feet of Christianity. We will have the volume 
 of history spread out before us, and bid science 
 2 
 
14 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 arrange her manifold developements, and seek 
 the bones of martyrs in the east and in the west, 
 and tread upon battle plains with an empire's dust 
 sepulchred beneath ; but on whatsoever we gaze, 
 and whithersoever we turn, the evidences of our 
 religion shall look nobler and wax mightier. It 
 were the work of a life time to gain even cursory 
 acquaintance with the proofs which substantiate 
 the claims of Christianity. It would beat down 
 the energies of the most gifted spirit to require 
 it to search out and concentrate whatsoever at- 
 tests the truth of the Gospel — for the mountains 
 of the earth have a voice, and the cities, and the 
 valleys, and the tombs ; and the sail must be un- 
 furled to bear the inquirer over every ocean, and 
 the wings of the morning must carry him to the 
 outskirts of infinite space. We will not concede 
 that a more overwhelming demonstration w r ould 
 be given to the man who should stand side by 
 side with a messenger from the invisible world, 
 and hear from celestial lips the spirit-stirring 
 news of redemption, than is actually to be at- 
 tained by him who sits down patiently and as- 
 siduously, and plies, with all the diligence of an 
 unwearied laborer in the mine of information, at 
 accumulating and arranging the evidences of 
 Christianity. So that we may well think ourselves 
 warranted in contending that God has marvel- 
 lously prepared for the faith of educated men. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 15 
 
 Scepticism, whatever its boasts, walks to its con- 
 clusions over a fettered reason and a forgotten 
 creation. And any man who will study carefully, 
 and think candidly, shall rise from his inquiry a 
 believer in revelation. 
 
 4. Past and present Evidences of Christianity * 
 compared. 
 
 Men are often inclined to compare the reli- 
 gious advantages of the earlier and later days of 
 Christianity, and to uphold the superiority of the 
 past to the present. It is imagined, that, to have 
 been numbered amongst the living, when Jesus 
 sojourned upon earth; to have been permitted to 
 behold the miracles which he wrought, and to 
 hear from his own lips the truths of redemption ; 
 must have been a privilege ampler in dimensions 
 than any which falls to men of later generations. 
 And from such imagining there will spring often 
 a kind of excusing, whether of infidelity or of 
 lukewarmness ; our not believing at all, or our 
 believing only languidly, being accounted for on 
 the principle, that the evidence afforded is far 
 less than might have been vouchsafed. 
 
 Now we believe this view to be grounded alto- 
 gether on mistake. If there be advantage on one 
 side as contrasted with the other, we are per 
 suaded that it lies with the present generation, 
 and not with the past. It is true that the exhibi- 
 
16 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 tion of miraculous energies, which was made in 
 the cities of Judea, gave what ought to have 
 been overwhelming attestation to the divinity of 
 the mission of Jesus. If Ave possessed not the 
 records of history to assure us of the contrary, 
 we might be disposed to conclude, with much 
 appearance of fairness, that they who beheld 
 diseases scattered, and death mastered by a word, 
 must have instantly followed Him who wrought 
 out the marvels. Yet we may easily certify our- 
 selves, that the Jew was occupied by prejudices 
 which must have more than counterbalanced his 
 peculiar advantages. He had before him, so to 
 speak, a sketch of his Messiah, whose accuracy 
 he never thought of questioning ; and if a claim- 
 ant of the Messiahship presented not the features 
 which were foremost in this sketch, then, almost 
 as a matter of course, his pretensions were re- 
 jected with scorn. It is nothing to say that an 
 cient prophecy, more thoroughly investigated, 
 might have taught the Jew the error of expecting, 
 on the first advent of Messiah, a temporal prince 
 and deliverer. The error was so ingrained into 
 his spirit that it was easier for him to refer mira- 
 cles to the power of the evil one, than to suspect 
 that he harbored a false expectation. So that, 
 when we compare our own circumstances with 
 those of the Jew, it behoves us to remember, 
 that, if we have not his advantages in supernar 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 17 
 
 tural manifestations, neither have we his disad- 
 vantages in national prepossessions. We are not 
 to argue the effect produced upon him, from that 
 which might now be produced upon us by the 
 working of miracles. In his case every feeling 
 which results from early association, or from the 
 business of education, was enlisted against Chris- 
 tianity ; whereas, it may almost be affirmed, that, 
 in our case, every such feeling is on the side of 
 Christianity. If, therefore, we allowed that the 
 testimony, which we possess to the truth of our 
 religion, wears not outwardly the same mighti- 
 ness as that afforded in the days of the Saviour, 
 we should still contend that the predisposing cir- 
 cumstances in our own case far more than com- 
 pensate the sensible witness in that of the Jew. 
 We may yet further observe, that not only are 
 our disadvantages less, but, on a stricter exami- 
 nation, our advantages will appear greater. We 
 may think there would have been a vast advan- 
 tage in seeing Jesus work miracles ; but, after 
 all, we could only have believed that he actually 
 worked them. And if we can once certify our- 
 selves of this fact, we occupy, in the strictest 
 sense, the same position as though we had been 
 spectators of the wonder. It would be altogether 
 childish to maintain, that I may not be just as 
 certain of a thing which I have not seen, as of 
 another which I have seen. Who is, in any de- 
 2* 
 
18 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 gree, less confident that there was once such a 
 king as Henry the Eighth on the throne of these 
 realms, than that there is now such a king as 
 William the Fourth ] Or is there one of us who 
 thinks that he would have felt more sure of there 
 having been such a king as Henry the Eighth, 
 had he lived in the times of that monarch, in 
 place of the present 1 We hold then the supposi- 
 tion to be indefensible, that the spectator of a mi- 
 racle has necessarily an advantage over those 
 who only hear of that miracle. Let there be clear 
 and unequivocal testimony to the fact of the mi- 
 racle having been wrought, and the spectator and 
 the hearer stand well nigh on a par. That there 
 should be belief in the fact, is the highest result 
 which can, in either case, be produced. But, as- 
 suredly, this result may as well be effected by the 
 power of authenticated witness, as by the ma- 
 chinery of our senses. And, without question, 
 the testimony to the truth of Christianity is of so 
 growing a character, and each age, as it rolls 
 away, pays in so large a contribution to the evi- 
 dences of faith, that it were easy to prove that 
 the men of the present generation gain, rather 
 than lose, by distance from the first erection of 
 the cross. It is saying but little to affirm that we 
 have as good grounds of persuasion that Jesus 
 came from God, as we should have had if per- 
 mitted to behold the mighty workings of his 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 19 
 
 power. We are bold to say that we have even 
 better grounds. The testimony of our senses, 
 however convincing for the moment, is of so 
 fleeting and unsubstantial a character, that, a year 
 or two after we had seen a miracle, we might be 
 brought to question whether there had not been 
 jugglery in the worker, or credulity in ourselves. 
 If we found a nation up in arms, maintaining that 
 there might have been magic or trickery, but that 
 there had not been supernatural power ; we might, 
 perchance, be easily borne down by the outcry, if 
 the remembered witness of our eye-sight were 
 all to which appeal could be made. It is not diffi- 
 cult to begin to suspect ourselves in the wrong, 
 when we find no one willing to allow us in the 
 right. And we therefore maintain, that, living as 
 we do in a day when generation after generation 
 has sat in assize on Christianity, and registered a 
 verdict that it has God for its author, we possess 
 the very largest advantages over those who saw 
 with their own eyes what Jesus did, and heard 
 with their own ears what Jesus said. 
 
 5. Self 'evidencing power of Scripture. 
 
 We desire to fix the attention of the young on 
 what is called the self-evidencing power of Scrip- 
 ture. With all our desire that they should be 
 thoroughly masters of the external evidences of 
 
20 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Christianity, we are unspeakably more anxious 
 that they should labor to possess themselves of 
 the internal ; for, in searching after these, they 
 must necessarily study the Bible itself. If they 
 will learn to view the contents of Scripture as 
 themselves its credentials, we shall engage them 
 in the most hopeful of all studies, the study of 
 God's word as addressing itself to the heart, and 
 not merely to the head. For there may be an in- 
 tellectual theology ; religion may be reduced into 
 a science ; and the writers on the evidences, and 
 the commentators on the text of the Bible, may 
 just do for Christianity what the laborious and 
 the learned have done for various branches of na- 
 tural philosophy ; make truths bright rather than 
 sharp, clear to the understanding, but without 
 hold on the affections. And this is not the Chris- 
 tianity which we wish to find, the Christianity of 
 the man who can defeat a sceptic, and then lose 
 his soul. We would have him well-read — too 
 well-read he cannot be — in what has been written 
 in defence of the faith ; but, above all, we would 
 fasten him to the prayerful study of the sacred 
 volume itself; this will lead him to the hearing 
 God's voice in the Bible, and, until that is heard, 
 the best champion of truth may be far from the 
 kingdom of heaven. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 21 
 
 6. Testimony of Experience to the truth of 
 Scripture. 
 
 It must be acknowledged, in reference to the 
 way in which men reach their persuasion tliat 
 the Bible is God's word, that they, for the most 
 part, receive the Bible as inspired, long before 
 they can prove any thing in regard of its inspira- 
 tion. We put the Bible into the hands of our 
 children, as the word of the living God, and there- 
 fore demanding a reverence which can be claim- 
 ed by no other volume in the whole circle of au- 
 thorship. And our children grow up with what 
 might almost be called an innate persuasion of the 
 inspiration of Scripture; they are all but born 
 with the belief ; and they carry it with them to 
 riper years, rather as a received axiom, than as 
 a demonstrated verity. It is almost exclusively 
 on hearsay, if we may use the word, that the 
 Bible is taken as divine, and the Apocrypha 
 passed by as human; so that numbers, who 
 are perhaps strenuous for the right of private 
 judgment, do virtually, in the most important 
 matter, receive and reject on the sole authority 
 of the church. 
 
 But then, though it may thus be on hearsay 
 that they first receive the Bible as inspired, it is 
 not on hearsay that they continue to receive it 
 We speak now of those who have searched the 
 
22 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Scriptures for everlasting life, and who feel that 
 they have found therein a revelation of the alone 
 mode of forgiveness. We speak of those in whom 
 the word has ■* wrought effectually ;" and we con- 
 fidently affirm of them, that, though at one time 
 they believed in the inspiration of the canonical 
 Scriptures, because their parents taught it, or 
 their ministers maintained it, yet now are they 
 in possession of a personal, experimental, evi- 
 dence, which is thoroughly conclusive on this 
 fundamental point. 
 
 7. Testimony of uneducated believer to the truth 
 of Scripture. 
 
 We will give you what we reckon the history 
 of the uneducated believer, so far as his ac- 
 quaintance with revelation is concerned. He may 
 perhaps have been neglected in boyhood, so that 
 he has grown up in ignorance ; but he is visited 
 by the minister of God in some seasons of afflic- 
 tion, when the ruggedness of his nature is some- 
 what worn down by sorrow. The minister presses 
 upon him the study of the Bible, as of the word 
 of his Creator, assuring him that he will therein 
 find God's will, as revealed by his Spirit. The 
 cottager has undoubtedly heard of the Bible be 
 fore ; and it is no news to him, that it passes as 
 a more than human book. But he has never yet 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 23 
 
 given heed to what he heard $ the book has been 
 unopened, notwithstanding the high claims which 
 it was known to advance. But now, softened by 
 the minister's kindness, and moved by his state- 
 ments, he sets himself diligently to the perusal 
 of Scripture, and statedly attends its Sabbath ex- 
 positions. And thus, though he is acting only on 
 what he has heard, he brings himself under the 
 self-evidencing power of Scripture, that power 
 by which the contents of the Bible serve as its 
 credentials. And this self-evidencing power is 
 wonderfully great. The more than human know- 
 ledge which Scripture displays in regard of the 
 most secret workings of the heart ; the marvel- 
 lous and unerring precision with which the pro- 
 visions of the Gospel adapt themselves to the 
 known wants and disabilities of our nature ; the 
 constancy with which the promises and direc- 
 tions of holy writ, if put to the proof, are made 
 good in one's own case — these, and the like evi- 
 dences of the divine origin of the Bible, press 
 themselves quickly on the most illiterate student, 
 when he searches it in humility, hoping to find, 
 as he has been told that he shall, a message from 
 God which will guide him towards heaven. He 
 began on the testimony of another ; but, after a 
 while, he goes forward on his own testimony 
 And though he has not been sitting in judgment 
 on the credentials of Christianity, yet has he pos- 
 
24 EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sessed himself of its contents ; and on these he 
 has found so much of the impress, and from them 
 there has issued so much of the voice of Deity, 
 that he is as certified in his own mind, and on 
 grounds as satisfactory, of the inspiration of 
 Scripture, as any laborious and scientific inquireT 
 who has rifled the riches of centuries, and brought 
 them all. to do homage before our holy religion 
 God has no more given to the learned the mono > 
 poly of evidence, than to the wealthy the mono- 
 poly of benevolence. The poor man can exercise 
 benevolence, for the widow's two mites may out- 
 weigh the noble's coffers : and the poor man may 
 have an evidence that God is in the Bible, for it 
 may speak to his heart as no human book can. 
 
 8. The poor marCs evidence of Chj^isiianity. 
 
 There can be nothing more unjust than the 
 conclusion, that the poor man has no evidence 
 within reach, because he has not the external. 
 We will not allow that God has failed, in this 
 respect, to prepare for the poor. We will go into 
 the cottage of the poor disciple of Christ, and we 
 will say to him, "Why do you believe upon 
 Jesus 1 You know little or nothing about the wit- 
 ness of antiquity. You know little or nothing 
 about the completion of prophecy. You can 
 give me no logical, no grammatical, no historical 
 reasons for concluding the Bible to be, what it 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS, 25 
 
 professes itself, a revelation, made in early times, 
 of the will of the Almighty. Why then do you 
 believe upon Jesus 1 What grounds have you for 
 faith, what basis of conviction 1" 
 
 Now if the poor man lay bare his experience, 
 he will, probably, show how God hath prepared 
 for him, by giving such a reply as the following : 
 "I lived long unconcerned about the. soul. I 
 thought only on the pleasures of to-day : I cared 
 nothing for the worm which might gnaw me to- 
 morrow. I was brought however, by sickness, 
 or by disappointment, or by the death of the one 
 I best loved, or by a startling sermon, to fear that 
 all was not right between me and God. I grew 
 more and more anxious. Terrors haunted me by 
 day, and sleep went from my pillow by night. 
 At length I was bidden to look unto Jesus as 
 ' delivered for my offences, and raised again for 
 my justification.' Instantly I felt him to be ex- 
 actly the Saviour that I needed. Every want 
 found in him an immediate supply ; every fear a 
 cordial ; every wound a balm. And ever since, 
 the more I have read of the Bible, the more 
 have I found that it must have been written on 
 purpose for myself. It seems to know all my 
 cares, all my temptations 5 and it speaks so beau- 
 tifully a word in season, that he who wrote it 
 must, I think, have had me in his eye. Why do 
 I believe on Jesus ] Oh, I feelhim to be a divine 
 3 
 
26 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Saviour — that is my proof. Why do I believe the 
 Bible 1 I have found it to be God's word — there 
 is my witness." 
 
 We think, assuredly, that if you take the expe- 
 rience of the generality of christians, you will 
 iind that they do not believe without proof. We 
 again say that we cannot assent to the proposi- 
 tion, that the Christianity of our villages and 
 hamlets takes for granted the truth of the Bible, 
 and has no reason to give when that truth is 
 called in question. The peasant who, when the 
 hard toil of the day is concluded, will sit by his 
 fireside, and read the Bible with all the eagerness, 
 and all the confidence, of one who receives it, as 
 a message from God, has some better ground 
 than common report, or the tradition of his fore- 
 fathers, on which to rest his persuasion of the 
 divinity of the volume. The book speaks to him 
 with a force which he feels never could belong to 
 a mere human composition. There is drawn such 
 a picture of his own heart — a picture presenting 
 many features which he would not have disco- 
 vered, had they not been thus outlined, but which 
 he recognises as most accurate, the instant they 
 are exhibited — -that he can be sure that the 
 painter is none other but he who alone searches 
 the heart. The proposed deliverance agrees so 
 wonderfully, and so minutely, with his wants ; it 
 manifests- such unbounded and equal concern for 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 27 
 
 the honor of God, and the well-being of man ; it 
 provides, with so consummate a skill, that, whilst 
 the human race is redeemed, the divine attributes 
 shall be glorified ; that it were like telling him 
 that a creature spread out the firmament, and in- 
 laid it with worlds, to tell him that the proffered 
 salvation is the device of impostors, or the fig- 
 ment of enthusiasts. 
 
 Yea, and it is a growing and strengthening evi- 
 dence which God, of his goodness, has thus pre- 
 pared for the poor. Whensoever they obey a 
 direction of Scripture, and find the accompanying 
 promise fulfilled, this is a new proof that the di- 
 rection and the promise are from God. The book 
 tells them that blessings are to be sought and ob- 
 tained through the name of Christ. They ask and 
 they receive. What is this but a witness that 
 the book is divine 1 Would God give his sanc- 
 tion to a lie 1 The book assures them that the 
 Holy Spirit will gradually sanctify those who be- 
 lieve upon Jesus. They find the sanctification 
 following on the belief ; and does not this attest 
 the authority of the volume 1 The book declares 
 that "all things work together for good" to the 
 disciples of Jesus. They find that prosperity and 
 adversity, as each brings its trials, so each its les- 
 sons and supports ; and whilst God thus conti- 
 nually verifies a declaration, can they doubt that 
 he made it 1 And thus, day by day, the self-evi- 
 
28 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 dencing power of Scripture comes into fuller ope- 
 ration, and experience multiplies and strengthens 
 the internal testimony. The peasant will discover 
 more and more that the Bible and the conscience 
 so fit into each other, that the artificer who made 
 one must have equally fashioned both. His life 
 will be an on-going proof that Scripture is truth ; 
 for his days and hours are its chapters and verses 
 realized to the letter. And others may admire 
 the shield which the industry and ingenuity of 
 learned men have thrown over Christianity. They 
 may speak of the solid rampart cast up by the 
 labor of ages ; and pronounce the faith unassail- 
 able, because history, and philosophy, and sci- 
 ence, have all combined to gird round it the iron, 
 and the rock, of a ponderous and colossal demon- 
 stration. We, for our part, glory most in the 
 fact, that Scripture so commends itself to the 
 conscience, and experience so bears out the 
 Bible, that the Gospel can go the round of the 
 world, and carry with it, in all its travel, its own 
 mighty credentials. 
 
 9. Testimony of a deist to the Bible. 
 
 We always recur with great delight to the tes- 
 timony of a deist, who after publicly laboring to 
 disprove Christianity, and to bring Scripture into 
 contempt as a forgery, was found instructing his 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 29 
 
 child from the pages of the New Testament. 
 When taxed with the flagrant inconsistency, his 
 only reply was, that it was necessary to teach the 
 child morality, and that nowhere was there, to be 
 found such morality as in the Bible. We thank 
 the deist for the confession. Whatever our 
 scorn of a man who could be guilty of so foul a 
 dishonesty, seeking to sweep from the earth a 
 volume to which, all the while, himself recurred 
 for the principles of education, we thank him for 
 his testimony, that the morality of Scripture is a 
 morality not elsewhere to be found ; so that if 
 there were no Bible, there would be compara- 
 tively no source of instruction in duties and 
 virtues, whose neglect and decline would dislo- 
 cate the happiness of human society. The deist 
 was right. Deny or disprove the divine origin of 
 Scripture, and nevertheless you must keep the 
 volume as a kind of text-book of morality, if in- 
 deed you would not wish the banishment from 
 our homes of all that is lovely and sacred, and 
 the breaking up, through the lawlessness of un- 
 governed passions, of the quiet and the beauty 
 which are yet round our families. 
 
 10. The Bible emphatically the poor marl's book. 
 
 If an individual be possessed of commanding 
 genius, gifted with powers which far remove him 
 from the mass of his fellows, he will find in tho 
 3* 
 
30 EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 pages of Scripture beauties, and difficulties, and 
 secrets, and wonders, which a long life-time of 
 study shall leave unexhausted. But the man of 
 no pretensions to talent, and of no opportunities 
 for research, may turn to the Bible in quest of 
 comfort and direction ; and there he will find 
 traced as with a sun-beam, so that none but the 
 wilfully blind can overlook the record, guidance 
 for the lost, and consolation for the downcast. 
 We say that it is in this preparation for the poor 
 that the word of God is most surprising. View 
 the matter how you will, the Bible is as much 
 the unlearned man's book as it is the learned, as 
 much the poor man's as it is the rich. It is so 
 composed as to suit all ages and all classes. 
 And whilst the man of learning and capacity is 
 poring upon the volume in the retirement of his 
 closet, and employing all the stores of a varied 
 literature in illustrating its obscurities and solv- 
 ing its difficulties, the laborer may be sitting at 
 his cottage-door, with his boys and his girls 
 drawn round him, explaining to them, from the 
 simply-written pages, how great is the Almighty, 
 and how precious is Jesus. Nay, we shall not 
 overstep the boundaries of truth if we carry 
 these statements yet a little further. We hold 
 that the Bible is even more the poor man's book 
 than the rich man's. There is a* vast deal of the 
 Bible which appears written with the express 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. 31 
 
 design of verifying- the assertion, that God, of 
 his goodness, has " prepared for the poor." 
 There are many of the promises which seem to 
 demand poverty as the element wherein alone 
 their full lustre can radiate. The prejudices, 
 moreover, of the poor man against the truths 
 which the volume opens up, are likely to be less 
 strong, and inveterate, than those of the rich 
 man. He seems to have, naturally, a kind of 
 companionship with a suffering Redeemer, who 
 had not * where to lay his head." He can have 
 no repugnance, but, on the contrary, a sort of 
 instinctive attachment, to apostles who, like 
 himself, wrought with their own hands for the 
 supply of daily necessities. He can feel himself, 
 if we may use such expression, at home in the 
 scenery, and amongst the leading characters, of 
 the New Testament. Whereas, on the other 
 hand, the scientific man, and the man of educa- 
 tion, and of influence, and of high bearing in so- 
 ciety, will have prepossessions, and habits of 
 thinking, with which the announcements of the 
 Gospel will unavoidably jar. He has, as it were, 
 to be brought down to the level of the poor man 
 before he can pass under the gate-way which 
 stands at the outset of the path of salvation. He 
 has to begin by learning the comparative worth- 
 lessness of many distinctions, which, never 
 having been placed within the poor man's reach, 
 
32 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 stand not as obstacles to his heavenward pro- 
 gress. And if there be correctness in this repre- 
 sentation, it is quite evident that if the Gospel 
 be, for the first time, put into the hands, or pro- 
 claimed in the hearing, of a man of rank and of 
 a mean man, the likelihood is far greater that 
 the mean man will lay hold, effectively and sa- 
 vingly, on the truth, than that the man of rank 
 will thus grasp it : and our conclusion, therefore, 
 comes out strong and irresistible, that, if thero 
 be advantage on either side, the Bible is even 
 more nicely adapted to the poor than to the rich. 
 
 11. Language of Scripture. 
 
 It were easy to show that there is no human 
 composition presenting, in any thing of the same 
 degree, the majesty of oratory and the loveliness 
 of poetry. So that if the debate were simply on 
 the best means of improving the taste of an in- 
 dividual — others might commend to his atten- 
 tion the classic page, or bring forward the stand- 
 ard works of a nation's literature ; but we, for our 
 part, would chain him down to the study of Scrip- 
 ture ; and we would tell him, that, if he would 
 earn what is noble verse, he must hearken to 
 Isaiah sweeping the chords to Jerusalem's glory ; 
 and if he \vould know what is powerful elo- 
 quence, he must stand by St. Paul pleading in 
 bonds at Agrippa's tribunal. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 33 
 
 12. Apocryphal Writings, 
 
 There is to our mind something inexpressibly 
 grand and beautiful in the thought, that God 
 dwells, as it were, in the syllables which he has 
 indited for the instruction of humankind, so that 
 he may be found there when diligently sought, 
 though he do not thus inhabit any other writing. 
 He breathed himself into the compositions of 
 prophets, and apostles, and evangelists ; and there, 
 as in the mystic recesses of an everlasting sanc- 
 tuary, he still resides, ready to disclose himself 
 to the humble, and to be evoked by the prayerful. 
 But in regard of every other book, however 
 fraught it may be with the maxims of piety, how- 
 ever pregnant with momentous truths, there is 
 nothing of this shrining himself of Deity in the 
 depths of its meaning. Men may be instructed 
 by its pages, and draw from them hope and con- 
 solation. But never will they find there the 
 burning Shekinah, which proclaims the actual 
 presence of God ; never hear a voice, as from 
 the solitudes of an oracle, pronouncing the words 
 of immortality. 
 
 And we should never fear the bringing any 
 canonical book, or any apocryphal, to the test 
 thus supposed. Let a man take a canonical book, 
 and let him take an apocryphal ; and let him de- 
 termine to study both on the supposition that 
 both are divine. And if he be a sincere inquirer 
 
34 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 after truth, one really anxious to ascertain, in 
 order that he may perform, the whole will of 
 God, we know not why he should not experience 
 the accomplishment of Christ's words, M If any 
 man will do his will, he shall know of the doc- 
 trine whether it be of God," and thus reach a 
 sound decision as to which book is inspired, and 
 which not. As he studies the inspired book, 
 with humility and prayer, he will find its state- 
 ments brought home to his conscience and heart, 
 with that extraordinary force which is never at- 
 tached to a human composition. He may not bo 
 able to construct a clear argument for the divine 
 origin of the book ; yet will the correspondence 
 between what the book states, and what he expe- 
 riences, and the constancy with which the fulfill- 
 ment of its promises follows on submission to its 
 precepts, combine into an evidence, thoroughly 
 satisfactory to himself, that the pages which he 
 reads had God for their author. But as he stu- 
 dies the non-inspired book, he will necessarily 
 miss these tokens and impresses of Deity. There 
 will be none of those mysterious soundings of 
 the voice of the ever-living God, which he has 
 learnt to expect, and which he has always heard, 
 wheresoever the writers have indeed been in- 
 spired. His own diligence may be the same, 
 his faith, his prayerfulness : but it is impossible 
 there should be those manifestations of superhu- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 35 
 
 man wisdom, those invariable sequences of ful- 
 filled promises on obeyed precepts, which, in the 
 other case, attested, at each step of his progress, 
 that the document in his hands was a revelation 
 from above. 
 
 It may be said that all the argument, which he 
 can thus obtain, must be vague and inconclusive, 
 a thing of imagination rather than of reason, and 
 therefore, in the largest sense, liable to error. But 
 we rejoice, on the contrary, in believing in the 
 thorough sufficiency of the poor man's argument 
 for the inspiration of Scripture. It is an argu- 
 ment to his own conscience, an argument to his 
 own heart. It is the argument drawn from the 
 experienced fact, that the Bible and the soul, 
 with her multiplied feelings and powers, fit into 
 each other, like two parts of a complicated ma- 
 chine, proving, in their combination, that each 
 was separately the work of the same divine artist. 
 And you may think that the poor man may be 
 mistaken : but he feels that he cannot be mista- 
 ken. The testimony is like a testimony to his 
 senses ; if he cannot transfer it to another, it is 
 incontestable to himself, and therefore gives as 
 much fixedness to the theology of the cottage as 
 ever belonged to the theology of the academy. 
 
 And if he can thus prove, from his own expe- 
 rience, the divine origin of the inspired book, he 
 may of course equally prove, from his own expe- 
 
36 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 rience, the human origin of the non-inspired. 
 The absence of certain tokens in the one case, 
 will be as conclusive to him as their presence in 
 the other. Even though the style and sentiment 
 may be similar to those to which he has been 
 used in holy writ, he will not experience the 
 same elevation of soul as when he trusts himself 
 to the soarings of Isaiah, the same sweepings of 
 the chords of the heart as when he joins in the 
 hymns of David, nor the same echo of the con- 
 science as when he listens to the remonstrances 
 of St. Peter or St. Paul. And what then is to 
 prevent man's being his own witness to the non- 
 inspiration of the apocryphal, as well as to the 
 inspiration of the canonical scriptures % 
 
 13. Reason. 
 
 Take heed that ye do not so admire and extol 
 reason, as to think lightly of revelation. Ye live 
 in days when mind is on the stretch, and in scenes 
 where there is every thing to call it out. And we 
 do not wish to make you less acute, less inquir- 
 ing, less intelligent, than the warmest admirers 
 of reason can desire you to become. We only 
 wish you to remember that arrogance is not great- 
 ness, and that conceit is the index, not of strength, 
 but of weakness. To exalt reason beyond its due 
 place, is to debase it ; to set the human in rivalry 
 with the divine, is to make it contemptible. Let 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 37 
 
 reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fa- 
 thom the depths — the employment becomes her, 
 and the success is glorious. But when the ques- 
 tion is, " How shall man be just with God 1" rea- 
 son must be silent, revelation must speak ; and 
 he who will not hear it, assimilates himself to the 
 first deist, Cain ; he may not kill a brother, he 
 certainly destroys himself. 
 
 14. Credulity. 
 
 We scarcely know a finer vantage-ground on 
 which the champion of truth can plant himself, 
 than that of the greater credulity which must be 
 shown in the rejection, than in the reception of 
 Christianity. We mean to assert, in spite of the 
 tauntings of those most thorough of all bonds- 
 men, free-thinkers ; that the faith required from 
 deniers of revelation is far larger than that de- 
 manded from its advocates. He who thinks that 
 the setting up of Christianity may satisfactorily 
 be accounted for on the supposition of its false- 
 hood, taxes credulity a vast deal more than he 
 who believes all the prodigies and all the mira- 
 cles recorded in Scripture. The most marvellous 
 of all prodigies, and the most surpassing of all mi- 
 racles, would be the progress of the christian re- 
 ligion, supposing k untrue. And, assuredly, he 
 who has wrought himself into the belief that 
 such a wonder has been exhibited, can have no 
 4 
 
38 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 right to boast himself shrewder and more cau- 
 tious than he who holds, that, at human bidding, 
 the sun stood still, or that tempests were hushed, 
 and graves rifled, at the command of one " found 
 in fashion " as ourselves. The fact that Christi- 
 anity strode onward with a resistless march, 
 making triumphant way against the banded pow- 
 er, and learning, and prejudices of the world ; 
 this fact, we say, requires to be accounted for ; 
 and, inasmuch as there is no room for question- 
 ing its accuracy, we ask, in all justice, to be fur- 
 nished with its explanation. We turn, naturally, 
 from the result to the engines by which, to all 
 human appearance, the result was brought round ; 
 from the system preached, to the preachers them- 
 selves. Were those who first propounded Chris- 
 tianity, men who, from station in society, and in- 
 fluence over their fellows, were likely to succeed 
 in palming falsehood on the world 1 Were they 
 possessed of such machinery of intelligence, and 
 wealth, and might, and science, that — every al- 
 lowance being made for human credulity and 
 human infatuation — there would appear the very 
 lowest probability that, having forged a lie, they 
 could have caused it speedily to be venerated as 
 truth, and carried along the earth's diameter 
 amid the worshippings of thousands of the earth's 
 population! No candid mind can observe the 
 speed with which Christianity overran the civil* 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 39 
 
 ized world, compelling the homage of kings, and 
 casting down the altars of long-cherished super- 
 stitions ; and then compare the means with the 
 effect — the apostles, men of low birth, and poor 
 education, backed by no authority, and possess- 
 ed of none of those high-wrought endowments 
 which mark out the achievers of difficult enter- 
 prise — we are persuaded, we say, that no candid 
 mind can set what was done side by side with the 
 apparatus through which it was effected, and not 
 confess, that, of all incredible things, the most 
 incredible would be, that a few fishermen of Ga- 
 lilee vanquished the world, upheaving its idola- 
 tries, and mastering its prejudices, and yet that 
 their only weapon was a lie, their only mechan- 
 ism jugglery and deceit. 
 
 And this it is which the sceptic believes. 
 Yea, on his belief of this he grounds claims to a 
 sounder, and shrewder, and less fettered under- 
 standing, than belongs to the mass of his fellows. 
 He deems it the mark of a weak and ill-dis- 
 ciplined intellect to admit the truth of Christ's 
 raising the dead ; but appeals, in proof of a 
 stanch and well-informed mind, to his belief 
 that this whole planet was convulsed by the 
 blow of an infant. He scorns the narrow-mind 
 edness of submission to what he calls priestcraft ,• 
 but counts himself large-minded, because he ad- 
 mits that a priestcraft, only worthy his contempt, 
 
46 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ground into powder every system which he thinks 
 worthy his admiration. He laughs at the credu- 
 lity of supposing that God had to do with the in- 
 stitution of Christianity ; and then applauds the 
 sobriety of referring to chance what bears all the 
 marks of design — proving himself rational by 
 holding that causes are not necessary to effects. 
 We give it you as a truth, susceptible of the 
 rigor of mathematical proof, that the phenomena 
 of Christianity can only be explained by conced- 
 ing its divinity. If Christianity came from God, 
 there is an agency adequate to the result ; and 
 you can solve its making w r ay amongst the na- 
 tions. But if Christianity came not from God, no 
 agency can be assigned at all commensurate with 
 the result ; and yon cannot account for its march- 
 ings over the face of the earth. So that when — 
 setting aside every other consideration — we mark 
 the palpable unfitness of the apostles for devis- 
 ing, and carrying into effect, a grand scheme of 
 imposture, we feel that we do right in retorting 
 on the sceptic the often-urged charge of credu- 
 lity. We tell him, that, if it prove a clear-sighted 
 intellect, to believe that unsupported men would 
 league in an enterprise which was nothing less 
 than a crusade against the world ; that ignorant 
 men would concoct a system overpassing, con- 
 fessedly, the wisdom of the noblest of the hea- 
 then i and that this insignificant and unequipped 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 41 
 
 band would go through fire and water, brave the 
 lion and dare the stake, knowing, all the while, 
 that they struggled for a lie, and crowned, all the 
 while, with overpowering success — aye, we tell 
 the sceptic, that, if a belief such as this prove a 
 clear-sighted intellect, he is welcome to the lau- 
 rels of reason: and we, for our part, shall con- 
 tentedly herd with the irrational, who are weak 
 enough to think it credible that the apostles were 
 messengers from God ; and only incredible that 
 mountains fell when there was nothing to shake 
 them, and oceans dried up when there was no- 
 thing to drain them, and that there passed over 
 a creation an unmeasured revolution, without a 
 cause, and without a mover, and without a 
 Deity. 
 
 15. Moral and intellectual benefits of the Bible. 
 
 We are never afraid to ascribe to the preva- 
 lence of true religion, that unmeasured supe- 
 riority in all the dignities and decencies of life, 
 which distinguishes a christian nation as com- 
 pared with a heathen. We ascribe it to nothing 
 but acquaintance with the revealed will of God, 
 that those kingdoms of the earth, which bow at 
 the name of Jesus, have vastly outstripped in 
 civilization every other, whether ancient or mo- 
 dern, which may be designated pagan and idol- 
 4<* 
 
42 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 atrous. If you search for the full development 
 of the principles of civil liberty, for the security 
 of property, for an even-handed justice, for the 
 rebuke of gross vices, for the cultivation of so- 
 cial virtues, and for the diffusion of a generous 
 care of the suffering, you must turn to lands 
 where the cross has been erected — as though 
 Christianity were identified with what is fine in 
 policy, lofty in morals, and permanent in great- 
 ness. Yea, as though the Bible were a mighty 
 volume, containing whatever is requisite for cor 
 recting the disorders of states, and cementing the 
 happiness of families, you find that the causing 
 it to be received and read by a people, is tanta- 
 mount to the producing a thorough revolution — 
 a revolution including equally the palace and the 
 cottage — so that every rank in society is myste- 
 riously elevated, and furnished with new elements 
 of dignity and comfort. Who then will refuse to 
 confess, that, even if regard were had to nothing 
 beyond the present narrow scene, there is no gift 
 comparable to that of the Bible ; and that conse- 
 quently, though a nation might throw away, as 
 did the Jewish, the greatest of their privileges, 
 and fail to grasp the immortality set before them 
 in the revelation entrusted to their keeping, there 
 would yet be proof enough of their having pos- 
 sessed a vast advantage over others, in the fact 
 adduced by St. Paul, that w unto them had been 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 43 
 
 committed the oracles of GodV' and we stand 
 indebted to the Bible for much of intellectual as 
 well as moral advantage. Indeed the two go 
 together. Where there is great moral there will 
 commonly be great mental degradation ; and the 
 intellect has no fair play, whilst the man is under 
 the dominion of vice. It is certainly to be ob- 
 served, that, in becoming a religious man, an in- 
 dividual seems to gain a wider comprehension, 
 and a sounder judgment ; as though, in turning 
 to God, he had sprung to a higher grade in intel- 
 ligence. It would mark a weak, or at least an un- 
 informed mind, to look with contempt on the 
 Bible, as though beneath the notice of a man of 
 high power and pursuit. He who is not spiritual- 
 ly, will be intellectually benefited by the study 
 of Scripture ; and we would match the sacred vo- 
 lume against every other, when the object pro- 
 posed in the perusal is the strengthening the un- 
 derstanding by contact with lofty truth, or the 
 refining the taste by acquaintance with exquisite 
 beauty. And of course the intellectual benefit is 
 greatly heightened, if accompanied by a spiritual. 
 Man becomes in the largest sense " a new crea- 
 ture," when you once waken the dormant im- 
 mortality. It is not, of course, that there is com- 
 municated any fresh set of mental powers; but 
 there is removed all that weight and oppression 
 which ignorance and viciousness lay upon the 
 
44< BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 brain. And what is true of an individual, is true, 
 in its degree, of a nation : the diffusion of chris- 
 tian knowledge being always attended by the diffu- 
 sion of correcter views in other departments of 
 truth ; so that, in proportion as a people are chris- 
 tianized, you will find them more inquiring and 
 intelligent. 
 
 And there is no cause for surprise in the fact, 
 that intellectual benefits are conferred by the 
 Bible. It is to be remembered that we are in- 
 debted to the Bible for all our knowledge of the 
 early history of the world, of the creation of man, 
 and of his first condition and actions. Remove 
 the Bible, and we are left to conjecture and fable, 
 and to that enfeebling of the understanding which 
 error almost necessarily produces. Having no 
 authentic account of the origin of all things, we 
 should bewilder ourselves with theories which 
 would hamper our every inquiry ; and the mind, 
 perplexed and baffled at the outset, would never 
 expand freely in its after investigations. We 
 should have confused apprehensions of some un- 
 known powers on which we depended, peopling 
 the heavens with various deities, and subjecting 
 ourselves to the tyrannies of superstition. And it 
 is scarcely to be disputed, that there is, in every 
 respect, a debasing tendency in superstition ; and 
 that, if w r e imagined the universe around us full 
 of rival and antagonist gods, in place of knowing 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 45 
 
 it under the dominion of one mighty First Cause, 
 we should enter at a vast disadvantage on the scru- 
 tiny *of the wonders by which we are surrounded 5 
 the intellect being clouded by the mists of moral 
 darkness, and all nature overcast through want 
 of knowledge of its author. 
 
 The astronomer may have been guided, how- 
 ever unconsciously, by the Bible, as he has 
 pushed his discoveries across the broad fields of 
 space. Why is it that the chief secrets of na- 
 ture have been penetrated only in christian times, 
 and in christian lands ; and that men, whose 
 names are first in the roll on which science em- 
 blazons her achievements, have been men on 
 whom fell the rich light of revelation 1 We pre- 
 tend not to say that it was revelation which di- 
 rectly taught them how to trace the motions of 
 stars, and laid open to their gaze mysteries 
 which had heretofore baffled man's sagacity. 
 But we believe, that, just because their lot was 
 cast in days, and in scenes, when and where the 
 Bible had been received as God's word, their in- 
 tellect had freer play than it would otherwise 
 have had, and their mind went to its work with 
 greater vigor, and less impediment. We believe 
 that he who sets himself to investigate the revo- 
 lutions of planets, knowing thoroughly before- 
 hand who made those planets and governs their 
 motions, would be incalculably more likely to 
 
46 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 reach some great discovery, than another who 
 starts in utter ignorance of the truths of creation, 
 and ascribes the planets to chance, or some unin- 
 telligible agency. And it is nothing against this 
 opinion, that some who have been eminent by 
 scientific discoveries, have been notorious for re- 
 jection of Christianity and opposition to the Bible. 
 Let them have been even atheists, not in a land 
 of atheists, but in a land of worshipers of the one 
 true God ; and our conviction is, that, had they 
 been atheists in a land of atheists, they would 
 never have so signalized themselves by scientific 
 discovery. It has been through living, as it were, 
 in an atmosphere of truth, however they them- 
 selves have imbibed error, that they have gained 
 that elasticity of powers which has enabled them 
 to rise into unexplored regions. They have not 
 been ignorant of the truths of the Bible, however 
 they may have repudiated the Bible ; and these 
 truths have told on all their faculties, freeing 
 them from trammels, and invigorating them for 
 labor ; so that very possibly the eminence which 
 they have reached, and where they rest with so 
 much pride, would have been as inaccessible to 
 themselves as to the gifted inquirers of heathen 
 times, had not the despised Gospel pioneered the 
 way, and the rejected Scriptures unfettered their 
 understandings. 
 
 We are thus to the full as persuaded of the 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 47 
 
 intellectual, as of the moral benefits produced by 
 the Bible. We reckon, that, in giving the in- 
 spired volume to a nation, you give it that which 
 shall cause its mental powers to expand, as well 
 as that which shall rectify existing disorders. 
 And if you would account for the superiority of 
 christian over heathen lands in what is intellec- 
 tually great, in philosophy, and science, and the 
 stretch and the grasp of knowledge, you may 
 find the producing causes in the possession of 
 the Scriptures — yea, and men may come with all 
 the bravery of a boastful erudition, and demand 
 admiration of the might of the human mind, as it 
 seems to subjugate the universe, counting the 
 heavenly hosts, and tracking comets as they 
 sweep along where the eye cannot follow ; but 
 so well assured are we that it was revelation 
 alone whose beams warmed what was dwarfish 
 till it sprang into this vigor, th,at we ascribe the 
 greater mental strength which a nation may dis- 
 play, to their possession of the Scriptures. 
 
 16. The Bible a promoter of social happiness. 
 
 Even if the mass of a nation, privileged with 
 the Bible, have their portion at last with the un- 
 believing, it must not be forgotten, that there is' 
 in every age a remnant who trust in the Saviour 
 whom that Bible reveals. The blessings which 
 result from the possession of the Scriptures are 
 
4S BIELE THOUGHTS. 
 
 not to be computed from what appears on the 
 surface of society. There is a quiet under-cur- 
 rent of happiness, which is generally unobserved, 
 but which greatly swells the amount of good to 
 be traced to the Bible. You must go into fami- 
 lies, and see how burdens are lightened, and 
 afflictions mitigated, by the promises of holy 
 writ. You must follow men into their retire- 
 ments, and learn how they gather strength, from 
 the study of the sacred volume, for discharging 
 the various duties of life. You must be with 
 them in their struggles with poverty, and observe 
 how contentment is engendered by the prospect 
 of riches which cannot fade away. You must be 
 with them on their death-beds, and mark how the 
 gloom of the opening grave is scattered by a 
 hope which is u full of immortality." And you 
 must be with them — if indeed the spirit could be 
 accompanied in its heavenward flight — as they 
 enter the Divine presence, and prove, by taking 
 possession of the inheritance which the Bible 
 offers to believers, that they " have not followed 
 cunningly devised fables." The sum of happi- 
 ness conferred by revelation can never be known 
 until God shall have laid open all secrets at the 
 judgment. We must have access to the history 
 of every individual, from his childhood up to his 
 entering his everlasting rest, ere we have the 
 elements from which to compute what chris- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 49 
 
 Sanity hath done for those who receive it into 
 the heart. And if but one or two were gathered 
 out from a people, as a result of conveying to 
 that people the records of revelation, there would 
 be, we may not doubt, such an amount of con- 
 ferred benefit as would sufficiently prove the 
 advantageousness of possessing the oracles of 
 God. 
 
 It shall not be in vain that God hath sent the 
 Bible to a nation, and caused the truths of Chris- 
 tianity to be published within its borders. 
 
 17. Difficulties of Scripture. 
 
 We say that there is no deficiency of revela- 
 tion, and that the difficulties which occur in the 
 perusal of Scripture result from the majesty of 
 the introduced subjects, and the weakness of the 
 faculties turned on their study. It is little short 
 of a contradiction in terms, to speak of a revela- 
 tion free altogether from " things hard to be un- 
 derstood." And we are well persuaded, that, 
 however disposed men may be to make the diffi- 
 culties an objection to the Bible, the absence of 
 those difficulties would have been eagerly seized 
 on as a proof of imposture. There would have 
 been fairness in the objection — and scepticism 
 would not have been slow in triumphantly urg- 
 ing it — that a book, which brought down the 
 infinite to the level of the finite, must contain 
 5 
 
50 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 false representations, and deserve, therefore, to 
 be placed under the outlawry of the world. We 
 should have had reason taking up an opposite 
 position, but one far more tenable than she occu- 
 pies when arguing from the difficulty, against 
 the divinity, of Scripture. Reason has sagacity 
 enough, if you remove the bias of the ,f evil heart 
 of unbelief," to perceive the impossibility that 
 God should be searched out and comprehended 
 by man. And if, therefore, reason sat in judg- 
 ment on a professed revelation of the Almighty, 
 and found that it gave no account of the Deity, 
 but one, in every respect, easy and intelligible, 
 so that God described himself as removed not, 
 either in essence or properties, from the ken of 
 humanity, it can scarcely be questioned that she 
 would give down as her verdict, and that justice 
 would loudly applaud the decision, that the al- 
 leged communication from heaven wanted the 
 signs the most elementary of so illustrious an 
 origin. 
 
 It can only be viewed as a necessary conse- 
 quence on the grandeur of the subjects which 
 form the matter of revelation, that, with every 
 endeavor at simplicity of style and aptitude of 
 illustration, the document contains statements 
 which overmatch all but the faith of mankind. 
 And, therefore, we are bold to say that we glory 
 in the difficulties of Scripture. We can indeed 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 51 
 
 desire, as well as those who would turn these 
 difficulties into occasion of cavil and objection, 
 to understand, with a thorough accuracy, the re- 
 gistered truths, and to penetrate and explore 
 those solemn mysteries which crowd the pages 
 of inspiration. We can feel, whilst the volume 
 of Holy Writ lies open before us, and facts are 
 presented which seem every way infinite — height, 
 and breadth, and depth, and length, all defying 
 the boldest journeyings of the spirit — we can 
 feel the quick*pulse of an eager wish to scale 
 the mountain, or fathom the abyss. But, at the 
 same time, we know, and we feel, that a Bible 
 without difficulties were a firmament without 
 stars. We know, and we feel, that a far-off land, 
 enamelled, as we believe it, with a loveliness 
 which is not of this earth, and inhabited by a 
 tenantry gloriously distinct from our own order 
 of being, would not be the magnificent and rich- 
 ly peopled domain which it is, if its descriptions 
 overpassed not the outlines of human geography. 
 We know, and we feel, that the Creator of all 
 things, he who stretched out the heavens, and 
 sprinkled them with worlds, could not be, what 
 we are assured that he is, inaccessibly sublime 
 and awfully great, if there could be given tis a 
 portrait of his nature and properties, whose every 
 feature might be sketched by a human pencil, 
 whose every characteristic scanned by a human 
 
52 EIBL2 THOUGHTS. 
 
 vision. We know, and we feel, that the vast bu- 
 siness of our redemption, arranged in the coun 
 oils of the far-back eternity, and acted out amid 
 the wondering and throbbings of the universe, 
 could not have been that stupendous transaction 
 which gave God glory by giving sinners safety, 
 if the inspired account brought its dimensions 
 within the compass of a human arithmetic, or 
 defined its issues by the lines of a human demar- 
 cation. And, therefore, do we also know and 
 feel that it is a witness to the inspiration of the 
 Bible, that, when this Bible would furnish us 
 with notices of the unseen world hereafter to be 
 traversed, or when it would turn thought on the 
 Omnipotent, or when it would open up the 
 scheme of the restoration of the fallen; then, 
 with much that is beautifully simple, and which 
 the wayfaring man can read and understand, 
 there are mingled dark intimations, and preg- 
 nant hints, and undeveloped statements, before 
 which the weak and the strong must alike do tho 
 homage of a reverent and uncalculating submis- 
 sion. We could not rise up from the perusal of 
 Scripture with a deep conviction that it is the 
 word of the living God, if we had found no oc- 
 casions on which reason was required to humble 
 herself before giant-like truth, and implicit faith 
 has been the only act which came within our 
 range of moral achievement. We do not indeed 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 53 
 
 say — for the saying would carry absurdity on its 
 forefront — that we believe a document inspired, 
 because, in part, incomprehensible. But if a 
 document profess to be inspired ; and if it treat 
 of subjects which we can prove beforehand to be 
 above and beyond the stretchings of our intellect ; 
 then, we do say that the finding nothing in such 
 a document to baffle the understanding would be 
 a proof the most conclusive, that what alleges 
 itself divine deserves rejection as a forgery. 
 And whilst, therefore, we see going forward on 
 all sides the accumulation of the evidences of 
 Christianity, and history and science are bringing 
 their stores and emptying them at the feet of our 
 religion, and the very wrath of the adversary, 
 being the accomplishment of prophecy, is prov- 
 ing that we follow no "cunningly devised fa- 
 bles ;" we feel that it was so much to be ex- 
 pected, yea, rather that it was altogether so un- 
 avoidable, that a revelation would, in many 
 parts, be obscure, that we take as the last link in 
 the chain of a lengthened and irrefragable de- 
 monstration, that there are in the Bible tf things 
 hard to be understood." 
 
 i 
 
 18. Jlposiolic Epistles. 
 
 The writings of St. Paul, occupying, as they 
 do, a large portion of the New Testament, treat 
 
 5* 
 
54> BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 much of the sublimer and more difficult articles 
 of Christianity. It is undeniable that there is a 
 great deal made known to us by the epistles, 
 which could only imperfectly, if at all, be derived 
 from the Gospels. We have the testimony of 
 Christ himself that he had many things to say to 
 his disciples, which, whilst he yet ministered on 
 earth, they were not prepared to receive. Hence 
 it was altogether to be expected that the New 
 Testament would be, what we find it, a progres- 
 sive book i the communications of intelligence 
 growing with the fuller opening out of the dis- 
 pensation. The deep things of the Sovereignty 
 of God ; the mode of the justification of sinners, 
 and its perfect consistence with all the attributes 
 of the Creator ; the mysteries bound up in the re- 
 jection of the Jew and the calling of the Gentile ; 
 these enter largely into the Epistles of St. Paul, 
 though only faintly intimated by writers who pre- 
 cede him in the canon of Scripture. And it is a 
 natural and unavoidable consequence on the 
 greater abstruseness of the topics which are 
 handled, that the apostle's writings should pre- 
 sent greater difficulties to the Biblical student. 
 With the exception of the Book of Revelation, 
 which, as dealing with the future, is necessarily 
 hard to be interpreted, the Epistle to the Romans 
 is probably that part of the New Testament which 
 most demands the labors of the commentator. 
 
BIELE THOUGHTS. 55 
 
 And though we select this epistle as pre-eminent 
 in difficulties, we may say generally of the writ- 
 ings of St. Paul, that, whilst they present simple 
 and beautiful truths which all may understand, 
 they contain statements of doctrine,' which, even 
 after long study and prayer, will be but partially 
 unfolded by the most gifted inquirers. With this 
 admission of difficulty we must join the likeli- 
 hood of misconception and misapplication. Where 
 there is confessedly obscurity, we may naturally 
 expect that wrong theories will be formed, and 
 erroneous inferences deduced. If it be hard to 
 determine the true meaning of a passage, it can 
 scarcely fail that some false interpretation will 
 be advanced, or espoused, by the partisans of 
 theological systems. If a man have error to main- 
 tain, he will turn for support to passages of Scrip- 
 ture, of which, the real sense being doubtful, a 
 plausible may be advanced on the side of his 
 falsehood. If, again, an individual wish to per- 
 suade himself to believe tenets which encourage 
 him in presumption and unholiness, he may easi- 
 ly fasten on separate verses, which, taken by 
 themselves, and without concern for the analogy 
 of faith, seem to mark out privileges superseding 
 the necessity of striving against sin. So that we 
 can find no cause of surprise in the fact, that St. 
 Peter should speak of the Epistles of St. Paul as 
 wrested by the " unleorned and unstable " to their 
 
56 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 own destruction. He admits that in these Epis- 
 tles w are some things hard to be understood." 
 And we consider it, as we have just explained, a 
 necessary consequence on the difficulties, that 
 there should be perversions, whether wilful or 
 unintentional, of the writings. 
 
 19. Unavoidable that there should be thing* %n 
 Scripture hard to be understood. 
 
 It was to be expected that the Bible would con- 
 tain H some things hard to be understood." We 
 should like to be told what stamp of inspiration 
 there would be upon a Bible containing nothing 
 "hard to be understood V* Is it not almost a self- 
 evident proposition, that a revelation without dif- 
 ficulty could not be a revelation of divinity 1 If 
 there lie any thing of that unmeasured separa- 
 tion, which we are all conscious there must lie, 
 between ourselves and the Creator, is it not clear 
 that God cannot be comprehensible by man ; and 
 that, therefore, any professed revelatiori*vhich left 
 him not incomprehensible, would be thereby its 
 own witness to the falsehood of its pretensions 1 
 You ask a Bible which shall, in every part, be sim- 
 ple and intelligible. But could such a Bible dis- 
 course to us of God, that Being who must remain, 
 necessarily and for ever, a mystery to the very 
 highest of created intelligences 1 Could such a 
 Bible treat of purposes, which, extending them- 
 
I BIBLE THOUGHTS. 57 
 
 selves over unlimited ages, and embracing the 
 universe within their ranges, demand eternity 
 for their development, and infinity for their thea- 
 tre 1 Could such a Bible put forward any account 
 of spiritual operations, seeing that, whilst con- 
 fined by the trammels of matter, the soul cannot 
 fathom herself, but withdraws herself, as it were, 
 and shrinks from her own scrutiny 1 Could such 
 a Bible, in short, tell us any thing of our condi- 
 tion, whether by nature or grace 1 Could it treat 
 of the entrance of evil ; could it treat of the In- 
 carnation ; of Regeneration ; of a Resurrection ; 
 of an Immortality 1 In reference to all these mat- 
 ters, there are in the Bible !' things hard to be 
 understood." But it is not the manner in which 
 they are handled which makes them " hard to be 
 understood." The subject itself gives the diffi- 
 culty. If you will not have the difficulty, you 
 cannot have the subject. 
 
 20. What we know not now we shall know 
 hereafter. 
 
 We press upon all the importance of reading 
 the Bible with prayer. And whilst the conscious- 
 ness that Scripture contains "things hard to be 
 understood" should bring us to its study in a de- 
 pendent and humble temper, the thought, that 
 what we know not now we shall know hereafter, 
 should make each difficulty, as we leave it unvan- 
 
58 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 quished, minister to our assurance that a wider 
 sphere of being, a nearer vision and mightier 
 faculties, await us when the second advent of 
 the Lord winds up the dispensation. Thus 
 should the mysteries of the Bible teach us, at 
 one and the same time, our nothingness, and our 
 greatness ; producing humility, and animating 
 hope. I bow before these mysteries. I knew 
 that I should find, and I pretend not to remove, 
 them. But whilst I thus prostrate myself, it is 
 with deep gladness and exultation of spirit. God 
 would not have hinted the mystery, had he not 
 designed hereafter to explain. And, therefore, 
 are my thoughts on a far-off home, and rich 
 things are around me, and the voices of many 
 harpers, and the shinings of bright constella- 
 tions, and the clusters of the cherub and the 
 seraph ; and a whisper, which seems not of this 
 earth, is circulating through the soul, " Now we 
 see through a glass darkly, but then face to face ; 
 now I know in part, but then shall I know even as 
 also I am known." May God grant unto all of 
 us to be both abased and quickened by those 
 things in the Bible which are " hard to be 
 Understood." 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 59 
 
 21. Immortality of the Soul clearly discovered 
 only by the Gospel. 
 
 Without revelation men may have ascertained^ 
 at least, the existence of a principle, which, not 
 being matter, will not necessarily be affected by 
 the dissolution of matter. And having once de- 
 termined that there is a portion of man adapted 
 for the soaring away from the ruins of matter, 
 this portion will be found so capable of noble 
 performances, so fitted for the contemplation of 
 things spiritual and divine, as to seem destined 
 to the attainments of a loftier existence. So that 
 man might prove himself, in part, immaterial, and, 
 therefore, capable of existence when separate 
 from matter. And further, having shown himself 
 capable of a future existence, he might also show 
 himself capable of an immortal : there being am- 
 ple reason on the side of the opinion, that the 
 principle, which could survive at all, might go on 
 surviving for ever. 
 
 Man might thus reason up from matter as in- 
 sensible, to himself as sensible. He might con- 
 clude, that, since what is wholly material can 
 never think, he himself, as being able to think, 
 must be, in part, immaterial. And the moment he 
 has made out the point of an immaterial princi- 
 ple actuating matter, he may bring to bear a vast 
 assemblage of proofs, derived alike from the as- 
 
60 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 pirings of this principle and the attributes of God, 
 all confirmatory of the notion, that the immate- 
 rial shall survive when the material has been 
 worn down and sepulchred. 
 
 But we think that when a man has reasoned up 
 to a capacity of immortality, he would have 
 reached the furthest possible point. We think 
 that natural religion could just show him that he 
 might live for ever, but certainly not that he 
 would live for ever. He might have been brought 
 into a persuasion that the principle within him 
 was not necessarily subject to death. But he 
 could not have assured himself that God would 
 not consign this principle to death. It is one thing 
 to prove a principle capable of immortality, and 
 quite another to prove that God will allow it to 
 be immortal. And if man had brought into the 
 account the misdoings of his life ; if he had re- 
 membered how grievously he had permitted the 
 immaterial to be the slave of the material, giving 
 no homage to the ethereal and magnificent prin- 
 ciple, but binding it basely down within the frame- 
 work of flesh ; why we may suppose there would 
 have come upon him the fear, we had almost said 
 the hope, that, by an act of omnipotence, God 
 would terminate the existence of that which 
 might have been everlasting, and, sending a can* 
 kerworm into the long-dishonored germ, forbid 
 the sotd to shoot upwards a plant of immortality. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 61 
 
 So that we again say, that a capacity, but not 
 a certainty of immortality, would be, probably, 
 the highest discovery arrived at by natural re- 
 ligion. And just here it was that the Gospel 
 came in, and bringing man tidings from the Fa* 
 ther of spirits, informed him of the irrevocable 
 appointment that the soul, like the Deity of which 
 it is the spark, shall go not out and wax not dim. 
 Revealed religion approached as the auxiliary to 
 natural, and, confirming all its discoveries of 
 man's capacity of immortality, removed all doubts 
 as to his destinies being everlasting. 
 
 22. Atheist and worldly-minded man compared. 
 
 If we cannot say to the atheist, when pointing 
 to the surrounding creation, you withstand an 
 evidence than which there cannot be a greater, 
 we can say to the worldly-minded, when pointing 
 to the scheme of redemption, you neglect a sal- 
 vation than which there cannot even be imagined 
 a mightier. If the atheist might appeal from proofs 
 which have been given, to yet stronger which 
 might have been furnished, we deny that the 
 worldly-minded can appeal from what God hath 
 done on their behalf, to a more marvellous inter- 
 ference which imagination can picture. It is the 
 property of redemption, if not of creation, that it 
 leaves no room for imagination. We will not 
 6 
 
62 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 defy a man to array in his mind the imagery of 
 an universe, presenting the impress of Godhead 
 more clearly than that in which we are placed. 
 Even if the universe remained the same, we can 
 suppose such change in our faculties of observa- 
 tion as would clothe every star, and every atom, 
 and every insect, with a hundred-fold more of the 
 proof that there is a God. But we will defy a 
 man to conceive a scheme for the rescue of a 
 lost world, which should exceed, in any single 
 respect, that laid open by the Gospel. We affirm 
 of this scheme, that it is so great that you can- 
 not suppose a greater. It is not because our fa- 
 culties are bounded, that it seems to us wonder- 
 ful. We have right to consider that it wears the 
 same aspect to the highest of creatures : the 
 "mystery of godliness" being unsearchable as 
 well to angels as to men. And if it be supposable 
 that there are scenes, which other beings are 
 permitted to traverse, far outdoing in the won- 
 derfulness of structure, and the majesty of adorn- 
 ment, the earth on which we dwell — so that this 
 creation is not the richest in the tracery of power 
 and skill — we pronounce it insupposable, that 
 there could have been made an arrangement on 
 behalf of fallen creatures, fuller of Divinity, and 
 more worthy amazement, than that of which we 
 are actually the objects. 
 
 We contend that atheism has a far better apo- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 63 
 
 logy for resisting the evidences of a God which 
 are spread over creation, than worldly-minded- 
 ness for manifesting insensibility to redemption 
 through Christ. Atheism may ask for a wider 
 sphere of expatiation, and a more glowing im- 
 press of Deity ; for it falls within our power /to 
 conceive of richer manifestations of the invisible 
 Godhead. But worldly-mindedness cannot ask 
 for more touching proof of the love of the Al- 
 mighty, or for a more bounteous provision for hu- 
 man necessities, or for more stirring motives to 
 repentance and obedience. Those of you who 
 are not overcome by what has been done for 
 them, and who treat with indifference and con- 
 tempt the proffers of the Gospel, are just in the 
 position of the atheist, who should remain the 
 atheist after God had set before him the highest 
 possible demonstration of himself. It is not too 
 bold a thing to say, that, in redeeming us, God 
 exhausted himself. He gave himself ; and what 
 greater gift could remain unbestowed 1 So then, 
 if you neglect salvation, there is nothing which 
 you would not neglect. God himself could pro- 
 vide nothing greater ; and if therefore you are 
 unaffected by this, you only prove yourselves 
 incapable of being moved. 
 
 23. Gospel addresses itself to the fears of men. 
 With how surpassing an energy does the Gos- 
 
64 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 pel appeal to the fears of mankind ! We say, to 
 the fears — for it were indeed to take a contracted 
 view of Christianity, to survey it as proffering 
 mercy, and to overlook its demonstrations of 
 wrath. There is this marvellous combination in 
 the Gospel scheme, that we cannot preach of par 
 don without preaching of judgment. Every ho- 
 mily as to how sinners may be forgiven, is equal- 
 ly a homily as to the fearfulness of their doom, 
 if they continue impenitent. We speak to men 
 of Christ, as bearing their M sins in his own body 
 on the tree," and the speech seems to breatho 
 nothing but unmeasured loving-kindness. Yet 
 who, on hearing it, can repress the thoughts, 
 what must sin be, if no finite being could mako 
 atonement ; what must its curse be, if Deity alone 
 could exhaust it 1 The crucifixion is a procla- 
 mation, than which there cannot be imagined a 
 clearer and more thrilling, that an eternity of in- 
 conceivable wretchedness will be awarded to all 
 who continue in sin. And yet men do continue 
 in sin. The proclamation is practically as power- 
 less as though it were the threat of an infant or 
 an idiot. And we are bold to say of this, that 
 it is unnatural. Men have the flesh which can 
 quiver, and the hearts which can quake ; and we 
 call it unnatural, that there should be no trem 
 bling, and no misgiving, when the wrath of the 
 Almighty is opened before them, and directed 
 asrainst them. 
 
• BIBLE THOUGHTS. 65 
 
 24. Jldaptedness of the Gospel to the Poor. 
 
 Of how much beauty we should strip the Gospel, 
 if we stripped the world of poverty. It is one of 
 the prime arid distinguishing features of the cha- 
 racter of Deity, as revealed to us in Scripture, that 
 the poor man, just as well as the rich man, is the 
 object of his watchfulness: that, with an attention 
 undistracted by the multiplicity of complex con- 
 cernments, he bows himself down to the cry of 
 the meanest outcast ; so that there is not a smile 
 upon a poor man's cheek, and there is not a tear 
 in a poor man's eye, which passes any more un- 
 heeded by our God, than if the individual were a 
 monarch on his throne, and thousands crouched 
 in vassalage before him. We allow that when 
 thought has busied itself in traversing the cir- 
 cuits of creation, shooting rapidly from one to 
 another of those sparkling systems which crowd 
 immensity, and striving to scrutinize the ponde- 
 rous mechanism of a universe, each department 
 of which is full of the harmonies of glorious or- 
 der, — we allow that, after so sublime a research, 
 it is difficult to bring down the mind to the be- 
 lief, that the affairs of an individual, and seeming- 
 ly insignificant, race, are watched over with as 
 careful a solicitude as if that race were the sole 
 tenant of infinite space, and this our globe as 
 much covered by the wing of the Omnipotent, as 
 6* 
 
66 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 if it had no associates in wheeling round his 
 throne. Yet when even this belief is attained, 
 the contemplation has not risen iQ one half of 
 its augustness. We must break up the race 
 piecemeal, — we must take man by man, and wo- 
 man by woman, and child by child, — we must 
 observe that to no two individuals are there as- 
 signed circumstances, in every respect similar ; 
 but that each is a kind of world by himself, with 
 his own allotments, his own trials, his own mer- 
 cies : and then only do we reach the climax of 
 what is beautiful and strange, when we parcel 
 out our species into its separate units, and de- 
 cide that not one of these units is overlooked by 
 the Almighty ; but that just as it is the same hand 
 which paints the enamel of a flower and guides 
 the rolling of a planet, so it is the same guardian* 
 ship which regulates the rise and fall of empires, 
 and leads the most unknown individual, wdien he 
 gaeth forth to seek his daily bread. Now who 
 perceives not that, by removing the poor altoge- 
 ther from amongst us, we should greatly obscure 
 this amazing exhibition 1 
 
 25. Neglect of ike Gospel. 
 
 Be ye well assured, that, if ye could interro- 
 gate the spirits in wretchedness, negligence 
 would be that which they would chiefly give as 
 the cause of their ruin. There would be compa- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 67 
 
 ratively few who would tell you they had reject- 
 ed Christianity ; few that they had embraced de- 
 istical views ; few that they had invented for 
 themselves another mode of acceptance ; but the 
 many, the many — their tale would be, that they 
 designed, but delayed to hearken to the .Gospel ; 
 that they gave it their assent, but not their atten- 
 tion ; that — are ye not staggered by the likeness 
 to yourselves 1 — though they knew, they did not 
 consider ; apprised of danger, they took no pains 
 to avert it ; having the offer of life, they made 
 no effort to secure it ; and therefore perished, 
 finally, miserably, everlastingly, through neglect 
 of the great salvation. God grant that none of 
 us, by imitating their neglect, share their misery. 
 
 26. Ingratitude of rejecting the Gospel. 
 
 We declare of the Gospel that it addresses it- 
 self directly to those feelings, which, for the 
 most part, are instantly wakened by kindness and 
 beneficence. Take away the divinity from this 
 Gospel ; reduce it into a record of what one man 
 hath done for others, and it relates a generous 
 interposition, whose objects, if they evinced no 
 gratitude, would be denounced as disgracing hu- 
 manity. If it be true that we naturally entertain 
 sentiments of the warmest affection towards 
 those who have done or suffered some great thing 
 on our behalf, it would seem quite to be expected 
 
68 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 that such sentiments would be called into most 
 vigorous exercise by the Mediator's work. If, in 
 a day when pestilence was abroad on the earth, 
 and men dreaded its entrance into their house- 
 holds, we could carry them to a bed on which lay 
 one racked by the terrible malady, and tell them 
 that this individual had voluntarily taken the fear- 
 ful infection, and was going down in agony to 
 the grave, because complying, of his own choice, 
 with a mysterious decree which assured him, 
 that, if he would thus suffer, the disease should 
 have no power over their families — is it credible 
 that they would look on the dying man with in- 
 difference 5 or that, as they hearkened to his last 
 requests, they would feel other than a resolve to 
 undertake, as the most sacred of duties, the ful- 
 filling the injunctions of one, who, by so costly 
 a sacrifice, warded off the evil with which they 
 were threatened I And yet, what would this be, 
 compared with our leading them to the scene of 
 crucifixion, and showing them the Redeemer 
 dying in their stead 1 You cannot say, that, if 
 the sufferer on his death-bed would be a spec- 
 tacle to excite emotions of gratitude, and resolu- 
 tions of obedience, the spectacle of Christ on 
 the cross might be expected to be surveyed with 
 carelessness and coldness. Yet such is undenia- 
 bly the fact. The result which would naturally 
 be produced is not produced. Men would natu- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 69 
 
 rally feel gratitude, but they do not feel grati- 
 tude. They would naturally be softened into love 
 and submission, and they manifest only insensi- 
 bility and hard-heartedness. And what are we to 
 say to this'? Here are beings who are capable 
 of certain feelings, and who show nothing of 
 those feelings when there is most to excite them ; 
 beings who can display love to every friend but 
 the best, and gratitude to every benefactor but 
 their greatest. 
 
 27. Awfulness of being deprived of the Gospel. 
 
 We may be beloved of God, and he may have 
 purposes of mercy towards us, whilst he takes 
 from us our temporal advantages, but still leaves 
 us our spiritual. He may be only disciplining us 
 as a parent ; and the discipline prove, not merely 
 that there is need, but that there is room for re- 
 pentance. But if we were once deprived of the 
 Gospel ; if the Bible ceased to circulate amongst 
 our people ; if there were no longer the preach- 
 ing of Christ in our churches ; if we were left to 
 set up reason instead of revelation ; to bow the 
 knee to the god of our own imaginations, and to 
 burn unhallowed incense before the idols which 
 the madness of speculation would erect — then 
 farewell, a long farewell, to all that has given 
 dignity to our state, and happiness to our homes ; 
 
70 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the foundations of true greatness would be all un- 
 dermined, the bulwarks of real liberty shaken, 
 the springs of peace poisoned, the sources of 
 prosperity dried up ; and a coming generation 
 would have to add our name to those of coun- 
 tries whose national decline has kept pace with 
 their religious, and to point to our fate as exhi- 
 biting the awful comprehensiveness of the threat, 
 " I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove 
 thy candlestick out of his place, except thou 
 repent." 
 
 28. Advantages of religious instruction. 
 
 In the mind of many a peasant, whose every 
 moment is bestowed in wringing from the soil a 
 scanty subsistence, there plumber powers, which, 
 had they been evolved by early discipline, would 
 have elevated their possessor to the first rank of 
 philosophers ; and many a mechanic, who goes 
 patiently the round of unvaried toil, is, uncon- 
 sciously, the owner of faculties, which, nursed 
 and expanded by education, would have enabled 
 him to electrify senates, and to win that pre- 
 eminence which men award to the majesty of 
 genius. There arise occasions, when — peculiar 
 circumstances aiding the development — the pent- 
 up talent struggles loose from its trammels; and 
 the peasant and mechanic, through a sudden out- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 71 
 
 break of mind, start forward to the places foi 
 which their intellect fits them. But ordinarily, 
 the powers remain through life bound-up and 
 torpid : and he, therefore, forms but a contracted 
 estimate of the amount of high mental endow- 
 ment, who reckons by the proud marbles which 
 cause the aisles of a cathedral to breathe the 
 memory of departed greatness, and never thinks, 
 when walking the village church-yard with its 
 rude memorials of the fathers of the valley, that, 
 possibly, there sleeps beneath his feet one who, 
 if early taught, might have trode with a New- 
 ton's step the firmament, or swept with a Milton's 
 hand the harp-strings. We make, then, every 
 admission of the power which there is in culti- 
 vation to enlarge and unfold the human under- 
 standing. We nothing question that mental ca- 
 pacities are equally distributed amongst different 
 classes of society ; and that, if it were not for the 
 adventitious circumstances of birth, entailing the 
 advantages of education, there would be sent out 
 from the humbler grades the same proportion as 
 from the higher, of individuals distinguished by 
 all the energies of talent. 
 
 And thus believing that efforts to disseminate 
 knowledge may cause a general calling forth of 
 the mental powers of our population, we have no 
 other feeling but that of pleasure m the survey 
 of these efforts. It is indeed possible — and of 
 
TV BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 this we have our fears — that, by sending a throng 
 of publications to the fireside of the cottager, 
 you may draw him away from the Bible, which 
 has heretofore been specially the poor man's 
 book, and thus inflict upon him, as we think, an 
 intellectual injury, as well as a moral. But wo 
 now only uphold the superiority of scriptural 
 knowledge, as compared with any other, when 
 the alone object proposed is that of developing 
 and improving the thinking powers of mankind. 
 And we reckon that a fine triumph might be won 
 for Christianity, by taking two illiterate indivi- 
 duals, and subjecting them to two different pro- 
 cesses of mental discipline. Let the one bo 
 made familiar with what is styled general infor- 
 mation ; let the other be confined to what we call 
 Bible information. And when, in each case, the 
 process has gone on a fair portion of time, and 
 you came to inquire whose reasoning faculties 
 had been most improved, whose mind had most 
 grown and expanded itself, we are persuaded 
 that the scriptural study would vastly excel the 
 miscellaneous ; and that the experiment would 
 satisfactorily demonstrate, that no knowledge 
 tells so much on the intellect of mankind as that 
 which is furnished by the records of inspiration 
 And if the grounds of this persuasion be de- 
 manded, we think them so self-evident as scarce- 
 ly to require the being formally advanced. We 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 73 
 
 say again, that if you keep out of sight the con- . 
 cern which man has in Scriptural truths, regard- 
 ing him as born for eternity, there is a grandeur 
 about these truths, and a splendor, and a beauty, 
 which must amaze and fascinate him, if he look 
 not beyond the present era of existence. In all 
 the wide range of sciences, what science is there 
 comparable, in its sublimity and difficulty, to the 
 science of God 'I In all the annals of humankind, 
 what history is there so curious, and so riveting, 
 as that of the infancy of man, the cradling, so to 
 speak, of the earth's population 1 Where will you 
 iind a lawgiver from whose edicts may be learned 
 a nobler jurisprudence than is exhibited by the 
 statute-book of Moses 1 Whence will you gather 
 such vivid illustrations of the power of truth as 
 are furnished by the march of Christianity, when 
 apostles stood alone, and a whole world was 
 against theml And if there be no book which 
 treats of a loftier science, and none which con- 
 tains a more interesting history, and none which 
 more thoroughly discloses the principles of right 
 and the prowess of truth ; why then, just so far 
 as mental improvement can be proved dependent 
 on acquaintance with scientific matters, or his- 
 torical, or legal, or ethical, the Bible, beyond all 
 other books, must be counted the grand engine 
 for achieving that improvement. 
 
74> BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 29. Cautions against scepticism. 
 
 Oh, I could tremble for those, who, blind to 
 the weakness which is naturally the portion of 
 our race, and rashly confident in a strength to 
 which the fallen have no jot of pretension, adven- 
 ture themselves now upon the sea of life, and go 
 forth into a world where must often be encoun- 
 tered temptations to think lightly of the faith of 
 their fathers. Oh, I say, I could tremble for them. 
 If any amongst you — I speak it with all affection, 
 and from the knowledge which positions in life 
 have enabled me to form of the progress of youth- 
 ful infidelity — if any amongst you enter the busy 
 scenes of society, with an overweening confi- 
 dence in your own capacities, with a lofty opin- 
 ion of the powers of reason, and with a hardy 
 persuasion that there is nerve enough in the 
 mind to grapple with divine mysteries, and vigor 
 enough to discover truth for itself — if, in short, 
 you, the weak, shall say we are strong — then I 
 fear for you, far more than I can tell, that you 
 may fall an easy prey to some champion of here- 
 tical error, and give ready ear to the flattering 
 schemes of the worshipers of intellect ; and that 
 thus a mortal blight shall desecrate the buds of 
 early promise, and eternity frown on you with all 
 the cheerlessness which it wears to those who 
 despise the blood of atonement, and you — the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 75 
 
 children, it may be, of pious parents, over whose 
 infancy a godly father hath watched, and whose 
 young years have been guarded by the tender so- 
 licitudes of a righteous mother — you may win to 
 yourselves a heritage of shame and confusion, 
 and go down, at the judgment, into the pit of the 
 unbelieving and scornful. Better, infinitely bet- 
 ter would it have been, that your parents had 
 seen you coffindl and sepulchred, ere as yet ye 
 knew evil from good, than that they should have 
 nursed you, and nurtured you, to swell, in later 
 days, the ranks of the apostate. Oh, distrust your- 
 selves, and depend on a higher teaching than 
 human. 
 
 30. Preaching. 
 
 The virtue which we ascribe to our public dis- 
 courses is derived exclusively from their consti- 
 tuting an ordained instrumentality ; and our con- 
 fidence that the virtue will not be found wanting, 
 flows only from a conviction that an instrumen- 
 tality, once ordained, will be duly honored by 
 God. We believe assuredly that there is at work, 
 in the sanctuaries of God, an agency independ- 
 ent of all human, but which is accustomed to 
 make itself felt through finite and weak instru- 
 ments. As the words flow from the lips of him 
 who addresses you, flow apparently in the un- 
 aided strength of mere earthly speech, they may 
 
76 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 be endowed by this agency with an energy which 
 is wholly from above, and thus prevail to the set- 
 ting Christianity before you with as clear evi- 
 dence as was granted to those who saw Jesus in 
 the flesh. Yea, so deep is our persuasion of our 
 living under the dispensation of the Spirit, and 
 of preaching being the chief engine which this 
 Spirit employs in transmitting a knowledge of 
 redemption, that, after every etteavor, however 
 feeble and inadequate to bring under men's view 
 " the mystery of godliness," we feel that practi- 
 cally as much is done for them as though they 
 had been spectators of Christ's expiatory suffer- 
 ings ; and therefore could we boldly wind up 
 every such endeavor, by addressing our auditors 
 as individuals, " before whose eyes Jesus Christ 
 hath been evidently set forth, crucified among 
 them." 
 
 31. Ineffective?iess of Sermo?ia+ 
 
 We put it to yourselves to determine whether 
 we are not describing a common case, when we 
 say that, if you could dissect our congregations, 
 you would find a large mass of persons who 
 seem quite accessible to moral attack ; whom 
 you may easily startle by a close address to the 
 conscience, or overcome by a pathetic and plain- 
 tive description ; and on whom when affliction 
 falls, it falls with that subduing and penetrating" 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 power which gives room for hope that it will 
 bring them to repentance. But if we follow these 
 excited listeners from the place of assembling, 
 and these subdued mourners from the scene of 
 affliction, alas, how soon is it apparent that what 
 is easily roused may be as easily lulled ; and 
 that you have only to remove the incumbent 
 weight, and the former figure is regained. The 
 men who have been all attention to the preacher, 
 whom he seemed to have brought completely 
 under command, so that they were ready to fol- 
 low him whithersoever he would lead, settle 
 back into their listlessness when the stimulant 
 of the sermon is withdrawn ; and those, whom 
 the fires of calamity appeared to have melted, 
 harden rapidly into their old constitution when 
 time has somewhat damped the intenseness of 
 the flame. The melancholy truth is, that the 
 whole assault has been on their natural sensibili- 
 ties, on their animal feelings ; and that nothing 
 like spiritual solicitude has been produced, whe- 
 ther by the sermon or the sorrow. They have 
 given much cause for hope, seeing they have dis- 
 played susceptibility, and thus shown themselves 
 capable of moral impressions. But they have dis- 
 appointed expectation, because they have taken 
 no pains to distinguish between an instinct of 
 nature and a work of God's Spirit, or rather, be- 
 cause they have allowed their feelings to evapo- 
 
 ^ 
 
78 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 rate in the forming a resolution, and have not set 
 themselves prayerfully to the carrying it into 
 effect. And thus it comes to pass that men, on 
 whom preaching seemed to have taken great 
 hold, as though they were moved by the terrors, 
 and animated by the hopes of Christianity ; or 
 whom the visitations of Providence appeared to 
 have brought to humility and contrition ; make 
 no advances in the religion of the heart, but fal- 
 sify the hopes which those who wish their salva- 
 tion have ventured to cherish. 
 
 32. Parable of the Sower. 
 
 Our Saviour had such knowledge of the human 
 heart, and such power of expressing that know- 
 ledge, that he frequently gives us, in one or two 
 bold outlines, descriptions of great classes into 
 which the world or the church may be divided. 
 There is no more remarkable instance of this 
 than the parable of the sower. In that parable 
 Christ furnishes descriptions of four classes of 
 the hearers of the Gospel, each description be- 
 ing brief, and fetched from the character of the 
 soil on which the sower cast his seed. But the 
 singularity is, that these four classes include the 
 whole mass of hearers, so that, when combined, 
 they make up either the world or the church. 
 You cannot imagine any fifth class. For in every 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 79 
 
 man who is brought within sound of the Gospel, 
 the seed must be as that by the way-side, which 
 is quickly carried away, or as that on shallow 
 soil where the roots cannot strike, or as that 
 among thorns which choke all the produce ; or, 
 finally, as that which, falling on a well-prepared 
 place, yields fruit abundantly. You may try to find 
 hearers who come not under any one of these 
 descriptions, but you will not succeed j whilst, on 
 the other hand, the world has never yet presented 
 an assemblage of mixed hearers which might not 
 be resolved into these four divisions. And we 
 regard it as an extraordinary evidence of the sa- 
 gacity, if the expression be lawful, of our Lord, 
 of his superhuman penetration, and of his mar- 
 vellous facility in condensing volumes into sen- 
 tences, that he has thus furnished, in few words, 
 a sketch of the whole world in its every age, and 
 given us, within the compass of a dozen lines, 
 the moral history of our race, as acted on by the 
 preaching of the Gospel. 
 
 33. Preaching always profitable to the right- 
 minded hearer. 
 
 No man, who keeps Christ stedfastly in view 
 as the " minister of the true tabernacle," will ever 
 fail to derive profit from a sermon, and strength 
 from a communion. The grand evil is that men 
 ordinarily lose the chief Minister in the inferior, 
 
80 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 and determine beforehand that they cannot be 
 advantaged, unless the inferior be modelled ex- 
 actly to their own pattern. They regard the 
 speaker simply as a man, and not at all as a mes- 
 senger. Yet the ordained preacher is a messen- 
 ger, a messenger from the God of the whole earth. 
 His mental capacity may be weak — that is no- 
 thing. His speech may be contemptible — that is 
 nothing. His knowledge may be circumscribed — 
 we say not, that is nothing. But we say that, 
 whatever the man's qualifications, he should rest 
 upon his office. And we hold it the business of a 
 congregation, if they hope to find profit in the 
 public duties of the Sabbath, to cast away those 
 personal considerations which may have to do 
 with the officiating individual, and to fix stedfast- 
 ly their thoughts on the office itself. Whoever 
 preaches, a congregation would be profited, if 
 they sat down in the temper of Cornelius and Iris 
 friends, " now therefore are we all here present 
 before God, to hear all things that are command- 
 ed thee of God." 
 
 34. Effects of a view of the works of creation. 
 
 We should reckon it fair evidence against the 
 piety of an individual, if he could gaze on the 
 stars in their courses, or travel over the provin- 
 ces of this globe, and mark with what profusion 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 81 
 
 all that can minister to human happiness is scat- 
 tered around, and yet be conscious of no ascend- 
 ings of heart towards that benevolent Father 
 who hath given to man so glorious a dwelling, 
 and over-arched it with so brilliant a canopy. 
 Where there is a devout spirit, we are sure that 
 the placing a man whence he may look forth on 
 some majestic development of scenery, on luxu- 
 riant valleys, and the amphitheatre of mountains, 
 and the windings of rivers, is the placing him 
 where he will learn a new lesson in theology, 
 and grow warmer in his love of that Eternal 
 Being "who in the beginning created the hea- 
 vens and the earth." 
 
 The unconverted man, as well as the convert- 
 ed, can take delight in the beauties of nature, 
 and be conscious of ecstacy of spirit, as his eye 
 gathers in the wonders of the material universe. 
 But the converted man, whilst the mighty pic- 
 ture is before him, and the sublime features and 
 the lovely successively fasten his admiration, 
 considers who spread out the landscape and gave 
 it its splendor 5 and from such consideration he 
 derives fresh confidence in the God whom he 
 feels to be his God, pledged to uphold him and 
 supply his every want. The unconverted man, 
 on the contrary, will either behold the architec- 
 ture without giving a thought to the Architect ; 
 or, observing how exquisite a regard for his \v**l- 
 
82 EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 being may be traced in the arrangements of 
 creation, will strengthen himself in his appeal 
 to the compassions of Deity, by the tender soli- 
 citudes of which he can thus prove himself the 
 subject. 
 
 35. Heathen before Christ. 
 
 We hold it unquestionable, that, long ere 
 Christ came into the world, much of truth, yea, 
 of solid and illustrious truth, had been detected 
 by the unaided searchings of mankind. We 
 should not think that any advantage were gained 
 to the cause of revelation, if we succeeded in 
 demonstrating, that, over the whole face of our 
 planet, with the lonely exception of the narrow 
 province of Judea, there had rested, previously 
 to the birth of the Kedeemer, a darkness alto- 
 gether impenetrable. We are quite ready to 
 allow, that where the full blaze was not made vi- 
 sible, glimmerings and sparklings were caught ; 
 so that, if upon no point, connected with futurity, 
 perfect information were obtained, upon many 
 points a degree of intelligence was reached 
 which should not be overlooked in our esti- 
 mate of heathenism. We think it right to assert, 
 under certain limitations, that man, whilst left to 
 himself, dug fragments of truth from the mighty 
 quarry ; though we know that he possessed not 
 the ability of fashioning completely the statue* 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 83 
 
 nor even of combining into symmetry the de- 
 tached portions brought up by his oft-renewed 
 strivings. 
 
 36. Universal acknowledgment of Deity, 
 
 If we begin with the lowest element of truth ; 
 namely, that there is a great first cause, through 
 whose agency hath arisen the fair and costly 
 fabric of the visible universe, and we have here 
 a truth, which, under some shape or another, has 
 been recognized and held in every age, and by 
 every nation. Barbarism and civilization have 
 had to do with peculiar forms and modifications 
 of this truth. But neither the rude processes of 
 the one, nor the attenuating of the other, have 
 availed to produce its utter banishment from the 
 earth. However various the tribes into which 
 the human race hath been broken, the phenome- 
 non has never existed of a nation of atheists. 
 The voyagers who have passed over waters 
 which had never been ploughed by the seaman, 
 and lighted upon islands whose loneliness had 
 shut them out from the knowledge and compa- 
 nionship of other districts of the globe, have 
 found always, amid the savage and secluded 
 inhabitants, the knowledge of some invisible 
 being, great in his power, and awful in his ven- 
 geance. 
 
84 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 37. Unity of the Godhead. 
 
 Men labored and struggled hard to reach the 
 doctrine of the unity of Godhead. But philosophy, 
 with all the splendor of its discoveries, could ne- 
 ver banish polytheism from the earth. It was re- 
 served for Christianity to establish a truth which, 
 now, we are disposed to class amongst the ele- 
 ments of even natural theology. And when you 
 contrast the belief in the existence of Deity which 
 obtained generally before the coming of Christ, 
 with that established wheresoever the Gospel 
 gains footing as a communication from heaven ; 
 the one, a belief in many gods ; the other, a be- 
 lief in one God — the first, therefore, a belief from 
 which reason herself now instinctively recoils: 
 the second, a belief which carries on its front the 
 dignity and beauty of a sublime moral fact — you 
 will quickly admit that the truth of the existence 
 of God, as it is out of Jesus, differs, immeasura- 
 bly, from that same truth, " as it is in Jesus :" 
 and you will thus grant the accuracy of the pro- 
 position, that truth becomes practically new truth, 
 and effective truth, by being " the truth as it is 
 *in Jesus." 
 
 38. Persons in the Trinity. 
 
 It is highly important carefully to distinguish 
 between what the Scriptures affirm of the attii- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 85 
 
 butes, and what of the offices, of the persons in 
 the Trinity. In regard of the attributes, the em- 
 ployed language marks perfect equality ; the Fa- 
 ther, Son, and Spirit, being alike spoken of as 
 Eternal, Omniscient, Omnipotent, Omnipresent. 
 But, in regard of the offices, there can be no dis- 
 pute that the language indicates inequality, and 
 that both the Son and Spirit are represented as 
 inferior to the Father. This may readily be ac- 
 counted for from the nature of the plan of re- 
 demption. This plan demanded that the Son 
 should humble himself, and assume our nature ; 
 and that the Spirit should condescend to be sent 
 as a renovating agent, whilst the Father was to 
 remain in the sublimity and happiness of God- 
 head. And if such plan were undertaken and 
 carried through, it seems unavoidable, that, in 
 speaking of its several parts, the Son and the 
 Spirit should be occasionally described as infe- 
 rior to the Father. The offices being subordinate, 
 the holders of those offices, though naturally 
 equal, must sometimes be exhibited as though 
 one were superior to the others. At one time they 
 may be spoken of with reference to their attri- 
 butes, and then the language will mark perfect 
 equality ; at another, with reference to their offi- 
 ces, and then it will indicate a relative inferiority. 
 And it is only by thus distinguishing between 
 the lit tributes and the offices, that-we can satis- 
 8 
 
86 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 factorily explain the Apostle's declaration of 
 Christ, that he is to deliver up his kingdom to 
 the Father, and to become himself subject to the 
 Father. The question naturally proposes itself, 
 How are statements such as these to be recon- 
 ciled with other portions of Scripture, which 
 speak of Christ as an everlasting King, and de- 
 clare his dominion to be that which shall not be 
 destroyed 1 There is no difficulty in reconciling 
 these apparently conflicting assertions, if we con- 
 sider Christ as spoken of in the one case as God, 
 in the other as Mediator. If we believe him to 
 be God, we know that he must be, in the largest 
 sense, Sovereign of the universe, and that he can 
 no more give up his dominion than change his na- 
 ture. And then if we regard him as undertaking 
 the office of Mediator between God and man, 
 we must admit the likelihood that he would be 
 invested with an authority, not necessarily per- 
 manent, which would last indeed as long as the 
 office, but cease if there ever came a period 
 when the office would itself be abolished. So 
 that there is no cause for surprise, nothing which 
 should go to the persuading us that Christ is not 
 God, if we find the Son described as surrender* 
 ing his kingdom : we have only to suppose him 
 then spoken of as Mediator, and to examine 
 whether there be not a mediatorial kingdom, 
 which, committed to Christ, has at length to 
 bo resigned. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 87 
 
 39. Mystery. 
 
 The Bible tells me explicitly that Christ was 
 God ; and it tells me, as explicitly, that Christ 
 was man. It does not go on to state the modus 
 or manner of the union. I stop, therefore, where 
 the Bible stops. I bow before a God-man as my 
 Mediator, but I own as inscrutable the myste- 
 ries of his person. 
 
 It is thus also with the doctrine of the Trinity. 
 Three persons are set before me as equally di- 
 vine. At the same time, I am taught that there 
 is only one God. How can the three be one, and 
 the one be three 1 Silent as the grave is the Bible 
 on this wonder. But I do not reject its speech 
 because of its silence. I believe in three divine 
 persons, because told of a Trinity; I believe in 
 one only God, because told of an Unity : but I 
 leave to the developments of a nobler sphere of 
 existence the clearing up the marvel of a Trinity 
 in Unity. 
 
 40. God's Eternity. 
 
 If I desired to enlarge a man's mind, I should 
 like to fasten it on the truth that God never had 
 beginning, and never shall have end. I would set 
 it to the receiving this truth, and to the grappling 
 with it. I know that, in endeavoring to compre- 
 hend this truth, the mind will be quickly mas- 
 
88 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 tered ; and that, in attempting to push on to its 
 boundary-lines, it will fall down, wearied with 
 travel, and see infinity still stretching beyond it. 
 But the effort will have been a grand mental dis- 
 cipline. And he who has looked at this discovery 
 of God, as made to us by the word of inspiration, 
 is likely to have come away from the contempla- 
 tion with his faculties elevated, and at the same 
 time humbled ; so that a vigor, allied in no de- 
 gree witji arrogance, will have been generated 
 by the study of a Bible-truth ; and the man, 
 whilst strengthening his mind by a mighty exer- 
 cise, will have learned the hardest, and the most 
 useful, of all lessons — that intellect is not omni- 
 potent, and that the greatest wisdom may be, 
 oftentimes, the knowing ourselves ignorant. 
 
 41. God's Omnipresence. 
 
 It is an august and an overpowering thought, 
 that our God should be alike present on every 
 star, and in each of its minutest recesses ; and 
 that, though there be a vast employment of the 
 mechanism of second causes, there is not 
 wrought a beneficial effect throughout the bound- 
 less expansions of creation, whose actual author- 
 ship can be referred to any thing short of the 
 great first cause. It is a noble contemplation, 
 though one by which our faculties are presently 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 89 
 
 confounded — that of the whole universe hanging 
 upon Deity ; archangel, and angel, and man, and 
 beast, and worm, receiving momentary supplies 
 from the same inexhaustible fountain ; and every 
 tenant of every system appealing to the common 
 parent to preserve it, each instant, from extinc- 
 tion. Oh, we take it for a cold and a withered 
 heart, which is conscious of no unusual and over- 
 coming emotions, when there is told, forth the 
 amazing fact, that the God, who hearkens to the 
 prayer of the meanest and most despised, and 
 who is verily present, in all his omnipotence, 
 when invoked by the very poorest of the chil- 
 dren of calamity, should be actuating, at the 
 same moment, all the machinery of the universe, 
 and inspiring all its animation ; guiding the roll- 
 ings of every planet, and the leap of every cata- 
 ract, and dealing out existence to every thing 
 that breatheth. We say again that it is this pro- 
 perty of God, the property of acting every where 
 at once, which removes him furthest from com- 
 panionship with the finite, and makes him inac- 
 cessible to all the soarings of the creature. It 
 is the property to which we have nothing analo- 
 gous amongst ourselves, even on the most re- 
 duced and miniature scale. A creature must be 
 local. He must cease to act in one place before 
 he can begin to act in another. But the Creator 
 knows nothing whether of distance or time. In- 
 8* 
 
90 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 habiting sublimely both infinity and eternity, 
 there cannot be the spot in space, nor the instant 
 in duration, when and where he is not equally 
 present. And seeing that he thus occupies the 
 universe, not as being diffused over it, but as 
 existing, in all his integrity, in its every division 
 and subdivision ; and, seeing, moreover, that he 
 waits not the passage of centuries, but is at 
 • f the end from the beginning ;" it can be literally 
 true, without exaggeration, and without figure, 
 that r - all things come of him ;" whatsoever there 
 is of good being wrought by him, whatsoever of 
 evil, permitted ; the present being of his per- 
 formance, and the future of his appointment. 
 
 42. GoiTs Omnipresence wondarful. 
 
 There is nothing more wonderful in respect to 
 Deity than that universality of operation which 
 is always ascribed to him. One grand distinction 
 between the infinite being, and all finite beings, 
 appears to us to be, that the one can be working 
 a thousand things at once, whilst the energies 
 of the others must confine themselves to one 
 work at one time. If you figure to yourselves the 
 highest of created intelligences, you endow him 
 with a might which leaves immeasurably behind 
 the noblest human powers ; but you never think 
 of investing him with the ability of acting, at the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 91 
 
 same time, on this globe, and on one of those far- 
 ofF planets which we see traveling around us. 
 You make, in short, the strength of an archangel 
 by multiplying the strength of a man. But, what- 
 ever the degree up to which you think it needful 
 to multiply, you never add to the strength the in- 
 comprehensible property, that it may be exerting 
 itself, at the same moment, in places between 
 which there is. an untraveled separation, and 
 causing its mightiness to be simultaneously felt 
 in the various districts of a crowded immensity. 
 If you even multiplied finite power till you sup- 
 posed it to become infinite, you would only keep 
 adding to its intenseness, and would in no de- 
 gree attribute to it ubiquity. And, however you 
 might suppose this multiplied power capable of 
 wonders which seem to demand the interposi- 
 tions of Deity, you would still consider, that these 
 wonders must be performed in succession ; and 
 you would never imagine of the power, that, in 
 the depths of every ocean, and on the surface of 
 every star, it could, at the same instant, be put- 
 ting forth its magnificent workings. 
 
 And thus it is that the omnipresence of God- 
 head is that property, which, more than any other, 
 outruns our conceptions. In multiplying power, 
 so to speak, you never multiply presence. But 
 when you had even wrought up the idea of a 
 power which can create, and annihilate, you 
 
92 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 would give it one thing to create at once, and 
 one thing to annihilate at once ; and you would 
 never suppose it busy equally, in all its glory and 
 all its resistlessness, in every department of an 
 universe, and with every fraction of infinity. 
 
 The unapproachable mystery — it is not that 
 God should be in the midst of this sanctuary, and 
 that he should be ministering life to those ga- 
 thered within its walls— it is, that he should be 
 no more there than he is elsewhere, and no more 
 elsewhere than he is there ; and that with as ac- 
 tual a concentration of energy as though he had 
 no other occupation, he should be supplying our 
 fast-recurring necessities ; and yet that, with such 
 a diffusion of presence as causes him to be equal- 
 ly every where, he should superintend each dis- 
 trict of creation, and give out vitality to each 
 order of beings. 
 
 43. Disregard of God's Omniscience, 
 
 We are all aware how powerful a restraint is 
 imposed on the most dissolute and profane, by 
 the presence of an individual who will not coun- 
 tenance them in their impieties. So long as they 
 are under observation, they will not dare to yield 
 to imperious desires : they must shrink into a soli- 
 tude ere they will perpetrate crime, or give in- 
 dulgence to lusts. We can feel confident in re- 
 spect of the most worldly-minded, that, if there 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 93 
 
 could be always at his side an individual of 
 whom he stood in awe, and whose good opinion 
 he was anxious to cultivate, he would abstain 
 from many of his cherished gratifications, and 
 walk, comparatively, a course of self-denial and 
 virtue. He would be arrested in far the greater 
 part of his purposes, if he knew that he was act- 
 ing under the eye of this individual ; and it would 
 only be when assured that the inspection was 
 suspended or withdrawn, that he would follow 
 unreservedly the bent of his desires. But it is 
 amongst the most surprising of moral phenome- 
 na, that the effect, which would be produced by a 
 human inspector, is scarcely ever produced by 
 a divine. If a man can elude the observation of 
 his fellow-men, he straightway acts as though he 
 had eluded all observation : place him where 
 there is no other of his own race, and he will 
 feel as if, in the strictest sense, alone. The re- 
 membrance that the eye of Deity is upon him, 
 that the infinite God is continually at his side — 
 so that there is absurdity in speaking of a soli- 
 tude ; every spot throughout the expansions of 
 space being inhabited by the Almighty — this re- 
 membrance is without any practical effect 5 or 
 rather the fact, though universally known, is not 
 considered ; and therefore the man, though in 
 contact with his Maker, fancies himself in -loneli- 
 ness, and acts as if certain of being unobserved. 
 
94 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 44. Foreknowledge of God. 
 
 However unable we may be to reconcile the 
 certainty of a foreknown destruction with the 
 possibility of avoiding it, we are bound to believe 
 that no man's doom is so fixed that it may net 
 be averted by repentance. It may appear to us, 
 that, all along, the destruction of Jerusalem had 
 been a settled thing in the purposes of the Al- 
 mighty ; and that God's plans were so arranged 
 on the supposition of the final infidelity of the 
 Jews, that they could not have allowed a final 
 belief in the Christ. Yet Christ declares of Je- 
 rusalem, that he would often have gathered her 
 children together, as a hen gathereth her chick- 
 ens under her wings ; and that on]y their own 
 wilful infidelity had prevented his sheltering them 
 from every outbreak of wrath. We cannot, there- 
 fore, doubt that it was quite within the power of 
 the Jews to have repented ; and that, had they 
 hearkened to the voice of the Saviour, they would 
 have escaped all that punishment which appears 
 so predetermined, that, to suppose it remitted, 
 is to suppose God's plans thwarted. We fully ad- 
 mit that the Saviour must have known that those 
 whom he called would not obey. But there is 
 all the difference between saying that they could 
 not obey, and that they would not obey. In say- 
 ing that they could not obey, we make them the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 95 
 
 subjects of some hidden decree, which placed an 
 impassable barrier between themselves and re- 
 pentance, and which therefore rendered nugatory, 
 yea, reduced into mere mockery, the warnings 
 and invitations with which they were plied. But 
 in saying that they would not obey, we charge 
 the whole blame on the perverseness of the hu- 
 man will, and suppose a clear space left, notwith- 
 standing the foreknown infidelity, for those re- 
 monstrances and persuasions which are wholly 
 out of place where there is no power of heark- 
 ening to the call. 
 
 And what we thus hold in regard to Jerusa- 
 lem, must be equally held in regard of every in- 
 dividual amongst ourselves. But then it should 
 be carefully observed, that this foreknowledge of 
 God puts no restraint upon man ; obliges him not 
 to one course rather than to another, but leaves 
 him as free to choose between life and death, as 
 though the choice must be made before it could 
 be conjectured. The clouds of vengeance were 
 just ready to burst upon Jerusalem ; but the only 
 reason why her children were not sheltered, was 
 that M they would not." Thus with ourselves — 
 God may be as certain of our going down final- 
 ly into the pit, as though we had already been 
 thrown to destruction ; but the single reason, 
 given at the last, why we have not escaped, will 
 be our own rejection of a proffered deliverance. 
 
96 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 -There is no mystery in this, nothing dark, nothing 
 inscrutable. There is no room for pleading that 
 a divine decree was against us, and that, therefore, 
 salvation, if nominally offered, was virtually out 
 of reach. It was not out of the reach of Jerusa- 
 lem, though her grasping it would have apparent- 
 ly deranged the whole scheme of redemption. 
 And it is not out of the reach of any one of us, 
 however the final impenitence of this or that in- 
 dividual may be fully ascertained by the fore- 
 knowledge of God. It is nothing to say that it 
 is impossible for me to do what God knows I 
 shall not do. It is not God's foreknowledge, it 
 is only my own wilfulness, which makes the im- 
 possibility. I am not hampered, I am not shackled 
 by God's foreknowledge : I am every jot as free 
 as though there were no foreknowledge. And 
 thus, without searching into secret things which 
 belong only to God, and yet maintaining in all 
 their integrity the divine attributes, we can ap- 
 ply to every one who goes on in impenitence, 
 the touching remonstrance of Christ, "How often 
 would I have gathered thee under my wings, and 
 thou wouldest not !" 
 
 How often ! Who is there amongst us unto 
 whom have not been vouchsafed repeated oppor- 
 tunities of knowing the things which belong unto 
 peace 1 Who, that has not been frequently moved, 
 by the expostulations of conscience and the sug* 
 
STELE THOUGHTS. 97 
 
 gestions of God's Spirit, to flee the wrath to 
 come 1 Who, upon whom the means of grace 
 have not been accumulated, so that, time after 
 time, he has been threatened, and warned, and 
 reasoned with, and besought 1 How often ! I 
 would have gathered thee in thy prosperity, 
 when thou wast spoken to in mercies, and bidden 
 to remember the hand whence they came. I 
 w r ould have gathered thee in thine adversity, 
 when sorrow had softened thine heart, and thou 
 didst look on the right hand, and on the left, for 
 a comforter. How often ! By every sermon which 
 thou hast heard, by every death in thy neighbor- 
 hood, by every misgiving of soul, by every joy 
 that cheered thee, and by every grief that sad- 
 dened thee, I 'have spoken, but thou wouldest 
 not. hear ; I have called, but thou wouldest not 
 answer. We may be thoroughly assured that 
 there is not one of us who shall be able to plead 
 at the last, that he was not sufficiently sum- 
 moned, not sufficiently invited. There is not one 
 of us, who shall be able to charge his perdition 
 on any thing but his own choice. M How often," 
 "how often," will ring in the ear of every man 
 who remains unconverted beneath the ministry 
 of the Gospel ; the remembrance of abused mer- 
 cies, and slighted means, and neglected opportu- 
 nities, being as the knell of his unalterable doom. 
 And, oh, as the wicked behold the righteous shel- 
 9 
 
98 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 tered beneath the Mediator's protection, from 
 all the fury which gathers and hurries over a 
 polluted creation, we can believe, that, of all 
 racking thoughts, the most fearful will be, that 
 they too might have been covered by the same 
 mighty wing, and that, had they not chosen ex- 
 posure to God's wrath, they too might have 
 rested in peace, whilst the strange work of de- 
 struction went forward. Therefore will their 
 own consciences either pass or ratify their sen- 
 tence. They will shrink down to their fire and 
 their shame, not more compelled by a ministry 
 of vengeance, than torn by a consciousness that 
 they, like the children of Jerusalem, might have 
 often taken shelter under the suretyship of a Re- 
 deemer, and that they, like the children of Jeru- 
 salem, are naked and defenceless, only because 
 they would not be covered with his feathers. 
 
 45. Justice of God manifested in the visible 
 creation. 
 
 It must be want of consideration which makes 
 us read only God's love in the works of creation. 
 We say of the man who infers nothing but the 
 benevolence of Deity from the firmament and the 
 landscape, just as though no other attribute were 
 graven on the encompassing scenery, that he con- 
 tents himself with a superficial glance, or blinds 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 99 
 
 himself to the traces of wrath and devastation. 
 That we live in a disorganized section of the uni- 
 verse ; that our globe has been the scene and sub- 
 ject of mighty convulsions ; we hold to be as legi- 
 ble in the lineaments of nature, as that " the Lord 
 is good to all, and his tender mercies are over 
 all his works." There is a vast deal in the ap- 
 pearances of the earth, and in the phenomena of 
 the elements, to assure us that evil has been in- 
 troduced amongst us, and has already provoked 
 the vengeance of God. So that a considering man, 
 if he make the visible creation the object of his 
 reflection, will reach the conclusion, that, what- 
 ever may be the compassions of his Maker, he 
 can interfere for the punishment of iniquity — a 
 conclusion which at once dissipates the hope, that 
 the love of God will mitigate, if not remove, de- 
 served penalties, and which therefore strengthens 
 our proof that, when we consider, we shall be 
 afraid of God. 
 
 46. Justice, of God fully proved only by revelation. 
 
 We might obtain, independently of the scheme 
 of redemption, a definite and firm-built persua- 
 sion, that God is a just God, taking cognizance 
 of the transgressions of his creatures. We do 
 not, then, so refer to the sacrifice of Christ for 
 proof of God's justice, as though no proof could 
 
100 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 be elsewhere obtained. The God of natural reli 
 gion must be a God to whom sundry perfections 
 are ascribed; and amongst such perfections jus- 
 tice will find, necessarily, a place. But we argue 
 that the demonstration of theory will never com- 
 mend itself to men's minds like the demonstra- 
 tion of practice. There might have come to us a 
 revelation from heaven, ushered in with incon- 
 trovertible witness ; and this revelation might 
 have stated, in language the boldest and most un- 
 qualified, that God's justice could overlook no 
 iota of offence, and dispense with no tittle of pun- 
 ishment. But, had we been left without a vivid 
 exhibition of the workings of this justice, we 
 should perpetually have softened down the state- 
 ments of the word, and argued that, in all pro- 
 bability, far more was said than ever would be 
 done. We should have reasoned up from human 
 enactments to divine ; and, finding that the for- 
 mer are oftentimes far larger in the threatening 
 than in the exaction, have concluded that the lat- 
 ter might, at last, exhibit the like inequality. 
 
 Now if we would deliver the truth of God's 
 justice from these misapprehensions, whether 
 wilful or accidental, what process, we ask of you, 
 lies at our disposal! It is quite useless to try 
 abstract reasoning. The mind can evade it, and 
 the heart has no concern with it. It will avail 
 nothing to insist on the literal force of expres 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 101 
 
 sions. The whole mischief lies in the questioning 
 the thorough putting into effect ; in the doubting 
 whether what is denounced shall be point by point 
 inflicted. What then shall we do with this truth 
 of God's justice 1 We send a man at once to the 
 cross of Christ. We bid him gaze on the illus- 
 trious and mysterious victim, stooping beneath 
 the amazing burden of human transgression. We 
 ask him whether he thinks there was remission 
 of penalty on behalf of Him who, though clothed 
 in humanity, was one with Deity ; or that the 
 vials of wrath were spoiled of any of their scald- 
 ing drops, ere emptied on the surety of our alien- 
 ated tribes 1 We ask him whether the ago- 
 nies of the garden, and the terrors of the cru- 
 cifixion, furnish not a sufficient and thrilling de- 
 monstration, that God's justice, when it takes in 
 hand the exaction of punishment, does the work 
 tlvBfcughly ; so that no bolt is too ponderous to 
 be driven into the soul, no offence too minute to 
 be set down in the reckoning 1 And if, when the 
 sword of justice awoke against the fellow of the 
 Almighty, it returned not to the scabbard till 
 bathed in the anguish of the sufferer ; and if God's 
 hatred of sin be so intense and overwhelming a 
 thing, that, ere transgressors could be received 
 into favor, the Eternal Sen interposed, and hum- 
 bled himself, so that angels drew back confounded ; 
 and endured vicariously such extremity of wretch- 
 
102 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 edness that the earth reeled at the spectacle) and 
 the heavens were darkened ; why, shall there, or 
 can there, be harborage of the deceitful expecta- 
 tion, that if any one of us, the sons of the apos- 
 tate, rush ' on the bosses of the buckler of the 
 Lord, and make trial for himself of the justice 
 of the Almighty, he shall not find that justice as 
 strict in its works as it is stern in its words, pre 
 pared to deal out to him, unsparingly and un- 
 flinchingly, the fiery portion whose threatenings 
 glare from the pages of Scripture 1 So then we 
 may count it legitimate to maintain, that the truth 
 of God being a just God, is appreciated truth, and 
 effective truth, only in the degree that it is truth 
 
 47. The love of God fully demonstrated only 
 by Revelation. 
 
 We may confess, that he who looks not at this 
 attribute through the person and work of the 
 Mediator, may obtain ideas of it which shall, in 
 certain respects, be correct. And yet, after all, 
 it would be hard to prove satisfactorily, by natu 
 ral theology, that " God is love !" There may bn 
 a kind of poetical, or Arcadian divinity, drawn 
 from the brightness of sunshine, and the rich 
 enamel of flowers, and the deep, dark blue of a 
 sleeping lake. And, taking the glowing landscape 
 as their page of theology, men may sketch to 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 103 
 
 themselves God unlimited in his benevolence. 
 But when the sunshine is succeeded by the dark- 
 ness, and the flowers are withered, and the wa- 
 ters wrought into madness, can they find in the 
 wrath and devastation that assurance of God's 
 love which they derived, unhesitatingly, from the 
 calm and the beauty 1 The matter of fact we 
 hold to be, that Natural Theology, at the best, is 
 a system of uncertainties, a balancing of oppo- 
 sites. I should draw different conclusions from 
 the genial breathings of one day, and the deso- 
 lating simoom of the next. And though when I 
 had thrown me down on an alpine summit, and 
 looked forth on the clusterings of the grand and 
 the lovely, canopied with an azure that was full 
 of glory ; a hope that my Creator loved me, 
 might have been gathered from scenery teeming 
 with impresses of kindness, and apparently send- 1 
 ing out from waving forests, and gushing foun- 
 tains, and smiling villages, the anthem of an ac- 
 knowledgment that God is infinitely beneficent $ 
 yet if, on a sudden, there passed around me the 
 rushings of the hurricane, and there came up 
 from the valleys the shrieks of an affrighted 
 peasantry, and the torrents went down in their 
 strength, sweeping away the labor of man's 
 hands, and the corn and the wood which had 
 crowned the fields as a diadem; oh, the confi- 
 dence which had been given me by an exhibition 
 
104* BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 which appeared eloquent of the benevolence of 
 Godhead, would yield to horror and trepidation, 
 whilst the Eternal One seemed walking before 
 me, the tempest his voice, and the lightning 
 his glance, and a fierce devastation in his every 
 foot-print. 
 
 Now we maintain, that the rectifying medium 
 must be the person and work of the Saviour. 
 When we observe that God loved us so well as 
 to give his Son to death for us, we perceive that 
 the immenseness of this love leaves imagination 
 far behind in her least fettered soarings. But 
 when we also observe that love, so unheard-of, 
 could not advance straight to the rescue of its 
 objects, but must wait, ere it could breathe words 
 of forgiveness to the fallen, the outworkings of 
 a task of ignominy and blood ', there must vanish, 
 at once, the idle expectancy of a tenderness not 
 proof against the cry of despair, and we must 
 learn (unless we wilfully close the mind against 
 conviction) that the love of a holy, and righ- 
 teous, and immutable Being is that amazing prin- 
 ciple, which can stir the universe in our behalf 
 during the season of grace, and yet, as soon as 
 that season have terminated, resign us unhesi- 
 tatingly to the ministry of vengeance. Thus, take 
 the truth of God's love out of Jesus, and you 
 will dress up a weak sympathy which cannot 
 permit the punishment of the disobedient But, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 105 
 
 on the other hand, take this truth " as it is in 
 Jesus," and you have the love immeasurable in 
 its stature, but uncompromising in its penalties ; 
 eager to deliver the meanest who repents, yet 
 nerved to abandon the thousands who die hard- 
 ened 5 threatening-, therefore, the obdurate in the 
 very degree that it encourages the penitent. 
 
 48. Tenderness of God. 
 
 Let all ponder the simple truth, that the hav- 
 ing in their hands a Bible, which wondrously ex- 
 hibits the tenderness of Deity, will leave us with- 
 out excuse, if not found at last at peace with our 
 Maker. For we are not naturally inaccessible to 
 kindness. We are so constituted that a word of 
 sympathy, when we are in trouble, goes at once 
 to the heart, and even the look of compassion 
 acts as a cordial, and excites grateful feelings. 
 We have only to be brought into circumstances 
 of pain and perplexity, and immediately we show 
 ourselves acutely sensitive to the voice of con- 
 solation 5 and any of our fellow-creatures has only 
 to approach us in the character of a comforter, 
 and we feel ourselves drawn out towards the be- 
 nevolent being, and give him at once our thank- 
 fulness and friendship. But it is not thus with re- 
 ference to God. God comes to us in the hour of 
 anxiety, bidding us cast all our care upon him ; 
 bat we look round for another resting-place. He 
 
106 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 comes to us in the season of affliction, offering 
 us the oil and wine of heavenly consolation ; but 
 we hew out for ourselves " broken cisterns." He 
 approaches in the moment of danger, proffering 
 us refuge and succor ; but we trust in our own 
 strength, or seek help from those who are weak 
 as ourselves. But let us be well assured that this 
 single circumstance, that God hath revealed him- 
 self as a comforter, to those whose condition 
 makes them need comfort, will prove us inexcu- 
 sable, if we die without giving him the heart's 
 best affections. He acts upon us in the manner in 
 which, both from our necessities and our suscep- 
 tibilities, there is the greatest likelihood of our 
 being moved to the making him the prime object 
 of our love. And if, notwithstanding, we prefer 
 the creature to the Creator, what shall we have 
 to urge, when he, who now deals with us in mer- 
 cy, begins to deal with us in vengeance 1 
 
 49. Mistaken notion of GocPs love. 
 
 Allowing the idea that " God is love," there is 
 no property of the Creator concerning which it is 
 easier to fall into mistake. We have no standard 
 by which to estimate divine affections, unless one 
 which we fashion out of the results of the work- 
 ings of human. And we know well enough, that, 
 amongst ourselves, an intense and overweening 
 attachment is almost sure to blind man to the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 107 
 
 faults of its object, or to cause, at the least, that 
 when the faults are discerned, due blame is with- 
 held. So that, whilst we have not before us a dis- 
 tinct exhibition of God's love, we may fall natu- 
 rally into the error of ascribing an effeminate 
 tenderness to the Almighty, and reckon, exactly 
 in proportion as we judge the love amazing, that 
 it will never permit our being given over to tor- 
 ment. Hence, admitting it to be truth, yea, most 
 glorious and blessed truth, that the creature is 
 loved by the Creator, this truth must be viewed 
 through a rectifying medium, which shall correct 
 the distortions which a depraved nature produces. 
 
 50. Providence of God. 
 
 Where is the creature which God does not sus- 
 tain 1 where is the solitude which God does not 
 fill 1 where is the want which God does not sup- 
 ply 1 where is the motion which God does not 
 direct 1 where is the action which God does not 
 overrule 1 If, according to the words of the 
 psalmist, we could ascend up to heaven, or 
 make our bed in hell ; if we could take the wings 
 of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts 
 of the sea ; in all this enormous travel, in this 
 journey across the fields of unlimited space, we 
 could never reach the lonely spot at which Deity 
 was not present as an upholder and guardian ; 
 never find the lonely world, no, nor the lonely 
 
108 BIBLE THOUGHTS, 
 
 scene on any one of those globes with which im- 
 mensity is strewed, which was not as strictly 
 watched by the ever-wakeful eye of Omniscience, 
 as though every where else the universe were a 
 void, and this the alone home of life and intelli- 
 gence. We have an assurance which nothing can 
 shake, because derived from the confessed nature 
 of Godhead, that, in all the greatness of his Al- 
 mightiness, our Maker is perpetually passing from 
 star to star, and from system to system, that he 
 may observe what is needed by every order of 
 being, and minister supply — and yet not passing ; 
 for he is always present, present as much at one 
 moment as at another, and in one world as in an- 
 other immeasurably distant ; and covering with 
 the wing of his providence whatever he hath 
 formed, and whatever ho hath animated. 
 
 And if we bring our thoughts within narrower 
 compass, and confine them to the world appointed 
 for men's dwelling, it is a beautiful truth that 
 there cannot be the creature so insignificant, the 
 care so inconsiderable, the action so unimportant, 
 as to be overlooked by Him from whom we draw 
 being. I know that it is not the monarch alone, 
 at the head of his tribes and provinces, who is 
 observed by the Almighty ; and that it is not only 
 at some great crisis in life that an individual be- 
 comes an object of the attention of his Maker. 
 I know rather that the poorest, the meanest, the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 109 
 
 most despised, shares with the monarch the no- 
 tice of the universal Protector ; and that this 
 notice is so unwearied and incessant, that, when 
 he goes to his daily toil or his daily prayer, when 
 he lies down at night, or rises in the morning, or 
 gathers his little ones to the scanty meal, the 
 poor man is tenderly watched by his God ; and 
 he cannot weep the tear which God sees not, nor 
 smile the smile which God notes not, nor breathe 
 the wish which God hears not. The man indeed 
 of exalted rank, on whom may depend the move- 
 ments of an empire, is regarded, with a vigilance 
 which never knows suspense, by Him "who 
 giveth salvation unto kings ;" and the Lord, " to 
 whom belong the shields of the earth," bestows 
 on this man whatever wisdom he displays, and 
 whatever strength he puts forth, and whatever suc- 
 cess he attains. But the carefulness of Deity is in 
 no sense engrossed by the distinguished indivi- 
 dual ; but, just as the regards which are turned on 
 this earth interfere not with those which pour 
 themselves over far-off planets and distant sys- 
 tems, so, whilst the chieftain is observed and at- 
 tended with the assiduousness of what might seem 
 an undivided guardianship, the very beggar is as 
 much the object of divine inspection and succor, 
 as though, in the broad sweep of animated being, 
 there were no other to need the sustaining arm 
 of the Creator. 
 
 10 
 
110 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 And this is what we understand by the provi- 
 dence of the Almighty. We believe of this pro- 
 vidence that it extends itself to every household, 
 and throws itself round every individual, and 
 takes part in every business, and is concerned 
 with every sorrow, and accessory to every joy. 
 We believe that it encircles equally the palace 
 and the cottage ; guiding and upholding alike the 
 poor and the rich ; ministering to the king in his 
 councils, and to the merchant in his commerce, 
 and to the scholar in his study, and to the la- 
 borer in his husbandry — so that, whatever my 
 rank and occupation, at no moment am I with- 
 drawn from the eye of Deity, in no lawful en- 
 deavor am I left to myself, in no secret anxiety 
 have I only my own heart with which I may com- 
 mune. Oh ! it were to take from God all that is 
 most encouraging in his attributes and preroga- 
 tives, if you could throw doubt on this doctrine 
 of his universal providence. It is an august con- 
 templation — that of the Almighty as the architect 
 of creation, filling the vast void with magnificent 
 structures. We are presently confounded when 
 bidden to meditate on the eternity of the Most 
 High ; for it is an overwhelming truth, that he 
 who gave beginning to all besides, could have had 
 no beginning himself. And there are other cha- 
 racteristics and properties of Deity, whose very 
 mention excites awe, and on which the best elo- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. Ill 
 
 quence is silence. But whilst the universal pro- 
 vidence of God is to the full as incomprehensi- 
 ble as aught else which appertains to Divinity, 
 there is nothing in it but what commends itself 
 to the warmest feelings of our nature. And we 
 seem to have drawn a picture which is calculated 
 equally to raise astonishment and delight, to pro- 
 duce the deepest reverence and yet the fullest 
 confidence, when we have represented God as 
 superintending whatever occurs in his infinite do- 
 main — guiding the roll of every planet, and the 
 rush of every cataract, and the gathering of every 
 cloud, and the motion of every will — and when, 
 in order that the delineation may have all that 
 exquisiteness which is only to be obtained from 
 those home-touches which assure us that we 
 have ourselves an interest in what is so splendid 
 and surprising, we add, that he is with the sick 
 man on his pallet, and with the seaman in his 
 danger, and with the widow in her agony. If I 
 would exhibit God as so attending to what is 
 mighty as not to overlook what is mean, what bet- 
 ter can I do than declare him mustering around 
 him the vast army of suns and constellations, 
 and all the while hearkening to every cry which 
 goes up from an afflicted creation — and is not 
 this the very picture sketched by the psalmist, 
 when, after the sublime ascription, " Thy king- 
 dom is an everlasting kingdom, and thy dominion 
 
112 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 endureth throughout all generations," he adds 
 the comforting words, ft the Lord upholdeth all 
 that fall, and lifteth up all those that be bowed 
 down 1" 
 
 51. JVo man independent. 
 
 Who can boast, or who can feel himself, inde- 
 pendent, whilst unable to insure another beat of 
 the pulse, or to decide whether, before he can 
 count two, he shall be spoiled of life or reduced 
 to beggary 1 It is only in proportion as men close 
 their eyes to their absolute want of mastership 
 over the future, that they encourage themselves 
 in the delusion of independence. If they owned, 
 and felt themselves, the possessors of a single 
 moment, with no more power to secure the fol- 
 lowing than if the proposed period were a thou- 
 sand centuries, we might set it down as an un- 
 avoidable consequence, that they would shun the 
 presumption of so acting for themselves as though 
 God were excluded from superintending their 
 affairs. 
 
 52. God's special Providence. 
 v Are we to suppose that this or that ephemeral 
 thing, the tiny tenant of a leaf or a bubble, is too 
 insignificant to be observed by God ; and that it 
 is absurd to think that the animated point, whose 
 existence is a second, occupies any portion of 
 those inspections which have to spread them- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 113 
 
 selves over the revolutions of planets, and the 
 movements of angels 1 Then to what authorship 
 are we to refer this ephemeral thing 1 We sub- 
 ject it to the powers of the microscope, and are 
 amazed, perhaps, at observing its exquisite sym- 
 metries and adornments, with what skill it has 
 been fashioned, with what glory it has been 
 clothed : but we find it said that it is dishonoring 
 to God to suppose him careful or observant of 
 this insect ; and then our difficulty is, who made, 
 who created this insect 1 I know not what there 
 can be too inconsiderable for the providence, if it 
 have not been too inconsiderable for the creation, 
 of God. What it was not unworthy of God to 
 form, it cannot be unworthy of God to preserve. 
 Why declare any thing excluded by its insigni- 
 ficance from his watchfulness, which could not 
 have been produced but by his power % Thus the 
 universal providence of God is little more than 
 an inference from the truth of his being the uni- 
 versal Creator. And men may speak of the little- 
 ness of this or that creature, and ask how he can 
 believe that the animalcule, scarce perceptible as 
 it floats by us on the evening breeze, is observed 
 and cared for by that Being, inaccessible in his 
 sublimity, who " sitteth upon the circle of the 
 earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grass- 
 hoppers :" but we ask in reply, whether or no it 
 be God who gave its substance and animation to 
 10* 
 
114 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 this almost invisible atom ; and unless they can 
 point out to us another creator, we shall hold that 
 it must be every way worthy of God, that he 
 should turn all the watchfulness of a guardian on 
 the work of his own hands. 
 
 53. God's attributes bind him to punish the 
 Guilty. 
 
 We suppose God just, and we suppose him 
 merciful ; and it is in settling the relative claims 
 of these properties, that men fancy they find 
 ground for expecting impunity at the last. The 
 matter to be adjusted is, how a being, confessed- 
 ly love, can so yield to the demands of justice as 
 to give up his creatures to torment ; and the diffi- 
 culty of the adjustment makes way for the flatter- 
 ing persuasion, that love will hereafter triumph 
 over justice, and that threatenings, having an- 
 swered their purpose in the moral government of 
 God, will not be so rigidly exacted as to inter- 
 fere with the workings of unbounded compassion. 
 But it is not by considering that men encourage 
 themselves in the thought, that the claims of love 
 and of justice will be found hereafter at variance, 
 and that, in the contest between the two, those 
 of love will prevail. Through not considering, 
 men have hope in God ; let them only consider, 
 and we are bold to say they will be afraid of God. 
 
 If I do but reflect seriously on the love of my 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 115 
 
 Maker, I must perceive it to be a disposition to 
 produce the greatest amount of happiness, by up- 
 holding through the universe those principles 
 of righteousness with whose overthrow misery 
 stands indissolubly connected. But it is quite 
 evident, that, when once evil has been intro- 
 duced, this greatest amount of happiness is not 
 that which would result from the unconditional 
 pardon of every worker of evil. Such pardon 
 would show the abandonment of the principles 
 of righteousness, and therefore spread consterna- 
 tion and dismay amongst the unfallen members 
 of God's intelligent household. A benevolence 
 which should set aside justice, would cease to 
 be benevolence : it would be nothing but a weak- 
 ness, which, in order to snatch a few from de- 
 served misery, overturned the laws of moral 
 government, and exposed myriads to anarchy and 
 wretchedness. And yet further — unless God be 
 faithful to his threatenings, I have no warrant for 
 believing that he will be faithful to his promises ; 
 if he deny himself in one, he ceases to be God, 
 and there is an end of all reasonable hope that he 
 will make good the other. 
 
 54. God the Universal Proprietor, 
 
 The creature belongs to God : and God, there- 
 fore, cannot give to the creature in that sense in 
 which one creature may give to another. All 
 
11.6 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 that the creature is, and all that the creature has, 
 appertains to God 5 so that, in giving, God alien- 
 ates not his property in that which he bestows. 
 If he own, so to speak, the angel, or the man, 
 then whatever the angel, or the man possesses, 
 belongs still to his proprietor ; and though thai 
 proprietor may give things to be used, they must 
 continue his own, in themselves, and in their pro- 
 duce. If indeed it were possible that a creature 
 could become the property of any other than the 
 Creator, it might be also possible that a creature 
 could possess what was not the Creator's. But 
 as long as it is certain that no creature can have 
 right to call himself his own — the fact of crea- 
 tion making him God's by an invulnerable title — 
 it ought to be received as a self-evident truth, 
 that no creature can possess a good thing which 
 is his own. All which he receives from the boun- 
 ty of God still belongs to God. 
 
 55. Dependence of all upon God. 
 
 There can be but one independent being, and 
 on that one all others must depend. An inde- 
 pendent being must, necessarily, be self-existent, 
 possessing in himself all the well-springs of life, 
 and all the sources of happiness. A being whose 
 existence is derived, must, as necessarily, be de- 
 pendent on the first author for the after-continu- 
 ance. A being who could do without God, would 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 117 
 
 himself be God ; and there needs no argument to 
 prove, that, whatever else God could make, he 
 could not make himself. And you must take it, 
 therefore, as a truth which admits not limitation, 
 that " all things come of God ;" so that there is 
 not the order of creatures, whether material or 
 immaterial, which stands not, every moment, in- 
 debted for every thing to God, or which, however 
 rare its endowments, and however majestic its 
 possessions, could dispense, for one instant, with 
 communications from the fullness of the Almighty, 
 or be thrown on its own energies, without being 
 thrown to darkness and destruction. 
 
 56. God's goodness in providing for the Poor. 
 
 If we set ourselves to establish as a matter of 
 fact, that, in temporal things, God of his good- 
 ness has prepared for the poor, we seem at once 
 arrested in our demonstration by that undeniable 
 wretchedness which lies heavy on the mass of a 
 crowded population. But it would be altogether 
 wrong that we should judge any appointment of 
 God, without reference being had to the distor- 
 tions which man has himself introduced. We 
 feel assured upon the point, that, in constructing 
 the frame-work of society, God designed that one 
 class should depend greatly on another, and that 
 some should have nothing but a hard-earned pit- 
 tance, whilst others were charioted in plenty 
 
118 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 But we are to the full as clear upon another 
 point, namely, that if in any case there be positive 
 destitution, it is not to be referred to the esta- 
 blished ordinance of God, but only to some for- 
 getfulness, or violation of that mutual depen- 
 dence which this ordinance would encourage. 
 There has never yet been the state of things — 
 and in spite of the fears of political economists, 
 we know not that there ever will be — in which 
 the produce of this earth sufficed not for its 
 population. God has given the globe for the 
 dwelling-place of man, and, causing that its val- 
 leys stand thick with corn, scatters food over 
 its surface to satisfy the wants of an enormous 
 and multiplying tenantry. And unless you can 
 show that he hath sent such excess of inhabitants 
 into this district of his empire, that there cannot 
 be wrung for them sufficiency of sustenance from 
 the overtasked soil, you will have made no ad- 
 vance towards a demonstration, that the veriest 
 outcast, worn to a mere skeleton by famine, dis- 
 proves the assertion, that God, of his goodness, 
 has prepared for the poor. The question is not 
 whether every poor man obtains enough: for 
 this brings into the account human management. 
 It is simply, whether God has given enough : for 
 this limits our thoughts to divine appointment 
 And beyond all doubt, when we take this plain 
 and straight-forward view of the subject, we can 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 119 
 
 not put from us the conclusion, that God, of 
 his goodness, has prepared for the poor. If he 
 had so limited the productiveness of the earth 
 that it would yield only enough for a fraction of 
 its inhabitants ; and if he had allowed that the 
 storehouses of nature might be exhausted by the 
 demands of the myriads whom he summoned into 
 life ; there would lie objections against a state- 
 ment which ascribes to his goodness the having 
 made an universal provision. But if — and we 
 have here a point admitting not of controversy — 
 he have always hitherto caused that the produc- 
 tions of the globe should keep pace with its 
 population, it is nothing better than the reason- 
 ing of a child, that God hath not provided for 
 the poor, because, through mal-administration of 
 his bounties, the poor may, in certain cases, have 
 been wholly unprovided for. 
 
 57. Claims of God. 
 
 We ask, whether you will keep back from God 
 what is strictly his own % Will ye rob God, and 
 pawn his time, and his talents, and his strength 
 with the world \ Will ye refuse him what, though 
 it cannot be given with merit, cannot be denied 
 without ruin ? He asks your heart ; give it him ; 
 it is his own. He asks your intellect ; give it him ; 
 it is his own. He asks your money ; give it him 5 
 it is his own. Remember the words of the apostle. 
 
120 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Tt Ye are not your own ; ye are bought with a 
 price." Oh, we want you ; nay, the spirits of the 
 just want you ; and the holy angels want you ; and 
 the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost want 
 you ; all hut the devil and ruined souls want you, 
 to leave off defrauding the Almighty, and to give 
 him his own, yourselves, his by creation, his dou- 
 bly by redemption. I must give God the body, I 
 must give God the soul. I give him the body, if I 
 clothe the tongue with his praises ; if I yield not 
 my members as instruments of unrighteousness ; 
 if I suffer not the fires of unhallowed passion to 
 light up mine eye, nor the vampire of envy to 
 suck the color from my cheek ; if I profane not 
 my hands with the gains of ungodliness ; if I turn 
 away mine ear from the scoffer, and keep under 
 every appetite, and wrestle with every lust ; mak- 
 ing it palpable that I consider each limb as not 
 destined to corruption, but intended for illustrious 
 service, when, at the trumpet-blast of the resur- 
 rection, the earth's sepulchres shall be riven. 
 And I give God the soul, when the understanding- 
 is reverently turned on the investigations of ce- 
 lestial truth ; when the will is reduced to meek 
 compliance with the divine will ; and when all the 
 affections move so harmoniously with the Lord's, 
 that they fasten on the objects which occupy his. 
 This it is to give God his own. God ! " all 
 things come of thee " The will to present our- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 121 
 
 selves must come of thee. Grant that will unto 
 all of us, that we may consecrate unreservedly 
 every thing to thy service, and yet humbly con- 
 fess that of thine own alone do we give thee. 
 
 58. God all in all. 
 
 It is not merely that to every command of 
 Deity there will be yielded an instant and cheer- 
 ful obedience, in every department, and by every 
 inhabitant of the universe. It is more than all 
 this. It is that there shall be such fibres of asso- 
 ciation between the Creator and the creatures — 
 God shall be so wound up,~if the expression be 
 lawful, with all intelligent being — that every 
 other will shall move simultaneously with tho 
 divine, and the resolve of Deity be instantaneous- 
 ly felt as one mighty impulse pervading the vast 
 expansions of mind. God all in all — it is that 
 from the highest order to the lowest, archangel, 
 and angel, and man, and principality, and power, 
 there shall be but one desire, one object ; so that 
 to every motion of the eternal Spirit there will 
 be a corresponding in each element of the intel- 
 lectual creation, as though there were through- 
 out but one soul, one animating, actuating, ener- 
 gizing principle. God all in all. I know not 
 how to describe the harmony which the expres- 
 sion seems to indicate. This gathering of the 
 11 
 
122 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Creator into every creature ; this making each 
 mind in the world of spirit a sort of centre of 
 Deity, from which flow the high decisions of di- 
 vine sovereignty, so that, in all its amplitude, 
 the intellectual creation seems to witness that 
 God is equally every where, and serves as one 
 grand instrument which, at every point and in 
 every spring, is instinct with the very thought of 
 Him who " order eth all things in heaven and 
 earth" — oh, this immeasurably transcends the 
 mere reduction of all systems, and all beings, 
 into a delighted and uniform obedience. This is 
 making God more than the universal Ruler : it is 
 making him the universal Actuator. And you 
 might tell me of tribe upon tribe of magnificent 
 creatures, waiting to execute the commandments 
 of God ; you might delineate the very tenant of 
 every spot in immensity, bowing to one sceptre, 
 and burning with one desire, and living for one 
 end — but indeed the most labored and high- 
 wrought description of the universal prevalence 
 of concord, yields unspeakably to the simple an- 
 nouncement, that there shall be but one spirit, 
 one pulse, through creation; and thought itself 
 is distanced, when we hear, that, after the Son 
 shall have surrendered his kingdom to the Fa- 
 ther, God himself shall be all in all to the 
 universe. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 123 
 
 59. God the Founder of his Church. 
 
 Man reared the Jewish tabernacle, and man 
 builded the Jewish temple. But the spiritual sanc- 
 tuary, of which these were but types and figures, 
 could be constructed by no human architect. A 
 finite power is inadequate to the fashioning and 
 collecting living stones, and to the weaving the 
 drapery of self-denial and obedience. We re- 
 fer, undividedly, to Deity, the construction of 
 this true tabernacle, the church. Had there been 
 no mediatorial interference, the spiritual temple 
 could never have been erected. In the work and 
 person of Christ were laid the foundation of this 
 temple. " Behold, saith God, I lay in Zion for a 
 foundation a stone, a tried stone." And on the 
 stone thus laid there would have arisen no super- 
 structure, had not the finished work of redemp- 
 tion been savingly applied, by God's Spirit, to 
 man's conscience. Though redeemed, not a soli- 
 tary individual would go on to be saved, unless 
 God re-created him after his own likeness. So 
 that, whatever the breadth which we give to the 
 expression, it must hold good of Christ's church, 
 that the Lord pitched it and not man. And it is 
 not more true of Christ's humanity, mysteriously 
 and supernaturally produced, that it was a ta- 
 bernacle which Deity reared, than of the compa- 
 ny of believers, born again of the Spirit and re- 
 newed after God's image, that they constitute a j 
 
124 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sanctuary which shows a nobler than mortal 
 workmanship. 
 
 60. Human Misery. 
 
 In regard of the concerns and occurrences of 
 life, some men are always disposed to look at 
 the bright side, and others at the dark. The tem- 
 pers and feelings of some are so cheerful and 
 elastic, that it is hardly within the power of ordi- 
 nary circumstances to depress and overbear them ; 
 whilst others, on the contrary, are of so gloomy 
 a temperament, that the least of what is adverse 
 serves to confound them. But if we can divide 
 men into these classes, when reference is had 
 simply to their private affairs, we doubt whether 
 the same division will hold, we are sure it will not 
 ia the same proportion, when the reference is ge- 
 nerally to God's dealings with our race. In regard 
 of these dealings, there is an almost universal dis- 
 position to the looking on the dark side, and not 
 on the bright ; as though there were cause for 
 nothing but wonder, that a God of infinite love 
 should permit so much misery in any section of 
 his intelligent creation. You find but few who are 
 ready to observe what provision has been made 
 for human happiness, and what capacities there 
 are yet in the world, notwithstanding its vast dis- 
 organization, of ministering to the satisfaction 
 of such as prefer righteousness to wickedness. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 125 
 
 Now we cannot deny, that if we merely regard 
 the earth as it is, the exhibition is one whose 
 darkness it is scarcely possible to overcharge. 
 But when you seek to gather from the condition 
 of the world the character of its Governor, you 
 are bound to consider, not what the world is, but 
 what it would be, if all, which that Governor hath 
 done on its behalf, were allowed to produce its 
 legitimate effect. And we are sure, that, when 
 you set yourselves to compute the amount of 
 what may be called unavoidable misery — that 
 misery which must equally remain, if Christianity 
 possessed unlimited sway — you would find no 
 cause for wonder, that God has left the earth 
 burdened with so great a weight of sorrow, but 
 only of praise, that he has provided so amply for 
 the happiness of the fallen. 
 
 The greatest portion of the misery which is so 
 pathetically bewailed, exists in spite, as it were, 
 of God's benevolent arrangements, and would be 
 avoided, if men were not bent on choosing the 
 evil, and rejecting the good. And even the una- 
 voidable misery is so mitigated by the provisions 
 of Christianity, that, if there were nothing else 
 to be borne, the pressure would not be heavier 
 than just sufficed for the ends of moral discipline 
 There must be sorrow on the earth, so long as 
 there is death; but, if this were all, the certain 
 hope of resurrection and immortality would dry 
 11* 
 
126 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 every tear, or cause, at least, triumph so to blend 
 with lamentation, that the mourner would be al- 
 most lost in the believer. Thus it is true, both 
 of those causes of unhappiness which would re- 
 main, if Christianity were universally prevalent r 
 and of those for whose removal this religion was 
 intended and adapted, that they offer no argu- 
 ment against the compassions of God. The at- 
 tentive observer may easily satisfy himself, that, 
 though for wise ends a certain portion of suffer- 
 ing has been made unavoidable, the divine deal- 
 ings with man are, in the largest sense, those 
 of tenderness and love ; so that, if the great ma- 
 jority of our race were not determined to be 
 wretched, enough has been done to insure their 
 being happy. And when we come to give the 
 reasons why so vast an accumulation of wretch- 
 edness is to be found in every district of the 
 globe, we cannot assign the will and appoint- 
 ment of God : we charge the whole on man's for- 
 getfulness of God, on his contempt or neglect of 
 remedies and assuagements divinely provided. 
 
 61. Depravity and inability of Man. 
 We find it admitted, in most quarters, that 
 man is a fallen being, with faculties weakened, 
 if not wholly incapacitated for moral achieve- 
 ment. Yet this general admission is one of the 
 most heartless and unmeaning things in the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 127 
 
 world. It consists with the harboring pride and 
 conceit. It tolerates many forms and actings of 
 self-righteousness. And the matter of fact is, 
 that man's moral disability is not to be described, 
 and not understood theoretically. We want some 
 bold, definite, and tangible measurements. But 
 we shall find these only in the work of Christ 
 Jesus. I learn the depth to which I have sunk, 
 from the length of the chain let down to updraw 
 me. I ascertain the mightiness of the ruin by 
 examining the machinery of restoration. I ga- 
 ther that I must be, in the broadest sense, unable 
 to effect deliverance for myself, from observing 
 that none less than the Son of the Highest had 
 strength enough to fight the battles of our race. 
 Thus the truth of human apostasy, of human cor- 
 ruption, of human helplessness — how shall thia 
 be understood truth and effective 1 We answer, 
 simply through being truth M as it is in Jesus." 
 In the history of the incarnation and crucifixion 
 we read, in characters not to be misinterpreted, 
 the announcements, that man has destroyed him- 
 self, and that, whatever his original powers, he 
 is now void of ability to turn unto God, and do 
 things well-pleasing in his sight. You do not, 
 indeed, alter these truths, if you destroy all 
 knowledge of the incarnation and crucifixion. 
 But you remove their massive and resistless ex- 
 hibition, and leave us to our own vague and par- 
 
128 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 tial computations. We have nothing practical to 
 which to appeal, nothing fixed by which always 
 to estimate. Thus, in spite of a seeming recog- 
 nition of truth, w r e shall be turned adrift on a 
 wide sea of ignorance and self-sufficiency ; and 
 all because truth may be to us truth as it is in 
 moral philosophy, truth as it is in well-arranged 
 ethics, truth as it is in lucid and incontrovertible 
 statements ; and yet prove nothing but despised, 
 and ill-understood, and powerless truth, as not 
 being to us truth "as it is in Jesus." 
 
 62. Redemption, 
 
 No one can survey the works of nature, and 
 not perceive that God has some regard for the 
 children of men, however fallen and polluted 
 they may be. And if God manifest a regard for 
 us in temporal things, it must be far from in- 
 credible that he would do the same in spiritual. 
 There can be nothing fairer than the expectation 
 that he would provide for our well-being as mo- 
 ral and accountable creatures, with a care at least 
 equal to that exhibited towards us in our natural 
 capacity. So that it is perfectly credible that God 
 would do something in behalf of the fallen ; and 
 then the question is, Whether any thing less than 
 redemption through Christ would be of worth 
 and of efficacy] It is certain that we cannct 
 conceive any possible mode, except the revealed 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 129 
 
 mode through the sacrifice of Christ, in which 
 Gocl could be both just and the justifier of sin- 
 ners. Reckon and reason as we will, we can 
 . sketch out no plan by which transgressors might 
 be saved, the divine attributes honored, and yet 
 Christ not have died. So far as we have the 
 power of ascertaining, man must have remain- 
 ed unredeemed, had he not been redeemed 
 through the incarnation and crucifixion. And if 
 it be credible that God w r ould effectively inter- 
 pose on man's behalf ; and if the only discoverable 
 method in which he could thus interpose, be that 
 of redemption through the sacrifice of his Son, 
 what becomes of the alleged incredibility founded 
 on the greatness of God as contrasted with the 
 insignificance of man 1 We do not depreciate 
 the wonders of the interference. We will go all 
 lengths in proclaiming it a prodigy which con- 
 founds the wisest, and in pronouncing it a mys- 
 tery whose depths not even angels -can fathom, 
 that, for the sake of beings inconsiderable as 
 ourselves, there should have been acted out an 
 arrangement which brought Godhead into flesh, 
 and gave up the Creator to ignominy and death. 
 But the greatness of the wonder furnishes no 
 just grounds for its disbelief. There can be no 
 weight in the reasoning, that because man is so 
 low, and God so high, no such work can have 
 been wrought as the redemption of our race. 
 
130 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 We are certain that we are cared for in our tem- 
 poral capacity ; and we conclude, therefore, that 
 we cannot have been neglected in our eternal. 
 And then — finding that, unless redeemed through 
 the sacrifice of Christ, there is no supposable 
 method of human deliverance — it is not the 
 brightness of the moon as she travels in her 
 lustre, and it is not the array of stars which are 
 marshalled on the firmament, that shall make us 
 deem it incredible that God would give his Son 
 for our rescue ; rather, since moon and stars light 
 up man's home, they shall do nothing but assure 
 us of the Creator's loving-kindness ; and thus 
 render it a thing to be believed — though still 
 amazing, still stupendous — that He whose king- 
 dom is an everlasting kingdom, and whose do- 
 minion endureth throughout all generations, 
 should have made himself to be sin for us, that 
 he might uphold all that fall, and lift up all those 
 that be bowed down. 
 
 63. Fullness of Redemption. 
 
 We may affirm salvation to be great, because 
 of the completeness and fullness of the work, 
 great in itself, as well as in its Author. We 
 might be sure that what a divine agent under- 
 took would be thoroughly effected ; and accord- 
 ingly, the more we examine the scheme of our 
 redemption, the more may we prove it in every 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 131 
 
 sense perfect. The sins of men were laid upon 
 Christ 5 and the divinity gave such worth to the 
 sufferings of the humanity, that the whole race 
 might be pardoned, if the whole race would put 
 faith in the substitute. There is consequently 
 nothing in our own guiltiness to make us hesi- 
 tate as to the possibility of forgiveness. The 
 penalties due to a violated law have been dis- 
 charged ; and therefore, if we believe in our 
 surety, we are as free as though we had never 
 transgressed. And is not that a great salvation, 
 which places pardon within reach of the vilest 
 offenders ; and which, providing an atonement 
 commensurate with every amount of iniquity, 
 forbids any to despair who have a wish to be 
 saved 1 
 
 But yet further — this salvation not only pro- 
 vides for our pardon, so that punishment may be 
 avoided ; it provides also for our acceptance, so 
 that happiness may be obtained. The faith which 
 so interests us in Christ, that we are reckoned to 
 have satisfied the law'^ penalties in him, obtains 
 for us also the imputation of his righteousness, 
 so that we have a spotless covering in which to 
 appear before God. Hence we have share in 
 the obedience, as well as in the suffering of the 
 Mediator ; and whilst the latter delivers from 
 the death we had deserved, the former consigns 
 to the immortality we could never have merited. 
 
13*2 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 And is not this a great salvation, great in its sim* 
 plicity, great in its comprehensiveness, which 
 thus meets the every necessity of the guilty and 
 helpless ; and which, arranged for creatures 
 whom it finds in the lowest degradation, leave* 
 them not till elevated to the very summit o{ 
 dignity 1 
 
 64. Enmity between Man and Satan. 
 
 M I will put enmity." The enmity, you observe, 
 had no natural existence : God declares his in- 
 tention of putting enmity. As soon as man trans- 
 gressed, his nature became evil, and therefore 
 he was at peace, and not at war with the devil. 
 And thus, had there been no interference on the 
 part of the Almighty, Satan and man would have 
 formed alliance against heaven, and, in place of 
 a contest between themselves, have carried on 
 nothing but battle with God. There is not, and 
 cannot be, a native enmity between fallen angels 
 and fallen men. Both are evil, and both became 
 evil through apostasy. But evil, wheresoever it 
 exists, will always league against good ; so that 
 fallen angels and fallen men were sure *to join in 
 a desperate companionship. Hence the declara- 
 tion, that enmity should be put, mast have been 
 to Satan the first notice of redemption. This 
 lofty spirit must have calculated, that, if he could 
 induce men, as he had induced angels, to join in 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS 133 
 
 rebellion, he should have them for allies in his 
 every enterprise against heaven. There was 
 nothing* of enmity between himself and the spirits 
 who had joined in the effort to dethrone the 
 Omnipotent. At least, whatever the feuds and 
 jarrings which might disturb the rebels, they 
 were linked, as with an iron band, in the one 
 great object of opposing good. So that when he 
 heard that there should be enmity between him- 
 self and the woman, he must have felt that some 
 apparatus would be brought to bear upon man : 
 and that, though he had succeeded in depraving 
 human nature, and thus assimilating it to his own, 
 it should be renewed by some mysterious pro- 
 cess, and wrought up to the lost power of resist- 
 ing its conqueror. 
 
 And accordingly it has come to pass, that 
 there is enmity on the earth between man and 
 Satan ; but an enmity sup ernatur ally put, and not 
 naturally entertained. Unless God pour his con- 
 verting grace into the soul, there will be no at- 
 tempt to oppose Satan, but we shall continue to 
 the end of our days his willing captives and ser- 
 vants. And therefore it is God who puts the en- 
 mity. Introducing anew principle into the heart, 
 he causes conflict where there had heretofore 
 been peace, inclining and enabling man to rise 
 against his tyrant. So that, in these first words 
 of the prophecy, you have the clearest intimation 
 12 
 
134? BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 that God designed to visit the depraved nature 
 with a renovating energy. And now, whensoever 
 you see an individual delivered from the love, and 
 endowed with a hatred of sin, resisting those pas- 
 sions which held naturally sway within his breast, 
 and thus grappling with the fallen spirit which 
 claims dominion upon earth, you are surveying 
 the workings of a principle which is wholly 
 from above ; and you are to consider that you 
 have before you the fulfillment of the declara- 
 tion, tf I will put enmity between thee and the 
 
 65. Conflicts of the Church with Satan. 
 
 We need scarcely observe, that, from the first, 
 the righteous amongst men have been objects of 
 the combined assault of their evil fellows and 
 evil angels. On the one hand, it has been the en» 
 deavor of the church to vindicate God's honor, 
 and arrest the workings of wickedness : on the 
 other, it has been the effort of the serpent and 
 his seed to sweep from the earth these upholders 
 of piety. And though the promise has all along 
 been verified, that the gates of hell shall not pre- 
 vail against the church, it cannot be denied that 
 a great measure of success has attended the striv- 
 ings of the adversary. What fierce persecution 
 has rushed against the righteous ; how often, by 
 one engine or another, has there been almost a 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 135 
 
 thorough extinction of the very name of Christi- 
 anity ; and when outwardly there has been peace, 
 what tares have been sown by the enemy, and 
 what a harvest of perilous heresies has been sent 
 up. But he has done nothing more. If he have 
 hewn down thousands by the sword, and con- 
 sumed thousands at the stake, thousands have 
 sprung forward to fill up the breach ; and if he 
 have succeeded in pouring forth a flood of pesti- 
 lential doctrine, there have arisen staunch advo- 
 cates of truth, who have stemmed the torrent, 
 and snatched the articles of faith, uninjured, from 
 the deluge. There has never been the time when 
 God has been left without a witness upon earth. 
 And though the church has often been sickly and 
 weak ; though the best blood has been drained 
 from her veins, and a languor, like that of moral 
 palsy, has settled on her limbs ; still life hath 
 never been wholly extinguished ; but after a 
 while, the sinking energies have been marvel- 
 ously recruited, and the worn and wasted body 
 has risen up more athletic than before, an cT dis- 
 played to the nations all the vigor of renovated 
 youth. 
 
 And since, up to the second advent of the 
 Lord, the church shall be beset with heresy, and 
 persecution, and infidelity, we look not, under 
 the present dispensation, for discontinuance of 
 the assaults of the enemy. The church may be 
 
136 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 compelled to prophesy in sackcloth. Affliction 
 may be her portion, as it was that of her glori- 
 fied Head. But she is, throughout, God's witness 
 upon earth. She is God's instrument for carry- 
 ing on those purposes which shall terminate in 
 the final setting up of the Mediator's kingdom. 
 And, oh, there is not won over a single soul to 
 Christ, and the Gospel message makes not its 
 way to a single heart, without an attendant ef- 
 fect as of a stamping on the head of the tempter : 
 for a captive is delivered from the oppressor, and 
 to deliver the slave is to defeat the tyrant. And 
 whensoever the church, as an engine in God's 
 hands, makes a successful stand for piety and 
 truth; whensoever, sending out her missionaries 
 to the broad waste of heathenism, she demolishes 
 an altar of superstition, and teaches the pagan to 
 cast his idols to the mole and the bat ; or when- 
 soever, assaulting mere nominal Christianity, she 
 fastens men to practice as the only test of pro- 
 fession ; then does she strike a blow which is 
 felt at the very centre of the kingdom of dark- 
 ness, and then is she experiencing a partial ful- 
 fillment of the promise, " God shall bruise Satan 
 under your feet shortly." 
 
 And when the fierce and on-going conflict shall 
 be brought to a close ; when this burdened crea- 
 tion shall have shaken off the slaves and the ob- 
 jects of concupiscence, and the church of the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 137 
 
 living God shall reign, with its Head, over the 
 tribes and provinces of an evangelized earth ; 
 then in the completeness of the triumph of right- 
 eousness shall by the completeness of Satan's 
 discomfiture. 
 
 66, Salvation — its greatness. 
 
 Salvation is great because of the agency 
 through which it was effected. You know that 
 the Author of our redemption was none other 
 than the eternal Son of God, who had covenanted 
 from the first to become the surety of the fallen. 
 It came not within the power of an angel to make 
 atonement for our sins : the angelic nature might 
 have been united to the human, but there would 
 not have been dignity in the one to give the re- 
 quired worth to the sufferings of the other. So 
 far as we have the power of ascertaining, it would 
 seem that no being but the Divine, taking to him- 
 self flesh, could have satisfied justice in the stead 
 of fallen men. But then this is precisely the ar- 
 rangement which has been made on our behalf. 
 It was the second person in the ever-blessed 
 Trinity, who, compassionating the ruin which 
 transgression had brought on this earth, assumed 
 our nature, exhausted our curse, and died our 
 death. And certainly, if there be an aspect under 
 which redemption appears great, it is when sur- 
 veyed as the achievement of the only begotten 
 12* 
 
138 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 of the Father. The majesty of the agent gives 
 stupendousness to the work, and causes it to di- 
 late till it far exceeds comprehension. It is main- 
 ly on this account that we can declare even ima- 
 gination unable to increase the greatness of the 
 arrangement for our rescue. This arrangement 
 demanded that God himself should become man, 
 and sustain all the wrath which sin had provoked ; 
 and what can be imagined more amazing than the 
 fact, that what the arrangement demanded lite- 
 rally took place 1 The problem, how God could 
 be just and yet the justifler of sinners, baffled all 
 finite intelligence, because a divine person alone 
 could mediate between God and man ; and if 
 created wisdom could have discovered the neces- 
 sity, it would never have surmised the possibility. 
 Now certainly that which, more than any thing 
 else, rendered humar\ redemption insupposable, 
 when submitted to the understanding of the very 
 highest of creatures, must be confessed to be also 
 that which gives a sublime awfulness to the plan, 
 and invests it with a grandeur which increases as 
 we gaze. In looking at the cross, and considering 
 that our sins are laid upon the being who hangs 
 there in weakness and ignominy, the overcoming 
 thought is, that this being is none other than the 
 everlasting God ; and that, however he seems 
 mastered by the powers of wickedness, he could 
 by a single word, uttered from the tree on which 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 139 
 
 he immolates himself, scatter the universe into 
 nothing, and call up an assemblage of new worlds, 
 and new systems. This makes salvation great — I 
 shall know how great, when I can measure the 
 distance between the eternal and the perishable, 
 omnipotence and feebleness, immortality and 
 death. But if salvation is great, because the Sa- 
 viour is Divine, assuredly the greatness of salva- 
 tion proves the peril of neglect. To neglect the 
 salvation must be to throw scorn on the Saviour. 
 Oh, if it give an unmeasured vastness to the work 
 of our redemption, that he who undertook, and 
 carried on, and completed that work, was " the 
 brightness of the Father's glory, and the express 
 image of his person ;" if the fact, that he M who 
 bare our sins in his own body on the tree," was 
 that illustrious being " for whom are all things, 
 and by whom are all things," magnify our rescue 
 from death till thought itself fails to overtake its 
 boundaries ; then there is a greatness in the prof- 
 fered deliverance, derived from the greatness of 
 the deliverer, which proclaims us ruined if we 
 treat the offer with contempt. 
 
 67. Christ the image of the Invisible God. 
 
 We know it to be said of Christ by St. Paul, 
 that he was H the image of the invisible God." 
 It seems to us that the sense, in which Christ is 
 the image, is akin to that in which he is the Word 
 
140 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 of the Almighty. What speech is to thought, 
 that is the incarnate Son to the invisible Father. 
 Thought is a viewless thing. It can traverse 
 space, and run to and fro through creation, and 
 pass instantaneously from one extreme of tne 
 scale of being to the other ; and, all the while, 
 there is no power in my fellow-men to discern 
 the careerings of this mysterious agent. But 
 speech is manifested thought. It is though* em- 
 bodied ; made sensible, and palpable, to those 
 who could not apprehend it in its secret and si- 
 lent expatiations. And precisely what speech 
 thus effects in regard to thought, the incarnate 
 Son effected in regard to the invisible Father. 
 The Son is the manifested Father, and, therefore, 
 fitly termed " the Word :" the relation between 
 the incarnate Son and the Father being accurate- 
 ly that between speech and thought ; the one ex- 
 hibiting and setting forth the other. It is in 
 somewhat of a similar sense that Christ may be 
 termed " the image of the invisible God." " God 
 is a Spirit." Of this Spirit the creation is every 
 where full, and the loneliest and most seclud- 
 ed spot is occupied by its presence. Never- 
 theless, we can discern little of the universal go- 
 ings-forth of this Deity. There are works above 
 us, and around us, which present tokens of his 
 wisdom and supremacy. But these, after all, are 
 only feeble manifestations of his more illustrious 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 141 
 
 attributes. Nay, they leave those attributes well- 
 nigh wholly unrevealed. I cannot learn God's 
 holiness from the stars or the mountains. I can- 
 not read his faithfulness in the ocean or the cata- 
 ract. Even his wisdom, and power, and love, are 
 but faintly portrayed in the torn and disjointed 
 fragments of this fallen creation. And seeing, 
 therefore, that Deity, invisible as to his essence, 
 can become visible as to his attributes, only 
 through some direct manifestation not found in 
 his material workmanship, God sent his well-be- 
 loved Son to assume our flesh ; and this Son, ex- 
 hibiting in and through his humanity as much of 
 his divine properties as creatureship could admit, 
 became unto mankind " the image of the invisible 
 God." He did not, in strict matter-of-fact, reveal 
 to mankind that there is a God. But he made 
 known to them, most powerfully and most abun- 
 dantly, the nature and attributes of God. The 
 beams of divinity, passing through his humanity 
 as through a softening medium, shone upon the 
 earth with a lustre sufficiently tempered to allow 
 of their irradiating, without scorching and con- 
 suming. And they who gazed on this mysterious 
 person, moving in his purity, and his benevolence, 
 through the lines of a depraved and scornful 
 population, saw not indeed God — M for no man 
 hath seen God at any time," and spirit must ne- 
 cessarily evade the search ings of sense — but they 
 
142 BIBLE THOUGHTS 
 
 saw God imaged with the most thorough fideli- 
 ty, and his every property embodied, so far as 
 the immaterial can discover itself through the 
 material. 
 
 Now we think you can scarcely fail to perceive, 
 that if you detach the truth of the being of a God 
 from Jesus, and if you then take this truth M as 
 it is in Jesus," the difference in aspect is al- 
 most a difference in the truth itself. Apart from 
 revelation, I can believe that there is a God. I 
 look upon the wonder-workings by which I am 
 encompassed ; and I must sacrifice all that be- 
 longs to me as a rational creature, if I espouse 
 the theory that chance has been parent to the 
 splendid combinations. But what can be more 
 vague, what more indefinite, than those notions 
 of Deity which reason, at the best, is capable of 
 forming 1 The evil which is mixed with good in 
 the creation; the disordered appearances which 
 seem to mark the absence of a supreme and vigi- 
 lant government ; the frequent triumph of wick- 
 edness, and the correspondent depression of 
 virtue ; these, and the like stern and undeniable 
 mysteries, will perplex me in every attempt to 
 master satisfactorily the Unity of Godhead. But 
 let me regard Jesus as making known to me 
 God, and straightway there succeeds a calm to 
 my confused and unsettled imaginings. He tells 
 me by his words, and shows me by his actions. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 143 
 
 that all tilings are at the disposal of one eternal 
 and inscrutable Creator. Patting forth superhu- 
 man ability alike in the bestowment of what is 
 good, and in the removal of what is evil, he fur- 
 nishes me with the strictest demonstration that 
 there are not two principles which can pretend 
 to hold sway in the universe ; but that God, a 
 being without rival, and alone in his majesties, 
 created whatsoever is good, and permitted what- 
 soever is evil. 
 
 68. All things created by and for Christ. 
 
 We learn, from the testimony of St. Paul, that 
 ** all things were created by Christ, and for 
 Christ." We would fix attention to this latter 
 fact, " all things were created for Christ." We 
 gather from this fact that the gorgeous structure 
 of materialism, spreading interminably above us 
 and around us, is nothing more than an august 
 temple, reared for consecration to the Mediator's 
 glory. " All things were created for Christ." 
 You ask me why God spangled the firmament 
 with stars, and paved with worlds the expansions 
 of an untraveled immensity, and poured forth 
 the rich endowment of life on countless myriads 
 of multiform creatures. And I tell you, thai, if 
 you debar me from acquaintance with " God 
 manifest in the flesh," I may give you in reply 
 some brilliant guess, or dazzling conjecture, but 
 
144 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 nothing that will commend itself to thoughtful 
 and well-disciplined minds. But the instant that 
 I am brought into contact with revelation, and 
 can associate creation with Christ, as alike its 
 author and object, I have an answer which is al- 
 together free from the vagueness of speculation. 
 I can tell you that the star twinkles not on the 
 measureless expanse, and that the creature moves 
 not on any one of those worlds whose number 
 outruns our arithmetic, which hath not been cre- 
 ated for the manifestation of Christ's glory, and 
 the advancement of Christ's purposes. 
 
 69. Chrisfs Humiliation. 
 
 There was an act of humiliation, such as mor- 
 tal thought cannot compass, in the coming down 
 of Deity and his tabernacling in flesh. We may 
 well exclaim, wonder, O heavens, and be aston- 
 ished, O earth, when we remember that He whom 
 the universe cannot contain did, literally, conde- 
 scend to circumscribe himself within the form of 
 a servant ; and that, in no figure of speech, but 
 in absolute, though mysterious reality, " the 
 Word was made flesh," and the Son of the High- 
 est born of a virgin. We shall never find terms 
 in whidh to embody even our own conceptions 
 of this unmeasured humiliation ; whilst these con- 
 ceptions themselves leave altogether unapproach- 
 ed the boundary-lines of the wonder. Who can 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 145 
 
 " by searching find out God 1" Who, then, by 
 striving can calculate the abasement that God 
 should become man ] If I could climb to Deity, 
 I might know what it was for Deity to descend 
 into dust. But forasmuch as God is inaccessible 
 to all my soarings, it can never come within the 
 compass of my imagination to tell up the amount 
 of condescension ; and it will always remain a 
 prodigy, too large for every thing but faith, that 
 the Creator coalesced with the creature, and so 
 constituted a mediator, 
 
 70. Humanity of Christ. 
 
 The true humanity of the Son of God is as fun- 
 damental an article of Christianity as his true 
 divinity. You would as effectually demolish our 
 religion by proving that Christ was not real man, 
 as by proving that Christ was not real God. We 
 must have a mediator between God and man ; and 
 " a mediator is not a mediator of one," but must 
 partake of the nature of each. Shall we ever he- 
 sitate to pronounce it the comforting and sustain- 
 ing thing to the followers of Christ, that the Re- 
 deemer is, in the strictest sense, their kinsman? 
 We may often be required, in the exercise of the 
 office of an ambassador from God, to set our- 
 selves against what we count erroneous doc- 
 trines touching the humanity of the Saviour. But 
 shall it, on this account, be supposed that we 
 13 
 
146 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 either underrate, or keep out of sight, this mighty 
 truth of Christianity, that the Son of God became 
 as truly, and as literally, man, as I myself am 
 man 1 We cannot, and we will not, allow that 
 there was in him that fountain of evil which there 
 is in ourselves. We contend that the absence of 
 the fountain, and not the mere prevention of the 
 outbreak of its waters, is indispensable to the 
 constitution of such purity as belonged to the 
 holy child Jesus. But that he was like myself in 
 all points, my sinfulness only excepted ; that his 
 flesh, like mine, could be lacerated by stripes, 
 wasted by hunger, and torn by nails ; that his 
 soul, like mine, could be assaulted by temptation, 
 harassed by Satan, and disquieted under the hid- 
 ings of the countenance of the Father ; that he 
 could suffer every thing which I can suffer, ex- 
 cept the remorse of a guilty conscience ; that he 
 could weep every tear which I can weep, except 
 the tear of repentance ; that he could fear with 
 every fear, hope with every hope, and joy with 
 every joy, which I may entertain as a man, and 
 not be ashamed of as a Christian ; there is our 
 creed on the humanity of the Mediator. If you 
 could once prove that Christ was not perfect 
 man — bearing always in mind that sinfulness is 
 not essential to this perfectness — there would be 
 nothing worth contending for in the truth that 
 Christ was perfect God : the only one who can 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 147 
 
 redeem my lost heritage, being necessarily my 
 kinsman; and none being my kinsman who is 
 not of the same nature, born of a woman, of the 
 substance of that woman, my brother in ail but 
 rebellion, myself in all but unholiness. 
 
 71. Poverty of Christ. 
 
 We are told that Christ " emptied himself," so 
 that fr though he was rich, yet for our sakes he 
 became poor." But of what did he empty him- 
 self] Not of his being, not of his nature, not of 
 his attributes. It must be blasphemous to speak 
 of properties of Godhead as laid aside, or even 
 suspended. But Christ " emptied himself" of the 
 glories, and the majesties, to which he had claim, 
 and which, as he sat on the throne of the hea- 
 vens, he possessed in unmeasured abundance. 
 Whatsoever he was as to nature and essence, 
 whilst appearing amongst the angels in the form 
 of God, that he continued to be still, when, in 
 the form of a servant, he walked the scenes of 
 human habitation. But then the glories of the 
 form of God, these for a while he altogether 
 abandoned. If indeed he had appeared upon 
 earth — as, according to the dignity of his nature, 
 he had right to appear — in the majesty and glory 
 of the Highest, it might be hard to understand 
 what riches had been lost by divinity. The scene 
 of display would have been changed. But the 
 
14S BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 splendor of display being unshorn and undimin- 
 ished, the armies of the sky might have congre- 
 gated round the Mediator, and have given in 
 their full tale of homage and admiration. But, 
 oh, it was poverty, that the Creator should he 
 moving on a province of his own empire, and 
 yet not be recognized nor confessed by his crea- 
 tures. It was poverty, that, when he walked 
 amongst men, scattering blessings as he trode, 
 the anthem of praise floated not around him, and 
 the air was often burdened with the curse and 
 the blasphemy. It was poverty, that, as he 
 passed to and fro through tribes whom he had 
 made, and whom he had come down to redeem, 
 scarce a solitary voice called him blessed, 
 scarce a solitary hand was stretched out in friend- 
 ship, and scarce a solitary roof ever proffered 
 him shelter. And when you contrast this deep 
 and desolate poverty with that exuberant wealth 
 which had been always his own, whilst heaven 
 continued the scene of his manifestations — the 
 wealth of the anthem-peal of ecstasy from a mil- 
 lion rich voices, and of the solemn bowing-down 
 of sparkling multitudes, and of the glowing ho- 
 mage of immortal hierarchies, whensoever he 
 showed forth his power or his purposes — ye can- 
 not fail to perceive, that, in taking upon him flesh, 
 the Eternal Son descended, most literally, from 
 abundance to want ; and that, though he contiu- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. l49 
 
 wed just as mighty as before, just as infinitely 
 gifted with all the stores and resources of essen- 
 tial Divinity, the transition was so total, from 
 the reaping-in of glory from the whole field of the 
 universe to the receiving, comparatively, nothing 
 of his revenues of honor, that we may assert, 
 without reserve, and without figure, that he who 
 was rich, for our sakes became poor. v In the 
 form of God," he had acted, as it were, visibly, 
 amid the enraptured plaudits of angel and arch- 
 angel, cherubim and seraphim. But now, in the 
 form of man, he must be withdrawn from the de- 
 lighted inspections of the occupants of heaven, 
 and act, as powerfully indeed as before, but mys- 
 teriously and invisibly, behind a dark curtain of 
 flesh, and on the dreary platform of a sin-burden- 
 ed territory. So that the antithesis, " the form 
 of God," and M found in fashion as a man," marks 
 accurately the change to which the Mediator sub- 
 mitted. And thus, whilst there is no impeach- 
 ment, in the phrase, of the reality of Christ's hu- 
 manity, we now extract from the description a 
 clear witness to the divinity of Jesus ; and show 
 you that a form of speech which seems, at first 
 sight, vague and indefinite, was, if not rendered 
 unavoidable, yet readily dictated, by the union of 
 natures in the person of the Redeemer. 
 
 13* 
 
150 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 72. Christ our pattern in humility. 
 
 We press on you the exhortation of St. Paul : 
 \* Let this mind he in you which was also in 
 Christ Jesus." He died to make atonement, but 
 he died also to set a pattern. Shall selfishness 
 find patrons among you when you have gazed on 
 this example of disinterestedness! Shall pride 
 be harbored, after you have seen Deity humbling 
 himself, and then, as man, abasing himself, till 
 there was no lower point to which he could de- 
 scend % And all this for us ; for you, for me ; for 
 the vile, for the reprobate, for the lost ! And what 
 return do we make, alas ! for the neglect, the 
 contempt, the coldness, the formality, which he 
 who humbled himself, and agonized, and died the 
 death of shame on our behalf, receives at our 
 hands'? Which of us is faithfully taking pattern 1 
 Which of us, I do not say, has mastered and eject- 
 ed pride, but is setting himself in good earnest, 
 and with all the energy which might be brought 
 to the work, to the wrestling with pride and 
 sweeping it from the breast 1 Would to God that 
 the doctrine, which is the alone engine against 
 the haughtiness and self-sufficiency of the fallen, 
 that the Mediator between earth and heaven was 
 u perfect God and perfect man," may be deeply 
 written on our hearts. There must be Deity in 
 the rock which could bear up a foundered world. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 151 
 
 May none of you forget this. The young more 
 especially, keep ye this diligently in mind. I have 
 lived much amid the choicest assemblies of the 
 literary youth of our land, and I know full well 
 how commonly the pride of talent, or the ap- 
 petite for novelty, or the desire to be singular, 
 or the aversidh from what is holy, will cause an 
 unstable mind to yield itself to the specious so- 
 phistry, or the licentious effrontery, of sceptical 
 writings. I pray God that none of you be drawn 
 within the eddies of that whirlpool of infidelity 
 which rends into a thousand shivers the noblest 
 barks, freighted with a rich lading of intellect 
 and learning. Be ye watchful alike against the 
 dogmas of an insolent reasoning, and the siren 
 strains of a voluptuous poetry, and the fiendlike 
 sneers of reprobate men, and the polished cavils 
 of fashionable contempt. Let none of these se- 
 duce or scare you from the simplicity of the faith. 
 
 73. Purity of Chrisfs character the cause of 
 his rejection. 
 
 He was born pure, and with a native hatred 
 of sin ; but then he had been miraculously gene- 
 rated, in order that his nature might be thus hos- 
 tile to evil. And never did there move the being 
 on this earth who hated sin with as perfect a ha- 
 tred, or who was as odious in return to all the 
 
152 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 emissaries of darkness. It was just the holiness 
 of the Mediator which stirred up against him all 
 the passions of a profligate world, and provoked 
 that fury of assault which rushed in from the 
 hosts of reprobate spirits. There was thrown a 
 perpetual reproach on a proud and sensual gene- 
 ration, by the spotlessness of that righteous indi- 
 vidual, " who did no sin, neither was guile found 
 in his mouth." And if he had not been so far se- 
 parated, by the purities of life and conversation, 
 from all others of his nature ; or if vice had re- 
 ceived a somewhat less tremendous rebuke from 
 the blamelessness of his every action ; we may 
 be sure that his might and benevolence would 
 have gathered the nation to his discipleship, and 
 that the multitude would never have been worked 
 up to demand his crucifixion. 
 
 The great secret of the opposition to Christ lay 
 in the fact, that he was not such an one as our- 
 selves. We are accustomed to think that the low- 
 liness of his condition, and the want of external 
 majesty and pomp, moved the Jews to reject their 
 Messiah : yet it is by no means clear that these 
 were, in the main, the producing causes of rejec- 
 tion. If Christ came not with the purple and cir- 
 cumstance of human sovereignty, he displayed 
 the possession of a supernatural power, which, 
 even on the most carnal calculation, was more 
 valuable, because more effective, than all the ap- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 153 
 
 paratus of earthly supremacy. The peasant, who 
 could work the miracles which Christ worked, 
 would be admitted, on all hands, to have mightier 
 engines at his disposal than the prince who is 
 clothed with the ermine and followed by the 
 warriors. And if the Jews looked for a Messiah 
 who would lead them to mastery over enemies, 
 then, we contend, there was every thing in Christ 
 to induce them to give him their allegiance. The 
 power which could vanquish death by a word, 
 might cause hosts to fall, as fell the hosts of Sen- 
 nacherib ; and where then was the foe who could 
 have resisted the leader 1 
 
 We cannot, therefore, think that it was merely 
 the absence of human pageantry which moved the 
 great ones of Judea to throw scorn upon Jesus. 
 It is true, they were expecting an earthly deliv- 
 erer. But Christ displayed precisely those pow- 
 ers, which, wielded by Moses, had prevailed to 
 deliver their nation from Egypt ; and assuredly 
 then, if that strength dwelt in Jesus which had 
 discomfited Pharaoh, and broken the thraldom of 
 centuries, it could not have been the proved in- 
 capacity of effecting temporal deliverance which 
 induced pharisees and scribes to reject their Mes- 
 siah. They could have tolerated the meanness 
 of his parentage ; for that was more than com- 
 pensated by the majesty of his power. They 
 could have endured the lowliness of his appear- 
 
154 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ance ; for they could set against it his evident 
 communion with divinity. 
 
 But the righteous fervor with which Christ de- 
 nounced every abomination in the land ; the un- 
 tainted purity by which he shamed the " whited 
 sepulchres " who deceived the people by the ap- 
 pearance of sanctity ; the rich loveliness of a 
 character in which zeal for God's glory was un- 
 ceasingly uppermost ; the beautiful lustre which 
 encompassed a being who could hate only one 
 thing, but that one thing sin ; these were the pro- 
 ducing causes of bitter hostility ; and they who 
 would have hailed the wonder-worker with the 
 shout and the plaudit, had he allowed some li- 
 cense to the evil passions of our nature, gave 
 him nothing but the sneer and the execration, 
 when he waged open war with lust and hy- 
 pocrisy. 
 
 74. Christ humbling himself to the death of 
 the Cross. 
 
 We may assert, that in Christ's humanity, as 
 in our own, there was a tendency to dissolution ; 
 a tendency resulting from entailed infirmities 
 which were innocent, but in no degree from sin- 
 fulness, whether derived or contracted. But as 
 the second person in the Trinity, the Lord of 
 life and glory, Christ Jesus possessed an unlimit- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 155 
 
 ed control over this tendency, and might, had he 
 pleased, for ever have suspended, or for ever 
 have counteracted it. And herein lay the alleged 
 act of humility. Christ was unquestionably mor- 
 tal ; otherwise it is most clear that he could not 
 have died at all. But it is to the full as unques- 
 tionable that he must have been more than mor- 
 tal 5 otherwise death was unavoidable ; and where 
 can be the humility of submitting to that which 
 we have no power of avoiding 1 As mere man, 
 he was mortal. But then as God, the well-spring 
 of life to the population of the universe, he could 
 for ever have withstood the advances of death, 
 and have refused it dominion in his own divine 
 person. But " he humbled himself." In order that 
 there might come down upon him the fullness of 
 the wrath-cup, and that he might exhaust the 
 penalties which rolled, like a sea of fire, between 
 earth and heaven, he allowed scope to that liable- 
 ness to death which he might for ever have ar- 
 rested ; and died, not through any necessity, but 
 through the act of his own will ; died, inasmuch 
 as his humanity was mortal ; died voluntarily, in- 
 asmuch as his person was divine. 
 
 And this was humility. If, on becoming man, 
 he had ceased to be God, there would have been 
 no humility in his death. He would only have 
 submitted to what he could not have declined. 
 But since, on becoming what he was not, he 
 
156 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ceased not to be what he was, he brought down 
 into the fashion of man all the life-giving ener- 
 gies which appertained to him as God ; and he 
 stood on the earth, the wondrous combination 
 of two natures in one person ; the one nature in- 
 firm and tending to decay, the other self-existent, 
 and the source of all being throughout a crowd- 
 ed immensity. 
 
 And the one nature might have eternally kept 
 up the other ; and, withstanding the inroads of dis- 
 ease, and pouring in fresh supplies of vitality, 
 have given undecaying vigor to the mortal, per- 
 petual youth to the corruptible. But how then 
 could the Scriptures have been fulfilled ; and 
 where would have been the expiation for the sins 
 of a burdened and groaning creation % It was an 
 act of humility — the tongue, we have told you, 
 cannot express it, and the thought cannot com- 
 pass it — that, " for us men and for our salva- 
 tion," the Eternal Word consented to be M made 
 flesh." God became man. It was stupendous 
 humility. But he was not yet low enough. The 
 man must humble himself, humble himself even 
 unto death ; for " without shedding of blood is 
 no remission." And he did humble himse]f. 
 Death was avoidable, but he submitted ; the 
 grave might have been overstepped, but he 
 entered. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 157 
 
 75. Christ's Victory over Satan. 
 
 There was not an iota of his sufferings which 
 went not towards liquidating the vast debt which 
 man owed to God, and which, therefore, contribu- 
 ted not to our redemption from bondage. There 
 was not a pang by which the Mediator was torn, 
 and not a grief by which his soul was disquieted, 
 which helped not on the achievement of human 
 deliverance, and which, therefore, dealt not out 
 a blow to the despotism of Satan. In prevailing, 
 so far as he did prevail^ against Christ, Satan 
 was only effecting his own discomfiture and 
 downfall. He touched the heel, he could not 
 touch the head of the Mediator. If he could 
 have seduced him into the commission of evil ; 
 if he could have profaned, by a solitary thought, 
 the sanctuary of his soul ; then it would have 
 been the head which he had bruised ; and rising 
 triumphant over man's surety, he would have 
 shouted, H Victory !" and this creation have be- 
 come for ever his own. But whilst he could only 
 cause pain, and not pollution; whilst; he could 
 dislocate by agony, but not defile by imparity ; 
 he reached indeed the heel, but came not near 
 the head ; and, making the Saviour's life-time 
 one dark series of afflictions, weakened, at every 
 step, his own hold upon humanity. 
 
 And when, at last, he so bruised the heel as 
 to nail Christ to the cross amid the loathings 
 U 
 
158 
 
 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 and revilings of the multitude, then it was that 
 his own head was bruised, even to the being 
 crushed. " Through death," we are told, " Christ 
 Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death, 
 that is, the devil." He fell indeed ; and evil an- 
 gels, and evil men, might have thought him for 
 ever defeated. But in grasping this mighty prey, 
 death paralyzed itself; in breaking down the 
 temple, Satan demolished his own throne. It 
 was by dying, that Christ finished the achieve- 
 ment which, from all eternity, he had covenant- 
 ed to undertake. By dying, he reinstated fallen 
 man in the position from which he had been 
 hurled. Death came against the Mediator ; and 
 when he had died, and descended into the grave, 
 and returned without seeing corruption, then 
 was it made possible that every child of Adam 
 might be emancipated from the dominion of evil ; 
 and, in place of the wo and the shame which 
 transgression had won as the heritage of man, 
 there was the beautiful brightness of a purchased 
 immortality wooing the acceptance of the sons 
 and daughters of our race. The strong man 
 armed had kept his goods in peace ; and Satan, 
 having seduced men to be his companions in re- 
 bellion, might have felt secure of having them as 
 his companions in torment. But the stronger 
 than he drew nigh, and, measuring weapons with 
 him in the garden and on the cross, received 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 159 
 
 wounds which were but trophies of victory, and 
 dealt wounds which annihilated power. And 
 when bruised indeed, yet only marked with ho- 
 norable scars which told out his triumph to the 
 loftiest orders of intelligent being, the Redeemer 
 of mankind soared on high, and sent proclama- 
 tion through the universe, that death was abol- 
 ished, and the ruined redeemed, and the gates 
 of heaven thrown open to the rebel and the out- 
 cast, was there not an accomplishment, the most 
 literal and the most energetic, of that prediction, 
 which declared to Satan concerning the seed of 
 the woman, e< it shall bruise thy head and thou 
 shalt bruise his heel!" 
 
 76. Christ the Resurrection and the Life. 
 
 In announcing himself as " the resurrection," 
 Christ must be considered as stating that he alone 
 effects the wondrous result of the corruptible put- 
 ting on incorruption. In announcing himself as 
 " the life," he equally states that he endows the 
 spirit with its happiness, yea rather with its exist- 
 ence, through eternity. If Christ had only termed 
 himself " the resurrection," we might have con- 
 sidered him as referring merely to the body — as- 
 serting it to be a consequence on his work of me- 
 diation that the dust of ages shall again quicken 
 into life. But when He terms ^himself also "the 
 life," we cannot but suppose a reference to the 
 
160 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 immortality of the soul, so that this noble and 
 sublime fact is, in some way, associated with the 
 achievements of redemption. 
 
 77. Intercessor ship of Christ* 
 
 You must, we think, be familiar, through fre- 
 quent hearing, with the offices of Christ as our 
 Intercessor. You know that though he suffered 
 but once, in the last ages of the world, yet, ever 
 living to plead the merits of his sacrifice, he gives 
 perpetuity to the oblation, and applies to the wash- 
 ing away of sin that blood which is as expiatory 
 as in its first warm gushings. In no respect is it 
 more sublimely true than in this, that Jesus Christ 
 is "the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever." 
 The high priests of Aaron's line entered, year by 
 year, into the holiest of all, making continually a 
 new atonement " for themselves and for the errors 
 of the people." But he who was constituted " after 
 the order of Melchisedec," king as well as priest, 
 entered in once, not " by the blood of goats and 
 calves, but by his own blood," and needed never 
 to return and ascend again the altar of sacrifice. 
 It is not that sin can now be taken away by any 
 thing short of shedding of blood. But intercession 
 perpetuates crucifixion. 
 
 We wish you to understand thoroughly the na- 
 ture of Christ's intercession. When Rome had 
 thrown from her the warrior who had led his coun- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 161 
 
 trymen to victory, and galled and fretted the proud 
 spirit of her boldest hero ; he, driven onward by 
 the demon of revenge, gave himself as a leader 
 where he had before been a conqueror, and, taking 
 a hostile banner into his passionate grasp, headed 
 the foes who sought to subjugate the land of his 
 nativity. Ye remember, it may be, how interces- 
 sion saved the city. The mother bowed before 
 the son ; and Coriolanus, vanquished by tears, sub- 
 dued by plaints, left the capitol unscathed by bat- 
 tle. Here is a precise instance of what men count 
 successful intercession. But there is no analogy 
 between this intercession, and the intercession of 
 Christ. Christ intercedes with justice, proffering 
 his atonement to satisfy the demand. Oh, it is 
 not the intercession of burning tears, nor of half- 
 choked utterance, nor of thrilling speech. It is 
 the intercession of a broken body, and of gushing 
 blood — of death, of passion, of obedience. It is 
 the intercession of a giant leaping into the gap, 
 and filling it with his colossal stature, and cover- 
 ing, as with a rampart of flesh, the defenceless 
 camp of the outcasts. So that, not by the touch- 
 ing words and gestures of supplication, but by the 
 resistless deeds and victories of Calvary, the Cap- 
 tain of our salvation intercedes : pleading, not as 
 a petitioner who would move compassion, but ra- 
 ther as a conqueror who would claim his trophies. 
 Hence Christ is " able to save to the uttermost/' 
 14* 
 
162 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 on the very ground that f r he ever liveth to make in* 
 tercession ;" seeing that no sin can be committed 
 for which the satisfaction, made upon Calvary^ 
 proffers not an immediate and thorough expiation. 
 And as the intercessor, or advocate, of his people, 
 Christ Jesus may be said to stand continually at 
 the altar-side momentarily offering up the sacrifice 
 which is momentarily required by their fast-recur- 
 ring guilt. Though the shadows of Jewish worship 
 have been swept away, so that, day by day, and 
 year by year, a typical atonement is no longer to 
 be made, the constant commission of sin demands 
 the constant pouring out of blood; and standing 
 not indeed in a material court, and offering not the 
 legal victims, but, nevertheless, officiating in the 
 presence of God, " a lamb as it had been slain," 
 the Kedeemer presents the oblation prescribed for 
 every offence and every short-coming. 
 
 78. Christ both Redeemer and Judge, 
 It is, we think, one of the most beautiful of the 
 arrangements which characterize the Gospel, that 
 the offices of Redeemer and Judge meet in the 
 same person, and that person divine. We call it 
 a beautiful arrangement, because securing for us 
 tenderness as well as equity, the sympathies of a 
 friend, as well as the disinterestedness of a most 
 righteous arbiter. Had the judge been only man, 
 the imperfection of his nature would have made 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 163 
 
 ug expect much of error in his verdicts. Had he 
 been only God, the distance between him and us 
 would have made us fear it impossible, that, in de- 
 termining our lot, he would take into account our 
 feebleness and trials. But in the person of Christ 
 there is that marvellous combination which we 
 seek in the Judge of the whole human race. He is 
 God, and, therefore, must he know every particu- 
 lar of character. But he is also man, and, there- 
 fore, can he put himself into the position of those 
 who are brought to his bar. And because the 
 Judge is thus the Mediator^ the judgment-seat 
 can be approached with confidence and gladness. 
 The believer in Christ, who hearkened to the 
 suggestions of God's Spirit, and brake away from 
 the trammels of sin, shall know the Son of man, 
 as he comes down in the magnificent sternness 
 of celestial authority. And we say not that it shall 
 be altogether without dread, or apprehension, that 
 the righteous, starting from the sleep of death, 
 shall hear the deepening roll of the archangel's 
 summons, and behold the terrific pomp of heavenly 
 judicature. But we are certain that they will be 
 assured and comforted, as they gaze upon their 
 Judge, and recognize their surety. Words such 
 as these will occur to them, " God hath appointed 
 a day in the which he will judge the world in 
 righteousness by that man whom he hath ordain- 
 ed." " By that man." The man who " hath borne 
 
164 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 our griefs, and carried our sorrows." The man 
 who uttered the pathetic words, " O Jerusalem, 
 Jerusalem, how often would I have gathered thy 
 children together." The man who was "delivered 
 for our offences, and raised again for our justifica- 
 tion." The man who sat in weariness hy the well 
 of Samaria ; the man who wept in anguish at the 
 grave of Lazarus ; the man who compassionated 
 the weakness of his slumbering disciples ; the man 
 whose "sweat was as it were great drops of blood," 
 and who submitted to be scourged, and buffeted, 
 and crucified, " for us men, and for our salvation." 
 Yes, this is the very being who is to gather the 
 nations before him, and determine the everlasting 
 condition of each individual. And though we dare 
 not attempt to define the motions of those most 
 assured of deliverance, when standing, in their 
 resurrection-bodies, on the earth, as it heaves with 
 strange convulsions, and looking on a firmament 
 lined with ten thousand times ten thousand angels, 
 and beholding a throne of fire and cloud, such as 
 was never piled for mortal sovereignty, and hear- 
 ing sounds of which even imagination cannot catch 
 the echo — yet is it enough to assure us that they 
 will be full of hope and of gladness, to tell us that 
 he who will speak to them is he who once died for 
 them. Oh, there will be peace to the righteous, 
 when f * the heavens shall be rolled together as a 
 scroll," if it be Christ who saith, " the hour is 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 165 
 
 coming, in which all that are in the graves shall 
 hear my voice." 
 
 But with what feelings will those hear the voice, 
 of whom the Saviour may affirm, " I have called, 
 and ye refused ; ye have set at naught all my 
 counsel, and would none of my reproof]" They, 
 too, shall know the voice ; and it shall be to them 
 as the voice of despised mercy, the voice of slight- 
 ed love. They shall be more startled, and more 
 pierced, and more lacerated, by that voice, than 
 if it had never before been heard, or if its tones 
 were not remembered. The sound of that voice 
 will at once waken the memory of warnings that 
 have been neglected, invitations refused, privi- 
 leges unimproved. It will be painfully eloquent 
 of all that was vainly done to win them to repent- 
 ance, and therefore terribly reproachful, ominous 
 of a doom which it is now too late to avert. They 
 would have more hope, they would be less beaten 
 down by a conciousness that they were about to 
 enter on everlasting misery, if a strange voice had 
 summoned them from the tomb, a voice as of many 
 thunderings, a voice that had never spoken tender- 
 ly and plaintively, never uttered the earnest be- 
 seechings, the touching entreaties of a friend, a 
 brother, a Redeemer. Any voice rather than this 
 voice. None could be so dirge-like, so full of 
 condemnation, so burdened with malediction, as 
 that which had often said, " Turn ye, turn ye, for 
 why will ye die V* 
 
166 BIBI,E THOUGHTS. 
 
 But this is the voice ; and when this voice is 
 heard, " all that are in the graves shall come forth." 
 And under how many divisions shall the swarming 
 myriads be arranged 1 They have had very differ- 
 ent opportunities and means, and you might have 
 expected them to be separated into a great variety 
 of classes. But we read of only one division, of 
 only two classes. " They that have done good 
 unto the resurrection of life, and they that have 
 done evil unto the resurrection of damnation." 
 
 And what say you to all this 1 If we could es- 
 cape the judgment, or if we could bribe the Judge ; 
 if we had the bone of iron, and the sinew of brass, 
 and the flesh of marble, so that we might defy the 
 fire and the worm, why, then, we might eat and 
 drink, and amass gold, and gratify lust. But the 
 judgment is not to be escaped — the very dead are 
 to hear the voice, and who then can hide himself I 
 And the Judge is not to be bribed ; it is the eternal 
 God himself, whose are the worlds, and all which 
 they contain. And we are sensitive beings, be- 
 ings with vast capacities for wretchedness, pre- 
 senting unnumbered inlets to a ministry of ven- 
 geance — shall we then, in spite of all this, persist 
 in neglecting the great salvation 1 
 
 79. Mediatorial Kingdom of Christ. 
 
 You cannot be acquainted with the scheme of 
 our redemption, and not know that the office 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 167 
 
 of Mediator warrants our supposing a kingdom 
 which will be finally surrendered. The grand de- 
 sign of redemption has all along been the exter- 
 minating of evil from the universe, and the restor- 
 ing of harmony throughout God's disorganized 
 empire. We know that God made every thing 
 good, and that the creation, whether animate or 
 inanimate, as it rose from his hands, presented no 
 trace of imperfection or pollution. But evil myste- 
 riously gained entrance, and originating in heaven, 
 spread rapidly to earth. And henceforwards it 
 was the main purpose of the Almighty to counter- 
 act evil, to obliterate the stains from his work- 
 manship, and to reinstate and confirm the universe 
 in its original purity. To effect this purpose, his 
 own Son, equal with himself in all the attributes 
 of Godhead, undertook to assume human nature ; 
 and to accomplish, in working out the reconcilia- 
 tion of an alienated tribe, results which should ex- 
 tend themselves to every department of creation. 
 He was not indeed fully and visibly invested with 
 the kingly office until after his death and resur- 
 rection ; for then it was that he declared to his 
 disciples, *? all power is given unto me in heaven 
 and earth." Nevertheless the Mediatorial kingdom 
 had commenced with the commencement of hu- 
 man guilt and misery. For, so soon as man re- 
 belled, Christ interfered on his behalf, and assum- 
 ed the office of his surety and deliverer. He un- 
 
168 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 dertook the combat with the powers of evil, and 
 fought his first battle. And afterwards all God's 
 intercourse with the world was carried on through 
 the Mediator — Christ appearing in human form to 
 patriarchs and saints, and superintending the con- 
 cerns of our race with distinct reference to the 
 good of his church. 
 
 But when, through death, he had destroyed 
 M him that had the power of death, " the Mediator 
 became emphatically a king. He " ascended up on 
 high, and led captivity captive " in that very nature 
 in which he had "borne our griefs and carried our 
 sorrows." He sat down at the right hand of God, 
 the very person that had been made a curse for 
 us ; and there was " given him a name which is 
 above every name, that at the name of Jesus 
 every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and 
 things on earth, and things under the earth." 
 And ever since he hath been M head over all things 
 to the church ;" and God has so delegated his pow- 
 er to the Mediator, that this Mediator has M the 
 keys of hell and of death," and so rules human 
 affairs as to make way for a grand consummation 
 which creation yet expects. It is certainly the re- 
 presentation of Scripture, that Christ has been ex- 
 alted to a throne, in recompense of his humiliation 
 and suffering ; and that, seated on this throne, he 
 governs all things in heaven and earth. And we 
 call this throne the mediatorial throne, because it 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 169 
 
 was only as Mediator that Christ could be exalted ; 
 because, possessing essentially all power as God, 
 it could only be as God-man that he was vested 
 with dominion. "He must reign," saith St. Paul, 
 "until he hath put all enemies under his feet." 
 The great object for which the kingdom has 
 been erected, is, that he w r ho occupies the 
 throne may subdue those principalities and pow- 
 ers which have set themselves against the govern- 
 ment of God. Already have vast advances been 
 made towards the subjugation. But the kingdoms 
 of the world have not yet become the kingdoms 
 of our Lord and his Christ. Sin still reigns, and 
 death still reigns, and only an inconsiderable frac- 
 tion of the human population bow to the sceptre 
 of Jesus. But we are taught to expect a thorough 
 and stupendous change. We know from prophe- 
 cy that a time approaches when the whole world 
 shall be evangelized; when there shall not be the 
 tribe, no, nor the individual upon earth, who fails 
 to love and reverence the Mediator. Christ hath 
 yet to set up his kingdom on the wreck of all hu- 
 man sovereignty, and so to display himself that he 
 shall be universally adored as " King of kings and 
 Lords of lords." 
 
 And when this noble result is brought round, 
 
 and the whole globe mantled with righteousness, 
 
 there will yet remain much to be done ere the 
 
 mediatorial work is complete. The throne must 
 
 15 
 
170 BIBLE THOUGHTS 
 
 be set for judgment ; the enactments of a retribu- 
 tive economy take effect ; the dead be raised, and 
 all men receive the things done in the body. 
 Then will it be evident that the power committed 
 to Christ has accomplished the great ends for 
 which it was entrusted, the overthrow of iSatan, 
 the destruction of death, and the extirpation of 
 unrighteousness. And if it be the declaration of 
 Scripture that the Mediator shall thus at length 
 master evil under its every form, and in its every 
 consequence, will not this Mediator finally prove 
 himself a king — demonstrating not only the pos- 
 session of sovereignty, but the employment of it 
 to those illustrious purposes which were pro- 
 posed by God from the foundation of the world 1 
 Yes, we can say with St. Paul, " we see not yet 
 all things put under him." But we see enough to 
 assure us that " him hath God exalted as a Prince 
 and a Saviour." We see enough, and we know 
 enough, to be persuaded that there is kingdom 
 within kingdom ; and that, whilst God is still the 
 universal Monarch, the Omnipotent who w telleth 
 the number of the stars," and without whom not 
 even a sparrow falls, the Mediator superintends 
 and regulates the affairs of his church, and or- 
 ders, with absolute sway, whatever respects the 
 final establishment of righteousness through crea- 
 tion. And therefore are we also persuaded, on a 
 testimony which cannot deceive, that this Media- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 171 
 
 tor shall reign till he hath brought into subjec- 
 tion every adversary of God ; and that at last — 
 death itself being swallowed up in victory — the 
 universe, purged from all pollution, and glowing 
 with a richer than its pristine beauty, shall be 
 the evidence that there hath indeed been a media- 
 torial kingdom, and that nothing could withstand 
 the Mediator's sovereignty. 
 
 80. Mediatorial Kingdom of Christ not Eternal. 
 
 We think it evident that, as Mediator, Christ 
 has certain functions to discharge, which, from 
 their very nature, cannot be eternal. When the 
 last of God's elect family shall have been gather- 
 ed in, there will be none to need the blood of 
 sprinkling, none to require the intercession of 
 " an advocate with the Father." And when the 
 last enemy, which is death, shall have been de- 
 stroyed, that great purpose of the Almighty — the 
 conquest of Satan, and the extirpation of evil — 
 will be accomplished ; so that there will be no 
 more battles for the Mediator to fight, no more 
 adversaries to subdue. And thus, if we have 
 rightly described the mediatorial kingdom, there 
 is to come a time when it will be no longer ne- 
 cessary ; when, every object for which it was 
 erected having been fully and finally attained, 
 and no possibility existing that evil may re-enter 
 
172 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the universe, this kingdom may be expected to 
 cease. 
 
 And this is the great consummation which we 
 are taught to expect. We may not be able to ex- 
 plain its details, but the outlines are sketched 
 with boldness and precision. There has been 
 committed to Christ, not as God, but as God- 
 man, a kingdom which, though small in its be- 
 ginning, shall at length supersede every other. 
 The designs proposed in the erection of this 
 kingdom, are the salvation of man and the glory 
 of God, in the thorough extirpation of evil from 
 the universe. These designs will be fully accom- 
 plished at the general judgment ; and then, the 
 ends for which the kingdom was erected having 
 been answered, the kingdom itself is to termi- 
 nate. Then shall the Son of man, having " put 
 down all rule, and all authority and power," lay 
 aside the sceptre of majesty. Then shall all that 
 sovereignty, which, for magnificent but tempo- 
 rary purposes has been wielded by and through 
 the humanity of Christ, pass again to the God- 
 head whence it was derived. Then shall the 
 Creator, acting no longer through the instrumen- 
 tality of a mediator, assume visibly, amid the 
 worshipings of the whole intelligent creation, 
 the dominion over his infinite and now purified 
 empire, and administer its every concern without 
 the intervention of one * r found in fashion as a 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 173 
 
 man." And then, though as head of his church, 
 Christ, in human nature, may always retain a 
 special power over his people j and though, as es- 
 sentially divine, he must at all times be equally 
 the omnipotent ; there will necessarily be such a 
 change in the visible government of the universe, 
 that the Son shall seem to surrender all kingly 
 authority ; to descend from his throne, having 
 made his enemies his footstool ; and thus shall 
 be brought to pass the saying that is written, 
 V the Son also himself shall be subject unto him 
 that put all things under him 5" and God, the Fa- 
 ther, Son, and Holy Ghost, " God shall hence- 
 forwards be all in all." 
 
 81. Believer's experience of Chrisfs sufficiency. 
 
 We take it, as the experience of the believer, 
 that the Captain of Salvation strengthens his fol- 
 lowers for the moral conflict to which they are 
 pledged. How often, when Satan has brought all 
 his powers to the assault, and the man has seem- 
 ed within a hair-breadth of yielding, how often 
 has an earnest prayer, thrown like an arrow to 
 the mercy-seat, caused Christ to appear, as he 
 once did to Joshua, the captain of the Lord's 
 host ; and the tide of battle has been turned, and 
 the foe has been routed, and the oppressed one 
 delivered ! How often, when an evil passion has 
 almost goaded the believer into compliance with 
 15* 
 
174 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 its dictates, and there seemed no longer any like- 
 lihood of its being kept down or ejected, how, 
 by dealing with this passion as dealt the apostles 
 of old with foul spirits which had entered into 
 the body, calling over it the name of the Lord 
 Jesus, has the passion been cast out, and the pos- 
 sessed man restored quickly to soundness and 
 peace ! How often, in looking forward to duties 
 imposed on him by his christian profession, has 
 the believer been conscious of a kind of shrink- 
 ing at the prospect ! It has seemed to him almost 
 hopeless that he should bear up under the pres- 
 sure of labor 5 that he should meet faithfully every 
 claim upon his time and attention ; and that he 
 should discharge, with any thing of becoming 
 carefulness, the various offices with which he 
 sees himself intrusted. But when he has reflected 
 on himself as simply an instrument in the hands 
 of his Master, and resolved to go on in a single 
 dependence on the helps which are promised 
 through Christ, has not the mountain become li- 
 terally a plain; so that duties which, at a dis- 
 tance, seemed altogether overwhelming, have 
 proved, when entered upon, the very reverse of 
 oppressive ! And what shall we assert to be the 
 result of this continual experience of the suffi- 
 ciencies of Christ, unless it be that the believer 
 knows whom he hath believed? The stone which 
 God laid in Zion becomes to him, according to 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 175 
 
 the prophetical description, a tried stone. He no 
 longer needs to appeal to the experience of others. 
 He has the witness in himself, and he can use the 
 language which the Samaritans used to the wo- 
 man who first told them of Christ as the pro- 
 phet, — We have heard him ourselves, and know 
 that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the 
 world. 
 
 There can be nothing clearer than the con- 
 nection between experience and knowledge. If I 
 meet difficulties in Christ's strength, and master 
 them ; if I face enemies in Christ's strength, and 
 vanquish them ; if I undertake duties in Christ's 
 strength, and discharge them, — the difficulties, 
 and the enemies, and the duties being such as I 
 could not grapple with by my own unassisted 
 might, — then my experience is actually know- 
 ledge ; for experiencing Christ to be faithful and 
 powerful, I certainly know Christ to be faithful 
 and powerful. 
 
 82. Merit 
 
 If one being merit of another, it must perform 
 some action which it was not obliged to perform, 
 and by which that other is advantaged. Nothing 
 else can constitute merit. I do another a favor, 
 and, therefore, deserve at his hands, if I do some- 
 thing by which he is profited, and which I was 
 not obliged, by mere duty, to do. If either of 
 
176 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 these conditions fail, merit must vanish. If the 
 other party gain nothing, he can owe me no- 
 thing ; and if I have only done what duty pre- 
 scribed, he had a right to the action, and cannot, 
 therefore, have been laid under obligation. 
 
 We wave the consideration, that, if there be 
 merit, God must be advantaged — though there 
 lies in it the material of an overpowering proof 
 that the notion of creature-merit is little short of 
 blasphemous. Who can think of being profitable 
 unto God, when he remembers the independence 
 of Deity, and calls to mind that there was a time 
 when the Creator had not surrounded himself 
 with worlds and tribes, and when, occupied with 
 glorious and ineffable communings, the Father, 
 Son, and Spirit, reaped in from the deep solitudes 
 of immensity as full a revenue of happiness as 
 they now gather from its thickly-peopled circles 1 
 No creature can do without God. But God could 
 have done without creatures. They were not ne- 
 cessary to God. There was no void in his bless- 
 edness which required the contributions of crea- 
 tures before it could be filled up. And it must be 
 absurd to talk of advantaging God, when we know 
 that his magnificence and his happiness would 
 have been infinite, had he chosen to dwell for 
 ever in his sublime loneliness, and suffered not 
 the stillness of the unmeasured expanse, full only 
 of himself, to be broken by the hum of a swarm- 
 ing population. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 177 
 
 But we wave this consideration. We fasten 
 you to the fact, that a meritorious action must 
 be an action of which duty demands not the per- 
 formance. In determining the question, whether 
 a creature can merit, we have nothing to do, ab- 
 stractedly, with the magnificence of the energies 
 of that creature, nor with the stupendousness of 
 the achievements which he is capable of effect- 
 ing. There is not, of necessity, any greater rea- 
 son why an angel should merit, because able to 
 move a world, than why a worm should merit, 
 because just able to crawl upon its surface. The 
 whole question of the possibility of merit is a 
 question of the possibility of outrunning duty. 
 Unless duty be exceeded, every creature must 
 receive, as applicable to himself, the words of 
 the Saviour, " When ye shall have done all those 
 things which are commanded you, say, we are 
 unprofitable servants," (and, if unprofitable, cer- 
 tainly not meritorious;) " we have done that 
 which was our duty to do." 
 
 83. Men's disposition to claim Merit. 
 
 We know not the point in theology which re- 
 quires to be oftener stated, or more carefully es- 
 tablished, than the impossibility that a creature 
 should merit at the hands of the Creator. It is 
 not to be controverted, that men are disposed to 
 entertain the opinion that creature-merit is pos- 
 
178 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sible, so that they have it in their power to effect 
 something deserving recompense from God. They 
 will not indeed always set the point of merit very 
 high. They will rather imitate the Pharisee in the 
 parable, who evidently thought himself merito- 
 rious for stopping a degree or two short of being 
 scandalous. " God, I thank thee that I am not as 
 other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers. " 
 But whether it be at a low point, or a lofty, that 
 merit is supposed to commence, every man must 
 own as his natural sentiment, that it commences 
 at some point ; and each one of us, if he have 
 ever probed his own heart, will confess himself 
 prone to the persuasion, that the creature can 
 lay the Creator under obligation. We find our- 
 selves able to deserve well of one another, to 
 confer favors, and to contract debts. And when 
 we carry up our thoughts from the finite to the 
 infinite, we quite forget the total change in the 
 relationship ; and we perceive not that the posi- 
 tion in which we stand to our Maker excludes 
 those deservings, which, unquestionably, have 
 place between man and man. Men simply view 
 God as the mightiest of sovereigns, and, know- 
 ing it possible to do a favor to their king, con- 
 clude it possible to do a favor to their God. 
 
 84-. Self -Righteousness. 
 We are bound to say, that we know not more 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 179 
 
 unpromising subjects for the preaching of the 
 Gospel, than those who are punctiliously atten- 
 tive to the forms of religion, and who attach a 
 worth and a merit to their careful performance 
 of certain moral duties. We cannot have a more 
 unpalatable truth to deliver — but wo is unto us if 
 we dare to keep it back — than that which exposes 
 the utter insufficiency of the best human righte- 
 ousness, and which tells men, who are amiable 
 and charitable, and moral and upright, that, with 
 all their excellencies, they may be further from 
 the kingdom of heaven than the dissolute whom 
 they regard with absolute loathing. The imme- 
 diate feeling is, that we confound virtue and vice ; 
 and that, allowing no superiority to what is lovely 
 and of good report, we represent God as indif- 
 ferent to moral conduct, and thus undermine the 
 foundations on which society rests. But we are 
 open to no such charge. We are quite alive to the 
 beauty and advantageousness of that moral ex- 
 cellence which does not spring from a principle 
 of religion, nay, which may even oppose the ad- 
 mission of the peculiar doctrines of Christianity. 
 There is not a man for whom we have a greater 
 feeling of interest, because there is not one of 
 whom naturally we have a greater admiration, 
 than for him who is passing through life with an 
 unblemished reputation, sedulously attentive to 
 all the relative duties, and taking generously the 
 
180 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 lead in efforts to ameliorate the condition of his 
 fellows, but who, all the while, has no conscious- 
 ness of his own sinfulness, and who therefore 
 rests on his own works and not on Christ's mer- 
 its. If you compare this man with a dissolute 
 character, one who is outraging the laws of so- 
 ciety, and the feelings of humanity ; and if you 
 judge the two merely w r ith reference to the pre- 
 sent scene of being, why there is the widest pos- 
 sible difference ; and to speak of the one as 
 equally depraved and equally vile with the other, 
 would be an overcharged statement carrying its 
 own confutation. 
 
 But what is there to prove that there may not 
 be just as much rebellion against God in the one 
 case as in the other ; and that the man whose 
 deportment is marked by what is praiseworthy 
 and beneficial, may not be as void of all love to- 
 wards the Author of his being, as he who, by his 
 vices and villany, draws upon himself the execra- 
 tions of a neighborhood 1 Try men as members 
 of society, and they are as widely separated as 
 the poles of the earth. But try them as God's 
 creatures, not their own, but " bought with a 
 price," and you may bring them to the same level, 
 or even prove the moral and amiable further 
 alienated than the dissolute and repulsive. Yes, 
 further alienated. It is a hard saying, but we can- 
 not pare it away. These upright and charitable 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 181 
 
 men, on whom a world is lavishing its applause, 
 how will they receive us when we come and tell 
 them that they are sinners who have earned for 
 themselves eternal destruction ; and that they 
 are no more secured against ruin by their recti- 
 tude and philanthropy, than if they were the 
 slaves of every vice, and the patrons of every 
 crime % May we not speak of, at least, a high 
 probability, that they will be disgusted at a state- 
 ment which makes so light of their excellence ; 
 and that they will turn away from the doctrines 
 of the Gospel as too humiliating to be true, or as , 
 only constructed for the very refuse of mankind 1 
 Oh, we again say that we hardly know a more 
 hopeless task than that of bringing the Gospel to 
 bear on an individual who is trenched about with 
 self-righteousness. If we are dealing with the 
 openly immoral man, we can take the thunders 
 of the law, and ply his conscience. We know 
 well enough, that, in his case, there is a voice 
 within which answers to the voice from without ; 
 and that, however he may harden himself against 
 our remonstrance, there is, at least, no sophistry 
 by which he can persuade himself that he is not 
 a sinner. This is a great point secured : we oc- 
 cupy a vantage-ground, from which we may di- 
 rect, with full power, all our moral artillery. But 
 when we deal with the man who is amiable, and 
 estimable, and exemplary, but who, nevertheless, 
 16 
 
182 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 is a stranger to the motives of the Gospel, our 
 very first assertion — for this must be our first ; 
 we cannot advance a step till this preliminary is 
 felt and conceded — the assertion, that the man is 
 a sinner, deserving only hell, arms against us his 
 every antipathy, and is almost certain to call up 
 such a might of opposition, that we are at once 
 repulsed as unworthy further hearing. 
 
 85. Angels cannot Merit. 
 
 If duty exclude merit, the condition of the an 
 gel, as much as that of the worm, excludes merit 
 If all which the angel has belongs to the Creator > 
 if that noble intelligence which elevates him far 
 above our own level be the property of God j if 
 that awful might, which could strew the ground 
 with the thousands of the Assyrian host, be com- 
 municated by Deity; if that velocity of flight, 
 which fits him to go on embassages to the very 
 outskirts of creation, be imparted by his Maker — 
 there must be a demand, an inalienable demand, 
 upon the angel, for every instant of his time, and 
 for every fraction of his strength, and for every 
 waving of his wing. Duty, the duty which is im- 
 posed upon him by the fact of his creatureship, 
 can draw no frontier-line excluding from a re- 
 quired consecration to God the minutest item of 
 those multiform possessions, which render him a 
 splendid and mighty thing, the nearest approach 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 183 
 
 to Divinity in all that interminable series of pro- 
 ductions which bounded into being at the call of 
 the Omnipotent. 
 
 So that the angel, just as much as the meanest 
 of creatures, must say of all that he can bring to 
 God, of thine own do I give thee. It is, indeed, a 
 costlier offering than the human eye hath seen, 
 or the human thought imagined. There is a fer- 
 vor of affection, and a grasp of understanding, and 
 a strenuousness of labor, aye, and an intenseness 
 of self-abasement and humility, which enter not 
 into the best and purest of the oblations which 
 are laid by ourselves at the feet of our Maker. 
 But as there is not one jot less than duty pre- 
 scribes, neither is there one jot more. God gave 
 all which is brought to him. His the glowing love. 
 His the soaring intellect. His the awful vigor. 
 His the beautiful lowliness. And shall he be laid 
 under obligation by his own] Shall he be bound 
 to make return, because he hath received of his 
 own 1 Oh, we may discuss, and debate, upon 
 earth, the possibility, or the impossibility, of 
 creature-merit. But we may be sure, that, if the 
 question could be propounded to angels, the 
 thought of merit would be rejected as treason. 
 Standing in the immediate presence of their glo- 
 rious Creator ; privileged to gaze, so far as it is 
 possible for creatures to gaze without being wi- 
 thered, on his unveiled lustres ; and fraught with 
 
184 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the consciousness, that, however wonderful their 
 powers and capacities, they possess nothing 
 which God did not give, and which God might 
 not instantly withdraw — angels must feel that the 
 attempt to deserve of the Almighty would be tan- 
 tamount to an attempt to dethrone the Almighty, 
 and that the supposing that more might be done 
 than is demanded by duty, would be the sup- 
 posing an eternity exhausted, and time left for 
 some praiseworthy exploits. Angels must discern, 
 with an acuteness of perception never reached 
 by ourselves whilst hampered by corruption, that 
 each energy in their endowment constitutes a re- 
 quisition for a contribution of glory to Jehovah ; 
 and that the endeavor to employ it to the pro- 
 curing greatness, or happiness, for themselves, 
 would amount to a base and fatal prostitution, 
 causing them at once to be ranked with the apos- 
 tate. And thus, upon the simple principle that 
 " all things come of God," and that only of his 
 own can they give him, angels, who are vast in 
 might, and brilliant in purity, would count it the 
 breaking into rebellion to entertain the thought 
 of the possibility of merit ; and unless you could 
 prove to them that God had given less than all. 
 that there were abilities in their nature which 
 they had derived from sources independent on 
 Deity, and that, consequently, their duty towards 
 God required not the dedication of every iota of 
 
ETBLE THOtrGHTS. IS5 
 
 every faculty ; unless you could prove to them 
 this — and you might prove this, when you could 
 show them two Gods, two Creators, and parcel 
 out between two Almighties the authorship of 
 their surpassing endowments — you would make 
 no way with your demonstration, that it was pos- 
 sible for an angel to deserve of God. 
 
 86, Marts Works not Meritorious. 
 
 What merit can there be in works 1 If you 
 give much alms, whose is the money 1 " The 
 silver is mine, and the gold is mine, saith the 
 Lord of Hosts." If you mortify the body, whose 
 are the macerated limbs 1 If you put sackcloth on 
 the soul, whose is the chastened spirit ] If you 
 be moral, and honest, and friendly, and generous, 
 and patriotic, whose are the dispositions which 
 you exercise, whose the powers to which you 
 give culture and scope 1 And if you only use 
 God's gifts, can that be meritorious 1 You may 
 say, yes — it is meritorious to use them aright, 
 whilst others abuse them. But is it wickedness 
 to abuse 1 Then it can only be duty to use aright ; 
 and duty will be merit, when debt is donation. 
 You may bestow a fortune in charity ; but the 
 wealth is already the Lord's. You may cultivate 
 the virtues which adorn and sweeten human life ; 
 but the employed powers are the Lord's. You 
 may give time and strength to the enterprises of 
 16* 
 
186 BIBLE TH0TTGETS. 
 
 philanthropy ; each moment is the Lord's, each 
 sinew is the Lord's. You may be upright in every 
 dealing of trade, scrupulously honorable in all the 
 intercourse of life ; but rr a just weight and balance 
 are the Lord's, all the weights of the bag are his 
 work." And where, then, is the merit of works 'I 
 Oh, throw into one heap each power of the mind, 
 each energy of the body ; use in God's service 
 each grain of your substance, each second of 
 your time ; give to the Almighty every throb of 
 the pulse, every drawing of the breath ; labor and 
 strive, and be instant, in season and out of season* 
 and let the steepness of the mountain daunt you 
 not, and the swellings of the ocean deter you not, 
 and the ruggedness of the desert appall you not, 
 but on, still on, in toiling for your Maker ; and 
 dream, and talk, and boast of merit, when you 
 can find the particle in the heap, or the shred in 
 the exploit, which you may exclude from the con- 
 fession, " all things come of thee, and of thine 
 owriy O God, have I given thee." 
 
 87. The Holy Spirit. 
 
 The Holy Spirit alone can make us feel the 
 things which are easy to be understood, and pre- 
 vent our wresting those which are hard. Never, 
 then, should the Bible be opened except with 
 prayer for the teachings of this Spirit. You will 
 read without profit, as long as you read without 
 
EIELE THOUGHTS. 187 
 
 prayer. It is only in the degree that the Spirit, 
 which indited a text, takes it from the page and 
 breathes it into the heart, that we can compre- 
 hend its meaning, he touched hy its beauty, stir* 
 red by its remonstrance, or animated by its pro- 
 mise. We shall never, then, master scriptural 
 difficulties by the methods which prove success- 
 ful in grappling with philosophical. Why is it 
 that the poor peasant, whose understanding is 
 weak and undisciplined, has clear insight into the 
 meaning of verses, and finds in them irresistible 
 power and inexhaustible comfort, whilst the very 
 same passages are given up as mysteries, or over- 
 looked as unimportant by the high and lettered 
 champion of a scholastic theology 1 It were idle 
 to deny that our rustic divines will oftentimes 
 travel with a far firmer and more dominant step 
 than our collegiate into the depths of a scriptural 
 statement ; and that you might obtain from some 
 of the patriarchs of our valleys, whose chief in- 
 instruction has been their own communing with 
 the Almighty, such explanations of tr things hard 
 to be understood" as would put to shame the 
 commentaries of our most learned expositors. 
 And of this phenomenon the solution would be 
 hopeless, if there were not a broad instituted dif- 
 ference between human and sacred literature : 
 ,f the kingdom of heaven " being " like unto trea- 
 sure hid in a field ;" and the finding this treasure 
 
188 EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 depending not at all on the power of the intel* 
 lect brought to the search, but on the heartiness 
 and the earnestness with which the Psalmist's 
 prayer is used, " open thou mine eyes, that I may 
 behold wondrous things out of thy law." If you 
 open a scientific book, or study an abstruse and 
 metaphysical work, let reason gird herself boldly 
 for the task : the province belongs fairly to her 
 jurisdiction ; and she may cling to her own ener- 
 gies without laying herself open to the charge, 
 that, according to the characteristic which Joel 
 gives of the last times, the weak is vaunting itself 
 the strong. But if you open the Bible and sit down 
 to the investigation of scriptural truth, you are 
 in a district which lies far beyond the just limits 
 of the empire of reason : there is need of an ap- 
 paratus wholly distinct from that which sufficed 
 for your former inquiry : and if you think to 
 comprehend revelation, except so far as the Au- 
 thor shall act as interpreter, you are, most empha- 
 tically, the weak pronouncing yourselves the 
 strong, and the Bible shall be to you a closed 
 book, and you shall break not the seals which God 
 himself hath placed on the volume. O, they are 
 seals which melt away like a snow-wreath, before 
 the breathings of the Spirit ; but not all the lire 
 of human genius shall ever prevail to dissolve or 
 loosen them. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 189 
 
 88. Universality of the strivings of tkt Holy 
 Spirit. 
 
 We are certain of every one amongst you who 
 neglects salvation, that he withstands the sug- 
 gestions and strivings of the Spirit of the living- 
 God. Yie know that there is not one of you, the 
 most indifferent and careless in regard to the 
 threatenings and promises of the Gospel, who 
 has not had to fight his way to his present insen- 
 sibility against the powerful remonstrances of an 
 invisible monitor, and who is not often compelled, 
 in order to the keeping himself from alarm and 
 anxiety, to crush, with a sudden and desperate 
 violence, pleadings which are fraught with super- 
 human energy. We know this. We want no lay- 
 ing bare of your secret experience in order to 
 our ascertaining this. We need no confessions 
 to inform us that you have some little trouble in 
 destroying yourselves. The young amongst you, 
 whose god is pleasure, and whose home the world, 
 we would not believe them if they assured us, 
 that they never know any kind of mental uneasi- 
 ness; that never, when in the crowd — never, 
 when alone, do they hear the whisperings of a 
 voice which tells them of moral danger ; that 
 they have never difficulty, when told of the death 
 of an associate, or when they meet a funeral, or 
 when laid on a sick bed, in repressing all fear, all 
 
190 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 consciousness of a necessity for a thorough 
 change of conduct. We would not believe them, 
 we say, if they assured us of this. We know bet- 
 ter. We know them the possessors of a con- 
 science. We know them acted on by the Spirit 
 of the Almighty. We know them immortal, sons 
 and daughters of eternity, however they may en- 
 deavor to live as though death were annihilation. 
 And therefore we would not believe them. 0, 
 no ! As soon believe the rock, were it gifted with 
 speech, which should argue, that, because un- 
 softened, it was never shone on by the sun, and 
 never swept by the winds, and never dashed by 
 the waters, as the granite of the heart, which, 
 because yet insensible, would deny that an un- 
 seen hand ever smote it, or celestial dews ever 
 fell on it, or divine beams strove to penetrate it. 
 No, we cannot believe you when you would 
 tell us that you are let alone by God. Again we 
 reply, that we know better. We know that the 
 young man, who is the slave of his passions, has 
 often a misgiving that his tyrants here will be his 
 tormentors hereafter. We know that the young 
 woman, whose deity is her dress, is sometimes 
 startled by the thought of the shroud and the 
 winding-sheet. We know that the merchantman, 
 laboring to be rich, is now and then aghast with 
 the fear of being poor through eternity. We 
 know that the shrewd man, too cunning to be 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. - 191 
 
 duped by any but himself, has moments in which 
 he feels, that, in the greatest of all transactions, 
 he may, perhaps, be overreached, and barter the 
 everlasting for the perishable. We know that the 
 proud man, moving in a region of his own, and 
 Hushed with the thought how many are beneath 
 him, is occasionally startled by a vision of utter 
 degradation, himself in infamy, and "How art 
 thou fallen !" breathed against him by the vilest. 
 We know that those who neglect means of grace, 
 do violence to a secret remonstrance, and feel, if 
 only for an instant, (O, how easy, by the resist- 
 ance of an instant, to endanger their eternity !) 
 that they are rejecting privileges which will rise 
 against them as accusers. We know all this, and 
 we cannot believe you when you would tell us 
 that you are let alone by God. You are not let 
 alone. You are acted on through the machinery 
 of conscience. You may have done your best to- 
 wards mastering and exterminating conscience, 
 but you have not yet quite succeeded. There is 
 divinity in the monitor, and it will not be over- 
 borne. We know that you are not let alone, for 
 the salvation which we press on your acceptance 
 is a great salvation ; and in nothing is this great- 
 ness more apparent than in the fact, that the Spi- 
 rit of the Almighty is occupied with commend- 
 ing this salvation to sinners, and combating their 
 prejudices, and urging them to accept. It is in- 
 
192 BIBLE mobs 
 
 deed a marvellous greatness that Omnipotence 
 itself should not be more engaged with uphold- 
 ing the universe, and actuating the motions of 
 unnumbered systems, and sustaining the anima- 
 tion of every living thing, from the archangel 
 down to the insect, than with plying transgressors 
 with all the motives which are laid up in the Gos- 
 pel, admonishing them by the agony, and the 
 passion, and the death of a Mediator, and warn- 
 ing them by the terrors, as well as inviting them 
 by the mercies of the cross. It is a marvellous 
 greatness. But if you remain the indifferent and 
 unbelieving, this greatness only proves that you 
 are not to be overcome by the strongest power 
 which can be brought to bear on our nature ; 
 proves that an agency, than which none is migh- 
 tier, has wrestled with you, and striven with you, 
 but as yet all in vain ; proves, therefore, the cer- 
 tainty of your destruction if v you persist in your 
 carelessness, because it proves, that, having with- 
 stood the most potent means, there can be none 
 to which you will yield. And what is this but 
 proving the peril of neglect from the greatness 
 of salvation 1 What is this, since the greatness 
 of salvation depends much on the greatness of 
 the being who applies it ; what is this but asking, 
 M How shall we escape, if we neglect so great 
 salvation V 1 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 193 
 
 89. Danger of Stifling Conviction. 
 
 To stifle a conviction is the first step in a path- 
 way which leads directly to stupefaction of con- 
 science. Men will flock in crowds to the public, 
 preaching of the word, though the master natu- 
 ral passion, whatsoever it be, retain undisputed 
 the lordship of their spirits. And this passion 
 may be avarice, or it may be voluptuousness, or 
 ambition, or envy, or pride. But, however cha- 
 racterized, the dominant lust is brought into the 
 sanctuary and exposed to the attacks of the 
 preacher. And who shall say what a disturbing 
 force the sermon will oftentimes put forth against 
 the master-passion ; and how frequently the 
 word of the living God, delivered in earnestness 
 and affection, shall have almost made a breach in 
 the strong-holds of Satan 1 Aye, we believe that 
 often, when a minister, gathering himself up in 
 the strength of his Master, launches the thun- 
 derbolt of truth against vice and unrighteous- 
 ness, there is a vast stirring of heart through the 
 listening assembly; and that as he reasons of 
 fT righteousness, temperance, and judgment to 
 come," though the natural ear catch no sounds 
 of anxiety and alarm, attendant angels, who 
 watch the workings of the Gospel, hear the deep 
 beatings of many souls, and almost start at the 
 bounding throb of aroused and agitated spirits, 
 17 
 
194» BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 If Satan ever tremble for his ascendency, it 13 
 when the preacher has riveted the attention of 
 the unconverted individual ; and, after describing 
 and denouncing the covetousness, or pouring" out 
 the torrent of his speech on an exhibition of the 
 voluptuary, or exposing the madness and misery 
 of the proud, comes down on that individual with 
 the startling announcement, " Thou art the man!" 
 And the individual goes away from the sanctuary 
 convinced of the necessity of subduing the mas- 
 ter-passion ; and he will form, and for a while act 
 upon, the resolution of wrestling against pride, 
 or of mortifying lust, or of renouncing avarice. 
 But he proceeds in his own strength, and, having 
 no consciousness of the inabilities of his nature, 
 seeks not to God's Spirit for assistance. In a lit- 
 tle time, therefore, all the impression wears away. 
 He saw only the danger of sin ; he went not on 
 to see its vileness. And the mind soon habituates 
 itself, or soon grows indifferent, to the contem- 
 plation of danger, and, above all, when perhaps 
 distant. Hence the man will return quickly to his 
 old haunts. And whether it be to money-making 
 that he again gives himself, or to sensuality, or 
 to ambition, he will enter on the pursuit with an 
 eagerness heightened by abstinence ; and thus 
 the result shall be practically the same as though, 
 having sown moral stupor, he were reaping in a 
 harvest tremendously luxuriant. And 0, if the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 105 
 
 mnn, after this renouncement and restoration of 
 the master-passion, come again to the sanctuary ; 
 and if again the preacher denounce, with a righ- 
 teous vehemence, every working of ungodliness ; 
 and the fire be in his eye, and the thunder on his 
 tongue, as he makes a stand for God and for 
 truth against a reckless and semi-infidel genera- 
 tion 5 alas ! the man who has felt convictions, 
 and sown their stiflings, will be more inaccessi- 
 ble than ever, and more impervious. He will 
 have been hardened through the vegetating pro- 
 cess which has gone on in his soul. A far migh- 
 tier apparatus than before will be required to 
 make the lightest impression. 
 
 90. Repe?ilance. — 
 
 The abandonment of certain vicious practices, 
 and a breaking loose from habits which have held 
 the soul in bondage, is not the whole of true re- 
 pentance. Long ere the* man thinks of applying to 
 Christ, and whilst almost a stranger to his name, 
 he may make a great advance in reformation of 
 conduct, renouncing much which his conscience 
 has declared wrong, and entering upon duties of 
 which he has been neglectful. But this comes far 
 short of that thorough moral change which is in- 
 tended by the inspired writers, when they speak 
 ' of repentance. The outward conduct may be 
 amended, whilst no attack is made on the love 
 
196 BIBLS THOUGHTS. 
 
 of sin as seated in the heart ; so that the change 
 may be altogether on the surface, and extend not 
 to the affections of the inner man. But the re- 
 pentance required of those who are forgiven 
 through Christ, is a radical change of mind and 
 of spirit ; a change which will be made apparent 
 by a corresponding* in the outward deportment, 
 but whose great scene is within, and which there 
 affects every power and propensity of our nature. 
 And a repentance such as this, seeing it manifest- 
 ly lies beyond the reach of our own strivings, is 
 only to be obtained from Christ, who ascended 
 up on high, and rf received gifts for the rebel- 
 lious," becoming, in his exaltation, the source 
 and dispenser of those various assistances which 
 fallen beings need as probationers for eternity. 
 
 What, then, is it which a man has to do who is 
 desirous of becoming truly repentant 1 We reply 
 that he is to go in earnest prayer to Christ, for 
 the aids of the Holy Spirit. Of course we do not 
 mean that he is to confine himself to prayer, and 
 make no effort at correcting what may be wrong 
 in his conduct. The sincerity of his prayer can 
 only be proved by the vigor of his endeavor to 
 obey God's commands. But we mean, that, along 
 with his strenuousness in renouncing evil habits 
 and associations, there must be an abiding per- 
 suasion that repentance, as well as forgiveness, 
 is to be procured through nothing but the aton- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 197 
 
 ing sacrifice of Christ j and this persuasion must 
 make him unwearied in entreaty, that Christ 
 would send into his soul the renovating power. 
 It may be urged that Christ pardons none but 
 the penitent, but our statement rather is, that 
 those whom he pardons he first makes penitent. 
 And shall we be told that we thus reduce man 
 below the level of an intelligent, accountable be- 
 ing 5 making him altogether passive, and allotting 
 him no task in the struggle for immortality 1 We 
 throw back the accusation as altogether un- 
 founded. We call upon man for the stretch of 
 every muscle, and the strain of every power. 
 As to his being saved in indolence, saved in inac- 
 tivity, he may as well look for harvest where he 
 has never sown, and for knowledge where he has 
 never studied. Is it to be an idler, is it to be a 
 sluggard, to have to keep down that pride which 
 would keep him from Christ ; to be wrestling 
 with those passions which the light that is in him 
 shows must be mortified ; to be unwearied in pe- 
 tition for the assistances of the Spirit, and in 
 using such helps as have been already vouch- 
 safed 1 If this be idleness, that man is an idler 
 who is actuated by the consciousness that he 
 can no more repent than be pardoned without 
 Christ. But if it be to task a man to the utmost 
 of his energy, to prescribe that he go straight- 
 way for every thing which he needs to an invi- 
 17* 
 
198 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sible Mediator ; go, in spite of the opposition of 
 the flesh ; go, though the path lies through resist- 
 ing inclinations ; go, though in going he must 
 abase himself in the dust, and proclaim his own 
 nothingness ; then we are exhorting the impeni- 
 tent to the mightiest of labors, when we exhort 
 them to seek repentance as Christ's gift. The 
 assigning its true place to repentance ; the de- 
 stroying the notion that repentance is to be ef- 
 fected for ourselves, and then to recommend us 
 to the Saviour; this, in place of telling men that 
 they have little or nothing to do, is the urging 
 them to diligence by showing how it may be suc- 
 cessful ; and to effort, by pointing out the alone 
 channel through w T hich it can prevail. 
 
 91. Repentance — Us proper place. 
 
 There are few duties to which men are more 
 frequently urged, and in regard to which, never- 
 theless, they are more likely to be deceived, than 
 the great duty of repentance. It is of the hrst 
 importance that the exact place and nature of 
 this duty should be accurately defined ; for so 
 long as there is any thing of misapprehension, or 
 mistake, in regard to repentance, there can be 
 no full appreciation of the proffered mercies of 
 the Gospel. It seems to be too common an opi- 
 nion, that repentance is a kind of preparation, or 
 preliminary, which men are in a great degree to 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 199 
 
 effect for themselves before they can go to Christ 
 lis a mediator and propitiation. Repentance is 
 regarded as a something which they have to do, 
 a condition they have to perform, in order that 
 they may be fitted to apply to the Redeemer, and 
 ask a share in the blessings which he' purchased 
 for mankind. We do not, of course, deny that 
 there must be repentance before there can be 
 forgiveness ; and that it is only to the broken and 
 contrite heart that Christ extends the fruits of his 
 passion. We say to every man who may be in- 
 quiring as to the pardon of sin, except you repent 
 you cannot be forgiven. But the question is, 
 whether a man must wait till he has repented 
 before he applies to Christ ; wiiether repentance* 
 is a preliminary which he has to effect, ere he 
 may venture to seek to a mediator. And it is 
 here, as we think, that the mistake lies, a mis- 
 take which turns repentance into a kind of ob- 
 stacle between the sinner and Christ. 
 
 The scriptural doctrine in regard to repentance 
 is not, that a man must repent in order to his be- 
 ing qualified to go to Christ ; it is rather, that he 
 must go to Christ in order to his being enabled 
 to repent. And the difference between these pro- 
 positions is manifest and fundamental. There 
 would be no virtue in our repentance, even if w r e 
 could repent of ourselves, to recommend us to 
 the favor of the Redeemer ; but there goes forth 
 
200 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 virtue from the Redeemer himself, strengthening 
 us for that repentance which is alone genuine 
 and acceptable. St. Peter sufficiently laid down 
 this doctrine, when he said of Christ to the high- 
 priest and Sadducees, " him hath God exalted 
 with his right hand to he a Prince and a Saviour, 
 for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness 
 of sins." Here repentance is stated to be as much 
 the gift of the glorified Christ as forgiveness — 
 a statement inconsistent with the notion, that re- 
 pentance is something which must be effected 
 without Christ, as a ground on which to rest our 
 application to him for pardon. We rather ga- 
 ther from these words of the apostle, that we 
 can no more repent without Christ than be par- 
 doned without Christ : from him comes the grace 
 of contrition as well as the cleansing of expiation. 
 
 92. Repentance not Meritorious. 
 
 You will find one man thinking, that, if he re- 
 pent, he shall be pardoned. In other words, he 
 supposes that there is a virtue in repentance 
 which causes it to procure forgiveness. Thus re- 
 pentance is exhibited as meritorious J and how 
 shall we simply prove that it is not meritorious I 
 Why, allowing that man can repent of himself, 
 which he cannot, what is the repentance on which 
 he presumes 1 What is there in it of his own 1 
 The tears 1 they are but the dew of an eye which 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. 201 
 
 is God's. The sighs 1 they are but the heavings 
 of a heart which is God's. The resolutions 1 they 
 are but the workings of faculties which are God's. 
 The amendment 1 it is but the better employ- 
 ment of a life which is God's. W here then is the 
 merit 1 O, find something which is, at the same 
 time, human and excellent in the offering, and 
 you may speak of desert. But, until then, away 
 with the notion of there being merit in repent- 
 ance, seeing that the penitent man must say, 
 ? All things come of thee, and of thine own^ O 
 God, do I give thee." 
 
 93. Conviction and Conversion. 
 
 There are many who have known what it is to 
 be oppressed with apprehensions of God's wrath 
 against sin. They have passed through that 
 dreary season when conscience, often success- 
 fully resisted or dragged into slumber, mightily 
 asserts its authority, arrays the transgressions 
 of a life, and anticipates the penalties of an eter- 
 nity. And we say of the man who is suffering 
 from conviction of sin, that it is more truly night 
 with him, the night of the soul, than with the 
 most wretched of those on whom lie the burdens 
 of temporal wo. And natural theology can oiler 
 no encouragement in this utter midnight. It may 
 have done its part in producing the convictions, 
 but, in so doing, must have exhausted its re* 
 
202 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sources. All its efforts must have been directed 
 to the furnishing demonstrations of the inflexible 
 government of a God of justice and righteous- 
 ness ; and the more powerful these demonstra- 
 tions, the more would they shut up the trans- 
 gressor to the certainty of destruction. And, ne- 
 vertheless, after a time, you find the man who 
 had been brought into so awful a darkness, and 
 for whose comfort there is nothing to be gained 
 from natural theology, walking in gladness, with 
 a lightened heart and a buoyant spirit. What 
 could not be found in the stores of natural theo- 
 logy, has been found in those of revealed intelli- 
 gence, that God can, at the same time, be just 
 and a justifier; that sinners can be pardoned, and 
 sins not go unpunished. Therefore is it that he 
 who was in darkness, the darkness of the soul, is 
 now lifting up his head with joy, and exulting in 
 hope. The Spirit of God, which produced tho 
 conviction, has taken of the things of Christ, 
 and, showing them to the soul, made them effec- 
 tual to conversion. And we call upon you to 
 compare the man in these two estates. With his 
 consciousness of the evil of sin. heightened, ra- 
 ther than diminished, you find him changed from 
 the desponding into the triumphant ; exhibiting, 
 in the largest measure, the accomplishment of tho 
 words, that there shall be given " beauty for 
 ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the gar- 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. 203 
 
 ment of praise for the spirit of heaviness.*' You can 
 offer no account of this surprising transforma- 
 tion, whilst you search for its reasons in natural 
 causes. But when yoit appeal to the workings of 
 Omnipotence ; when you tell us of a propitiation 
 for sin ; when you refer to a divine Agent, whoso 
 special office it is to bring men to put faith in a 
 sacrifice which reconciled a guilty world to its 
 Creator — then you leave no cause far surprise, 
 that, from a soul round which had gathered deep 
 and stern shadows, there should be ascending 
 the rich notes of praise, and the stirring strains 
 of hope. 
 
 94. Faith. 
 
 Faith — saving faith — whatever other defini- 
 tions may be framed — is best described as that 
 act of the soul by which the whole man is given 
 over to the guardianship of the Mediator. He 
 who thus resigns himself to Jesus avouches two 
 things ; first, his belief that he needs a protector ; 
 secondly, his belief that Christ is just that pro- 
 tector which his necessities require. And though 
 you may resolve saving faith into more numerous 
 elements, you will find that these two are not 
 only the chief, but that they include all other 3 
 out of which it is constituted ; so that he who 
 believes in Christ, gives himself up to the keep- 
 ing of Christ. 
 
£04 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 95. Experience the Touchstone of Faith* 
 
 We may say of experience, that it is a kind of 
 touchstone to which faitrl should be brought* 
 For whilst wc would set ourselves most earnest 
 ly, and most assiduously, against the resolving 
 religion into a mere thing of frames and of feel- 
 ings, we are bound to hold that it is no matter 
 of frigid or heartless speculation, but that a real 
 christian must have a real sense of the power and 
 preciousness of Christ. We consider that it would 
 be altogether idle to maintain that a man may 
 believe in Christ as a Saviour for months or 
 years, and yet have no witness in himself to the 
 energies of that Being towards whom his faith is 
 directed. Faith is that mighty, though myste- 
 rious principle, which attaches a man to Christ. 
 And we may fairly set it clown as impossible that 
 there should be actual membership between our- 
 selves and the Mediator, and yet nothing of per- 
 sonal practical acquaintance with his sufficiencies 
 for the office which he fills. He who believes will 
 taste and see that the Lord is gracious ; and know- 
 ledge being superadded to faith, he will be his 
 own testimony that the Bible is no cunningly 
 devised fable ; but that Christ crucified, though 
 unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the 
 Greeks foolishness, is nevertheless the power of 
 God and the wisdom of Cod. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 205 
 
 96. Justification. 
 
 Some men will speak of being justified by 
 faith, till they come to ascribe merit to faith. 
 H By faith," is interpreted as though it meant on 
 account of faith ; and thus the great truth is lost 
 sight of, that we are justified freely w through 
 the redemption that is in Christ." But how can 
 faith be a meritorious act 1 What is faith but 
 such an assent of the understanding to God's 
 word as binds the heart to God's service! And 
 whose is the understanding, if it be not God's 1 
 Whose is the heart, if it be not God's % And if 
 faith be nothing but the rendering to God that in- 
 tellect and that energy which we- have received 
 from God, how can faith deserve of God 1 O, as 
 w T ith repentance, so with faith; away with the 
 notion of merit. He who believes, so that he can 
 dare the grave and grasp eternity, must pour 
 forth the confession, M all things come of thee, 
 and of thine own, O God, do I give thee !" 
 
 97. Why is the justified man not at once 
 removed to Glory ? 
 
 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, 
 18 
 
206 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 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 ; 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 Saviour, to which 
 shall be awarded, at the judgment, chief places 
 in the kingdom of Messiah. On the supposition 
 that no period intervene, there can be no aug- 
 mentations of happiness j whereas, on that of 
 hoping and waiting, there may be daily advances 
 in holiness, and therefore daily accessions to a 
 never-ending bliss. 
 
 98. Believers triumph over Satan. 
 If two beings are antagonists, he who deci- 
 sively overcomes bruises the head of his oppo- 
 nent. But the believer and the serpent are anta- 
 gonists. The believer gains completely the mas- 
 tery over the serpent. And, therefore, the result 
 of the contest is the fulfillment of the prediction 
 that the seed of the woman shall bruise the head 
 of the serpent. Oh, if, as we well know, the re- 
 pentance of a single sinner send a new and ex-» 
 quisite delight down the ranks of the hosts of 
 heaven, and cause the sweeping of a rich and 
 glorious anthem from the countless harps of the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 207 
 
 sky, can we doubt that the same event spreads 
 consternation through the legions of fallen spi- 
 rits, and strikes, like a death-blow, on their 
 haughty and malignant leader 1 Aye, and we be- 
 lieve that never is Satan so taught his subjuga- 
 ted estate, as when a soul, which he had counted 
 as his own, escapes rf as a bird out of the snare 
 of the fowlers," and seeks and finds protection 
 in Jesus. If it be then that Christ sees u of the 
 travail of his soul," it must be then that the ser- 
 pent tastes all the bitterness of defeat. And 
 when the warfare is over, and the spirit, which 
 he hath longed to destroy, soars away, convoyed 
 by the angels which wait on the heirs of salva- 
 tion; must it not be then that the consciousness 
 of lost mastery seizes, with crushing force, on 
 the proud foe of our race ; and does not that 
 fierce cry of disappointment which seems to fol- 
 low the ascending soul, causing her to feel her- 
 self only r< scarcely saved," testify that, in thus 
 winning a heritage of glory, Christ in behalf of 
 the believer hath bruised the head of the serpent 1 
 Though the believer, like the unbeliever, must 
 submit to the power of death, and tread the dark 
 valley of that curse which still rests on our na- 
 ture, is there experienced more than a very par- 
 tial injury in this dissolution of humanity 1 It is 
 an injury — for we go not with those who would 
 idolize, or soften down, death — that the soul must 
 
208 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 be detached from the body, and sent out, a wi- 
 dowed thing, on the broad journeyings of eter- 
 nity. It is an injury, that this curious framework 
 of matter, as much redeemed by Christ as the 
 giant-guest which it encases, must be taken 
 down, joint by joint and rafter by rafter, and, 
 resolved into its original elements, lose every 
 trace of having been human. But what, we again 
 say, is the extent of this injury 1 The foot of 
 the destroyer shall be set upon the body ; and he 
 shall stamp till he have ground it into powder, 
 and dispersed it to the winds. But he cannot 
 annihilate a lonely particle. He can put no ar- 
 rest on that germinating process which shall yet 
 cause the valleys and mountains of this globe to 
 stand thick with a harvest of flesh. He cannot 
 hinder my resurrection. And when the soul, over 
 which he hath had no power, rushes into the 
 body which he shall be forced to resign, and the 
 child of God stands forth, a man, yet immortal, 
 compound of flesh and spirit, but each pure, each 
 indestructible ; — oh, though Satan may have dis- 
 turbed his peace during a long earthly pilgrim- 
 age ; though he may have marred his happiness 
 by successful temptation ; though he may have 
 detained for centuries his body in corruption ; 
 will not the inflicted injury appear to have been 
 trivial and insignificant, when compared with the 
 iinal victory, and the glories which shall follow 
 its achievement. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 209 
 
 99. Faith of experienced Christians proof against 
 the assaults of Infidelity. 
 
 If you sent the most accomplished of infidels 
 into the cottage of the meanest of our peasants, 
 or into the workshop of the poorest of our arti- 
 sans, — the peasant, or the artisan, being supposed 
 a true believer in Christ — we should entertain 
 not the slightest apprehension as to the issue of a 
 conflict between parties apparently so ill-match- 
 ed ; but, on the contrary, should await the result 
 in the most perfect assurance, that though there 
 might be no taking off the objections of the infi- 
 del, there would be no overthrowing the faith of 
 the believer. Scepticism can make no way where 
 there is real Christianity ,• all its triumphs are won 
 on the field of nominal Christianity. And it is a 
 phenomenon which might, at first sight, well 
 draw our amazement, that just where we should 
 look for the least of resistance, and where we 
 should conclude that, almost as a matter of course, 
 the sophistry of the infidel might enter and carry 
 every thing before it — that there we find a power 
 of withstanding which is perhaps even greater 
 than could be exhibited in a higher and more 
 educated circle — so that the believing mechanic 
 shall outdo the believing philosopher in the vigor 
 with which he repels the insinuations of a sceptic. 
 We are not arguing that the mechanic will make 
 18* 
 
210 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the most way in confuting the sceptic. On the 
 contrary, there will he a vast probability against 
 his being able to expose the fallacy of a solitary 
 objection. Bat then he will take refuge simply in 
 his experience. He will not, as the philosopher 
 may do, divide himself between experience and 
 argument. If he have no apparatus at his com- 
 mand with which to meet, and dissect, and lay 
 bare, a hollow, but plausible reasoning, he has 
 his own knowledge to which to turn — and then 
 the whole question lies between a theory and a 
 matter-of-fact. His knowledge is matter-of-fact — 
 and argument will always be worthless if it set 
 itself against matter-of-fact. He knows whom ha 
 hath believed. There may be in this knowledge 
 none of the elements of another man's convic- 
 tion, — but there is to himself the material of an 
 overpowering assurance. It might be quite im- 
 possible to take this knowledge, and make it avail- 
 able as an argument with which to bear down on 
 his infidel assailant. It is a visionary thing to his 
 opponent — but it is a matter-of-fact to himself. 
 And we contend that in this lies the grand secret 
 of a poor man's capability of resisting the advanc- 
 ings of infidelity. It is no theory with him that 
 Jesus is the Christ. It is no speculation that the 
 Gospel offers a remedy for those moral disorders 
 which sin hath fastened on the creature. He has 
 not merely read the Bible — he has felt the Bible. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 211 
 
 He has not merely heard of the medicine — he 
 has taken the medicine. And now, we again say, 
 when you would argue with him against Chris- 
 tianity, you argue with him against matter-of-fact. 
 You argue against the existence of fire, to a man 
 who has been scorched by the flame ; and against 
 the existence of water, to a man who has been 
 drenched in the depths ; and against the existence 
 of light, to a man who has looked out on the 
 landscape ; and argument can make no head when 
 it sets itself against matter-of-fact. 
 
 If I had gone to a physician — and if I had re- 
 ceived from him a medicine which brought the 
 health back into my limbs — what success would 
 attend the most clever of reasoners who should 
 set himself to prove to me that no such being as 
 this physician had ever existed, or that there was 
 no virtue whatsoever in the draught which had 
 Avrought in me with so healing an energy \ He 
 might argue with a keenness and a shrewdness 
 which left me quite overmatched. There might 
 be an ingenuity in his historic doubts with regard 
 to the existence of the physician ; and there might 
 be an apparent science in his analysis of the me- 
 dicine, and his exposure of its worthlessness ; 
 and I, on my part, might be quite unable to meet 
 him on his own ground, to show the fault and 
 the falsehood of his reasoning. But you can ne- 
 ver suppose that my incapacity to refute argu- 
 
212 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ment would lead me to the giving up a matter-of- 
 fact. I should just be in the case of the man in 
 the Gospel, to whom Christ had given sight, and 
 whom the Pharisees plied with doubts, derived 
 from the presumed sinfulness of the Saviour, in 
 regard to the possibility of the miracle. I should 
 answer with this man, Whether he be a sinner or 
 no, I know not ; one thing I know, that whereas I 
 was blind, now I see. And precisely, in like man- 
 ner, a believer, w T ith no other resources at his 
 disposal, can throw himself unhesitatingly on his 
 own experience ; and this, rendering Christianity 
 to him all matter-of-fact, makes him proof against 
 the subtleties of the most insidious infidelity. 
 
 God hath woven into true religion all the ele- 
 ments of a successful resistance to cavil and ob- 
 jection, leaving not the very poorest and the 
 most illiterate of his people open to the inroad 
 of the enemies of Christianity ; but causing that 
 there rise up from their own experience such 
 ramparts of strength, that if they have no artil- 
 lery with which to battle at the adversary, there 
 is at least no risk of their own citadel being 
 stormed. 
 
 100. Believers the salt of the earth. 
 
 We believe that when Christ declared of his 
 followers, M ye are the salt of the earth," he de- 
 livered a saying which described, with singular 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. £13 
 
 fidelity, the power of righteousness to stay and 
 correct the disorganizations of mankind. As 
 applied to the apostles, the definition was espe- 
 cially accurate. There lay before them a worM 
 distinguished by nothing so much as by corrup- 
 tion of doctrine and manners. Though philoso- 
 phy was at its height ; though reason had achiev- 
 ed her proudest triumphs ; though arts were in 
 their maturity ; though eloquence was then most 
 finished, and poetry most harmonious ; there 
 reigned over the whole face of the globe a tre- 
 mendous ignorance of God : and if humanity 
 were not actually an unsound and putrid mass, it 
 had in it every element of decay ; so that, if long- 
 er abandoned to itself, it must have fallen into 
 incurable disease, and become covered with the 
 livid spots of total dissolution. And when, by 
 divine commission, the disciples penetrated the 
 recesses of this mass, carrying with them prin- 
 ciples and truths exactly calculated to stay the 
 moral ruin which was spreading with fearful ra- 
 pidity — when they went forth, the bearers of ce- 
 lestial communications which taught the soul to 
 feel herself immortal, and, therefore, indestructi- 
 ble ; which lifted even the body out of the grasp 
 of decay, teaching that bone, and sinew, and flesh 
 should be made at last gloriously incorruptible — 
 when, we say, the disciples thus applied to the 
 world a remedy, perfect in every respect, against 
 
214 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 those tendencies to corruption which threatened 
 to turn our globe into the lazar-house of crea- 
 tion ; were they not to be regarded as the puri- 
 fiers and preservers of men, and could any title 
 be more just than one which defined them, in 
 their strivings to overspread a diseased world 
 with healthf ulness, as literally "the salt of the 
 earth 1" 
 
 But it holds good in every age that true be- 
 lievers are " the salt of the earth." Whilst the 
 contempt and hatred of the wicked follow inces- 
 santly the professors of godliness, and the ene- 
 mies of Christ, if ability were commensurate with 
 malice, would sweep from the globe all know- 
 ledge 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 warding off by 
 repentance the doom. 
 
 101. Hope. 
 
 Hope is the memorial of a covenant between 
 man and his Maker, telling us that we are born 
 for immortality ; destined, unless we sepulchre 
 our greatness, to the highest honor and noblest 
 happiness. Hope proves man deathless. It is the 
 struggle of the soul breaking loose from what is 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 215 
 
 perishable, and attesting her eternity. And when 
 the eye of the mind is turned upon Christ, " de- 
 livered for our offences and raised again for our 
 justification," the unsubstantial and deceitful 
 character is taken away from hope, and it be- 
 comes one of the prime pieces of that armor of 
 proof in which the believer is arrayed ; for St. 
 Paul bids us take M for an helmet the hope of 
 salvation." It is not good that a man hope for 
 wealth, since " riches profit not in the day of 
 wrath f 1 and it is not good that he hope for hu- 
 man honors, since the mean and mighty go down 
 to the same burial : but it is good that he hope 
 for salvation , the meteor then gathers like a 
 golden halo round his head, and, as he presses 
 forward in the battle-time, no weapon of the evil 
 one can pierce through that helmet. 
 
 102. Hope the anchor of the Soul. 
 
 Suffer that we remind you of the simile by 
 which St. Paul has represented christian hope ; 
 " which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, 
 both sure and stedfast, and which entereth into 
 that within the vail." The anchor is cast "within 
 the vail," whither Christ the forerunner is gone 
 before. And if hope be fixed upon Christ, the 
 Rock of Ages, a rock rent, if we may use the 
 expression, on purpose that there might be a 
 holding-place for the anchors of a perishing 
 
216 BIBLE THOUGHTS, 
 
 world, it may well come to pass that we enjoy 
 a calm as we journey through life, and draw near 
 the grave. But since " other foundation can no 
 man lay than that is laid," if our anchor rest not 
 on this Rock, where is our hope, where our peace- 
 fulness 1 I know of a coming tempest — and would 
 to God that the young, more especially, might be 
 stirred by its approach to repentance and righte- 
 ousness ! I know of a coming tempest with which 
 the Almighty shall shake terribly the earth ; the 
 sea and the waves roaring, and the stars falling 
 from the heavens. Then shall there be a thousand 
 shipwrecks, and immensity be strewed with the 
 fragments of a stranded navy. Then shall vessel 
 upon vessel, laden with reason, and high intelli 
 gence, and noble faculty, be drifted to and fro, 
 shattered and dismantled, and at last thrown on 
 the shore as fuel for the burning. But there are 
 ships which shall not founder in this battle and 
 dissolution of the elements. There are ships 
 which shall be in no peril whilst this, the last 
 hurricane which is to sweep our creation, con- 
 founds earth, and sea, and sky ; but which, when 
 the fury is overpast, and the light of a morning 
 which is to know no night breaks gloriously forth, 
 shall be found upon crystal and tranquil waters, 
 resting beautifully on their shadows. These are 
 those which have been anchored upon Christ. 
 These are those — and may none refuse to join 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 217 
 
 the number — who have trusted themselves to the 
 Mediator, who humbled himself that he might 
 lift up all those that are bowed down, and who 
 have therefore interest in every promise made by 
 him whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom, 
 and whose dominion endureth throughout all 
 generations. 
 
 103. The Anchor within the VaiL 
 
 The soul which is anchored in eternity, is like 
 the vessel which a stanch cable binds to the 
 distant shore, and which gradually warps itself 
 into harbor. There is at once what will keep her 
 stedfast in the storm, and advance her towards 
 the haven. Who knows not that the dissatisfac- 
 tion which men always experience whilst en- 
 gaged in the pursuit of earthly good, arises 
 mainly from a vast disproportion between their 
 capacities for happiness, and that material of 
 happiness with which they think to fill them % 
 What they hope for is some good, respecting 
 which they might be certain, that, if attained, it 
 will only disappoint. And, therefore; is it, that, 
 in place of being as an anchor, hope itself agi- 
 tates them, driving them hither and thither like 
 ships without ballast. But it is not thus with a 
 hope which entereth within the vail. Within the 
 vail are laid up joys and possessions which are 
 more than commensurate with men's capacities 
 19 
 
218 BIBLE THOUGHTS 
 
 for happiness when stretched to the utmost. 
 Within the vail is a glory, such as was never 
 proposed by ambition in its most daring flight ; 
 and a wealth such as never passed before avarice 
 in its most golden dreams ; and delights, such as 
 imagination, when employed in delineating the 
 most exquisite pleasures, hath never been able to 
 array. And let hope fasten on this glory, this 
 wealth, these delights, and presently the soul, as 
 though she felt that the objects of desire were 
 as ample as herself, acquires a fixedness of pur- 
 pose, a steadiness of aim, a combination of en- 
 ergies, which contrast strangely with the incon- 
 stancy, the vacillation, the distraction, which have 
 made her hitherto the sport of every wind and 
 every wave. The object of hope being immea- 
 surable, inexhaustible, hope clings to this object 
 with a tenacity which it cannot manifest when 
 grasping only the insignificant and unsubstantial ; 
 and thus the soul is bound, we might almost say 
 indissolubly, to the unchangeable realities of the 
 inheritance of the saints. And can you marvel, 
 if, with her anchor thus dropped within the vail, 
 she is not to be driven from her course by the 
 wildest of the storms which yet rage without 1 
 There is something exquisitely beautiful in the 
 idea that the anchor has not been dropped in the 
 rough waters which the christian has to navigate. 
 The anchor rests where there is one eternal calm, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 219 
 
 and its hold is on a rock which no action of the 
 waves can w T ear down. You may say of* christian 
 hope, that it is a principle which gives fixedness 
 to the soul, because it can appeal to an ever-liv- 
 ing, ever-prevalent Intercessor, who is pledged 
 to make good its amplest expectations. It is the 
 hope of joys which have been purchased at a 
 cost which it is not possible to compute, and 
 which are delivered into a guardianship which it 
 is not possible to defeat. It is the hope of an in- 
 heritance, our title to which has been written in 
 the blood of the Mediator, and our entrance into 
 which that Mediator ever lives to secure. And, 
 therefore, is it, that we affirm of christian hope, 
 that it is precisely adapted to the preventing the 
 soul from being borne away by the gusts of temp- 
 tation, or swallowed up in the deep waters of 
 trial. It is more than hope. It is hope with all its 
 attractiveness, and with none of its uncertainty. 
 It is hope with all that beauty and brilliancy by 
 which men are fascinated, and with none of ^hat 
 delusiveness by which they are deceived. It is 
 hope with its bland and soothing voice, but that 
 voice whispering nothing but truth ; hope, with 
 its untired wing, but that wing lifting only to re- 
 gions which have actual existence ,* hope, with 
 its fairy pencil, but that pencil painting only 
 what really flashes with the gold and vermillion. 
 
220 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 104. Hope, the anchor of the christian's soul 
 against false doctrine. 
 
 There is great risk of our being carried about, 
 as an apostle expresses it, rt with every wind of 
 doctrine ;" and whatever, therefore, tends to the 
 keeping us in the right faith, in spite of gusts of 
 error, must deserve to be characterized as an an- 
 chor of the soul. But, we may unhesitatingly de- 
 clare, that there is a power, the very strongest, 
 in the hope of salvation through Christ, of ena- 
 bling us to stand firm against the incursions of 
 heresy. The man who has this hope will have no 
 ear for doctrines which, in the least degree, de- 
 preciate the person or work' of the Mediator. 
 You take away from him all that he holds most 
 precious, if you could once shake his belief in 
 the atonement. It is not that he is afraid of ex- 
 amining the grounds of his own confidence ; it is, 
 that, having well examined them, and certified 
 himself as to their being irreversible, his confi- 
 dence has become wound up, as it were, with his 
 being ; and it is like assaulting his existence, to 
 assault his hope. The hope presupposes faith in 
 the Saviour ; and faith has reasons for the per- 
 suasion that Jesus is God's Son, and '* able to 
 save to the uttermost :" and though the individual 
 is ready enough to probe these reasons, and to 
 bring them to any fitting criterion, it is evident, 
 that where faith has once taken possession, and 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 221 
 
 generated hope, he has so direct and overwhelm- 
 ing an interest in holding fast truth, that it must 
 be more than a specious objection, or a well- 
 turned cavil, which will prevail to the loosening 
 of his grasp. And therefore do we affirm of the 
 hope of salvation, that he who has it, is little 
 likely to be carried about with every wind of 
 doctrine. We scarcely dare think that those who 
 are christians only in profession and theory, 
 would retain truth without wavering, if exposed 
 to the machinations of insidious reasoners. 
 They do not feel their everlasting portion so de- 
 pendent on the doctrine of redemption through 
 the blood and righteousness of a Surety, that, 
 to shake this doctrine, is to make them casta- 
 ways for eternity ; and therefore, neither can 
 they oppose that resistance to assault which will 
 be offered by others who know that it is their 
 immortality they are called to surrender. You 
 may look, then, on an individual, who, apparent- 
 ly unprepared for a vigorous defence of his creed, 
 is yet not to be overborne by the strongest onset 
 of heresy. And you may think to account for his 
 firmness by resolving it into a kind of obstinacy, 
 which makes him inaccessible to argument ; and 
 thus take from his constancy all moral excel- 
 lence, by representing it as imperviousness to all 
 moral attack. But we have a better explanation 
 to propose ; one which does not proceed on the 
 19* 
 
222 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 unwarranted assumption, that there must be in- 
 sensibility where there has not been defeat. We 
 know of the individual, that he has fled for refuge 
 to lay hold on the hope set before him in the 
 Gospel. And you may say of hope, that it is a 
 shadowy and airy thing, not adapted to the keep- 
 ing man firm ; but we assert, on the contrary, of 
 the hope of salvation, that he who has grasped it, 
 feels that he has grasped what is substantial and 
 indestructible ; and that henceforward, to wrench 
 away this hope would be like wrenching away 
 the rafter from the drowning man, who knows 
 that, if he loosen his hold, he must perish in the 
 waters. 
 
 105. Hope, the Anchor of the Christian's soul 
 under trouble. 
 
 When tribulation comes, and the crested waves 
 are swelling higher and higher, why should you 
 expect him to be driven back, or swallowed up % 
 Is it the loss of property with which he is visited, 
 and which threatens to shake his dependence 
 upon God \ Hope whispers that he has in heaven 
 an enduring substance ; and he takes joyfully the 
 spoiling of his goods. Is it the loss of friends \ 
 He sorrows not tr even as others which have no 
 hope," but is comforted by the knowledge, that 
 u them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring 
 with him." Is it sickness — is it the treachery of 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 223 
 
 friends — is it the failure of cherished plans, which 
 hangs the firmament with blackness, and works 
 the waters into fury 1 None of these things move 
 him ; for hope assures him that his " light afflic- 
 tion, which is but for a moment, worketh for 
 him a far more exceeding and eternal weight of 
 glory." Is it death, which, advancing in its awful- 
 ness, would beat down his confidence, and snap 
 his cordage, and send him adrift 1 His hope is a 
 hope full of immortality : he knows " in whom 
 he hath believed, and is persuaded that he is able 
 to keep that which he hath committed unto him 
 against that day." And thus, from whatever point 
 the tempest rages, there is a power in that hope 
 which God hath implanted, of holding fast the 
 christian, and preventing his casting away that 
 confidence which hath great recompence of re- 
 ward. We can bid you look upon him, when, on 
 every human calculation, so fierce is the hurri- 
 cane, and so wrought are the waves into mad- 
 ness, there would seem no likelihood of his avoid- 
 ing the making shipwreck of his faith. And when 
 you find, that, in place of being stranded or en- 
 gulfed, he resists the wild onset, and, if he do 
 not for the moment advance, keeps the way he 
 has made, oh ! then we have an easy answer to 
 give to inquiries as to the causes of this unex- 
 pected stedfastness. We do not deny the strength 
 of the storm, and the might of the waters ; but 
 
2QAt BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 we tell you of a hope which grows stronger and 
 stronger as tribulation increases : stronger, be- 
 cause sorrow is the known discipline for the en- 
 joyment of the object of this hope; stronger, be- 
 cause the proved worthlessness of what is earth- 
 ly serves to fix the affections more firmly on 
 what is heavenly ; stronger, inasmuch as there 
 are promises of God, which seem composed on 
 purpose for the season of trouble, and which, 
 then grasped by faith, throw new vigor into 
 hope. And certainly, if we may affirm all this 
 of the hope of a christian, there is no room for 
 wonder that he rides out the hurricane ; for such 
 hope is manifestly an anchor of the soul, and 
 that, too, sure and stedfast. 
 
 106. Assurance, 
 
 Whilst it is the business of a christian minis- 
 ter to guard you against presumption, and an un- 
 calculating confidence that you are safe for eter- 
 nity, it is also his duty to rouse you to a sense of 
 your privileges, and to press on you the import- 
 ance of ascertaining your title to immortality. 
 We think it not necessarily a proof of christian 
 humility, that you should be always in doubt of 
 your spiritual state, and so live uncertain whether, 
 in the event of death, you would pass into glory. 
 We are bound to declare, that Scripture makes 
 the marks of true religion clear and decisive ; 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 225 
 
 and that, if we will but apply faithfully and fear- 
 lessly the several criteria furnished by its state- 
 ments, it cannot remain a problem, which the last 
 judgment only can solve, whether it be the broad 
 way or the narrow in which v/e now walk. But, 
 nevertheless, the best assurance to which a chris- 
 tian can attain, must leave salvation a thing 
 chiefly of hope. We find it expressly declared 
 by St. Paul to the Romans, M we are saved by 
 hope." And they who are most persuaded, and 
 that too by scriptural warrant, that they are in a 
 state of salvation, can never declare themselves, 
 except in the most limited sense, in its fruition 
 or enjoyment, but must always live mainly upon 
 hope, though with occasional foretastes of coming 
 delights. They can reach the conclusion — and a 
 comforting and noble conclusion it is — that they 
 are justified beings, as having been enabled to 
 act faith on a Mediator. But whilst justification 
 insures them salvation, it puts them not into its 
 present possession. It is thus again that St. Paul 
 distinguishes between justification and salva- 
 tion, saying of Christ, " being now justified by 
 his blood, we shall be saved from wrath through 
 him." So that the knowing ourselves justified is 
 the highest thing attainable on earth ; salvation 
 itself, though certain to be reached, remaining 
 an object for which we must hope, and for which 
 we must wait. 
 
226 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 f 
 
 107. Election. 
 
 When God decrees an end, he decrees also die 
 means. If then he have elected me to obtain sal- 
 vation in the next life, he has elected me to the 
 practice of holiness in this life. Would I ascer- 
 tain my election to the blessedness of eternity \ 
 It must be by practically demonstrating my elec- 
 tion to newness of life. It is not by the rapture 
 of feeling, and by the luxuriance of thought, and 
 by the warmth of those desires which descrip- 
 tions of heaven may stir up within me, that I can 
 prove myself predestined to a glorious inherit- 
 ance. If I would find out what is hidden, I must 
 follow what is revealed. The way to heaven is 
 disclosed. Am I walking in that way 1 It would 
 be poor proof that I were on my voyage to India, 
 that, with glowing eloquence, and thrilling poe- 
 try, I could discourse on the palm-groves and 
 the spicy isles of the East. Am I on the waters 1 
 Is the sail hoisted to the wind ; and does the land 
 of my birth look blue and faint in the distance 1 
 The doctrine of election may have done harm 
 to many — but only because they have fancied 
 themselves elected to the end, and have forgot- 
 ten that those whom Scripture calls elected, are 
 also elected to the means. The Bible never 
 speaks of men as elected only to be saved from 
 the shipwreck ; but as elected to tighten the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS, 227 
 
 ropes, and hoist the sails, and stand to the rud- 
 der. Let a man search faithfully : let him see- 
 that when Scripture describes christians as elect- 
 ed, it is as elected to faith, as elected to sancti- 
 fication, as elected to obedience ; and the doc- 
 trine of election will be nothing but a stimulus 
 to effort. It cannot act as a soporific. It cannot 
 lull me into security. It cannot engender licen- 
 tiousness. It will throw ardor into the spirit, and 
 fire into the eye, and vigor into the limb. I shal! 
 cut away the boat, and let drive all human de- 
 vices, and gird myself, amid the fierceness of the 
 tempest, to steer the shattered vessel into port. 
 
 108. Election and Free Agency. 
 
 Having assured ourselves of the joint exist- 
 ence of election and free agency, we see, at 
 once, that man's business is to set about the 
 work of his salvation, with all the ardor, and all 
 the painstaking, of one convinced that he cannot 
 perish, except through his own fault. We tell 
 him of a command of God, summoning him to 
 put forth all his strength, and all his seamanship, 
 ere the breakers dash against him, and the rocks 
 rise around him. We thus deal with man as a re- 
 sponsible being. You are waiting for a miracle ; 
 have you tried the means 1 You are trusting to 
 a hidden purpose ; have you submitted yourselves 
 to a revealed command I Sitting still is no proof 
 
228 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 of election. Grappling with evil is a proof; and 
 wrenching one's-self from hurtful associations is 
 a proof; and studying God's word is a proof; 
 and praying for assistance is a proof. He who 
 resolves to do nothing until he is called — oh, the 
 likelihood is heyond calculation, that he will 
 have no call till the sheeted dead are starting at 
 the trumpet-call. And the vessel — freighted as 
 she was with noble capacities, with intelligence, 
 and reason, and forethought, and the deep throb- 
 bings of immortality — what account shall be 
 given of her making no way towards the shores 
 of the saints' home, but remaining to be broken 
 up piecemeal by the sweepings of the judgment % 
 Simply, that God told man of a compass, and of 
 a chart, and of a wind, and of a pilot ; but man 
 determined to remain anchored until God should 
 come and tear the ship from her moorings. God 
 has appointed means. If we will use them dili- 
 gently and prayerfully, we may look for a bless- 
 ing. But if we despise and neglect them, we 
 must not look for a miracle. 
 
 And if a man be resolved to give harborage to 
 the idea that means may be dispensed with, and 
 that then miracles will be wrought, we open be- 
 fore him a view of Paul, the tent-maker, and his 
 associates, and bid him behold the artificers at 
 their labor. We tell him, that around one of 
 these workmen the priests of Jupiter had throng- 
 
oo9 
 
 ed, bearing garlands, and bringing sacrifices, be- 
 cause of a displayed mastery over inveterate 
 disease. We tell him, that, if there arose an oc- 
 casion demanding the exhibition of prodigy, in 
 support of Christ's Gospel, this toiling artisan 
 could throw aside the implements of trade, and, 
 rushing into the crowded arena, confound an army 
 of opponents by suspending the known laws of 
 nature. And, nevertheless, this mightily-gifted 
 individual must literally starve, or drudge for a 
 meal like the meanest mechanic. And why so ] 
 why, but because it is a standing appointment of 
 God, that miracles shall not supersede means 1 
 If there were no means, Paul should have his 
 bread by miracle. But whilst there is the can- 
 vass, and the cord, and the sight in the eye, and 
 the strength in the limb, he may carry on the 
 trade of a tent-maker. He has the tools of his 
 craft : let him use them industriously, and not sit 
 inactive, hoping to be supported miraculously. 
 And, arguing from this as a thorough specimen 
 of God's ordinary dealings, we tell the listless 
 expectant of an effectual call, that he waits as an 
 idler whilst God requires him to work as a la- 
 borer. Where are the tools ! Why left on tho 
 ground when they should be in the hand 1 Where 
 are the means ] Why passed over, when they 
 ought to be employed 1 Why neglected, when 
 they should be honored 1 Why treated as worth- 
 20 
 
230 | BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 less, when God declares them efficacious 1 It is 
 true that conversion in one sense is a miracle. 
 But God's common method of working this mi- 
 racle is through the machinery of means. The 
 only way to ascertain election is to be laborious 
 in striving. I read St. Paul's Epistle to the Ro- 
 mans i and I find the apostle saying, M so then it 
 is not of him that willeth, nor of him that run- 
 neth, but of God that showeth mercy 1 What 
 then 1 Must I, on this account, run not, but sit 
 still, expecting the approaches of mercy \ Away 
 with the thought. Means are God's high road to 
 miracles. I turn from the apostle writing to the 
 Romans to the apostle toiling at Corinth. And 
 when I look on the labors of the tent-maker, and 
 infer from them that miracles must not be ex- 
 pected where means have been instituted, and 
 that, consequently, whensoever God has appointed 
 means, miracle is to be looked for only in their 
 use ; oh, in place of loitering because I have 
 read of election, I would gird up the loins as 
 having gazed on the tent-making ; and in place 
 of running not, because it is " of God that show- 
 eth mercy," run might and main, because it is to 
 those who are running that he shows it. 
 
 109. Abuse of the doctrine of election. 
 
 A man may perish, ostensibly through abuse 
 of the doctrine of election. He may say, I am 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 231 
 
 elect, and, therefore, shall be saved, though I 
 continue in sin. Thus he wrests election, and 
 that too to his own certain destruction. But 
 would he not have perished had he found no 
 such doctrine to wrest % Aye, that he would ,• 
 as fatally, and as finally. It is the love of sin, the 
 determination to live in sin, which destroys him. 
 And though, whilst giving the reins to his lusts, 
 he attempts to derive from election a quietus 
 and excuse, can you think that he would be at a 
 loss to find them elsewhere, if there were no 
 doctrine of election from which, when abused, 
 they may be wrenched and extorted \ It is possi- 
 ble that a man may slay himself with " the sword 
 of the Spirit ;" but only because he is so bent 
 upon suicide, that, had he not found so costly a 
 weapon, he would have fallen on a ruder and 
 less polished. Satan has every kind of instru- 
 ment in his armory, and leaves no one at a loss 
 for a method of self-destruction. Scriptural diffi- 
 culties destroy none who would not have been 
 destroyed had no difficulties existed. And, there- 
 fore, difficulties might be permitted for certain 
 ends which they, undoubtedly, subserve, and yet 
 not a solitary individual be injured by an allow- 
 ance which is to benefit the great body of the 
 church. We wish this conclusion borne care- 
 fully in mind, because the first impression is, 
 that some are destroyed by the ! f things hard to 
 
232 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 be understood," and that they would not have 
 been destroyed without these things to wrest. 
 This first impression is a wrong one ; the hard 
 things giving the occasion, but never being the 
 cause of destruction. The unstable wrest what 
 is difficult. But, rather than be without some- 
 thing to pervert, if there were not the difficult, 
 they would wrest the simple. 
 
 If there were nothing in Scripture which over- 
 powered our reason, who sees not that intellec- 
 tual pride would be fostered by its study 1 The 
 grand moral discipline which the Bible now ex- 
 erts, and which renders its perusal the best ex- 
 ercise to which men can be subjected, lies 
 simply in its perpetual requisition that Reason 
 submit herself to Revelation. You can make no 
 way with the disclosures of Holy Writ, until 
 prepared to receive, on the authority of God, a 
 vast deal which, of yourself, you cannot prove, 
 and still more, which you cannot explain. And 
 it is a fine schooling for the student, when, at 
 every step in his research, he finds himself 
 thrown on his faith, required to admit truth be- 
 cause the Almighty hath spoken it, and not be- 
 cause he himself can demonstrate. It is just 
 the most rigorous and wholesome tuition under 
 which the human mind can be brought, when it 
 is continually called off from its favorite pro- 
 cesses of argument and commentary, and sum- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 233 
 
 moned into the position of a meek recipient of 
 intelligence to be taken without questioning — 
 honored with belief when it cannot be cleared 
 by exposition. And of all this schooling and 
 tuition you would instantly deprive us, if you 
 took away from the Bible " things hard to be 
 understood." 
 
 1 10. Case of Pharaoh applied to the Impenitent. 
 
 We know that whilst God was acting on the 
 Egyptians by the awful apparatus of plague and 
 prodigy, he is often said to have hardened Pha- 
 raoh's heart, so that the monarch refused to let 
 Israel go. And it is a great question to decide, 
 whether God actually interfered to strengthen 
 and confirm the obstinacy of Pharaoh, or only 
 left the king to the workings of his own heart, 
 as knowing that one degree of unbelief would 
 generate another and a more obstinate. It seems 
 to us at variance with all that is revealed of the 
 Creator, to suppose him urging on the wicked in 
 his wickedness, or bringing any engine to bear 
 on the ungodly which shall make them more des- 
 perate in rebellion. God willeth not the death of 
 any sinner. And though, after long striving with 
 an individual, after plying him with the various 
 excitements which are best calculated to stir a 
 rational, and agitate an immortal being, he may 
 withdraw all the aids of the Spirit, and so give 
 20* 
 
234 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 him over to that worst of all tyrants, himself; 
 yet this, we contend, must he the extreme thing 
 ever done by the Almighty to man, the leaving 
 him, but not the constraining him to do evil. 
 And when, therefore, it is said that God harden- 
 ed Pharaoh's heart, and when the expression is 
 repeated, so as to mark a continued and on-goinij 
 hardening, we have no other idea of the mean- 
 ing than that God, moved by the obstinacy of 
 Pharaoh, withdrew from him, gradually, all the 
 restraints of his grace ; and that, as these re- 
 straints were more and more removed, the heart 
 of the king was more and more hardened. We 
 look upon the instance as a precise illustration 
 of the truth, that " whatsoever a man soweth, 
 that shall he also reap." Pharaoh sowed obsti- 
 nacy, and Pharaoh reaped obstinacy. The seed 
 was put into the soil, and there was no need, any 
 more than with the grain of corn, that God 
 should interfere with any new power. Nothing 
 more was required than that the seed' should bo 
 left to vegetate, to act out its own nature. And 
 though God, had he pleased, might have coun- 
 teracted this nature, yet, when he resolved to 
 give up Pharaoh to his unbelief, he had nothing 
 to do but to let alone this nature. The seed of 
 infidelity, which Pharaoh had sown when he re- 
 jected the first miracles, was left to itself and to 
 its own vegetation. It sent up, accordingly, a 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 235 
 
 harvest of its own kind, a harvest of infidelity, 
 and Pharaoh was not to be persuaded by any of 
 the subsequent miracles. So that, when the 
 monarch went on from one degree of hardness 
 to another, till, at length, advancing through the 
 cold ranks of the prostrated first-born, he pur- 
 sued, across a blackened and devastated terri- 
 tory, the people for whose emancipation there 
 had been the visible making bare of the arm of 
 Omnipotence, he was not an instance — perish, 
 the thought — or a man compelled by his Maker 
 to offend and be lost ; but simply a witness to 
 the truth of the principle, that M whatsoever a 
 man soweth, that shall he also reap." 
 
 Now that which took place in the case of this 
 Egyptian, is, we argue, precisely what occurs in 
 regard generally to the impenitent. God destroys 
 no man. Every man who is destroyed must de- 
 stroy himself. When a man stifles an admonition 
 of conscience, he may fairly be said to sow the 
 stinings of conscience. And when conscience ad- 
 monishes him the next time, it will be more fee- 
 bly and faintly. There will be a less felt difficul- 
 ty in overpowering the admonition. And the fee- 
 bleness of remonstrance and the facility of re- 
 sistance will increase on every repetition ; not be- 
 cause God interferes to make the man callous, 
 but because the thing sown was stifling of con- 
 science, and therefore the thing reaped is stifling 
 
236 JBIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 of conscience. The Holy Spirit strives with every 
 man. Conscience is but the voice of Deity heard 
 above the din of human passions. But let con- 
 science be resisted, and the Spirit is grieved. 
 Then, as with Pharaoh, there is an abstraction of 
 that influence by which evil is kept under. And 
 thus there is a less and less counteraction to the 
 vegetating power of the seed, and, therefore, a 
 more and more abundant upspringing of that 
 which was sown. So that, though there must be 
 a direct and mighty interferenc e%f Deity for the 
 salvation of a man, there is no such interference 
 for his destruction. God must sow the seed of re- 
 generation, and enable a man to sow "to the 
 Spirit." But man sows for himself the seed of im- 
 penitence, and of himself, " he soweth to his 
 flesh." And what he sows, he reaps. If, as he 
 grows older, he grow more confirmed in his 
 wickedness ; if warnings come upon him with less 
 and less energy; if the solemnities of the judgment 
 lose more and more their power of alarming him, 
 and the terrors of hell their power of affrighting 
 him ; why, the man is nothing else but an exhi- 
 bition of the thickening of the harvest of which 
 himself sowed the seed ; and he puts forth, in this 
 his confirmed and settled impenitence, a demon- 
 stration, legible by every careful observer, that 
 there needs no apparatus for the turning a man 
 gradually from the clay to the adamant, over and 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 237 
 
 abote the apparatus of his own heart, left to itself, 
 and let alone to harden. 
 
 111. Freeness of Grace no encouragement to Sin. 
 
 We are charged with the offer of pardon to 
 the whole mass of human kind : enough that a 
 being is man, and we are instructed to beseech 
 him to be reconciled to God. And a glorious 
 truth it is, that no limitations are placed on the 
 proffered forgiveness ; but that, Christ having 
 died for the w%rld, the world, in all its depart- 
 ments and generations, may take salvation " with 
 out money and without price." We call it a glo- 
 rious truth, because there is thus every thing to 
 encourage the meanest and unworthiest, if they 
 will close with the offer, and accept deliverance 
 in the one appointed way. But then it is quite 
 possible that what the Gospel offers, thus cheering to 
 the humble and contrite, may be wrested into an 
 encouragement to the obdurate and indifferent. 
 Men may know that God has so loved them as to 
 give his Son to die for them ; and then may ima- 
 gine that a love thus stupendously displayed, can 
 never permit the final wretchedness of its objects. 
 The scheme of redemption, though itself the 
 most thrilling homily against sin, may be viewed 
 by those who would fain build on the uncove- 
 nanted mercies of God, as proving a vast impro- 
 bability that creatures, so beloved as ourselves, 
 
233 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 and purchased at so inconceivable a price, will 
 ever be consigned to the ministry of vengeance. 
 Hence, because they know the fact of this re- 
 demption, the careless have hope in God ; but, 
 if they considered this fact, they would be afraid 
 of him. 
 
 There is nothing which, when deeply pon- 
 dered, is more calculated to excite fears of God, 
 than that marvellous interposition on our behalf 
 which is the alone basis of legitimate hope. When 
 I consider redemption, what a picture of God's 
 hatred of sin rises before me ! what an exhibition 
 of his resolve to allow justice to exact all its 
 claims ! The smoking cities of the plain ; the de- 
 luged earth with its overwhelmed population j 
 the scattered Jews, strewing the globe like the 
 fragments of a mighty shipwreck — nothing can 
 tell me so emphatically as Christ dying, " the 
 just for the unjust," how God abhors sin, and 
 how determined he is to punish sin. 
 
 112. w Whatsoever a man soweth, that shall 
 he reap." 
 
 Now we are all, to a certain extent, familiar 
 with this principle ; for it is forced on our notice 
 by every-day occurrences. We observe that a 
 dissolute and reckless youth is ordinarily fol- 
 lowed by a premature and miserable old age. We 
 see that honesty and industry win commonly 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 239 
 
 comfort and respect 5 and that, on the contrary, 
 levity and a want of carefulness produce pau- 
 perism and disrepute. And yet further, unless we 
 go over to the ranks of infidelity, we cannot ques- 
 tion that a course of disobedience to God is earn- 
 ing man's eternal destruction 5 whilst, through 
 submission to the revealed will of his Maker, 
 there is secured admittance into a glorious heri- 
 tage. We are thus aware that there runs through 
 the Creator's dealings with our race the principle 
 of an identity, or sameness, between the things 
 which man sows and those which he reaps. But 
 we think it possible that we may have contented 
 ourselves with too superficial a view of this prin- 
 ciple 5 and that, through not searching into what 
 may be termed its philosophy, we allow much 
 that is important to elude observation. The seed 
 sown in the earth goes on, as it were, by a sort 
 of natural process, and without direct interference 
 from God, to yield seed of the same description 
 with itself. And we wish it well observed, whe- 
 ther there be not in spiritual things an analogy 
 the most perfect to what thus takes place in na- 
 tural. We think that, upon a careful examination, 
 you will find groundwork of belief that the simile 
 holds good in every possible respect : so that 
 what a man sows, if left to its own vegetating 
 powers, will yield, naturally, a harvest of its own 
 kind and description. 
 
240 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 113. The Lord's Supper. 
 
 It is said by St. Paul, in 1 reference to this in- 
 stitution, "As often as ye eat this bread, and 
 drink this cup, ye do show the Lord's death till 
 he come " — an explicit assertion that there is in 
 the Lord's supper such a manifestation of the 
 crucifixion of Jesus as will serve to set forth 
 that event until his second appearing. And we 
 scarcely need tell you, that, inasmuch as the 
 bread and the wine represent the body and blood 
 of the Saviour, the administration of this ordi- 
 nance is so commemorative of Christ's having 
 been offered as a sacrifice, that we seem to have 
 before us the awful and mysterious transaction, 
 as though again were the cross reared, and the 
 words "It is finished" pronounced in our hear- 
 ing. We have here the representation by signi- 
 ficative action, just as, in the case of preaching, 
 by authoritative announcement. For no man can 
 partake of this ordinance with his spiritual sen- 
 sibilities in free exercise, and not seem to him- 
 self to be traversing the garden and the mount, 
 consecrated by a Mediator's agony, whilst they 
 witness the fearful struggles through which was 
 effected our reconciliation to God. 
 
 From the beginning it has been always the 
 same solemn rite, which might have attested arid 
 taught Christianity, had every written record pe- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 241 
 
 rished from the earth. All along it has been the 
 Gospel preached by action, a phenomenon of 
 which you could give no account, except by ad- 
 mitting the chief facts of the New Testament 
 history, and which might, in a great degree, have 
 preserved a knowledge of those facts, had they 
 never been registered by evangelists. It is like a 
 pillar erected in the waste of centuries, indelibly 
 inscribed with memorials of our faith ; or rather, 
 it is as the cross itself, presenting to all ages the 
 immolation of that victim who " put away sin by 
 the sacrifice of himself." And so long as this 
 ordinance is administered in our churches, men 
 shall never be able to plead that there are pre- 
 sented to them none but weak and ineffective 
 exhibitions of Christ. If the crucifixion be not 
 vivid, as delineated from the pulpit, it must be 
 vivid as delineated in this sacred observance. 
 And it is nothing that hundreds absent them- 
 selves from the great celebration, and thus never 
 witness the representation of the crucifixion. 
 Their remaining away can do nothing towards 
 lessening its solemnities, and stripping it of en- 
 ergy as an exhibition of Christ's death. Yes, what- 
 ever our infirmities and deficiencies as preachers 
 of the everlasting Gospel, we take high ground 
 as intrusted with dispensing the Lord's supper : 
 and whilst we have to deliver the bread of which 
 Christ said, e< Take, eat, this is my body," and 
 21 
 
2i2 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the cup of which he declared, M this is my blood 
 of the New Testament," we may look an assem- 
 bly confidently in the face, and affirm that there 
 .are proffered them such exhibitions of the sacri- 
 fice of the Mediator, that " Jesus Christ is evi- 
 dently set forth," before their eyes, M crucified 
 among them." 
 
 114«. The Resurrection of the Body, not a doc- 
 trine of Natural Religion. • 
 
 We view with great amazement the resurrec- 
 tion of the body. So long as a divine interference 
 is limited to the soul, we may be said to be pre- 
 pared, at least in a degree, for whatever can be 
 told us of its greatness and disinterestedness. W e 
 attach a dignity to the soul, which, though it 
 could not, after there had been sin, establish any 
 claim to the succors of God, seems to make it, 
 if not to be expected, yet not to be wondered at, 
 that it was not abandoned to degradation and 
 ruin. The soul is so much more nearly of the 
 same nature with God than the body, that a spi- 
 ritual resurrection appears a thousand-fold more 
 likely than a corporeal. And you are to observe 
 that there is nothing in the nature of the case 
 to make it clear to us, that, if the soul were re- 
 deemed, so also must the body. The ordinary 
 current of thought and feeling may almost be 
 said to be against the redemption of the body. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 243 
 
 The body is felt to be an incumbrance to the 
 soul, hindering it in its noblest occupations, and 
 contributing nothing to its most elevated plea- 
 sures. So far from the soul being incapable of 
 happiness, if detached from the body, it is actual- 
 ly its union with the body, which, to all appear- 
 ance, detains it from happiness. Even now the 
 soul is often able to rise above the body, to de- 
 tach itself, for a while, from matter, and to soar 
 into regions which it feels to be more its home 
 than this earth. And when compelled to return 
 from so splendid an excursion, there is a senti- 
 ment of regret that it must still tabernacle in 
 flesh ; and it is conscious of longing for a day when 
 it may finally abandon its perishable dwelling. 
 
 Thus there is nothing of a felt necessity for 
 the re-union of the soul to the body, to guide us 
 in expecting the corporeal as well as the spiritual 
 resurrection. We might almost affirm that the 
 feeling is all the other way. And though, through 
 some fine workings of reason, or, through atten- 
 tion to lingering traces of patriarchal religion, 
 men, destitute of the light of revelation, have 
 reached a persuasion of the soul's immortality, 
 never have they formed even a conjecture of the 
 body's resurrection. They have imaged to them- 
 selves the spirit, which they felt burning and 
 beating within them, emancipated from thraldom, 
 and admitted into a new and eternal estate. But 
 
244 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 they have consigned the body to the intermi- 
 nable dishonors of the grave ; and never, in the 
 boldest imaginings, whether of their philosophy 
 or their poetry, have jthey thrown life into the 
 ashes of the sepulchre. It is almost the voice of 
 nature, that the soul survives death : the soul 
 gives its own testimony, and often so impressive- 
 ly, that a man could as easily doubt his present 
 as his future existence. But there is no such 
 voice put forth in regard of the body : no solemn 
 and mysterious whisperings are heard from its 
 resting-place, the echo of a truth which seems 
 syllabled within us, that bone shall come again to 
 bone, and sinews bind them, and skin cover them, 
 and breath stir them. 
 
 And we may safely argue, that, if the immor- 
 tality of the soul be an article of natural theo- 
 logy, but the resurrection of the body were never 
 even thought of by the most profound of its dis- 
 ciples, there can be no feeling in man that the 
 matter, as well as the spirit, of which he is com- 
 posed, must reappear in another state of being, 
 in order either to the possibility or the felicity 
 of his existence. So that — for this is the point to 
 which our remarks tend — we may declare of the 
 resurrection of the body, that it is altogether an 
 unexpected fact, one which no exercise of rea- 
 son could have led us to conjecture, and for 
 which there is not even that natural longing 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 245 
 
 which might be interpreted into an argument of 
 its probability. It is not, then, when God inter- 
 poses on behalf of the soul, it is when he inter- 
 poses on behalf of the body, that the grdat cause 
 is given for amazement. A spark, one might al- 
 most call it, of himself, an emanation from his 
 own immortality, mighty in its powers, myste- 
 rious in its wanderings, sublime in its anticipa- 
 tions, we scarcely wonder that a spiritual thing 
 like the soul should engage the carefulness of its 
 Maker, and that, if it sully its brightness and mar 
 its strength, he should graciously provide for its 
 final recovery. But the body — matter, which is 
 man's link of association with the lowest of the 
 brutes, and which natural and revealed theology 
 are alike* earnest in removing to the farthest pos- 
 sible distance from the divine nature — the body, 
 whose members are " the instruments of unrigh- 
 teousness," whose wants make our feebleness, 
 whose lusts are our tempters, whose infirmities 
 our torment — that this ignoble and decaying 
 thing should be cared for by God, who is ineffa- 
 bly more spiritual than spirit, so that he designs 
 its reappearance in his own immediate presence, 
 what is comparable in its wonderfulness to this ? 
 Prodigy of prodigies, that this corruptible should 
 put on incorruption, this mortal immortality. 
 Scribes and Pharisees might have listened with 
 amazement, and even with incredulity, as the 
 21* 
 
246 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Lord our Redeemer affirmed the effects which 
 would be wrought on the soul through the doc- 
 trines and deeds of his mission. But he had 
 stranger things to tell ) for he had to speak of the 
 body as well as of the soul, rising from its ruins, 
 and gloriously reconstructed. Yes, observing how 
 his hearers were surprised, because he had spoken 
 of the spiritually dead as quickened by his word, 
 he might well say unto them, " marvel not at 
 this," and give as his reason, " for the hour is 
 coming, in which all that are in the graves shall 
 hear my voice." 
 
 Now, throughout this examination of the truth, 
 that the resurrection of the body furnishes, in an 
 extraordinary degree, cause of wonder and sur- 
 prise, we have made no reference to the display 
 of divine power which this resurrection must pre- 
 sent. We have simply enlarged on what may be 
 called the unexpectedness of the event, proving 
 this unexpectedness from the inferiority of mat- 
 ter, its utter want of affinity to Deity, and the 
 feelings of even man himself in regard to its de- 
 tracting from his dignity and happiness. 
 
 115. Resurrection of the body — Christ its 
 Author. 
 
 The resurrection is, in the very strictest sense, 
 a consequence on redemption. Had not Christ 
 undertaken the suretyship of our race, there 
 
EIBLE THOUGHTS. , 247 
 
 would never have come a time when the dead 
 shall be raised. If there had been no interposi- 
 tion on behalf of the fallen, whatever had become 
 of the souls of men, their bodies must have re- 
 mained under the tyranny of death. The original 
 curse was a curse of death on the whole man. 
 And it cannot be argued that the curse of the 
 body's death could allow, so long as unrepealed, 
 the body's resurrection. So that we may lay it 
 down as an undisputed truth, that Christ Jesus 
 achieved man's resurrection. He was, emphati- 
 cally, the Author of man's resurrection. Without 
 Christ, and apart from that redemption of our 
 nature which he wrought out by obedience and 
 suffering, there would have been no resurrection. 
 It is just because the Eternal Son took our na- 
 ture into union with his own, and endured therein 
 the curse provoked by disobedience, that a time 
 is ^yet to arrive when the buried generations shall 
 throw off the dishonors of corruption. 
 
 116. The Believer assured of his Resurrection. 
 
 The believer knows that there is a distinct and 
 solemn promise of Christ which has respect to 
 the bodies of his people. / will raise him up at 
 the last day, is the repeated assurance in regard 
 to the man who believes upon his name, — so that 
 the Redeemer is as deeply pledged to be the 
 guardian of a believer's dust, as of a believer's 
 
248 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 soul. He ransomed matter as well as spirit ; and 
 descending himself into the sepulchre, scattered 
 the seeds of a new subsistence, which, germinat- 
 ing on the morning of the judgment, shall cover 
 the globe with the vast harvest of its buried po- 
 pulation. And, therefore, the believer can be con- 
 fident. Overwhelming in its greatness as the 
 achievement is, it surpasses not the energies of 
 the Agent unto whom it is ascribed. Christ raised 
 himself — an unspeakably mightier exploit than 
 the raising me. Can I not then take share in the 
 persuasion of St. Paul 1 Let darkness be woven 
 for my shroud, and the grave be hollowed for my 
 bed, and the worm be given for my companion — 
 with thee, O Christ, I intrust this body. / know 
 whom I have believed. The winds may disperse, 
 the waters may ingulf, and the fires may rarify 
 the atoms which made up this frame ; but I know 
 that my Redeemer liveth, and though after my skin 
 worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I 
 see God. Thus, body as well as soul, the believer 
 commits himself wholly to Christ, — and expe- 
 rience witnessing to Christ's power and Christ's 
 faithfulness, he can exclaim with the apostle, I 
 am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I 
 have committed unto him against that day. That 
 day — we need not tell the believer what day. 
 His thoughts and his hopes are on the second ad- 
 vent of his Lord 5 and though no day has been 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS.' 249 
 
 specified, yet speak of that day, and the allusion 
 is distinctly understood ; the mind springs for- 
 ward to meet the descending pomp of the Judge ; 
 and that august period is anticipated, when, vin- 
 dicating before the universe the fidelity of his 
 guardianship, Christ shall consign his followers 
 to glory and blessedness ; and, apportioning noble 
 allotments to both body and soul, prove that no- 
 thing has been lost of that unmeasured deposit, 
 which from Adam downwards to the last elect, 
 has accumulated in his keeping. 
 
 117. Resurrection of the body — its wonderful 
 character. 
 
 We do not know, that, in the whole range of 
 things effected by God, there is aught so sur- 
 prising, regard being had only to the power dis- 
 played, as the resurrection of the body. If you 
 will ponder, for a few moments, the facts of a 
 resurrection, you will probably allow that the 
 power which must be exerted in order to the 
 final reconstruction of every man's body, is more 
 signal than that displayed in any spiritual reno- 
 vation, or in any of those divine operations which 
 we are able to trace in the visible universe. You 
 are just to think that this framework of flesh, in 
 which my soul is now enclosed, will be reduced 
 at death to the dust from which it was taken. I 
 cannot tell where or what will be my sepulchre — 
 
250 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 whether I shall sleep in one of the quiet church- 
 yards of my own land, or be exposed on some 
 foreign shore, or fall a prey to the beasts of the 
 desert, or seek a tomb in the depths of the unfa- 
 thomable waters. But an irreversible sentence 
 has gone forth — " dust thou art, and unto dust 
 thou shalt return" — and assuredly, ere many 
 years, and perhaps even ere many days have 
 elapsed, must my l< earthly house of this taber- 
 nacle be dissolved," rafter from rafter, beam 
 from beam, and the particles, of which it has 
 been curiously compounded, be separated from 
 each other, and perhaps scattered to the four 
 winds of heaven. And who will pretend to trace 
 the wanderings of these particles ? There is 
 manifestly the most thorough possibility, that 
 the elements of which my body is composed, 
 may have belonged to the bone and flesh of suc- 
 cessive generations ; and that, when I shall have 
 passed away and be forgotten, they will be again 
 wrought into the structure of animated beings. 
 And when you think that my body, at the re- 
 surrection, must have at least so much of its ori- 
 ginal matter as shall be necessary for the pre- 
 servation of identity, for the making me know 
 and feel myself the very same being who sinned, 
 and suffered, and was disciplined on earth, you 
 must allow that nothing short of infinite know- 
 ledge and power could prevail to the watching, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 251 
 
 and disentangling, and keeping duly separate, 
 whatever is to be again builded into a habitation 
 for my spirit, so that it may be brought together 
 from the four ends of the earth, detached from 
 other creatures, or extracted from other substan- 
 ces. This would be indeed a wonderful thing, if 
 it were true of none but myself, if it were only 
 in my solitary case that' a certain portion of 
 matter had thus to be watched, kept distinct 
 though mingled, and appropriated to myself 
 whilst belonging to others. But try to suppose 
 the same holding good of every human being, of 
 Adam, and each member of his countless poste- 
 rity, and see whether the resurrection will not 
 utterly confound and overburden the mind. To 
 every individual in the interminable throng shall 
 his own body be given, a body so literally his 
 own, that it shall be made up, to at least a cer- 
 tain extent, of the matter which composed it 
 whilst he dwelt on this earth. And yet this 
 matter may have passed through innumerable 
 changes. It may have circulated through the 
 living tribes of many generations ; or it may 
 have been waving in the trees of the forest ,* 
 or it may have floated on the wide waters of the 
 deep. But there has been an eye upon it in all 
 its appropriations, and in all its transformations ; 
 so that, just as though it had been indelibly 
 stamped, from the first, with the name of the 
 
252 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 human being to whom it should finally belongs 
 it has been unerringly reserved for the great day 
 of resurrection. Thus myriads upon myriads of 
 atoms — for you may count up till imagination is 
 wearied, and then reckon that you have but one 
 unit of the still inapproachable sum — myriads 
 upon myriads of atoms, the dust of kingdoms, 
 the ashes of all that have lived, are perpetually 
 jostled, and mingled, and separated, and anima- 
 ted, and swept away, and reproduced, and, ne- 
 vertheless, not a solitary particle but holds itself 
 ready, at the sound of the last trump, to combine 
 itself with a multitude of others, in a human 
 body in which they once met perhaps a thou- 
 sand years before. 
 
 118. Heaven. 
 
 Are we deceiving men, are we merely sketching 
 ideal pictures, to whose beauty and brilliancy 
 there is nothing correspondent in future realities, 
 when we expatiate on the glories of heaven, and 
 task imagination to build its palaces and portray 
 its inhabitants 1 Yes, in one sense we deceive 
 them : they are but ideal pictures which we draw. 
 What human pencil can delineate scenes in which 
 God manifests his presence 1 what human color- 
 ing emulate the effulgence which issues from his 
 throne 1 But we deceive them only through ina- 
 bility to rise sufficiently high j we exhaust imagi- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 253 
 
 nation, but not the thousandth part is told. They 
 are deceived, only if they think we tell them all, 
 if they take the pictures which we draw as perfect 
 representations of the majesty of the future. 
 
 When we speak to them of the deep and perma- 
 nent repose of heaven ; when we enlarge on the 
 manifestations of Deity ; when we declare that 
 Christ, as -V the Minister of the Sanctuary," will 
 unfold to his church the mysteries which have per- 
 plexed them ; when we gather together what is 
 gorgeous, and precious, and beautiful, in the visi- 
 ble creation ; and crowd it into the imagery where- 
 with we delineate the final home of the saints ; 
 when we take the sun from the firmament, that the 
 Lord God may shine there ; and remove ail tem- 
 ples from the city, that the Almighty may be its 
 Sanctuary; and hush all human minstrelsy, that 
 the immense tide of song may roll from thousand 
 times ten thousand voices — we speak only the 
 words of truth and soberness, though we have 
 not compassed the greatness, nor depicted the 
 loveliness, of the portion which awaits the disci- 
 ples of Christ. Oh, as the shining company take 
 the circuit of the celestial city ; as they tf walk 
 about Zion, and go round about her," telling the 
 towers thereof, marking well her bulwarks, and 
 considering her palaces ; who can doubt that they 
 say one to another, " as we have heard, so have 
 we seen, in the city of our God 1" We heard that 
 22 
 
254 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 here " the wicked cease from troubling," and now 
 we behold the deep rich calm. We heard that 
 here we should he with the Lord, and now we see 
 him face to face. We heard that here w T e should 
 know even as we are known, and now the ample 
 page of universal truth is open to our inspection. 
 We heard that here, with the crown on the head 
 and the harp in the hand, we should execute the 
 will, and hymn the praises of our God, and now 
 we wear the diadem, and wake the melody. They 
 can take to themselves the words which the dy- 
 ing leader Joshua used of the Israelites, "not one 
 thing hath failed of all the good things which the 
 Lord our God spake concerning us ; all are come 
 to pass, and not one thing hath failed thereof." 
 
 Shall it he said of any amongst ourselves, that 
 they heard of heaven, but made ?;o effort to behold 
 it I Is there one who can be mdiflerent to the 
 announcement of its glories, one who can feel 
 utterly careless whether he ever prove for him- 
 self, that there has been no deceit, no exaggera- 
 tion, but that it is indeed a surpassingly fair land 
 which is to be everlastingly the home of those 
 who believe in the Redeemer 1 Everlastingly the 
 home — "God will establish it for ever." The 
 walls of that city shall never decay ; the lustres 
 of that city shall never grow dim ; the melodies 
 of that city shall never be hushed. And is it of a 
 city such as this that any one of us can be indiffe- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 255 
 
 rent whether or no he be finally an inhabitant 1 
 We will not believe it 1 The old and the young, 
 the rich and the poor, all must be ready to bind 
 themselves by a solemn vow, that they will " seek 
 first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness." 
 It is not the voice of a solitary and weak fellow 
 man which now tells yo u of heaven. God is sum- 
 moning you. Angels are summoning you. The 
 myriads who have gone before are summoning 
 you. We are surrounded by a " great cloud of 
 witnesses." The battlements of the sky seem 
 thronged with those who have fought the good 
 fight of faith. They bend down from their emi- 
 nence, and bid us ascend, through the one Media- 
 tor, to the same lofty dwelling. They shall not 
 call in vain. We know their voices, as they sweep 
 by us solemnly and sweetly. Oh, who will not 
 adopt some such reflection and prayer as this — 1 
 have heard of heaven, I have been told of its 
 splendors and of its happiness ; grant, gracious 
 and eternal Father, that I fail not at last to be as- 
 sociated with those who shall rejoicingly exclaim, 
 " as we have heard, so have we seen, in the city 
 of the Lord of Hosts." 
 
 119. Happiness of Heaven. 
 
 It is certain, that, if God be all in all, there will 
 be excited in us no wish which we shall be requir- 
 ed to repress, none which shall not be gratified so 
 
256 BIBLE THOUGHTS- 
 
 soon as formed. Having God in ourselves f ws 
 shall have capacities of enjoyment immeasurably 
 larger than at present j having God in all around 
 us, we shall find every where material of enjoy- 
 ment commensurate with our amplified powers. 
 Let us put from us confused and indeterminate 
 notions of happiness, and the simple description, 
 that God shall be ail in all, sets before us the very 
 perfection of felicity. The only sound definition 
 of happiness is that every faculty has its proper 
 object. And we believe of man, that God endow- 
 ed him with various capacities, intending to be 
 himself their supply. Man indeed revolted from 
 God, and has ever since endeavored, though ever 
 disappointed, to fill his capacities with other ob- 
 jects than God. But may not God hereafter, hav- 
 ing rectified the disorders of humanity, be him- 
 self the object of our every faculty I I know not 
 why we may not suppose that not only the works 
 of God which now manifest his qualities, but the 
 qualities themselves, as they subsist without mea- 
 sure in the ever-living Creator, will become the 
 immediate objects of contemplation* 
 
 At present, we make little or no approach to- 
 wards knowing God as he is, because God hath 
 not yet made himself all in all to his creatures.' 
 But let there once come this universal diffusion 
 of Deity, and we may find in God himself the 
 objects which answer to our matured and spiritu- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 257 
 
 alizecl faculties. We profess not to be competent 
 to the understanding the mysterious change which 
 is thus indicated as passing on the universe.. But 
 we can perceive it to be a change which shall be 
 full of glory, full of happiness. We shall be as 
 sensible of the presence of God, as we now are 
 of the presence of a friend, when he is standing 
 by us and conversing with us. " And what will be 
 the joy of heart which his presence will inspire 
 good men with, when they shall have a sensation 
 that he is the sustainer of their being, that they 
 exist in him ; when they shall feel his influence 
 cheering, and enlivening, and supporting their 
 frame, in a manner of which we have now no con- 
 ception 1" He will be, in a literal sense, their 
 strength and their portion for ever. 
 
 120. Holiness of Heaven. 
 
 How vain must be our hope of entering into 
 heaven, if we have no present delight in what 
 are said to be its joys. A christian finds his 
 happiness in holiness. And therefore, when he 
 looks forward to heaven, it is the holiness of the 
 scene, and association, on which 'he fastens as 
 "affording the happiness. He is not in love with 
 an Arcadian paradise, with the green pastures, 
 and the flowing waters, and the minstrelsy of 
 many harpers. He is not dreaming of a bright 
 island, where he shall meet buried kinsfolk, and, 
 
258 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 renewing 1 domestic charities, live human life 
 again in all but its cares, and tears, and partings. 
 M Be ye holy, for I am holy" — this is the pre- 
 cept, attempted conformity to which is the busi- 
 ness of a christian's life, perfect conformity to 
 which shall be the blessedness of heaven. Let 
 us therefore take heed that we deceive not our- 
 selves. The apostle speaks of "tasting the 
 powers of the world to come," as though heaven 
 were to begin on this side the grave. We may 
 be enamored of heaven, because we think that 
 ,r there the wicked cease from troubling, and the 
 weary are at rest." We may be enchanted with 
 the poetry of its descriptions, and fascinated by 
 the brilliancy of its colorings, as the Evangelist 
 John relates his visions, and sketches the scenery 
 on which he was privileged to gaze. But all this 
 does not prove us on the high road to heaven. 
 Again w r e say, that, if it be heaven towards which 
 we journey, it will be holiness in which we de- 
 light : for if we cannot now rejoice in having 
 God for our portion, where is our meetness for 
 a world in which God is to be all in all for 
 ever and for ever 1 
 
 121. Final Rewards proportioned to the Works 
 of the Believer, 
 
 Whilst bowed to the dust under a sense of 
 utter unworthiness, the believer is to contend 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 259 
 
 for the richest and most radiant of prizes. Wo 
 tell him 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 king- 
 dom. It is telling the wrestler, the glass is run- 
 ning out, and there is a garland frot won. It is 
 telling the warrior, the night shades are gather- 
 ing, and the victory is not yet complete. It is 
 telling the traveler, 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 1 Is it not good, 
 when each second of effort may lift me a step 
 higher in the scale of triumph and majesty 1 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, 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 : M 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 insti- 
 tuted connection between our two states of being. 
 
260 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 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 ; 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 su- 
 perfluous 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," might have 
 been awarded him in the morning of the first 
 resurrection. 
 
 122. Future Punishment. 
 
 There is no resting-place for the spirit in the 
 flattering delusion, that, in the moment of terri- 
 ble extremity, when the misdoings of a long life 
 shall have given in their testimony, mercy will 
 interpose between justice and the criminal, and 
 ward off the blow, and welcome to happiness. 
 Every attribute of Deity, benevolence itself as 
 well as justice, and holiness, and truth, rises 
 against the delusion, and warns me that to 
 cherish it is to go headlong to destruction. The 
 theory that God is too loving to take vengeance, 
 will not bear being considered. The notion that 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS, 261 
 
 the judge will prove less rigid than the lawgiver, 
 will not bear being considered. The opinion that 
 the purposes of a moral government may have 
 been answered by the threatening, so as not to 
 need the infliction, will not bear being consi- 
 dered. And therefore, if I have accustomed my- 
 self to such a representation of Deity as makes 
 benevolence, falsely so called, the grave of every 
 other attribute ; and if, allured by such repre- 
 sentation, I have quieted anxiety, and kept down 
 the pleadings of conscience ; consideration will 
 scatter the delusion, and gird me round with 
 terrors. Whilst I look only on the surface of 
 things I may be confident, but when I consider 
 I am afraid. 
 
 Oh ! it is not, as some would persuade you, 
 the dream of gloomy and miscalculating men, 
 that a punishment, the very mention of which 
 curdles the blood and makes the limbs tremble, 
 awaits, through the long hereafter, those who set 
 at naught the atonement effected by Christ. It 
 is not the picture of a diseased imagination, 
 nursed in error and trammeled by enthusiasm — 
 that of God, who now plies us with the overtures 
 of forgiveness, coming forth with all the artillery 
 of wrath, and dealing out vengeance on those 
 who have " done despite to the Spirit of grace.'' 
 We bring the dream to the rigid investigations 
 of wakefulness ; we expose the picture to the 
 
262 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 microscopes of the closest meditation ; v and when 
 men would taunt us with our belief in unuttera- 
 ble torments, portioned out by a Creator who 
 loves (with a love overpassing language) the 
 very meanest of his creatures ; and when they 
 would smile at our credulity in supposing that 
 God can act in a manner so repugnant to his 
 confessed nature ; we retort on them at once the 
 charge of adopting an unsupported theory. We 
 tell them, that, if with them we could escape 
 from thought and smother reflection, then with 
 them we might give harborage to the soothing 
 persuasion that there is no cause for dread, and 
 that God is of too yearning a compassion to 
 resign aught of humankind to be broken on the 
 wheel or scathed by the fire. But it is in pro- 
 portion as the mind fastens itself upon God that 
 alarm is excited. Thought, in place of dissipating, 
 generates terror. And thus, paralyze my reason, 
 debar me from every exercise of intellect, reduce 
 me to the idiot, and I shall be careless and con- 
 fident : but leave me the equipment and use 
 of mental faculties, and " when I consider, I am 
 afraid of him." 
 
 123. Fearful doom of the Wicked, 
 
 It were comparatively little to say of an indi- 
 vidual who sells himself to work evil, and carries 
 it with a high hand and a brazen front against the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 263 
 
 Lord of the whole earth, that he shuts himself 
 up to a certain and definite destruction. The 
 thrilling truth is, that, in working iniquity, he 
 sows for himself anguish. He gives not way to 
 a new desire, he allows not a fresh victory to lust, 
 without multiplying the amount of final torment. 
 By every excursion of passion, and by every in- 
 dulgence of an unhallowed craving, and by all 
 the misdoings of a hardened or dissolute life, he 
 may be literally said to pour into the granary of 
 his future destinies the goads and stings which 
 shall madden his spirit. He lays up more food 
 for self-reproach. He widens the field over which 
 thought will pass in bitterness, and mow down 
 remorse. He teaches the worm to be ingenious 
 in excruciating, by tasking his wit that he may be 
 ingenious in sinning — for some men, as the pro- 
 phet saith— and it is a wonderful expression — 
 "are wise to do evil." And thus, his iniquities 
 opening, as it were, fresh inlets for the approaches 
 of vengeance, with the growth of wickedness 
 will be the growth of punishment : and at last it 
 will appear that his resistance to convictions, his 
 neglect of opportunities, and his determined en- 
 slavement to evil, have literally worked for him 
 " a far more exceeding and eternal weight " of 
 despair. 
 
264 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 124?. Piety a strengthener and enlarger of 
 the Mind. 
 
 It is, we believe, commonly observed, by those 
 who set themselves to examine the effects of 
 religion upon different characters, that a general 
 strengthening of the mind is amongst the usual 
 accompaniments of piety. The instances, indeed, 
 are of no rare occurrence in which a mental 
 weakness, bordering almost on imbecility, has 
 been succeeded by no inconsiderable soundness 
 and strength of understanding. The case has 
 come within our own knowledge of an individual, 
 who, before conversion, was accounted, to say the 
 least, of very limited capacities ; but who, after 
 conversion, displayed such power of comprehend- 
 ing difficult truths, and such facility in stating 
 them to others, that men of well-informed minds 
 sought intercourse as a privilege. Something of 
 the same kind has frequently been observed in re- 
 gard to children. The grace of God has fallen, 
 like the warm sun of the East, on their mental 
 faculties ; and, ripening them into the richness of 
 the summer, whilst the body had as yet not pass- 
 ed through its spring-time, has caused that gray- 
 hairs might be instructed by the tender disciple 
 and brought a neighborhood round a death-bed 
 to learn wisdom from the lips of a youth. And, 
 without confining ourselves to instances which 
 may be reckoned peculiar and extraordinary, we 
 
E1BLE THOUGHTS 265 
 
 would assert that, in all cases, a marked change 
 passes over the human mind when the heart is re- 
 newed by the influence of God's Spirit. We are not 
 guilty of the absurdity of maintaining that there 
 are supernaturally communicated any of those 
 stores of information which are ordinarily gained 
 by a patient and pains-taking application. A man 
 will not become more of an astronomer than he 
 was before, nor more of a chemist, nor more of 
 a linguist. He will have no greater stock of 
 knowledge than he before possessed of subjects 
 which most occupy the learned of his fellows. 
 And if he would inform himself in such subjects, 
 the man of religion must give himself to the same 
 labor as the man of no religion, and sit down, with 
 the same industry, to the treatise and the gram- 
 mar. The peasant, who becomes not the philoso- 
 pher simply because his mental powers have been 
 undisciplined, will not leave the plough for the 
 orrery, because his understanding is expanded by 
 religion. Education might give, whilst religion 
 will not give, the powers the philosophical bent. 
 But there is a wide difference between strength- 
 ening the mind, and storing it with information. 
 We may plead for the former effect without at 
 all supposing the latter: though we shall see that 
 information of the loftiest description is convey- 
 ed through the opening of the Bible, and that, 
 crwsprjuently, if the impartment of knowledge 
 23 
 
266 BIBLE THOtTGHTS. 
 
 be an improving thing to the faculties, an im- 
 provement the most marked must result from 
 conversion. But we confine ourselves, at present, 
 to the statement of a fact. We assert that, in 
 all cases, a man is intellectually, as well as spiri- 
 tually advantaged through becoming a man of 
 piety. He will have a clearer and less-biassed 
 judgment. His views will be wider, his estimates 
 more correct. His understanding having been 
 exercised on truths the most stupendous, will be 
 more competent for the examination of what is 
 difficult or obscure. His reason having learned 
 that much lies beyond her province, as well as 
 much within, will give herself to inquiries with 
 greater humility and greater caution, and there- 
 fore, almost to a moral certainty, with greater 
 success. And though we may thus seem rather 
 to account for the fact than to prove it, let it be 
 remembered that this fact, being an effect, can 
 only be established, either by pointing out causes, 
 or by appealing to experience. The appeal to 
 experience is, perhaps, the correcter mode of the 
 two. And we, therefore, content ourselves with 
 saying, that those who have watched character 
 most narrowly will bear out the statement, that 
 the opening is followed, ordinarily, by a surpris- 
 ing opening of man's faculties. If you take the 
 rude and illiterate laborer, you will find that re- 
 generation proves to him a sort of intellectual as 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 267 
 
 well as a moral renovation. There shall general- 
 ly be no ploughman in the village who is so sound, 
 and shrewd, and clear-headed a man, as the one 
 who is most attentive to the salvation of his soul. 
 And if an individual have heretofore been obtuse 
 and unintelligent, let him be converted, and there 
 shall hereafter be commonly a quickness and ani- 
 mation ; so that religion, whose prime business it 
 is to shed light upon the heart, shall appear, at 
 the same time, to have thrown fire into the eye. 
 We do not, indeed, assert that genius and talent 
 are imparted at the new birth. But that it is 
 amongst the characteristics of godliness, that it 
 elevates man in the scale of intellectual being ; 
 that it makes him a more thinking, and a more in- 
 quiring, and a more discriminating creature ; that 
 it both rectifies and strengthens the mental vision : 
 we are guilty of no exaggeration, if we contend 
 for this as universally true ; and this, if not more 
 than this, is asserted in the statement, that " the 
 entrance of God's words giveth light, it giveth 
 understanding to the simple." 
 
 125. Jl national Wickedness — its effects on the 
 Righteous, 
 
 " It is time for thee, Lord, to work, for they 
 have made void thy law, therefore I love thy 
 commandments above gold, yea, above fine 
 gold." As if David had said, Men have now ex- 
 
268 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ceeded the bounds prescribed to long-suffering ; 
 they have outrun the limits of grace ; and now 
 God must interfere, vindicate his own honor, 
 and repress the swellings of unrighteousness. 
 Yet would he still love God's law. It is possible 
 to go so far in disobedience that it will be neces- 
 sary for God to interpose in vengeance, and visi- 
 bly withstand men's impiety. But what effect 
 will be produced on a truly righteous man by this 
 extraordinary prevalence of iniquity 1 Will lie be 
 carried away by the current of evil 1 Will he be 
 tempted, by the universal scorn which he sees 
 thrown on God's law, to think slightingly of it 
 himself, and give it less of his reverence and at- 
 tachment 1 On the contrary, this law becomes 
 more precious in David's sight, in proportion as 
 he felt that it was so despised and set aside, that 
 the time for God to work had arrived. You ob- 
 serve that the verses are connected by the word 
 " therefore." " They have made void thy law." 
 What then 1 is that law less esteemed and less 
 prized by myself 1 Quite the reverse; "They 
 have made void thy law ; therefore I love thy 
 commandments above gold, yea*, above fine gold." 
 There is much that deserves our closest attention 
 in this connection. It is a high point of holiness 
 which that man has reached, whose love of God's 
 commandments grows with the contempt which 
 all around him put on these commandments. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 269 
 
 There is greater reason than ever for our prizing 
 God's law, if the times be those in which that 
 law is made void. So that here are two great 
 principles. The first is, that there is a point in 
 human iniquity at which it is necessary that God 
 should interfere $ the second, that, when this point 
 is reached, the righteous are more than ever 
 bound to prize and love the law of the Lord. 
 
 126. The Christian's feelings at the ahoundings 
 of Wickedness. 
 
 It is a spectacle which should stir all the anxi- 
 eties and sympathies of a believer — that of a 
 world which has been ransomed by blood-shed- 
 ding, but which, nevertheless, is overspread with 
 impiety and infidelity. The christian is the man 
 of loyalty and uprightness, forced to dwell in the 
 assemblings of traitors., With a heart that beats 
 true to the king of the land, he must tarry amongst 
 those who have thrown off allegiance. On all 
 sides he must hear the plottings of treason, and 
 behold the actings of rebellion. Can he fail to be 
 wrought up to a longing and effort to arrest, in 
 some degree, the march of anarchy, and to bring 
 beneath the sceptre of righteousness the revolted 
 and ruined population 1 Can he be an indifferent 
 and cold-hearted spectator of the despite done to 
 God by every class of society; and shall there be 
 no throbbing of spirit, and no yearning of soul, 
 23* 
 
270 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 over thousands of his race, who, though re- 
 deemed by the sacrifice of Christ, are preparing 
 themselves a heritage of lire and shame 1 We do 
 but reason from the most invariable and well- 
 known principles of our nature, when we argue 
 that, as a loyal and loving subject of Christ, the 
 believer must glow with righteous indignation at 
 the bold insults offered to his Lord, and long to 
 bend' every faculty and power to the diminishing 
 the world's wretchedness by overcoming its re- 
 bellion. 
 
 127. Christian zeal increased by prevalence of 
 Wickedness, 
 
 To love God's commandments above gold, 
 whilst others count them but dross, is to display 
 a noble zeal for his glory, and to appear as the 
 champions of his cause, when that cause is on 
 the point of being universally deserted. The pro- 
 mise, moreover, runs, " Them that honor me, I 
 will honor ;" and the season, therefore, in which 
 the greatest honor may be given to God, is that 
 also in which the most of future glory may be 
 secured by the righteous. What, shall I choose 
 that moment for turning traitor when God will 
 be most glorified, and myself most advantaged, 
 by loyalty! What, relax in devotedness, just 
 when, by maintaining my allegiance, I may bear 
 the noblest testimony, and gain the highest re- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 271 
 
 compense 1 Ob, where the heart has been given 
 to God, and fixed on the glories of heaven, there 
 should be a feeling that days in which religion is 
 most decried and derided, are days in which 
 zeal should be warmest and profession most un- 
 flinching. To adhere boldly to the cause of righ- 
 teousness, when almost solitary in adherence, is 
 to fight the battle when champions are most 
 needed, and when, therefore, victory will be most 
 triumphant. Let, then, the times be times of uni- 
 versal defection from godliness — I will gather 
 warmth from the coldness of others, courage from 
 their cowardice, loyalty from their treason. As 
 I gaze on what is passing around me, I am not 
 shaken in attachment to thy service. On the con- 
 trary, thy law seems to me more precious than 
 ever, for in now keeping thy commandments I 
 can give thee greater glory, and find greater re- 
 ward. They have made void thy law 5 but from 
 my heart I can say, u Therefore, on that very ac- 
 count, I love thy commandments above gold, yea, 
 above fine gold." 
 
 If I see that the making void God's law is the 
 'most effectual mode of covering a land with 
 wretchedness, unquestionably it is in the being 
 made void that this law displays its claims to my 
 attachment. And if, therefore, we lived in times 
 when a mighty infidelity was pervading our cities 
 and our villages, and men were advancing by ra- 
 
272 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 piJ strides towards an open contempt, or denial 
 of God 5 the divine law, if we had ever learnt to 
 prize it, would command itself increasingly to 
 our affections, as impiety went onward to its 
 consummation. We should more and more re- 
 cognize its power to confer happiness, because 
 we should more and more observe how the des- 
 pising it produced misery. We should more and 
 more perceive in it an engine for counteracting 
 human degeneracy, because there would be, on 
 all sides, the material of conviction, that, in set- 
 ting it aside, men sank to the lowest level of de- 
 gradation. We should more and more regard it 
 as the best boon which God had conferred on this 
 creation, because we should increasingly discover 
 that it could only be removed by substituting a 
 fearful curse in its stead. And would not, then, 
 this law appear more deserving than ever of our 
 veneration and attachment % 
 
 128. Christian Influence. 
 
 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 irresisti- 
 ble evidence of moral derangement. Whatever 
 the extent of human degeneracy, you will not 
 find that right and wrong have so changed pla- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 273 
 
 ces, 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 as- 
 cribable to a felt necessity of keeping down, and 
 stifling, reproachful convictions. And hence it 
 comes to pass that vice will ordinarily feel re- 
 buked and overawed by virtue, and that those 
 whom you would think dead to all noble princi- 
 ple, will be disturbed by the presence of an 
 upright and God-fearing man. 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 high-virtued monitor. So that the godly in 
 a neighborhood wield an influence which is 
 purely that of godliness ; and, when denied op- 
 portunities of direct interference, check by exam- 
 ple, and reprove by conduct. You could not then 
 measure to us the consequences of the with 
 drawment of the salt from the mass of a popula 
 tion ; nor calculate the rapidity with which, on 
 the complete removal of religious men, an over- 
 whelming corruption would pervade all society. 
 129. Strive. 
 We beseech you, that ye strive, through God's 
 
274< BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 grace, to give yourselves to the business of put- 
 ting off the old man. Will ye affirm that ye be- 
 lieve there is a heaven, and yet act as though 
 persuaded that it is not worth striving for 1 Be- 
 lieve, only believe, that a day of coronation is 
 yet to break on this long-darkened globe, and 
 the sinews will be strung, like those of the 
 wrestlers of old, who saw the garlands in the 
 judge's hands, and locked themselves in an iron 
 embrace. Strive — for the grasp of a destroyer is 
 upon you, and if ye be not wrenched away, it 
 will palsy you, and crush you. Strive — for the 
 foe is on the right hand, on the left hand, before 
 you, behind you 5 and ye must be trampled under 
 foot, if ye struggle not, and strike not, as those 
 who feel themselves bound in a death-grapple. 
 Strive — there is a crown to be won — the mines 
 of the earth have not furnished its metal, and 
 the depths of the sea hide nothing so radiant as 
 the jewels with which it is wreathed. Strive — 
 for if ye gain not this crown — alas ! alas ! ye 
 must have the scorpions for ever round the fore- 
 head, and the circles of that flame which is 
 fanned by the breath of the Almighty's dis- 
 pleasure. 
 
 Strive, then, but strive in the strength of your 
 risen Lord, and not in your own. Ye know not 
 how soon that Lord may come. Whilst the sun 
 walks his usual path on the firmament, and the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 275 
 
 grass is springing in our fields, and merchants 
 are crowding the exchange, and politicians jost- 
 ling for place, and the voluptuous killing time, 
 and the avaricious counting gold, " the sign of 
 the Son of Man " shall be seen in the heavens, 
 and the august throne of fire and of cloud be 
 piled for judgment. 
 
 130. Parable of the two Sons. 
 
 M Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," is 
 the message which, Sabbath after Sabbath, is ut- 
 tered in God's name by the ordained ministers 
 of Christ. We are never at liberty to make you 
 any offers for to-morrow, but must always tell 
 you, that, w if to-day you will hear his voice," he 
 is ready to receive you into the vineyard of his 
 church. And it is not to a life of inactivity and 
 idleness that we are bidden to summon you, not 
 to that inert dependence on the merits of an- 
 other which shall exclude all necessity for per- 
 sonal striving. We call you, on the contrary, to 
 work in the vineyard. If you think to be saved 
 without labor ; if you imagine, that, because 
 Christ has done all that is necessary in the way 
 of merit, there remains nothing to be done by 
 yourselves in the way of condition, you are yield- 
 ing to a delusion which must be as wilful as it 
 will be fatal — the whole tenor of Scripture un- 
 reservedly declaring, that, if you would enter 
 
276 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 into life, you must "work out your salvation 
 with fear and trembling." And thus the mes- 
 sage, " Son, go work to-day in my vineyard," is 
 in every respect that which God is continually 
 addressing to you through the mouth of his min- 
 istering servants, a message declaratory that 
 "now is the accepted time," and requiring you 
 to put forth every energy that you may escape 
 rt the wrath to come." 
 
 There are two cautions suggested by this para- 
 ble. The first is to parents, and guardians, and 
 ministers 5 in short, to all whose business it may 
 be to counsel and instruct. Let not the apparent 
 want of success induce you to relax in your en- 
 deavors. He who gives you a flat refusal, may 
 ultimately reward you better than he who gives 
 you a fair promise. Be not, therefore, disheart- 
 ened ; but rather act on the wise man's advice, 
 * In the morning sow thy seed, and in the even- 
 ing withhold not thy hand ; for thou knowest not 
 whether shall prosper, either this or that, or 
 whether they both shall be alike good." 
 
 The second caution is to those who may be 
 ready, with the first son, to give a direct refusal, 
 when bidden to go and work in the vineyard. 
 Let not the thought that you may afterwards 
 repent, encourage you in your determination 
 that you will not yet obey. The man who pre- 
 sumes on what is told us of the first son, will 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 277 
 
 never, in all probability, be represented by that 
 son. I may have hopes of a man whose moral 
 slumbers I cannot at all break ; I almost despair 
 of a man whom I can so far awaken that he 
 makes a resolution to delay. The determining to 
 put off is the worst of all symptoms : it shows 
 that conscience has been roused, and then paci- 
 fied ; and wo unto the man who has drugs with 
 which he can lull conscience to sleep. " Go, 
 work to-day in my vineyard." To-morrow the 
 pulse may be still, and there is " no work nor 
 wisdom in the grave." To-day ye are yet 
 amongst the living, and may enroll yourselves 
 with the laborers whose harvest shall be im- 
 mortality. 
 
 131. Present rewards of Well-doing. 
 
 It is the marvellous property of spiritual things, 
 though we can scarcely affirm it of natural, that 
 the effort to teach them to others gives enlarge- 
 ment to our own sphere of information. We are 
 persuaded that the most experienced christian 
 cannot sit down with the neglected and grossly 
 ignorant laborer — nay, not with the child in a 
 Sunday or infant-school — and strive to explain 
 and enforce the great truths of the Bible, without 
 finding his own views of the Gospel amplified 
 and cleared through this engagement in the bu- 
 siness of tuition. The mere trying to make a 
 24 
 
278 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 point plain to another will oftentimes make it far 
 plainer than ever to ourselves. In illustrating a 
 doctrine of Scripture, in endeavoring to bring it 
 down to the level o^ a weak or undisciplined un- 
 derstanding, you will find that doctrine- present- 
 ing itself to your own mind with a new power 
 and unimagined beauty ; and though you may 
 have read the standard writers on theology, and 
 mastered the essays of the most learned divines, 
 yet shall such fresh and vigorous apprehensions 
 of truth be derived often from the effort to press 
 it home on the intellect and conscience of the 
 ignorant, that you shall pronounce the cottage 
 of the untaught peasant your best school-house, 
 and the questions even of a child your most 
 searching catechisings on the majestic and mys- 
 terious things of our faith. And as you tell over 
 to the poor cottager the story of the incarnation 
 and crucifixion, and inform him of the nature 
 and effects of Adam's apostasy ; or even find 
 yourself required to adduce more elementary 
 truths, pressing on the neglected man the being 
 of a God, and the immortality of the soul ; oh, 
 it shall constantly occur that you will feel a 
 keener sense than ever of the preciousness of 
 Christ, or a greater awe at the majesties of 
 Jehovah, or a loftier bounding of spirit at the 
 thought of your own deathlessness. In teaching 
 another you teach also yourself, and carry 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 279 
 
 away from your intercourse with the mechanic, 
 or the child, such an accession to your own 
 knowledge, or your own love, as shall seem to 
 make you the indebted party, and not the obliging. 
 
 132. Ambition. 
 
 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 multi- 
 tude, to twine his forehead with the wreaths of 
 popular favor, to be foremost amongst the heroes 
 of war or the professors of science — the intro- 
 duced humility of a disciple of Christ, bringing 
 him down from all the heights of carnal ascend- 
 ancy, will be quite incompatible with this his am- 
 bition, so that his discipleship may be tested by 
 its suppression and destruction. But ail those ele- 
 ments 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 propo- 
 sition of a holy object, and they w T ill instantly be 
 concentrated into a holy ambition. And Christi- 
 anity propounds this object. Christianity deals 
 with ambition as a passion to be abhorred and 
 denounced, whilst . urging the warrior to carve 
 
280 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 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 1 
 They are the noblest which enter into the human 
 composition, hearing- 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 accord- 
 ing 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 out-doing human imagi- 
 nation as well as human desert. And if ambition 
 be the walking with the firm step, and the single 
 eye, and the untired zeal, and all in pursuit of 
 some longed-for and noble elevation, Christianity 
 saith not to the man of ambition, lay aside thine 
 ambition : Christianity hath need of the firm 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 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 281 
 
 in other modes which might he indicated, Christi- 
 anity provides an antagonist to that listlessness 
 which a feeling of security might be supposed to 
 engender. She does not allow the believer to 
 imagine everything done, when a title to the 
 kingdom has been obtained. She still shows him 
 that the trials of the last great assize shall pro- 
 ceed most accurately on the evidence of works. 
 There is no swerving in the Bible from this re- 
 presentation. And if one man become 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 de- 
 monstration can make it, that our strivings will 
 have a vast influence on our recompense, and 
 that, though no iota of blessedness shall be por- 
 tioned out to the righteous which is not altoge- 
 ther an undeserved gift, the arrangements of the 
 judgment will balance most nicely what is be- 
 stowed and what is performed. It shall not be 
 said, that, because secure of admission into hea- 
 ven, 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 him- 
 self a station near the throne : he is to fix his 
 eye on a reward sparkling with the splendors of 
 eternity, and whilst bowed to the dust under a 
 sense of utter unworthiness, he is to aspire to 
 the richest and most radiant of prizes. 
 
282 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 133. Men's abuse of the Divine Forbearance* 
 
 There is no property of the divine nature 
 which demands more, whether of our admira- 
 tion or of our gratitude, than long-suffering. The 
 long-suffering of God is wonderftrlf because it in- 
 dicates the putting constraint on his own attri- 
 butes ; it is omnipotence exerted^over the Omni- 
 potent himself. 
 
 So far as our own interests are concerned, you 
 will readily admit that we are extraordinarily in- 
 debted to the divine forbearance. Those of us 
 who are now walking the path of life, where 
 would they have been, had not God borne long 
 with them, refusing, as it were, to be wearied out 
 by their perversity 1 Those who are yet " stran- 
 gers from the covenant of promise," to what but 
 the patience of their Maker is it owing, that they 
 have not been cut down as cumberers of the 
 ground, but still stand within the possibilities of 
 forgiveness and acceptance 1 But it is a melan- 
 choly thing that we are compelled to add, that 
 there is a great tendency in all of us to the abu- 
 sing God's long-suffering, and to the so presum- 
 ing on his forbearance as to continue in sin. We 
 may be sure that a vast outward reformation 
 would be wrought on the world, if there were 
 a sudden change in God's dealings, so that 
 punishment followed instantaneously on crime. 
 If the Almighty w T ere to mark out certain offences, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 283 
 
 the perpetration of which he would immediately 
 visit with death, there can be no doubt that these 
 offences would be shunned with the greatest 
 carefulness, and that, too, by the very men whom 
 no exhortatior^s, and no warnings, can now deter 
 from their commission. Yet it is not that punish- 
 ment is one jot less certain now than it would be 
 on the supposed change of arrangement. The 
 only difference is, that, in one case, God displays 
 long-suffering, and that in the other he would • 
 not display long-suffering — the certainty that pu- 
 nishment will follow crime is quite the same in 
 both. And thus, unhappily, sin is less avoided 
 than it would be if we lived under an economy 
 of immediate retribution ; and " because sentence 
 against an evil work is not executed speedily, 
 therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set 
 in them to do evil." In place of being softened 
 by the patience of which we have so long been 
 the objects, we are apt to be encouraged by it to 
 further resistance ; calculating that he who has 
 so often forborne to strike, will spare a little 
 longer, and that we may with safety yet defer to 
 repent. 
 
 It is, therefore, of great importance that men 
 be taught that there are limits even to the for- 
 bearance of God, and that it is possible so to 
 presume on it as to exhaust. 
 
284* EIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 134. Warning. 
 
 Who would not be a believer in Christ 1 who 
 would not be at peace with God 1 When such 
 are the privileges of righteousness, the privileges 
 through life, the privileges in death, the wonder 
 is, that all are not eager to close with the offers 
 of the Gospel, and n/ake those privileges their 
 own. Yet, alas, the ministers of Christ have to 
 exclaim, with the prophet, rt who hath believed 
 our report 1" and, with Elihu, f ' none saith, 
 where is God my Maker, who giveth songs in the 
 night V' There may yet be moral insensibility in 
 some now addressed. What shall we say to 
 them 1 They may have youth on their side, and 
 health, and plenty. The sky may be clear, and 
 the voice of joy may be heard in their dwelling. 
 But there must come a night, a dreary and op- 
 pressive night ; for youth must depart, and 
 strength be enfeebled, and sorrow encountered, 
 and the shadows of evening fall upon the path. 
 And what will they do then, if now, as God com- 
 plains by his prophet, M the harp and the viol, 
 the tabret, and pipe, and wine, are in their feasts, 
 but they regard not the work of the Lord, neither 
 consider the operation of his hands V* They may 
 have their song now ; but then we shall have only 
 the bitter exclamation, " the harvest is passed, 
 the summer is ended, and we are not saved. 7 ' We 
 warn you in time. Though the firmament be 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 285 
 
 bright, we show you the cloud,, small as a man's 
 hand, already rising from the sea ; and we urge 
 you to the breaking loose from habits of sin, and 
 fleeing straightway to the Mediator Christ. It is 
 for baubles which they despise when acquired, 
 wealth which they count nothing when gained, 
 gratifications which they loathe so soon as passed, 
 that men sell their souls. And all that we now 
 entreat of the young, is, that they will not, in 
 the spring-time of life, strike this foul bargain. 
 In the name of Him who made you, we beseech 
 you to separate yourselves at once from evil 
 practices and evil associates ; lest, in that darkest 
 of all darkness, when the sun is to be " black as 
 sackcloth of hair," and the moon as blood, and 
 the stars are to fall, you may utter nothing but 
 the passionate cry of despair ; whilst the righ- 
 teous are lifting up their heads with joy, and 
 proving that they have trusted in a God <f who 
 giveth songs in the night." 
 
 135. Consideration. 
 
 In Scripture we find great worth attached to 
 consideration — as when the Psalmist says, " I 
 thought on my ways, and turned my feet to thy 
 testimonies." Here the turning to God's testimo- 
 nies is given by David as an immediate conse- 
 quence of the thinking on his ways, as though 
 consideration were alone necessary to insure a 
 
286 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 speedy repentance. The great evil with the mass 
 of men is, that, so far at least as eternity is con- 
 cerned, they never think at all — once make them 
 think, and you make them anxious; once make 
 them anxious, and they will labor to be saved. 
 When a man considers his ways, angels may be 
 said to prepare their harps, that they may sweep 
 them in exultation at his repentance. 
 
 135. Want of Consideration. 
 
 If as fast as we gather information into the 
 chambers of the mind, we were also gathering 
 motive into the recesses of the soul, it is evident 
 that each page of Scripture, as we possessed 
 ourselves of its announcements, would minister to 
 our earnestness in wrestling for immortality. But 
 the melancholy fact is, that we may, and that we 
 do, increase the amount of information, without 
 practically increasing the amount of motive. It is 
 quite supposable that there are some who, by a 
 regular attendance on Sabbath ministrations, and 
 by diligent study of the Bible, have acquired no 
 inconsiderable acquaintance with the scheme and 
 bearings of Christianity ; but who are neverthe- 
 less as worldly-minded, in spite of their theology, 
 as though ignorant of the grand truths disclosed 
 by revelation. We might subject these persons 
 to a strict examination, and try them in the seve- 
 ral departments of divinity. And they might 
 
* BIBLE THOUGHTS. 287 
 
 come off from the scrutiny with the greatest ap- 
 plause, and be pronounced admirably conversant 
 with the truths of the Bible. But of all the know- 
 ledge thus displayed, there might not be a par- 
 ticle which wielded any influence over actions. 
 The whole might be reposing inertly in the soli- 
 tudes of the memory, ready indeed to be sum- 
 moned forth when its possessor is called into 
 some arena of controversy, but no more woven 
 into the business of every-day life, than if it were 
 knowledge of facts which are unimportant, or of 
 truths which are speculative. And the main rea- 
 son of this is the want of consideration. You 
 know there is a God; but you do not fear this 
 God, you do not live under a sense of his pre- 
 sence and an apprehension of his wrath, because 
 you do not consider that there is a God. 
 
 137. Futurity, 
 
 You will find it said in the Book of Ecclesi- 
 astes, V Because to every purpose there is time 
 and judgment, therefore the misery of man is 
 great upon him. It seems to us implied in these 
 words, that our incapacity of looking into the 
 future has much to do with the production of 
 disquietude and unhappiness. And there is no 
 question, that the darkness in which we are com- 
 pelled to proceed, and the uncertainty which 
 hangs round the issues of our best-arranged 
 
288 EII3LE THOUGHTS. 
 
 schemes, contribute much to the troubles and 
 perplexities of life. Under the present dispensa- 
 tion we must calculate on probabilities ; and our 
 calculations, when made with the best care and 
 forethought, are often proved faulty by the re- 
 sult. And if we could substitute certainty for 
 probability, and thus define, with a thorough ac- 
 curacy, the workings of any proposed plan, it is 
 evident that we might be saved a vast amount 
 both of anxiety and of disappointment. Much of 
 our anxiety is now derived from the doubtfulness 
 of the success of schemes, and from the likeli- 
 hood of obstruction and mischance : much of 
 our disappointment from the overthrow and 
 failure of long-cherished purposes. And, of 
 course, if we possessed the same mastery of the 
 future as of the past, we should enter upon 
 nothing which was sure to turn out ill ; but, re- 
 gulating ourselves in every undertaking hy fore- 
 known results, avoid much of previous debate 
 and of after regret. 
 
 Yet when we have admitted that want of ac- 
 quaintance with the future gives rise to much 
 both of anxiety and of disappointment, we are 
 prepared to argue, that the possession of this 
 acquaintance would be incalculably more detri- 
 mental. It is quite true that there are forms and 
 portions of trouble which might be warded off or 
 escaped, if we could behold what is coming, and 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 289 
 
 take measures accordingly. But it is to the full 
 as true, that the main of what shall befall us is 
 matter of irrevocable appointment, to be averted 
 by no prudence, and dispersed by no bravery. 
 And if we could know beforehand whatever is to 
 happen, we should, in all probability, be unman- 
 ned and enervated ; so that an arrest would bo 
 put on the businesses of life by previous acquaint- 
 ance with their several successes. The parent 
 who is pouring his attention on the education of 
 a child, or laboring to procure for him advance- 
 ment and independence, would be unable to go 
 forward with his efforts, if certified that he must 
 follow that child to the grave so soon as he hrd 
 fitted him for society and occupation. And even 
 if the map were a bright one, so that we looked 
 on sunny things as fixed for our portion, famili- 
 arity with the prospect would deteriorate it to 
 our imagination ; and blessings would seem to us 
 of less and less worth, as they came on us more 
 and more as matters of course. In real truth, it 
 is our ignorance of what shall happen which sti- 
 mulates exertion ; we are so constituted, that to 
 deprive us of hope would be to make us inactive 
 and wretched. And, therefore, do we hold that 
 one great proof of God's loving-kindness towards 
 us, may be fetched from that impenetrable con- 
 cealment in which he wraps up to-morrow. We 
 long, indeed, to bring to-morrow into to-day, and 
 25 
 
290 BIBLK THOUGHTS. 
 
 strain the eye in the fruitless endeavor to scan 
 its occurrences. But it is, in a great degree, my 
 ignorance of to-morrow which makes me vigi- 
 lant, and energetic, and pains-taking, to-day. 
 And if I could see to-day, that a great calamity 
 or a great success would undoubtedly befall me 
 to-morrow, the likelihood is that I should be so 
 overcome, either by sorrow or by delight, as to 
 be unfitted for those duties with which the 
 present hour is charged. 
 
 138. Socinianism. 
 
 If I durst choose between poison-cups, I would 
 take Deism rather than Socinianism. It seems 
 better to reject as forgery, than, having received 
 as truth, to drain of meaning ; to use, without re- 
 serve, the sponge and the thumb-screw ; the one, 
 when passages are too plain for controversy, the 
 other, when against us, till unmercifully tortured. 
 
 139. Backslider. 
 
 If I have been what Scripture calls a backslider, 
 may not memory tell me of comforts I experienc- 
 ed, when walking closely with God, of seasons 
 of deep gladness when I had mortified a passion, 
 of communion with eternity so real and distinct 
 that I seemed already delivered from the tram- 
 mels of flesh % It may well be, if indeed I have 
 declined in godliness, that, though musing on past 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 291 
 
 times, there will be excited within me a poignant 
 regret. There will come back upon me, as upon 
 the criminal in his cell, the holy music of better 
 days ; and there will be a penetrating power in 
 the once gladdening but now melancholy strain, 
 which there would not be in the shrill note of ven- 
 geance. And thus, in each case, memory may be 
 a mighty agent in bringing me to repentance. It 
 can scarcely come to pass, that I should diligent- 
 ly and seriously remember whence I am fallen, 
 and yet be conscious of no desire to regain the 
 lost position. I cannot gaze on Paradise, and not 
 long to leave the wilderness ; I cannot see in my- 
 self the wanderer, and not yearn for the home I 
 have forsaken. We know that except men repent, 
 except the indifferent be roused to earnestness, the 
 backsliding recovered to consistency, nothing can 
 prevent their final destruction. And wishing to 
 bring them to repentance, we would waken memo- 
 ry from her thousand cells, and bid her pour forth 
 the imagery of what they were, that they may 
 contrast it with what they are. If we can arm 
 against them their own recollections, we feel that 
 we shall have brought to bear the most powerful 
 of engines. Our appeal is therefore to the past, 
 our summons is to the shades of the dead. And 
 though we know that no remonstrance, and no 
 exhortation, can be of avail, except as carried to 
 the heart by the Spirit of the living God, yet aro 
 
292 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 we so persuaded of the power of consideration, 
 and of the likelihood that those who are brought 
 to consider their ways will go on to reform them, 
 that we think we prescribe what cannot fail of 
 success, when, in order that men may repent, we 
 entreat them to remember from whence they are 
 fallen, and do the first works. 
 
 14-0. Danger of ike removal of the Candlestick* 
 
 This may take place, for undoubtedly this has 
 taken place. There are indeed clear and encoura- 
 ging promises in Scripture, sufficient to assure us 
 that neither outward opposition, nor inward cor- 
 ruption, shall prevail to the extinction of Christ's 
 church upon earth. But these promises refer ge- 
 nerally to the church, and not to this or that of its 
 sections. They give no ground for expecting that 
 the church, for example, of England, or the 
 church of Rome, will never cease to be a church 
 — on the contrary, their tenor is quite compatible 
 with the supposition, that England or Rome may 
 so pervert, or abuse, the Gospel, as to provoke 
 God to withdraw it, and give it to lands now over- 
 run with heathenism. There may be, and there 
 are, promises that there shall be always a candle 
 in the world ; but the candlestick is a moveable 
 thing, and may be placed successively in different 
 districts of the earth. 
 
 And we say that this unchurching of a nation 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 293 
 
 is what has actually occurred, and what therefore 
 may occur again, if mercies he abused and pri- 
 vileges neglected. We appeal to the instance of 
 the Jews. The Jews constituted the church of 
 God, whilst all other tribes of the human popu- 
 lation were strangers and aliens. And never were 
 a people more beloved ; never had a nation great- 
 er evidences of divine favor on which to rest a 
 persuasion that they should not be cast off and 
 deprived of their advantages. Yet how complete- 
 ly has the candlestick been removed from Judea. 
 The land of Abraham, and of Isaac, and of Jacob ; 
 the land which held the ark with its mysterious 
 and sacramental treasures ; the land where priests 
 made atonement, and prophets delivered their 
 lofty anticipations ; the land which Jesus trode, 
 where Jesus preached, and where Jesus died ; 
 has been tenanted for centuries by the unbeliever, 
 profaned by the followers, and desecrated by the 
 altars, of the Arabian impostor. 
 
 We appeal again to the early churches. Where 
 are those christian societies to which St. Paul and 
 St. John inscribed their epistles 1 Where is the 
 Corinthian church, so affectionately addressed, 
 though so boldly reproved, by the great apostle 
 of the Gentiles 1 Where is the Philippian church, 
 where the Colossian, where the Thessalonian, the 
 letters to which prove how cordially Christianity 
 had been received, and how vigorously it flourish- 
 25* 
 
294 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ed 1 Where are the Seven Churches of Asia, re- 
 specting which we are assured that they were 
 once strenuous in piety, and gave promise of per- 
 manence in Christian profession and privilege 1 
 Alas, how true is it that the candlesticks have 
 been removed. Countries in which the Gospel 
 was first planted, cities where it took earliest root, 
 from these have all traces of Christianity long ago 
 disappeared, and in these has the cross been sup- 
 planted by the crescent. The traveler through 
 lands where apostles won their noblest victories, 
 where martyrs witnessed a good confession, and 
 thousands sprang eagerly forwards to be " baptiz- 
 ed for the dead," and to fill up every breach which 
 persecution made in the christian ranks, can 
 scarce find a monument to assure him that he 
 stands where once congregated the followers of 
 Jesus. Every where he is surrounded by super- 
 stitions little better than those of heathenism, so 
 that the unchurching of these lands has been the 
 giving them up to an Egyptian darkness. And 
 what are we to say of such facts, except that they 
 prove — prove with a clearness and awfulness of 
 demonstration, which leave ignorance inexcusa- 
 ble, and indifference self-condemned — that the 
 blessings of Christianity are deposited with a na- 
 tion to be valued and improved, and that to despise 
 or misuse them is to provoke their withdrawment ! 
 If we could trace the histories of the several 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 295 
 
 churches to which we have referred, we should 
 find that they all n left their first love," grew luke- 
 warm in religion, or were daunted by danger into 
 apostasy. There was no lack of warning, none of 
 exhortation ; for it is never suddenly, never with- 
 out a protracted struggle, that God proceeds to 
 extremes, whether with a church or an individual. 
 But warning and exhortation were in vain. False 
 teachers grew into favor ; false doctrines super- 
 seded the true ; with erroneous tenets came 
 their general accompaniment, dissolute practice ; 
 till at length, if the candlestick remained, the 
 light was extinct ; and then God gave the sen- 
 tence, that the candlestick should be removed out 
 of his place. 
 
 141. Believer profited by the experience of others. 
 
 Let a man be a believer in Christ, and every 
 day of his life will bring him intelligence, from 
 external testimony, of the worth of the Being on 
 whom he fastens his faith. The witnesses who 
 stand out and attest the excellencies of the Me- 
 diator, occupy the whole scale of intelligence, 
 from the Creator downwards, through every rank 
 of the creature. The man of faith hears the 
 Father himself bearing testimony by a voice 
 from heaven, " This is my beloved Son, in whom 
 I am well pleased" He hears angels and arch- 
 
296 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 angels lauding and magnifying Christ's glorious 
 name : for do not the winged hierarchies of hea- 
 ven bow to him the knee, and that, too, as the con- 
 sequence of his work of mediation 1 He hears 
 patriarchs who lived in the infancy of the world ; 
 prophets who took up in succession the mighty 
 strain, and sent it on from century to century ; 
 apostles who went out to the battle with idolatry, 
 and counted not their lives dear to them, so that 
 they might plant the cross amid the wilds of su- 
 perstition : — he hears all these, with one heart 
 and one voice, witnessing to Jesus, as the Son of 
 the Highest, the Saviour of the lost. And he 
 hears, moreover, the martyrs and the confessors 
 of every generation ; the saints who have held 
 fast their allegiance on the rack and in the fur* 
 nace ; the noble champions who have risen up in 
 the days of a declining church, and shed their 
 blood like water in defence of the purity of doc- 
 trine ; he hears the men of whom the world was 
 not worthy uttering an unflinching attestation to 
 the willingness and ability of Christ to succor 
 those who give themselves to his service. And 
 he hears, finally, a voice from the thousands who, 
 in more private stations, have taken Christ as 
 their Lord and their God ; who, in dependance 
 on his might, have gone unobtrusively through 
 duty and trial, and then have lain down on the 
 death-bed, and worn a smile amid the decayings 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 297 
 
 of the body, — and this voice bears witness, that 
 lie in whom they have trusted, has proved himself 
 all-sufficient to deliver. And if we do right in 
 arguing that there is poured in gradually upon a 
 believer this scarcely measurable evidence to the 
 power and faithfulness of Christ, will it not come 
 to pass that he grows every day more acquainted 
 with the excellencies of the Saviour : so that by 
 gathering in from the accumulated stores of the 
 testimony of others, he will be able, with a con- 
 tinually strengthening assurance, to declare, / 
 know whom I have believed. 
 
 142. Religious Biography. 
 
 There is great value in the registered experi- 
 ence of the believers of other days. In truth, the 
 biography of the righteous is among the best 
 treasures possessed by the church. It is, in one 
 sense at least, a vast advantage to us that we live 
 late in the world. We have all the benefit of the 
 spiritual experience of many centuries, which has 
 been bequeathed to us as a legacy of more worth 
 than large wealth or far- spreading empire. We 
 have not to tread a path in which we have no pre- 
 cursors. Far as the eye can reach the road which 
 we have to traverse is crowded with beckoning 
 forms, as though the sepulchres gave up their host 
 of worthies, that we might be animated by the 
 view of the victorious throng. 
 
298 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 There is here a new witness for the Bible, a 
 witness accessible to the meanest, the witness 
 of happy lives and triumphant deaths. The very 
 peasant masters and rejoices in this evidence. 
 The histories of good men find their way into 
 his hamlet ; and even in the village church-yard 
 sleep some whose righteousness will be long had 
 in remembrance. And knowing, as he does, that 
 those, whose bright names thus hallow the annals 
 whether of his country or his valley, were M ac- 
 ceptable to God, and approved by men," through 
 simply submitting themselves to the guidance of 
 Scripture ; that they were Bible precepts which 
 made them the example and blessing of their fel- 
 lows, and Bible promises which nerved them for 
 victory over sorrow and death — has he not a no- 
 ble evidence on the side of Scripture, an evidence 
 against which the taunts of scepticism are direct- 
 ed without effect, an evidence which augments 
 with every piece of christian biography that comes 
 into his possession, and with every instance of 
 christian consistency that comes under his ob- 
 servation % 
 
 And what he thus reads, acts, on every account, 
 as a stimulus to his own faith and stedfastness. 
 The registered experience of those who have 
 gone before, encourages him to expect the same 
 mercies from the same God. He kindles as he 
 reads their story. Their memory rouses him. He 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 299 
 
 asks the mantle of the ascending prophet, that 
 he may divide with it the waters which had be- 
 fore owned its power. Thus what he has been 
 taught by the experience of others confirms his 
 diligence and animates his hope. 
 
 14-3. Inequality of worldly Condition. 
 
 Of how much beauty should we strip the Gos- 
 pel, if we stripped the world of poverty! Its 
 graces are cradled, so to speak, in the uneven- 
 ness and diversity of human estate. If I turn, for 
 example, to faith, it will be conceded on all hands 
 that the unequal distribution of the good things 
 of this life is calculated to occasion perplexity to 
 the pious, and that there is a difficulty of no 
 slight dimensions, in reconciling the varieties of 
 mortal allotments with the rigid equity of God's 
 moral government. We can master the difficulty 
 by no other process, save that of referring to the 
 season when all the concerns of the universe shall 
 be wound up, and when, by a most august deve- 
 lopment, the Judge, who sits on the great white 
 throne, shall unravel the secrecies of every dis- 
 pensation. But it is the province of faith, and 
 that, too, of faith when in the keenest exercise, 
 thus to meet the discrepancies of the present by 
 a bold appeal to the decisions of the future. And 
 if it should come to pass that there were no dis- 
 crepancies, which would be comparatively effect- 
 
300 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ed if the poor ceased from amongst us ; then who 
 perceives not that this province of faith would 
 be sensibly circumscribed 1 The problem with 
 which it is now most arduous to grapple, and by 
 the grappling with which faith is upheld in its vi- 
 gor-the problem, wherefore does a merciful Crea- 
 tor leave in wretched destitution so many of his 
 creatures — this would be necessarily taken out of 
 our investigation — we should be girt about with 
 the appearance of equable dealings in this life, 
 and should seldom, therefore, be thrown for expla- 
 nations on the mysteries of the next. And I know 
 not what consequence can be more evident, than 
 that a huge field would thus be closed against the 
 exercise of faith, a field which is formed in its 
 length and in its breadth out of verification of 
 the fact, that " the* poor we have always with us." 
 But yet further. If there were to be no longer 
 any poor, then it is evident that each one amongst 
 us would be in possession of a kind of moral cer- 
 tainty that he should never become poor. Pover- 
 ty would be removed from the number of possible 
 human conditions, and there would be an end at 
 once to those incessant and tremendous fluctua- 
 tions which oftentimes dash the prosperous on the 
 rocks and the quicksands. But now mark how, 
 with the departure of the risk of adversity, would 
 depart also the meekness of our dependance on 
 the Almighty. We might instantly remove one 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 301 
 
 petition from our prayers, " give us this day our 
 daily bread." K we were secure against poverty, 
 which we should be if poverty had ceased from 
 the earth, there would be something of mockery 
 in soliciting supplies, whose continuance was 
 matter' of cefrtainty ,• and thus, by placing man 
 out of the reach of destitution, you would go far 
 to annihilate all those motives to simple reliance 
 which are furnished by the vacillations of hu- 
 man condition ; you would destroy that liveliness 
 which is now the result of momentary exercise : 
 and we once more contend, that for the delicacy 
 of its minute, just as well as for the magnificence 
 of its more extended, operations, faith is mainly 
 indebted to the fact, that " the poor we have al- 
 ways with us." 
 
 144. " The rich and the poor meet together" 
 
 There are obvious ends, which the continuance 
 of poverty hath subserved. Let me premise, that 
 although there is a broad line of demarcation 
 separating the richer from the poorer classes of 
 society, the points of similarity are vastly more 
 numerous than the points of distinction. We are 
 told in the book of Proverbs, that " the rich and 
 poor meet together, the Lord is the Maker of 
 them alL" Where is it, I pray you, that they thus 
 meet 1 Descended from one common ancestor, 
 the rich and poor meet before Goi\ on the wide 
 26 
 
302 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 level of total apostasy. This may be a hard doc- 
 trine, but nevertheless I would not that the ear 
 should turn away from its truth. Intellect doth 
 sever between man and man, and so doth learn- 
 ing, and outward honor, and earthly fortune, and 
 there may appear no intimate link of association 
 connecting the possessors of lofty genius with 
 the mass of dull and common-place spirits, or 
 binding together the great and the small, the ca- 
 ressed and the despised, the applauded and the 
 scorned : but never yet have the dreams of revo- 
 lutionary enthusiasm assigned so perfect a level 
 to the face of human society, as that upon which 
 its several members do actually meet, even the 
 level of original sin, — the level of a total incapa- 
 city to ward off condemnation. Aliens from God, 
 and outcasts from the light of his favor, there is 
 no distinction between us as to the moral position 
 which we naturally occupy ; but the rich man and 
 the poor man share alike, the one not more and 
 the other not less, in the ruin which hath rolled 
 as a deluge over our earth. 
 
 145. Existence of Poverty promotive of 
 social Virtues. 
 
 The distinction of society into the poor and 
 rich, introduces a large class of relative duties, 
 which would have no existence, if " the poor were 
 not always amongst us." It cannot be called an 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 303 
 
 overcharged picture, if I declare that the remo- 
 val of poverty would go far towards debasing and 
 uncivilizing Christendom ; and that a sudden and 
 uniform distribution of wealth would throw us 
 centuries back in the march of moral improve- 
 ment. The great beauty of the existing state of 
 things is, that men are dependent one upon the 
 other, and that occasions perpetually present 
 themselves which call into exercise the charities 
 of life. We need only remind you of the native 
 selfishness of the human heart, a selfishness which 
 is never completely eradicated, but which, after 
 years of patient resistance, will creep in and de- 
 form the most disinterested generosity. And we 
 ask you whether, — so far at least as our arithme- 
 tic is capable of computing, — this selfishness 
 would not have reigned well nigh unmolested, 
 had the world been quite cleared of spectacles of 
 destitution, and if each man had been left with- 
 out calls to assist his brethren, seeing that his 
 brethren were in possession of advantages setting 
 them free from all need of assistance 1 Accord- 
 - ing to the present constitution, men are necessa- 
 rily brought into collision with distress ; and the 
 effect of the contact is to soften down those as- 
 perities which deform the natural character, and 
 to plane away that ruggedness which marks the 
 surface of the untrodden rock. But if there had 
 been no physical wretchedness with which such 
 
304 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 collision could take place, then it appears evident 
 that selfishness would have been left to grow up 
 into a giant stature, and that the granite of the 
 soul, which, though hard, may be chiselled, would 
 have turned into adamant, and defied all impres- 
 sions. 
 
 Let the poor be no longer amongst us, and you 
 dry up, so far as we can judge, the scanty foun- 
 tains of sympathy which still bubble in the de- 
 Bert. By removing exciting causes of compassion, 
 you would virtually sweep away all kindliness 
 from the earth; and by making the children *of 
 men independent of each other, you would wrap 
 up every one in his own passions and his own pur- 
 suits, and send him out to be alone in a multitude, 
 and thus reduce the creatures of the same species 
 into so many centres of repulsion, scornfully with- 
 standing the approaches of companionship. The 
 relative duties of which poverty is the parent, 
 are those whose discharge is most humanizing to 
 the rich, and at the same time most edifyin'g to 
 the poor. The wealthier classes of society are 
 naturally tempted to look down upon the poorer, 
 and the poorer are as naturally tempted to envy 
 the wealthier ; so that the distinctions of circum- 
 stances make way for the trial of humility in one 
 ease and of contentment in the other. But if 
 there be truth in this reasoning ; if there be a di- 
 rect tendency in the mixture of various c.ondi- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 305 
 
 tions to smoothing the roughness of the human 
 spirit, and to the cherishing of virtues most es- 
 sentia] to our well-being ; then may we not once 
 more call upon ypu to admire the wisdom of the 
 Almighty's dispensations, inasmuch as it is ap- 
 pointed by the purposes of heaven, that we 
 should "have the poor always amongst usl" 
 
 14-6. Pious Poverty, 
 
 The spectacle which is most calculated to ar- 
 rest us, and to fill the vision with touching deli- 
 neations of Deity, is that of earthly destitution 
 gilded by the sunshine of celestial consolation — 
 the spectacle of a child of want and misfortune, 
 laden with all those ills which were bequeathed 
 to man by a rebellious ancestry, and nevertheless 
 sustained by so elastic and unearthly a vigor, 
 that he can walk cheerily through the midst of 
 trouble, and maintain a deep and rich tranquillity 
 whilst the hurricane is beating furiously upon 
 him% But, comparatively, there could be no such 
 spectacle if there came an end to the appoint- 
 ment, that the poor we have always with us. 
 Take away poverty, and a veil is thrown over 
 the perfections of the Godhead ; for we could 
 not know our Maker in the fullness of his com- 
 passions, if we knew him not as a helper in the 
 extremities of mortal desertion. It is given as 
 one of the attestations of the Messiahship of 
 26* 
 
306 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Jesus, that " unto the poor the Gospel was 
 preached;" and we conclude from this, as well 
 as from the features of the Gospel in itself, that 
 there is a peculiar adaptation in the messages of 
 the Bible to the circumstances of those who have 
 hut little of this world's goods. And what need is 
 there of argument to prove, that never does this 
 Gospel put on an aspect of greater loveliness, 
 than when it addresses itself to the outcast and 
 the destitute 1 One might almost have thought 
 that it had been framed for the express purpose 
 of ministering to the happiness of the poor. Unto 
 the men, indeed, of every station it delivers pre- 
 cepts which may regulate their duties, and pro- 
 mises which may nerve them to their discharge ; 
 but then it is that the Gospel appears under its 
 most radiant form, when it enters the hovel of 
 the peasant, and lights up that hovel with glad- 
 ness, and fans the cheek of the sick man with 
 angels' wings, and causes the crust of bread and 
 the cruse of water to be received as a banquet 
 of luxury, and brings into the wretched chamber 
 such a retinue of ministering* spirits, that he 
 whom his fellow-men have loathed and abandon- 
 ed, rises into the dignity of a being whom the 
 Almighty delighted to honor. Oh, verily, the 
 brilliant triumph of the Gospel of Jesus of Na- 
 zareth is won from the career of a man who pro- 
 fesses godliness in poverty. The world despises 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 307 
 
 him, but lie is lifted above the world, and sits in 
 heavenly places with Christ : he has none of the 
 treasures of the earth, but the pearl of great price 
 he hath • made his own : hunger and thirst he 
 may be compelled to endure, but there is hidden 
 manna of which he eats, and tjiere are living 
 streams of which he drinks : he is worn down 
 by perpetual toil, and yet he hath already enter- 
 ed into rest, — "persecuted, but not forsaken; 
 cast down, but not destroyed." Make poverty as 
 hideous as it can ever be made by the concentra- 
 tion of a hundred woes, — let it be a torn, and de- 
 graded, and scorned, and reviled estate, — still 
 can he be poor of whom it. is said, that " all 
 things are his, — the world, or life, or death, or 
 things present, or things to come, — all are his, 
 for he is Christ's, and Christ is God's 1" We call 
 this the brilliant triumph of the Gospel of Christ ; 
 a triumph from the study of which may be ga- 
 thered the finest lessons of Christianity ; a tri- 
 umph over all with which it is hardest for reli- 
 gion to grapple. 
 
 147. Spiritual advantages of P overt y. 
 
 God has so manifested a tender and impartial 
 concern for his creatures, as to have thrown ad- 
 vantages round poverty which may well be said 
 to counterbalance its disadvantages. It is un- 
 questionable that the condition of a poor man is 
 
SOS BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 more favorable than that of a rich to the recep- 
 tion of Christ. Had not this been matter-of-fact, 
 the Redeemer would never have pronounced it 
 " easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, 
 than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of 
 heaven." There is in poverty what we may al- 
 most call a natural tendency to the leading men 
 to dependence on God, and faith in his promises. 
 On the other hand, there is in wealth just as na- 
 tural a tendency to the production of a spirit of 
 haughty and infidel independence. The poor 
 man, harassed with difficulties in earning a scanty 
 subsistence for himself and his household, will 
 have a readier ear for tidings of a bright home 
 beyond the grave, than the rich man, who, lapped 
 in luxury, can imagine nothing more delightful 
 than the unbroken continuance of present enjoy- 
 ments. Poverty, in short, is a humiliating and 
 depressing thing 5 whilst affluence nurtures pride 
 and elation of mind. And in proportion, there- 
 fore, as all which has kinsmanship with humility 
 is favorable to piety, all which has kinsmanship 
 with haughtiness unfavorable, we may fairly 
 argue that the poor man has an advantage over 
 the rich, considering them both as appointed to 
 immortality. 
 
 But not only has God thus mercifully introdu- 
 ced a kind of natural counterpoise to the allowed 
 evils of poverty: in the institution of a method 
 
EIELE THOUGHT*, 309 
 
 of redemption, he may specially be said to have 
 prepared for the mean and the destitute. There 
 is nothing in the prescribed duties of religion, 
 which, in the least degree, requires that a man 
 should be a man of learning or leisure. We take 
 the husbandman at his plough, or the manufactu- 
 rer at his loom ; and we can tell him, that, whilst 
 he goes on, uninterruptedly, with his daily toil, 
 the grand business of his soul's salvation may 
 advance with an uniform march. We do not re- 
 quire that he should relax in his industry, or ab- 
 stract some hours from usual occupations, in 
 order to learn a -complicated plan, and study a 
 scheme which demands time and intellect for its 
 niastery. The Gospel message is so exquisitely 
 simple, the sum and substance of truth may be so 
 gathered into brief and easily understood sen- 
 tences, that all which it is absolutely necessary 
 to know may be told in a minute, and borne 
 about with him by the laborer in the field, or the 
 mariner on the waters, or the traveler in tho 
 most distant regions of the earth. We reckon it 
 far the most wonderful feature in the Bible, that, 
 whilst presenting a sphere for the longest and 
 most pains-taking research — exhibiting heights 
 which no soarings of imagination can scale, and 
 depths which no fathoming-line of intellect can 
 explore — it sets forth the way of salvation with 
 so much of unadorned plainness, that it may as 
 
310 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 readily be understood by the child or the peasant, 
 as by the full-grown man or the deep-read philo- 
 sopher. Who will keep back the tribute of ac- 
 knowledgment that God, of his goodness, has 
 prepared for the poor 1 
 
 148. Industry. 
 
 It is true that the appointment, M in the sweat 
 of thy face shalt thou eat bread, " was part of the 
 original malediction which apostasy caused to be 
 breathed over this creation. But it is equally true 
 that labor was God's ordinance^ whilst man kept 
 unsullied his loyalty, and that it was not bound 
 upon our race as altogether a consequence on 
 transgression. We may not believe that in para- 
 dise labor could ever have been wearisome ; but 
 we know that, from the first, labor was actually 
 man's business. We are told, in the book of Gene- 
 sis, that when the Lord God had planted the gar- 
 den, and fashioned man after his own image, r ' lie 
 took the man and put him into the garden, to dress 
 it, and to keep it." There was no curse upon the 
 ground ; anct, therefore, we suppose not that it 
 required, ere it would give forth a produce, the 
 processes of a diligent husbandry. But, never- 
 theless, it is clear that the resting of God's first 
 blessing on the soil put riot aside ail necessity of 
 culture. Man was a laborer from the beginning : 
 God's earliest ordinance appearing to have been, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. Sll 
 
 that man should not be an idler. So that whilst 
 we admit that all that painfulness and exhaustion 
 which waits ordinarily upon human occupation, 
 must be traced up to disobedience as a parent, we 
 contend that employment is distinctly God's in- 
 stitution for mankind, no reference whatsoever 
 being made to the innocence or guiltiness of tbo 
 race. God sanctified the seventh day as a day of 
 rest, before Adam disobeyed, and thus marked 
 out six days as days of labor and employment, 
 before sin sowed the seeds of the thorn and the 
 thistle. We may suppose, that, previously to tbo 
 fall, labor, so to speak, was just one department 
 of piety ; and that in tilling the ground, or watch- 
 ing the herds, man was as religiously occupied as 
 when communing with God in distinct acts of de- 
 votion. The great and fatal alteration which sin 
 has introduced into labor, is, that a wide separa.- 
 tion has been made between temporal business 
 and spiritual ; so that, whilst engaged in provid- 
 ing for the body, we seem wholly detached from 
 paying attention to the concerns of the soul. But 
 we hold it of first-rate importance to teach men 
 that this separation is of their own making, and 
 not of God's appointing. God ordained labor : 
 and God also ordained that man's great business 
 on earth should be to secure his soul's safety 
 through eternity. And unless, therefore, we ad- 
 mit that the work of the soul's salvation may be 
 
312 BIBLE THOUGHTS, 
 
 actually advanced by, and through, our worldly 
 occupations, we set one ordinance of God against 
 another, and represent ourselves as impeded, by 
 the appointments of our Maker, in the very busi- 
 ness most pressed on our performance. The mat- 
 ter-of-fact is, that God may as truly be served by 
 the husbandman whilst ploughing up his ground, 
 and by the manufacturer whilst toiling at his loom, 
 and by the merchant whilst engaged in his com- 
 merce, as he can be by any of these men when 
 gathered by the Sabbath-bell to the solemn as- 
 sembly. It is a perfect libel on religion, to repre- 
 sent the honest trades of mankind as aught else 
 but the various methods in which God may be 
 honored and obeyed. We do not merely mean 
 that worldly occupations may be followed with- 
 out harm done to the soul. This would be no 
 vindication of God's ordinance of labor. We 
 mean that they may be followed with benefit to 
 the soul. When God led the eastern magi to 
 Christ, he led them by a star. He attacked them, 
 so to speak, through the avenue of their profes- 
 sion. Their great employment was that of observ- 
 ing the heavenly bodies. And God sanctified their 
 astronomy. He might have taught them by other 
 methods which seem to us more direct. But it 
 pleased him to put honor on their occupation, 
 and to write his lessons in that glittering alpha- 
 bet with which their studies had made them es- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 313 
 
 pecially conversant. We believe, in like manner, 
 that if men went to their daily employments with 
 something of the temper which they bring to the 
 ordinances of grace, expecting to receive messa- 
 ges from God through trade, and through labor, 
 as well as through preaching and a communion, 
 there would be a vast advancing towards spiritual 
 excellence ; and men's experience would be, that 
 the Almighty can bring him into acquaintance 
 with himself, by the ploughshare, and the balances, 
 and the cargo, no less than by the sermon, and 
 the closet-exercises, and the public devotions. 
 There would be an anticipation of the glorious 
 season, sketched out by prophecy, when- " there 
 shall be upon the bells of the horses, holiness un- 
 to the Lord, and the pots in the Lord's house 
 shall be like the bowls before the altar." 1 
 
 We give this as our belief ; and we advance as 
 our reason, the fact that labor is the ordinance of 
 God. We will not have industry set against piety ; 
 as though the little time which men can snatch 
 from secular engagements were the only time 
 which they can give to their Maker. They may 
 give all to God, and, nevertheless, be compelled to 
 rise early, and late take rest, in order to earn a 
 scanty subsistence. And we think, that, in placing 
 an apostle under the necessity of laboring for 
 bread, God assigned precisely that character to in- 
 dustry for which we contend. There is no incon- 
 27 
 
314 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 sistency between the being a devoted servant of 
 Christ, and the following assiduously a toilsome 
 occupation. At the least, there is a registered de- 
 monstration in the case of St. Paul, that unwearied 
 industry — for he elsewhere declares that he la- 
 bored day and night — may consist with pre-emi- 
 nent piety ; and that, so far from the pressure of 
 secular employment being a valid excuse for slow 
 progress in godliness, a man may have to strug- 
 gle against absolute pauperism, and yet grow, 
 every moment, a more admirable christian. Oh, 
 there is something in this representation of the 
 honor put by God upon industry, which should 
 tell powerfully on the feelings of those to whom 
 life is one long striving for the means of subsis- 
 tence. It were as nothing to tell men, you may 
 be good christians in spite of your engrossing 
 employments. The noble truth is, that these em- 
 ployments may be so many helpers on of reli- 
 gion ; and that, in place of serving as leaden 
 weights, which retard a disciple in his celestial 
 career, they may be as the well-plumed wings, 
 accelerating gloriously the onward progress. In 
 laboring to support himself, St. Paul labored to 
 advance Christ's cause. And though there be 
 not always the same well-defined connection be- 
 tween our toils for a livelihood and the interests 
 of religion, yet, let a connection be practically 
 sought after, and it will always be practically 
 
BIBLE THOUGHia. 315 
 
 found. The case exists not in which, after mak- 
 ing it obligatory on a man that he work for his 
 bread, God has not arranged, that, in thus work- 
 ing, he may work also for the well-being of his 
 soul. If ever, therefore, we met with an indivi- 
 dual who pleaded that there were already so ma- 
 ny calls upon his time that he could not find lei- 
 sure to give heed to religion, we should not im- 
 mediately bear down upon him with the charge 
 — though it might be a just one — of an undue 
 pursuit of the things of this earth. We should 
 only require of him to show that his employ- 
 ments were Scripturally lawful, both in nature 
 and intenSeness. We should then meet him, at 
 once, on the ground of this lawfulness. We 
 should tell him that employments, in place of be- 
 ing excuses for his not serving God, were ap- 
 pointed as instruments by which he might serve 
 Him ; and that, consequently, it was only because 
 he had practically dissolved a partnership which 
 the Almighty had formed, the partnership be- 
 tween industry and piety, that he was driving on, 
 with a reckless speed, to a disastrous and despe- 
 rate bankruptcy. And if he pretended to doubt 
 that piety and industry have thus been associated 
 by God, we would take him with us into the work- 
 chamber of St. Paul ; and there showing him the 
 apostle toiling against want, and yet, in toiling, 
 serving Christ Jesus — subsisting by his artisan- 
 
316 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 ship, and yet feeding the zeal of his soul by and 
 through his labors for the support of his body— 
 we would tell the questioner, that God thus caus- 
 ed a mighty specimen to be given of an institut- 
 ed connection between secular employment and 
 spiritual improvement ; and whilst we send him 
 to the writings of St. Paul that he may learn what 
 it is to be industriously religious, we send him to 
 the tent-making of St. Paul that he may learn 
 what it is to be religiously industrious. 
 
 149. Popular Education. 
 
 There have been times when it was necessary 
 to debate and demonstrate the duty of providing 
 instruction for the children of the poor. Such 
 times are gone. We have now no choice. He 
 were as wise a man who should think to roll 
 back the Atlantic, as he who would stay the ad- 
 vancing tide of intelligence which is pressing 
 through the land. You cannot if you would. 
 And I do not believe there is one who would lift a 
 finger in so unrighteous an enterprise. Here, if 
 any where, a man may glory in that general out- 
 stretching of the human mind which is charac- 
 teristic of the times ; and rejoice in the fact, that 
 in knowledge, and mental developement, the 
 poorer classes are following so close on the 
 wealthier, that these latter must go onward with 
 a vigorous stride, if they would not be quickly 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 317 
 
 overtaken. Knowledge is a general and commu- 
 nicative thing, and jealousy at its progress is 
 ordinarily the index of its wants. You would not, 
 if you could, arrest the progress of education. 
 But you may provide that the education shall be 
 christian education. You may thus insure that 
 education shall be a blessing, not a curse ; and 
 save the land from being covered with that wildest 
 and most unmanageable of all populations, a po- 
 pulation mighty alike in intellect and ungodli- 
 ness, a population that knows every thing but 
 God, emancipated from all ignorance but that 
 which is sure to breed the worst lawlessness, ig- 
 norance of the duties of the religion of Christ. 
 An uneducated population may be degraded; a 
 population educated, but not in righteousness, 
 will be ungovernable. The one may be slaves, 
 the other must be tyrants. 
 
 150. Afflictions of the Righteous. 
 
 If there be one season at which, more than at 
 another, the righteous feel the worth of revela- 
 tion, and the blessedness of obeying its precepts, 
 the season must be that of danger and trouble. 
 Whether the danger and trouble be public or do- 
 mestic ; whether it be his country, or only his 
 own household, over which calamity hangs ; the 
 man of piety finds a consolation in religion 
 which makes him more than ever prize the re- 
 27* 
 
318 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 vealed will of God. There is a beauty and energy 
 in the Bible which nothing but affliction can bring 
 out and display ; and men know comparatively 
 little of the preciousness of scriptural promises, 
 and the magnificence of scriptural hopes, until 
 placed in circumstances of difficulty and distress. 
 There are always one or two stations from which 
 you gain the best view of a noble and diversified 
 landscape ; and it is when M constrained to dwell 
 with Meshech, and to have our habitation among 
 the tents of Kedar," that our gaze includes most 
 of what is glorious and brilliant in the scheme 
 of divine mercy. It is the promise of God in the 
 91st Psalm — a promise addressed to every one 
 who makes God his trust, — " I will be with him 
 in trouble. " But when or where is God not with 
 us 1 Whither shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither 
 shall I flee from thy presence 1 Indeed we well 
 know that every where is the universe full of 
 Deity, and that at no time, and in no place, can 
 we be at a distance from God; and yet, as though 
 in the day of darkness and disaster, the Omnipre- 
 sent could so redouble his presence, that every 
 other day should be, in comparison, one of ab- 
 sence, the promise is, w I will be with him in 
 trouble." And the promise is so fulfilled in the 
 experience of the righteous, that they will own 
 their sorrows to have been far more than com- 
 pensated by the consolations afforded in the hour 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 319 
 
 of tribulation, so that it would have been clearly 
 for their loss to have escaped their trials. They 
 are gainers by their troubles — for God removes 
 no good without leaving a greater ; if he take 
 away an earthly friend, he gives them more of 
 himself. 
 
 151. Consolations of Religion on the loss of 
 Friends. 
 
 Let us take the case of most frequent occur- 
 rence, but of which frequency diminishes nothing 
 of the bitterness. We mean the case of the loss 
 of friends, the case in which death makes way 
 into a family, and carries off one of the most be- 
 loved of its members. It is night, deep night, in 
 a household, whensoever this occurs. When the 
 loss is of another kind, it may admit of repair. 
 Property may be injured, some cherished plan 
 may be frustrated — but industry may be again 
 successful, and hope may fix its eye on other ob- 
 jects. But when those whom we love best die, 
 there is no comfort of this sort with which we 
 can be comforted. For a time, at least, the loss 
 seems irreparable ; so that, though the wounded 
 sensibilities may afterwards be healed, and even 
 turn to the living as they turned to the dead, yet, 
 whilst the calamity is fresh, we repulse, as inju- 
 rious, the thought that the void in our affections 
 can ever be filled, and are persuaded that the 
 
320 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 blank in the domestic group can be occupied bj 
 nothing but the hallowed memory of the buried. 
 It is therefore night in the household, darkness, 
 a darkness that may be felt. And philosophy 
 comes in, with its well-meant but idle endeavors 
 , to console those who sit in this darkness. It can 
 speak of the unavoidableness of death, of the duty 
 of bearing with manly fortitude what cannot be 
 escaped, of the injuriousness of excessive grief; 
 and it may even hazard a conjecture of reunion 
 in some world beyond the grave. And pleasure 
 approaches with its allurements and fascinations, 
 offering to cheat the mind into forgetfulness, and 
 wile the heart from its sadness. But neither 
 philosophy nor pleasure can avail any thing in 
 the chamber of death — the taper of the one is too 
 faint for so oppressive a gloom, and the torch of 
 the other burns sickly in so unwonted an atmos- 
 phere. Is then the darkness such that those whom 
 it envelopes are incapable of being comforted % 
 Oh, not so. There may be those amongst your- 
 selves who can testify, that, even in a night so 
 dreary and desolate, there is a source whence 
 consolation may be drawn. The promises of 
 Scripture are never more strikingly fulfilled than 
 when death has made an inroad, and taken away, 
 at a stroke, some object of deep love. Indeed it 
 is God's own word to the believer, w I will be 
 with him in trouble " — as though that presence, 
 
BIBL.Y THOUGHTS. 321 
 
 which can never be withdrawn, then became more 
 real and intense. 
 
 What are we to say of cases which continually- 
 present themselves to the parochial minister 1 
 He enters a house, whose darkened windows 
 proclaim that one of its inmates is stretched out 
 a corpse. He finds that it is the fairest and dear- 
 est whom death has made his prey, and that the 
 blow has fallen where sure to be most deeply 
 felt. And he is prepared for the burst of bitter 
 sorrow. He knows that the heart, when most pu- 
 rified by grace, is made of feeling stuff; for grace, 
 which removes the heart of stone, and substitutes 
 that of flesh, will refine, rather than extinguish, 
 human sensibilities. But what. words does he hear 
 from lips whence nothing but lamentation might 
 have been expected to issue 1 " The Lord gave, 
 and the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the 
 name of the Lord." The mother will rise up 
 from the side of her pale still child ; and though 
 on the cheek of that child (alas, never again to 
 be warm with affection) there are tears which 
 show how a parent's grief has overflowed, she 
 will break into the exclamation of the Psalmist, 
 "I will sing of mercy and judgment, unto thee, 
 O Lord, will I sing." And when the slow wind- 
 ings of the funeral procession are seen, and the 
 minister advances to meet the train, and pours 
 forth the rich and inspiriting words, ff I am the 
 
322 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Resurrection and the Life ; he that believeth in 
 me, though he were dead, yet shall he live " — is it 
 only the low murmur of suppressed anguish by 
 which he is answered 1 can he not feel that there 
 are those in the group whose hearts bound at the 
 magnificent announcement 1 and, as he looks at 
 the mourners, does he not gather, from the up- 
 lifted eye and the moving lip, that there is one at 
 least who is triumphing in the fulfillment of the 
 prediction, " O death, I will be thy plagues ; O 
 grave, I will be thy destruction T' 
 
 And what are we to say to these things 1 what 
 but that, in the deepest moral darkness, there can 
 be music, music which sounds softer and sweeter 
 than by day ; and that, when the instruments of 
 human melody are broken, there is a hand which 
 can sweep the heart-strings and wake the notes of 
 praise 1 Yes, philosophy can communicate no 
 comfort to the afflicted ; it may enter where all is 
 night j but it leaves what it found, even weeping 
 and wailing. And pleasure may take the lyre, 
 whose strains have often seduced and enchanted ; 
 but the worn and wearied spirit has no ear, in the 
 gloom, for what sounded magically, when a thou- 
 sand lights were blazing. But religion, faith in 
 the promises of that God who is the Husband of 
 the widow and the Father of the fatherless, this 
 can cause the sorrowing to be glad in the midst 
 of their sorrow. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS, 323 
 
 152. Persecution. 
 
 Persecution, in its most terrific forms, is only 
 the development of a principle which must un- 
 avoidably exist, until either Christianity or human 
 nature be altered. There is a necessary repug - 
 nance between Christianity and human nature. 
 The two cannot be amalgamated, One must be 
 changed before it will combine with the other. 
 And we fear that this is, in a degree, an over« 
 looked truth, and that men are disposed to assign 
 persecution to local or temporary causes. But 
 we wish you to be clear on the fact, that " the 
 offence of the cross" has not ceased, and cannot 
 cease. We readily allow that the form, under 
 which the hatred manifests itself, will be sensibly 
 affected by the civilization and intelligence of 
 the age. In days of an imperfect refinement and 
 a scanty literature, you will find this hatred un- 
 sheathing the sword and lighting the pile : but 
 when human society is at a high point of polish 
 and knowledge, and the principles of religious 
 toleration are well understood, there is perhaps, 
 comparatively, small likelihood that savage vio- 
 lence will be the engine employed against godli- 
 ness. Yet there are a hundred batteries which 
 may and will be opened upon the righteous. The 
 follower of Christ must calculate on many sneers, 
 and much reviling. He must look to meet often 
 with coldness and contempt, harder of endurance 
 
324- BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 than many forms of martyrdom ; for the courage 
 which could march to the stake may be daunted 
 by a laugh. And, frequently, the opposition as- 
 sumes a more decided shape. The parent will act 
 harshly towards the child ; the superior with- 
 draw his countenance from the dependent ; and 
 all because of a giving heed to the directions of 
 Scripture. Religion, as though it were rebellion, 
 alienates the affections, and alters the wills, of 
 fathers and guardians. So that we tell an indivi- 
 dual that he blinds himself to plain matters of 
 fact, if he espouse the opinion that the apostle's 
 words applied only to the first ages of Christi- 
 anity, " all that will live godly in Christ Jesus 
 shall suffer persecution." To live godly in Christ 
 Jesus, is to have put enmity between yourselves 
 and the seed of the serpent ; and you may be as- 
 sured, that unless this enmity be nominal on 
 your side, it will manifest itself by acts on the 
 other. 
 
 153. Trials of the Christian. 
 
 It is our nature to rejoice when all within and 
 without is undisturbed ; the miracle is to " re- 
 joice in tribulation ;" and this miracle is conti- 
 nually wrought as the believer presses through 
 the wilderness. The harp of the human spirit 
 never yields such sweet music, as when its frame- 
 work is most shattered, and its strings are most 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 325 
 
 torn. Then it is, when the world pronounces the 
 instrument useless, and man would put it away 
 as incapable of melody, that the finger of God 
 delights in touching it, and draws from it a fine 
 swell of harmony. Come night, come calamity, 
 come affliction. God still says to his people, a9 
 be said to the Jews, when expecting the irrup- 
 tion of the Assyrian, ,f ye shall have a song, as 
 in the night.'* 
 
 154. Death-bed of the Righteous. 
 
 We look not, indeed, always for triumph and 
 rapture on the death-beds of the righteous. We 
 hold it to be wrong to expect, necessarily, en- 
 couragement for ourselves from good men in the 
 act of dissolution. They require encouragement. 
 Christ, when in his agony, did not strengthen 
 others: he needed an angel to strengthen himself. 
 But if there be not ecstacy, there is that com- 
 posedness, in departing believers, which shows 
 that " the everlasting arms " are under them and 
 around them. It is a beautiful thing to see a 
 Christian die. The confession, whilst there is 
 strength to articulate, that God is faithful to his 
 promises ; the faint pressure of the hand, giving 
 the same testimony when the tongue can no 
 longer do its office ; the motion of the lips, inducing 
 you to bend down, so that you catch broken syl- 
 lables of expressions such as this, " come, Lord 
 28 
 
326 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Jesus, come quickly ;" these make the chambex 
 in which the righteous die one of the most privi- 
 leged scenes upon earth ; and he who can be pre- 
 sent, and gather no assurance that death is fet- 
 tered and manacled, even whilst grasping the 
 believer, must be either inaccessible to moral 
 evidence, or insensible to the most heart-touch- 
 ing appeal. 
 
 155. Parents. 
 
 A minister, if he would be faithful to his call- 
 ing, must mark the signs of the times, and endea- 
 vor so to shape his addresses that they may meet, 
 and expose, the prominent errors. Now we think 
 that, in our own day, there is a strong disposi- 
 tion to put aside the Bible, and to seek out other 
 agency for accomplishing results which God hath 
 appointed it to effect. We fear, for example, that 
 the intellectual benefits of Scriptural knowledge 
 are well-nigh entirely overlooked \ and that, in 
 the efforts to raise the standard of mind, there is 
 little or no recognition of the mighty principle, 
 that the Bible outweighs ten thousand encyclo 
 paedias. And we are fearful on your account, lest 
 something of this national substitution of human 
 literature for divine should gain footing in your 
 households. We fear lest, in the business of edu- 
 cation, you should separate broadly that teaching 
 which has to do with the salvation of the soul, 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 327 
 
 from that which has to do with the improvement 
 of the mind. We refer to this point, hecause we 
 think ourselves bound, by the vows of our calling, 
 to take every opportunity of stating the duties 
 which devolve on you as parents or guardians. 
 There is a sense in which it may be affirmed that 
 souls, those mysterious and imperishable things, 
 are given into the custody of every father of a 
 family. And we are persuaded that if there be 
 one thing on this earth which draws, more than 
 another, the sorrowing regards of the world of 
 spirits, it must be the system of education pursu- 
 ed by the generality of parents. The entering a 
 room gracefully is a vast deal more attended to 
 than the entering into heaven 5 and you would con- 
 clude that the grand thing for which God had sent 
 the child into the world, was that it might catch 
 the Italian accent, and be quite at home in every 
 note of the gamut. Christianity, indeed, is not at 
 variance with the elegancies of life : she can use 
 them as her handmaids, and give them a beauty 
 of which, out of her service, they are utterly des- 
 titute. We wage no war, therefore, with accom- 
 plishments, any more than with the solid acquire- 
 ments of a liberal education. We are only anx- 
 ious to press on you the necessity that ye make 
 religion the basis of your system. We admit, in 
 all its breadth, the truth of the saying, that know- 
 ledge is power. It is power — aye, a fatal and a 
 
328 BIBLE THOTTGHTS. 
 
 perilous. Neither the might of armies, nor the 
 scheming of politicians, avails any thing against 
 this power. The school-master is the grand en- 
 gine for revolutionizing a world. Let knowledge 
 be generally diffused, and the fear of God be kept 
 in the background, and you have done the same 
 for a country as if you had laid the gunpowder 
 under its every institution : there needs only the 
 igniting of a match, and the land shall be strew- 
 ed with the fragments of all that is glorious and 
 venerable. But, nevertheless, we would not have 
 knowledge chained up in the college and monas- 
 tery, because its arm is endowed with such sinew 
 and nerve. We would not put forth a finger to 
 uphold a system which we believe based on the 
 ignorance of a population. We only desire to 
 see knowledge of God advance as the vanguard 
 of the host of information. We are sure that an 
 intellectual must be a mighty peasantry. But we 
 are equally sure that an intellectual, and a god- 
 less, will demonstrate their might by the ease 
 with which they crush whatever most adorns and 
 elevates a nation. And in speaking to you indivi- 
 dually of your duties as parents, we would bring 
 into the family-circle the principles thus announc- 
 ed as applicable to the national. We want not to 
 set bounds to the amount of knowledge which 
 you strive to impart. But never let this remem- 
 brance be swept from your minds — that, to giv« 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 329 
 
 a child knowledge without endeavoring, at the 
 same time, to add to knowledge godliness, is to 
 do your best to throw the momentum of the giant 
 into the arm of the idiot ; to construct a ma- 
 chinery which may help to move a world, and to 
 leave out the spring which would ensure its mov- 
 ing it only towards God. We would have you shun, 
 even as you would the tampering with an immor- 
 tality deposited in your keeping, the imitating 
 what goes on in a thousand of the households of 
 a professedly christian neighborhood — the chil- 
 dren can pronounce well, and they can step well, 
 and they can play well ; the mother proudly ex- 
 hibits the specimens of proficiency in painting, 
 and the father dwells, with an air of delight, on 
 the progress made in Virgil and Homer — but if 
 you inquire how far these parents are providing 
 for their own in the things of eternity, why, the 
 children perhaps read a chapter occasionally on 
 a Sunday afternoon. And that ye may avoid the 
 mistake into which, as we think, the temper of 
 the times is but too likely to lead you, we would 
 have you learn, that, in educating your children 
 for the next life, you best educate them for the 
 present. We give it you as a truth made known 
 to us by God, and at the same time demonstrable 
 by reason, that, in going through the courses of 
 Bible-instruction, there is better mental disci- 
 pline, whether for a child or an adult, than in any 
 28* 
 
330 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 of the cleverly devised methods for opening- and 
 strengthening the faculties. We say not that the 
 study of Scripture should exclude other studies, 
 or be substituted for them. Natural philosophy 
 is not to be learned from Scripture nor general 
 history ; and we would not have such matters 
 neglected. But we say that Scriptural study 
 should be, at once, the ground-work and compa- 
 nion of every other ; and that the mind will ad- 
 vance, with the firmest and most dominant step, 
 into the various departments of knowledge, when 
 familiarized with the truths of revelation, and ac- 
 customed to walk their unlimited extent. If pa- 
 rents had no higher ambition than to make their 
 children intellectual, they would act most shrewd- 
 ly by acting as though desirous to make them re- 
 ligious. It is thus we apply our subject to those 
 amongst you who are parents or guardians. But 
 it applies to all. We call upon you all to observe, 
 that, in place of being beneath the notice of the 
 intellectual, the Bible is the great nourisher of 
 intellect. We require of you to treasure in your 
 minds, as an undeniable fact, that to care for the 
 soul is to cultivate the mind. We will not yield 
 the culture of the understanding to earthly hus- 
 bandmen. There are heavenly ministers who 
 water it with a choicer dew, and pour on it the 
 beams of a more brilliant sun, and prune its 
 branches with a kinder and more skillful hand. 
 
BII.LE THOTTGHTS. 331 
 
 We will not give up reason to stand always as a 
 priestess at the altars of human philosophy. She 
 hath a more majestic temple to tread, and more 
 beauteous robes wherein to walk, and incense 
 rarer and more fragrant to burn in golden censers. 
 She does well when exploring boldly God's visi- 
 ble works. She does better, when she meekly 
 submits to spiritual teaching, and sits, as a child, 
 at the Saviour's feet : for then shall she experi- 
 ence the truth, that " the entrance of God's words 
 giveth light and understanding." And, therefore, 
 be ye heedful — the young amongst you more es- 
 pecially — that ye be not ashamed of piety, as 
 though it argued a feeble capacity. Rather be 
 assured, forasmuch as revelation is the great 
 strengthener of reason, that the march of mind 
 which leaves the Bible in the rear is an advance, 
 like that of our first parents in Paradise, towards 
 knowledge, but, at the same time, towards death. 
 
 156. The Young. 
 
 I would speak affectionately to you who are in 
 the bloom of your days, and conjure you, " if 
 there be any virtue, and if there be any praise," 
 to " remember your Creator in the days of your 
 youth." Whilst you are still strangers to the se- 
 ductions of an ensnaring world, I would warn 
 you against the evils which will gird you round 
 when you go forth from the peaceful asylums of 
 
332 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 your childhood, and mix, as you unavoidably must, 
 with those who lie in wait to destroy the unwary. 
 I would tell you that there is no happiness but in 
 the fear of the Almighty ; that if you would so pass 
 through life as not to tremble and quail at the 
 approach of death, make it your morning and 
 your evening prayer, that the Holy Spirit may 
 take possession of your souls, and lead you so 
 to love the Lord Jesus in sincerity, that you may 
 not be allured from the holiness of religion by 
 any of the devices of a wicked generation. You 
 read of a monarch who wept as his countless ar- 
 my passed before him, staggered by the thought, 
 that yet a few years, and those stirring hosts 
 would lie motionless in the chambers of the grave. 
 Might not a christian minister weep over you, as 
 he gazes on the freshness of your days, and con- 
 siders that it is but too possible, that you may 
 hereafter give ear to the scorner and the seducer. 
 Thus might the buds of early promise be nipped ; 
 and it might come to pass, that you, the children, 
 it may be, of pious parents, over whose infancy a 
 godly father may have watched, and whose open^ 
 ing hours may have been guarded by the tender 
 solicitudes of a righteous mother, would entail 
 on yourselves a heritage of shame, and go down 
 at the judgment into the pit of the unbeliever 
 and the profligate. Let this warning word be re- 
 membered by you all : it is simple enough for the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 333 
 
 youngest, it is important enough for the eldest. 
 You cannot begin too soon to serve the Lord, but 
 you may easily put it off too long ; and the thing 
 which will be least regretted when you come to 
 die is, that you gave the first days of existence 
 to preparation for heaven. 
 
 157. Missions. 
 
 H you kept out of sight the more important 
 ends subserved by the disclosures of the Bible, 
 there would be no single gift for which men 
 etood so indebted to the Almighty as for the re- 
 velation of himself in the pages of Scripture. 
 The great engine of civilization is still the writ- 
 ten word of the Most High. And if you visit a 
 tribe of our race in the lowest depths of barba- 
 rism, and desire to bring up the debased crea- 
 tures, and place them on their just level in the 
 6cale of existence, it is not by the enactments of 
 earthly legislation, any more than by the tyran- 
 nizings of earthly might, that you may look to 
 bring speedily round the wished-for result. Tbfc 
 effective machinery is Christianity, and Christi- 
 anity alone. Propagate the tenets of this reli- 
 gion, as registered in the Bible, and a mighty re- 
 generation will go out over the face of the long- 
 degraded community. 
 
 We need hardly appeal, in proof of this asser- 
 tion, to the records of the effects of missionary 
 
334 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 enterprise. You are all aware, that, in many in- 
 stances, a great change has been wrought, by the 
 labors of faithful and self-denying men, on the 
 savage clans amongst which they have settled. 
 We omit, for the present, the incalculable advan- 
 tages consequent on the introduction of Christi- 
 anity, when another state of being is brought 
 into the account. We consider men simply with 
 respect to their sojourning upon earth j and we 
 contend that the revolution effected in temporal 
 affairs, should win, even from those who prize 
 not its disclosures in regard to eternal, the warm- 
 est admiration for the Bible. There has suc- 
 ceeded to lawlessness and violence the beautiful 
 scenery of good order and peace. The rude 
 beings, wont to wander to and fro, alternately the 
 prey and the scourge of neighboring tribes, have 
 settled down to the quiet occupations of industry ; 
 and, gathering themselves into villages, and ply- 
 ing the business of handicraft or agriculture, 
 have presented the aspect of a Well-disciplined 
 society in exchange for that of a roving and pi- 
 ratical horde. And when a district which has 
 heretofore, both morally and physically, been lit- 
 tle better than a desert, puts forth in all its out- 
 spread the tokens of a vigorous culture ; and the 
 Sabbath-bell summons from scattered cottages a 
 smiling population, linked together by friendship, 
 and happy in all the sweetness of domestic cha- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 335 
 
 rities ; why, the infidel must be something less 
 than a man, if, with all his contempt for the Bible 
 as a revelation from God, he refuse to admire 
 and esteem it as a noble engine for uplifting hu- 
 manity from its deep degradations. 
 
 • > I 
 158. Past and present Times, 
 
 There is a singular verse in the Book of Eccle- 
 siastes which appears directed against a common, 
 though, perhaps, unsuspected error. " Say not 
 thou what is the cause that the former days were 
 better than these 1 for thou dost not inquire 
 wisely concerning this." We believe that there 
 exists a disposition in persons, and especially in 
 old persons, to set present years in contrast with 
 the past, and to prove, from the comparison, a 
 great and ongoing deterioration in the character 
 of mankind. And it is quite certain, that, if this 
 disposition were observable in Solomon's days, 
 as well as in our own, it must pass ordinarily as 
 the mark of a jaundiced and ill-judging mind. 
 If it have been true in some ages, it cannot have 
 been in all, that the moral aspect of the times 
 has grown gradually darker. We must be war- 
 ranted, therefore, in ascribing a disposition which 
 has subsisted through days of improvement, as 
 well as of declension, to a peevish determination 
 to find fault, and not to a sober sitting in judg- 
 ment upon matters of fact. 
 
336 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 159. Insanity* 
 
 One malady there is — the greatest, I may call 
 it, to which flesh is heir, the unhappy suhjects of 
 which have a more than common claim on bene- 
 volence. It is much that accident and sickness 
 should befall the body ; but the climax of afflic- 
 tion is not reached until the mind itself is out of 
 joint. So long as the soul retains possession of 
 her capacities, man, however assaulted, however 
 agonized, falls not from his rank in the scale of 
 creation, but rather, by displaying the superiority 
 of the immortal over the mortal, proves himself 
 the denizen of a mightier sphere. Man is, then, 
 most illustrious and most dignified when his spi- 
 ritual part rises up unshattered amid the ruins of 
 the corporeal, and gives witness of destinies co- 
 eval with eternity, by showing an independence 
 on the corrodings of time. But when the battery 
 of attack has been turned upon the mind, when 
 reason has been assaulted and hurled from her 
 throne, oh ! then it is that the spectacle of hu- 
 man distress is one upon which even the beings 
 of a higher intelligence than our own may look 
 sadly and pitifully ; for the link of communion 
 with the long hereafter seems thus almost dissev- 
 ered, and that pledge of an unbounded duration, 
 — a pledge of which no bodily decay can spoil us 
 — a pledge which is won by the soul out of the 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 337 
 
 breakings-up of bone and sinew— for a while is 
 torn away from man. 
 
 160. Controversy 
 
 Though controversy have its evils, it has also 
 its uses. We never infer, that, because there is 
 no controversy in a church, there must be the 
 upholding of sound doctrine. It is not the stag- 
 nant water which is generally the purest. And 
 if there are no differences of opinion which set 
 men on examining and ascertaining their own 
 belief, the probability is, that, like the Samari- 
 tans of old, they will worship they " know not 
 what." Heresy itself is, in one sense, singularly 
 beneficial. It helps to sift a professing commu- 
 nity, and to separate the chaff from the wheat. 
 And whilst the unstable are carried about by the 
 winds of false doctrine, those who keep their 
 stedfastness find, as it were, their moral atmo- 
 sphere cleared by the tempest. We consider this 
 statement to be that of St Paul, when he says to 
 the Corinthians, M There must be also heresies 
 amongst you, that they which are approved may 
 be made manifest." And it is not the mere se- 
 paration of the genuine from the fictitious which 
 is effected through the publication of error. We 
 hold that heresies have been of vast service to 
 the church, in that they have caused truth to be 
 more thoroughly scanned, and all its bearings 
 29 
 
 ■ 
 
338 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 and boundaries explored with a most pains-taking 
 industry. It is astonishing how apt men are to 
 rest in general and ill-defined notions, so that, 
 when interrogated and probed on an article of 
 faith, they show themselves unable to give ac- 
 count of their belief. When a new error is pro- 
 pounded, you will find that candid men will con- 
 fess, that, on examining their own views on the 
 litigated point, they have found them in many 
 respects vague and incoherent ; so that, until 
 driven to the work of expounding and defining, 
 they have never suspected their ignorance upon 
 matters with which they professed themselves 
 altogether familiar. We think that few men 
 would have correct notions of truth, unless oc- 
 casionally compelled to investigate their own 
 opinions. They take for granted that they under- 
 stand what they believe. But when heresy or 
 controversy arises, and they are required to state 
 w T hat they hold, they will themselves be surprised 
 at the confusion of their sentiments. We are per- 
 suaded, for example, that, however mischievous 
 in many respects may have been the modern agi- 
 tation of the question of Christ's humanity, the 
 great body of christians have been thereby ad- 
 vantaged. Until the debate was raised, hundreds 
 and thousands were unconsciously holding error. 
 Being never required to define the true doctrine 
 of the Saviour's person, they never doubted that 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS, 339 
 
 they knew and understood it, though, all the 
 while, they either confounded the natures, or 
 multiplied the person ; or — and this was the or- 
 dinary case — formed no idea at all on so myste- 
 rious, yet fundamental a matter. Thus contro- 
 versy stirs the waters, and prevents their grow- 
 ing stagnant. We do not indeed understand from 
 the " must he" of St. Paul, that the well-being 
 of the church is dependent on heresy, so that, 
 unless heresy enter, the church cannot prosper. 
 But we can readily suppose that God, foreknow- 
 ing the corruptions which would he attempted 
 of the Gospel, determined tq employ these cor- 
 ruptions as instruments for speeding onward the 
 growth in grace of his people. The " must be" 
 refers to human depravity and satanic influence. 
 It indicates a necessity for which the creature 
 alone is answerable, whilst the end, which here- 
 sies subserve, is that which most engages the 
 interferences of the Creator. 
 
 161. Memory. 
 
 What a power is there in memory when made 
 to array against a guilty individual past days, 
 and scenes of comparative innocence. It is with 
 an absolutely crushing might that the remem- 
 brance of the years and home of his boyhood 
 will come upon the criminal, when brought to a 
 pause in his career of misdoing, and perhaps 
 
340 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 about to suffer its penalties. If we knew his early- 
 history, and it would bear us out in the attempt, 
 we should make it our business to set before him 
 the scenery of his native village, the cottage 
 where he was born, the school to which he wa3 
 sent, the church where he first heard the preached 
 Gospel ; and we should call to his recollection 
 the father and the mother, long since gathered to 
 their rest, who made him kneel down night and 
 morning, and who instructed him out of the Bible, 
 and who warned him, even with tears, against 
 evil ways and evil companions. We should re- 
 mind him how peacefully his days then glided 
 away ; with how much of happiness he was bless- 
 ed in possession, how much of hope in prospect. 
 And he may be now a hardened and desperate 
 man : but we will never believe, that, as his young 
 days were thus passing before him, and the re- 
 verend forms of his parents came back from the 
 grave, and the trees that grew round his birth- 
 place waved over him their foliage, and he saw him- 
 self once more as he was in early life, when he 
 knew crime but by name, and knew it only to ab- 
 hor — we will never believe that he could be proof 
 against this mustering of the past — he might be 
 proof against invective, proof against reproach, 
 proof against remonstrance ; but when we brought 
 memory to bear upon him, and bade it people itself 
 with all the imagery of youth, we believe that, for 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 31«1 
 
 the moment at least, the obdurate being would be 
 subdued, and a sudden gush of tears prove that we 
 had opened a long sealed-up fountain, 
 
 And we know no reason why there should not 
 be a like power in memory, in cases which have 
 no analogy with this, except in the general fact, 
 that men are not what they were. If we array be- 
 fore us the records of man's pristine condition, 
 and avail ourselves of such intelligence as it hath 
 pleased God to vouchsafe, we may with sufficient 
 truth be said to remember whence we fell. And 
 very energetic and persuasive would be this re- 
 membrance. We should feel that we were gain- 
 ing a great moral hold on a man, if we prevailed 
 on him to contrast what he is, with what Adarr. 
 was ere he ate the forbidden fruit It is a con- 
 trast which must produce the sense of utter de- 
 gradation. The waving trees of paradise, and 
 the glorious freshness of the young creation, and 
 the unrestrained intercourse with God, and the 
 beautiful tranquillity of human life — these will 
 make the same kind of appeal, as the fields where 
 we played in our boyhood, and the roof which 
 sheltered us whilst yet untutored in the vices, 
 and unblenched by the sorrows, of the world. 
 
 162. The Jews. 
 
 The predictions which bear reference to the 
 Jews, have this advantage over all other, that 
 
 29* 
 
342 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 their accomplishment, may be said to force itself 
 on the notice of the least observant, and not to 
 require, in order to its demonstration, the labor 
 of a learned research. Of all surprising pheno- 
 mena, there is perhaps none as wonderful as that 
 of the Jews' preserving, through long centuries, 
 their distinguishing features. It would have been 
 comparatively nothing, had the Jews remained 
 in Judea, that they should have continued marked 
 off from every other people. But that they should 
 have been dispersed into all nations, and yet have 
 amalgamated with none ; that they should bo 
 every where found, and yet be every where the 
 same ; that they should submit themselves to all 
 forms of government, and adopt all varieties of 
 customs, and yet be unable, after any lapse of 
 time, to extirpate their national marks ; we may 
 pronounce this unparalleled in the history of 
 mankind, and inexplicable but as the fulfillment 
 of prophecy. If the Jews, though removed from 
 their own land, had been confined to one other, 
 we might have found causes of a protracted dis- 
 tinction, in national antipathies or legislative en- 
 actments. But when the dispersion has been so 
 universal, that, wheresoever man treads, the Jew 
 has made his dwelling, and yet the distinction is 
 so abiding that you may always recognise the 
 Jew for yourself, there is no place left for the 
 explanations which might be given, were the 
 
BTBLE THOUGHTS. 343 
 
 marvel limited to a district or age ; and we have 
 before us a miracle, which would not be exceeded, 
 nay, not by the thousandth part equalled, were 
 we privileged to behold the mightiest suspension 
 of the known laws of nature. 
 
 Neither is it only in the preservation of their 
 distinguishing characteristics that the Jews are 
 wonderful, and give evidence that Christ pro- 
 phesied through a more than human foresight. 
 The continued infidelity of the Jews is every jot 
 as surprising as their continued separation. We 
 are quite at a loss, on any natural principles, to 
 account for their infidelity. It is easy to explain 
 the little way which the Gospel makes amongst 
 the heathen, but not the far less which it makes 
 amongst the Jews. I may well expect to be met 
 by a most vigorous opposition on the part of the 
 heathen ; for I go to them with a religious system 
 which demands the unqualified rejection of their 
 own; we have scarcely an inch of ground in com- 
 mon j and if I would prevail on them to receive 
 as true what I bring, I must prevail on them to 
 renounce as false what they believe. But the case 
 seems widely different when my attack is on the 
 Jew. We have a vast deal of common ground. 
 We believe in the same God ; we receive the 
 same Scriptures; we look for the same Messiah. 
 There is but one point of debate between us ; and 
 that is, whether Jesus of Nazareth were the 
 
344 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 Christ. And thus the field of argument is sur- 
 prisingly narrowed; in place of having to fight 
 our way painfully from one principle to another, 
 and of settling all the points of natural religion, 
 as preliminary to the introduction of the myste- 
 ries of revealed, we can go at once to the single 
 truth at issue between us, and discuss, from writ- 
 ings which we equally receive as inspired, the 
 claims of Jesus to being the Messiah. Surely it 
 might have been expected, that the infidelity of 
 the Jew would have been far more easily over- 
 come than that of the heathen ; and that, in set- 
 ting ourselves to win converts to Christianity, 
 there would have been a better prospect of gain- 
 ing credence for the New Testament where the 
 Old was acknowledged, than of making way for 
 the whole Bible, where there was nothing but 
 idolatry. 
 
 You are to add to this, that, whatever the like- 
 lihood that the Jew would reject Christianity on 
 its first publication, it was a likelihood which di- 
 minished with every year that rolled away 5 inas- 
 much as every year which brought no other Mes- 
 siah, swelled the demonstration that Jesus was 
 the Christ. It is not to be explained, on any of 
 the principles to which we ordinarily recur in 
 accounting for infidelity, why the Jews persisted 
 in rejecting Jesus, when the time had long passed 
 which themselves fixed for Messiah's appearing. 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 345 
 
 Their prophecies had clearly determined that 
 Christ would come whilst the second temple was 
 standing, and at the close of seventy weeks from 
 the termination of the Babylonish captivity. But 
 when the second temple had been long even with 
 the ground, and the seventy weeks, on every pos- 
 sible computation, had long ago terminated, the 
 Jews, we might have thought, would have been 
 compelled to admit, either that Messiah had come, 
 or that their expectation was vain, and that no 
 deliverer would appear. There seemed no alter- 
 native, if they rejected Jesus of Nazareth, but the 
 rejecting their own Scriptures. So that we can 
 have no hesitation in affirming, that the continued 
 infidelity, like the continued separation, of the 
 Jews is wholly inexplicable, unless referred to 
 the appointment and judgment of God. We can 
 no more account, on any common principles, for 
 their persisting in expecting a Redeemer, when 
 the predictions on which they rest manifestly per- 
 tain to a long-departed age, than for their retain- 
 ing all their national peculiarities, when they 
 have been for centuries M without a king, and 
 without a prince, and without a sacrifice." In 
 both cases they accomplish, and that, too, most 
 signally, the prophecies of Christ — their house 
 being left unto them desolate, and a judicial 
 blindness having settled on their understanding. 
 And never, therefore, should we meet a Jew, 
 
346 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 without feeling that we meet the strongest wit- 
 ness for the truth of our religion. I know not 
 how those, who are proof against all other testi- 
 mony, can withstand that furnished by the con- 
 dition of the Jews. They may have their doubts 
 as to the performance of the miracles recorded 
 in the writings of evangelists ; but here is a mi- 
 racle, wrought before their eyes, and which 
 ceases not to be miracle because long continued. 
 We call it miracle, because altogether contrary 
 to what we had reason to expect, and not to be 
 explained on mere natural principles. That the 
 Jews have not ceased to be Jews ; that, though 
 scattered over the world, domesticated in every 
 land, at one time hunted by persecution and 
 ground down by oppression, at another, allowed 
 every privilege and placed on a footing with the 
 natives of the soil, there has been a proved im- 
 possibility of wearing away their distinguishing 
 characteristics, and confounding them with any 
 other tribes — is not this marvelous 1 That, more- 
 over, throughout their long exile from, their own 
 land, they have held fast the Scriptures which 
 prove their hopes vain, and appealed to prophets, 
 who, if any thing better than deceivers, accuse 
 them of the worst crime, and convict them of the 
 worst madness — we affirm of this, that it is a pro- 
 digy without equal in all the registered wonders 
 which have been known on our earth : and I want 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 347 
 
 nothing more to assure me that Christ came from 
 God, and that he had a superhuman power of in- 
 specting distant times, than the evidence vouch- 
 safed, when I turn from surveying the once 
 chosen people, and hear the Redeemer declaring, 
 in his last discourse in the temple, that their 
 house should be left unto them desolate, and that 
 a moral darkness should long cloud their under- 
 standing. 
 
 163. Chrisfs denunciation of the Jews* 
 
 The Saviour is taking his farewell of those 
 whom he hac^striven, by every means, to lead to 
 repentance. He had wrought the most wonder- 
 ful miracles, and appealed to them in proof that 
 he came forth from God. He had delivered the 
 most persuasive discourses, setting forth, under 
 variety of imagery, the ruin that would follow 
 his being rejected, and offering the largest bless- 
 ings to all who would come to him as a deliverer. 
 But all had been in vain : and he knew that the 
 time was at hand, when the measure of guilt 
 would be filled up, and their Messiah be crucified 
 by the Jews. Yet he would not depart without 
 another and a bolder remonstrance. It is the part- 
 ing sermon of Christ, and without parallel in the 
 Gospels for indignant rebuke and emphatic de- 
 nunciation. The preacher seems, for a while, to 
 have laid aside his meekness, and to have assumed 
 
34>8 BIBLE THOUGHTS, 
 
 the character of a stern herald of wrath. And 1 
 know not that there is any where to be found 
 such a specimen of lofty and withering elo- 
 quence. You cannot read it without emotions of 
 awe, and almost of fear. Confronted by those 
 who, he knew, thirsted for his blood, Christ in- 
 trepidly charged them with their crimes, and pre- 
 dicted their punishment. Had he been invested 
 with all human authority, in place of standing as 
 a defenceless and despised individual, he could 
 not have uttered a sterner and more heart- 
 searching invective. The marvel is, that his ene- 
 mies should have allowed him to pour forth his 
 tremendous oratory, that they did not. fall upon 
 him, without regard to the sacredness of the 
 place, and take a fierce and summary revenge. 
 ,f Wo unto you, scribes and pharisees, hypo- 
 crites !" is the burden of his address : he reite- 
 rates the wo, till the temple walls must have rung 
 with the ominous syllables. And then he bids the 
 nation fill up the measure of their fathers. Their 
 fathers had slain the prophets, and made great 
 advances towards that ripeness of iniquity which 
 was to mark the land out as ready for vengeance. 
 But the national guilt was not yet complete. 
 There was a crime by which the children were 
 to outdo, and, at the same time, consummate the 
 sinfulness of their fathers. And Christ calls them 
 to the perpetration of this crime. They were 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 349 
 
 bent on accomplishing his death — let them nail 
 him to the cross, and then would their guiltiness 
 reach its height, and the accumulated vengeance 
 descend with a wild and overwhelming might. 
 " That upon you may come all the righteous 
 blood shed upon the earth, from the blood of 
 righteous Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, son 
 of Barachias, whom ye slew between the temple 
 and the altar. Verily I say unto you, all these 
 things shall come upon this generation." 
 
 And here the Saviour might be said to have 
 exhausted threatening ; for what denunciation 
 could be more tremendous, or more comprehen- 
 sive 1 We may picture him to ourselves, launch- 
 ing this terrible sentence, a more than human fire 
 in his eye, and a voice more deep-toned and 
 thrilling than ever issued from mortal lips. I 
 know of nothing that would be more sublime 
 and commanding in representation, if there could 
 be transferred to the canvass the vivid delinea- 
 tions of thought, than the scene thus enacted in 
 the temple. We figure the Redeemer undaunted 
 by the menacing looks and half-suppressed mur- 
 murs of the fierce throng by which he was sur- 
 rounded. He becomes more and more impassion- 
 ed in his eloquence, rising from one bold rebuke 
 to another, and throwing into his language a 
 greater and greater measure of reproachfulness 
 and defiance. And when he has compelled his 
 30 
 
350 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 hearers to shrink before the rush of his invective, 
 he assumes the prophetic office, and, as though 
 armed with all the thunders of divine wrath, an- 
 nounces authoritatively the approach of unpa- 
 ralleled desolation. This is the moment we would 
 seize for delineation — though what pencil can 
 think to portray the lofty bearing, the pre-emi- 
 nent dignity, the awful glance, the terribleness, 
 yet magnificence, of gesture, which must have 
 characterized the Mediator, when, wrought up 
 into all the ardency of superhuman zeal, he brake 
 into the overwhelming malediction, M Verily I 
 say unto you, all these things shall come upon 
 this generation 1" 
 
 164. Christ's lamentation over Jerusalem. 
 
 No sooner had Christ reached that height of 
 intrepid vehemence at which we have just be- 
 held him, than he gave way to a burst of tender- 
 ness, and changed the language of invective for 
 that of lamentation. At one moment he is deal- 
 ing out the arrows of. a stern and lacerating ora- 
 tory, and, the next, he is melted into tears, and 
 can find no words but those of anguish and re- 
 gret. Indeed it is a transition more exquisitely 
 beautiful than can be found in the most admired 
 specimens of human eloquence ; and we feel 
 that there must have passed a change over the 
 countenance, and the whole bearing of the Sa- 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 351 
 
 viour, which imagination cannot catch, and 
 which, if it could, the painter could not fix. 
 There must have risen before him the imagery 
 of a wrath and a wretchedness, such as had never 
 yet overtaken any nation of the earth. And the 
 people that should be thus signalled out were his 
 countrymen, his kinsmen after the flesh, over 
 whom his heart yearned, and whom he had affec- 
 tionately labored to convince of danger, and con- 
 duct to safety. He felt therefore, we may believe, 
 a sudden and excruciating sorrow, so that the 
 judgments which he foretold pressed on his own 
 spirit, and caused him deep agony. He was too 
 pure a being, and he loved with too abiding and 
 disinterested a love, to harbor any feeling allied 
 with revenge ; and, therefore, though it was for 
 rejecting himself that those whom he addressed 
 were about to be punished, he could not contem- 
 plate the punishment but with bitterness and 
 anguish. 
 
 And hence the rapid and thrilling change from 
 the preacher of wrath to the mourner over suffer- 
 ing. Hence the sudden laying aside of all his 
 awful vehemence, and the breaking into pathetic 
 and heart-touching expressions. Oh, you feel 
 that the Redeemer must have been subdued, as it 
 were, and mastered, by the view of the misery 
 which he saw coming on Judea, and by the re- 
 membrance of all he had done to avert it from 
 
352 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 the land, ere he could have passed thus instanta- 
 neously from indignant rebuke to exquisite ten- 
 derness. And it cannot, we think, be without 
 mingled emotions of awe and delight, that you 
 mark the transition from the herald of vengeance 
 to the sympathizer with the wretched. Just as 
 you are shrinking from the fierce and withering" 
 denunciations, almost scathed by the fiery elo- 
 quence which glares and flashes with the anger 
 of the Lord— just as you are expecting a new 
 burst of threatening, a further and wilder male- 
 diction from the voice which seems to shake the 
 magnificent temple — there is heard the sound as 
 of one who is struggling with sorrow ; and in a 
 tone of rich plaintiveness, in accents musical in 
 their sadness, and betraying the agony of a 
 stricken spirit, there fall upon you these touch- 
 ing and penetrating words, u O Jerusalem, Jeru- 
 salem, how often would I have gathered thy 
 children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
 chickens under her wings, and ye would not.'* 
 
 165. Conversion of the Jews. 
 
 If we have at heart the advance of Christianity, 
 we shall be much in prayer for the conversion 
 of the Jews. '.' Ye that make mention of the 
 Lord," saith the prophet Isaiah, " keep not si- 
 lence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and 
 till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' 1 I 
 
BIBLE THOUGHTS. 353 
 
 have more than sympathy with the Jews as a 
 people chastened for the sin of their ancestors : 
 I have an indistinct feeling of reverence and awe, 
 as knowing them reserved for the most glorious 
 allotments. It is not their sordidness, their de- 
 gradation, nor their impiety — and much less is it 
 their suffering — which can make me forget either 
 the vast debt we owe them, or the splendid sta- 
 tion which they have yet to assume. That my 
 Redeemer was a Jew, that his apostles were 
 Jews, that Jews preserved for us the sacred ora- 
 cles, that Jews first published the tidings of sal- 
 vation, that the diminishing of the Jews was the 
 riches of the Gentiles — I were wanting in com- 
 mon gratitude, if, in spite of all this, I were con- 
 scious of no yearnings of heart towards the ex- 
 iles and wanderers. But, asks St. Paul, " if the 
 casting away of them be the reconciling of the 
 world, what shall the receiving of them be but 
 life from the dead V And if indeed the univer- 
 sal reign of Christ cannot be introduced until 
 the Jews are brought, like Paul, their great type, 
 to preach the faith which now they despise, 
 where can be our sincerity in putting up conti- 
 nually the prayer, " thy kingdom come," if we 
 have no longing for the home-gathering of the 
 scattered tribes, no earnestness in supplication 
 that the veil may be taken from the heart of the 
 
 Israelite 1 
 
 30* 
 
354 BIBLE THOUGHTS. 
 
 We bid you, therefore, examine well, whether 
 you assign the Jew his scriptural place in the 
 economy of redemption, and whether you give 
 him his due share in your intercessions with 
 your Maker. You owe him much ; yea, vastly 
 more than you can ever compute. The branches 
 were broken off ; and we, being wild olive trees, 
 Were grafted in amongst them. But the natural 
 branches shall be again grafted into their own 
 olive tree. And when they are thus grafted, 
 then — and who will not long, who will not pray 
 for such result 1 — the seed which was less, when 
 sown, than all the seeds in the earth, shall grow 
 suddenly into a plant of unrivalled stature and 
 efflorescence ; the whole globe shall be canopied 
 by the far-spreading boughs, and the fowls of the 
 air shall lodge under its shadow. 
 
 THE END. 
 
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