Upward from sin, through grace, to glory..

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UPWARD

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suj.cL/

Jfrom Sin, Cjragjr §xm, k (Skjr.

"FOR ME TO LIVE IS CHRIST AND TO DIE IS GAIN."

Rev. B. B. HOTCHK1N.

PHILADELPHIA:

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE,

1334 CHESTNUT STREET.

NEW YORK : A. D. F. RANDOLPH, 770 BROADWAY.

Ml-

£V

e^

Hi

Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by

WM. L. HILDEBURN, Treasurer,

in trust for the

PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE,

In the Clerk's Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of
Pennsylvania.

Westcott & Thomson,
Stereotypers, Philada.

PREFATORY NOTE.

This little book is meant to reflect the dealings of
God with the heart of his child ; in other words, to
be a book of Christian experience.

The holy activities of the age will never displace
this truth, that the Christian draws his abiding com-
forts from the religion of his heart. To assure him-
self of those comforts, he needs often to turn aside
from the sympathetic influences of the outward reli-
gious movements, and find himself alone with God.
There he may ask himself how much of what he calls
his religion is religion; how much of it is born of
the people, and how much of God; how much would
abide, and how much perish, with the dying away of
the public stir. In this dealing with the vitalities
of religion there is found the strongest incitement to
its public activities, and the true secret of patient
perseverance in such activities.

So far as the subject of these pages is concerned,
no apology is needed. Reasons enough exist why
Christian experience should remain one of the
standing topics of religious literature.

CONTENTS.

i.

PAGE

Reconciliation with Gob. First— The Longing 9

II.

Reconciliation with God. Second — The Accom-
plishment 28

in.

Conscience. First — At War 42

IV.

Conscience. Second — At Peace 50

1» 5

6 CONTENTS.

V.

PAGE

The Victory that Overcometh the World. First
—The Eeliance 59

VI.

The Victory that Overcometh the World. Second

— Endurance 70

VII.
Assurance. First — A Lawful Expectation 80

VIII.

Assurance. Second — The Witness of the Spirit 97

IX.
Love. First— The Chief Grace 110

X.

Love. Second — Its Scope... 124

XI.

The Service of Doing. First — Incitements 137

CONTENTS. 7

XII.

PAGE

The Service of Doing. Second — Encouragements... 155

XIII.
The Service of Doing. Third — Fruit 169

XIV.

The Service of Suffering. First — The Consecration

and the Covenant 182

XV.

The Service of Suffering. Second — The Submis-
sion of Faith 193

XVI.

Thf Service of Suffering. Third— Christ Sustain-
ing and Forearming 205

XVII.
The Border Land. First— Keassu ranee 221

XVIII.
The Border Land. Second— The Gloom and the Light. 238

8 CONTENTS.

XIX.

PAGE

The Border Land. Third — The Covenant Slumber. 248

XX.

Heaven. First — Things which Eye hath not seen nor

Ear heard 262

XXI.

Heaven. Second — The Everlasting Sabbath 278

UPWARD.

t

t

I.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.
FIRST — THE LONGING.

HE first word spoken by a sinner on
earth to his God expresses the true
terror of the unforgiven soul: "I
heard thy voice in the garden, and I was
afraid." This awful fear of the presence
of his Maker arose from his consciousness
of an unsettled wrong then lying between
himself and God. The voice from which
he shrank was the same which he had
often before heard, not only without dread,
but with unspeakable delight. But then
it was the voice of his heavenly Father

10 . UPWARD.

and Friend. His relations with that Being
were unbroken; he knew that between
himself and his Sovereign all was right,
and, consequently, all was peaceful. He
had no unhappy fear of God, for the love
which was shed abroad in his heart, and
which prompted his obedience, made the
life which he lived like an angel's life —
the life of love. Where this holy affection
dwells terror has no home.

Yes, in confidence and love it was an
angel's life. Up now with our thoughts
to that life! — to the dwelling-place of the
sinless beings who do ever behold the face
of our Father which is in heaven!

By contrast, the contemplation will
afford the most impressive view of the
weariness of abiding under the sense of
unforgiven sin. Through it we shall bettei
understand both the occasion and the cha-
racter of the unreconciled sinner's pantings
for rest.

Celestial ones, angelic and glorified,

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 11

draw near to the throne upon which their
infinitely holy Sovereign sits. His holi-
ness awakens no dread in them, because
it involves them in no condemnation. It
ensures their happiness, and not their
ruin. While its intrinsic beauty, render-
ing it worthy of love from all worlds, be-
comes for them a delightful contempla-
tion, they know that its bearing toward
themselves is never wrath, but always
love.

They adore the miyht of God. Their
songs address Him that sitteth upon the
throne — the emblem of dominion and
power. From his arm of strength they
have nothing to fear. Over them it is ex-
tended with protecting vigilance. When
it is raised in destructive power, it falls
only upon the enemies of heaven.

Their anthems celebrate the righteous-
ness of the eternal Lawgiver. The same
scrupulous justice which ensures wrath
for sin, makes the pleasure of obedience

12 UPWARD.

doubly blessed, because, in addition to its
intrinsic joy, there comes the assurance of
an approving reward.

With glowing hearts they contemplate
the sublime structure of the government
of God, immeasurable in magnitude and
infinite in wisdom. Before their view is
spread a system of polity embracing the
universe for its field and eternity for its
length of administration ; infinitely com-
prehensive, and just as infinitely minute;
a subject for eternal study and unutterable
wonder. Contemplating the far-reaching
plans and sure faithfulness of this ad-
ministration, they feel no alarm from the
truth, so terrible to souls in revolt, that
this government has a special bearing
upon each individual, from which no
power can deliver and which no flight
can escape. They never tremble under
the thought of the omniscience of the Sove-
reign in this dominion. For them there
is no dismay in the inquiry, " Whither

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 13

shall I go from thy Spirit, or whither
shall I flee from thy presence?" — no fear-
fulness in the reflection that if they ascend
into heaven, or make their beds in hell,
or take the wings of the morning and
dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, the
eye of the holy God will follow them, and
his arm will bring them forth. All which
makes this government fearful to the
wicked commends it to the good. The
same principles which doom the one, ex-
alt the other.

But happier, as we may suppose, than
all else in the experience of these shining
ones, they live in the light of the love of
God. Beauty loves the light; it is only
deformity that dreads exposure. Those
dwellers in the everlasting light of the
love of God look abroad without fear, for
the miscreant features of sin do not clothe
their faces with shame. They look up-
ward without dread, for those rays are
shed with conforming power upon them-

14 UPWARD.

selves. Love, holy, celestial love, is chief
in that glory of the Lord which, reflected
as in a glass upon hiin whose faith beholds
it, changes him into the same image from
glory to glory.

Now reverse all these emotions, and we
have the experience of the unreconciled
sinner. He is terrified by the Presence
before which seraphs rejoice. Like him
who was afraid when he heard the voice
of the Lord God walking in the garden in
the cool of the day, his soul is troubled by
the entire loss of the divine conformity.
If he dares to think of the holiness of
God, he beholds in it the condemnation
of himself. There is some strange ar-
rangement in his powers of observation
which ever forbids him to contemplate
God's moral attributes by themselves
alone. In the same picture where he
gazes on the divine holiness, that loath-
some thing, his own heart, always occupies
a conspicuous place. It is one of the

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 15

weary experiences of impenitency that
the sinner, in all his moral contemplations,
is compelled to meet this double vision,
God and his own heart side by side. And
thus the delight with which a world of
holy beings view the righteousness, the
holiness and the love of God, becomes in
him terror whenever he turns his eye to-
ward the same glorious spectacle.

Some of the most terrible convictions
of sin are produced by a sight of the glory
of God. The vision once overwhelmed
even a good man, whose spirit was yet too
far short of heaven to bear the view of
the Lord on his throne, high and lifted
up, his train filling the temple, the sera-
phim standing above and crying one to
another, "Holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory!" It
was the contrast between this awful ma-
jesty and his own sinful person which un-
manned him. "Then, said I, Woe is me,
for I am undone, because I am a man of

16 UPWARD.

unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of
a people of unclean lips; for mine eyes
have seen the King, the Lord of hosts."
If one whose soul had felt the peace of
forgiving love wTas thus bowed with shame
on beholding himself in direct contrast
with God, is there any wonder that the
sinner shrinks with affright from a simi-
lar exhibition? In this part of his expe-
rience he knows the truth that there is no
peace for the wicked. Here he recognizes
that first insuppressable want of the un-
forgiven soul — the want of reconciliation
with God.

Terror in view of the natural greatness
of God may not be so instantly felt. Men
of no religion find some points of observa-
tion where they become inspired with no-
ble thoughts of the divine grandeur, and
they have recorded such thoughts in lan-
guage which will live in the memorials of
human eloquence. They have studied the
course of the divine administration as we

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 17

peruse the histories of empires or the re-
velations of science, and, surprised by the
skill of the system and the strength of its
working, they have frankly and admiringly
confessed its author Grod. In the book of
nature they have read the beauty and sub-
limity of his ways. They have looked on
summer landscapes when their dews spark-
led in the morning sun, and they have
spoken of the creating and adorning hand
in words of rapture. They have trod the
rustic lawn,

" Where violets sweet
Purpled the moss-bed at their feet,"

and thought of the wondrous transforma-
tion of ashy dust into manifold shapes
and colors of beauty. They have gazed
upon cataracts whose roar has been the
cradle-hymn of infant centuries and the
death-song of old expiring ages ; they have
followed the Eternal footsteps along the
paths of astronomical science, and there

beheld Him "who spreadeth out the

2 * B

18 UPWARD.

heavens, and treadeth upon the waves of
the sea; who maketh Arcturus, Orion
and Pleiades, and the chambers of the
south," until among these exhaustless
fields of wonder they have repeated with
real enthusiasm, "0 Lord, how manifold
are thy works ! in wisdom hast thou made
them all."

But even here, among these spectacles
of the natural greatness of Grod, the sinner
is troubled if he looks too far. The field
is sublime, but his view can take no broad
sweep of it without lighting upon points
in the Divine majesty of which he dare
not think. He fears to reflect that the
attributes disclosed exist for the support
of that moral government to which he is
inseparably linked. The great thought
of infinite strength burdens the soul that
is compelled to contemplate it as the
power of an unreconciled and avenging
God. The Divine omniscience which, in
the abstract, he has often admired, becomes

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 19

terrible under the reflection that this all-
seeing Eye is searching him through, and
that an escape from its scrutiny is hope-
less. When for an instant his imagina-
tion glows with the lofty conception of
God measuring the waters in the hollow
of his hand, meting out heaven with the
span, comprehending the dust of the earth
in a measure, weighing the mountains in
scales and the hills in a balance, stretch-
ing out the heavens as a curtain, and
spreading them out as a tent to dwell in,
how soon this enthusiasm is chilled by
the suggestion of conscience that it is not
for him to say,

" This awful God is mine —
My Father and my love !"

In short, his Maker has no perfection
which he can behold without dread. From
the divine holiness conviction of sin flashes
upon his conscience and wears down his
soul. From the greatness of the Eternal
terrific apprehensions of wrath arise. Thus

20 TJPWAKD.

remorse and fear divide the dominion
within him. Sinner, Jesus knew you
better than you know yourself when he
spoke of you as weary and heavy-laden.
Better than yourself he knew your first
spiritual want when he offered you rest.

But some sinners, without really mean-
ing to be uncandid, tell us that these rep-
resentations do not accord with their
personal experience. They speak of hours
and days spent in mirth; some refer to
their constitutional tranquillity of temper,
and others to their habitual joviality; and
they array this experience against the
testimony that a life of sin is always mis-
erable— that " the wicked man travaileth
with pain all his days" Some go farther,
and insist that even from a scriptural
stand-point we must expect to see carnal
ease the more frequent type of impeni-
tency; that with uthe harp and the viol,
the tabret and pipe and wine in their
feasts, they regard not the work of the

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 21

Lord ;" that the life of the sinner, being that
of one who has no fear of God before his
eyes, is more likely to be spent in spiritual
stupidity than in terror. Such views
have an air of candor, and should be can-
didly considered.

Let it be admitted that the general
course of sin is one of stolid indifference
to religion; that under the protection of
this apathy the sinner in the hot pursuit
of worldly good can hold remorse and
alarm at bay ; that substituting the shrines
of pleasure, fame or gold for the altar's
heavenly worship, he can paganize his
nobler nature, and, forgetting there is a
God above, he can also forget that he
lives an unforgiven rebel under his do-
minion. The necessity for admitting the
reality of this experience is, alas! too im-
perative. It is too true that the sinner is
often reckless of the fear as well as the
claims of God.

But does this prove that there is ever a

22 UPWARD.

moment of tranquillity of heart in a life of
sin? Let it be granted that the Bible
does sustain the sinner's assertion that he
is able to regard the most solemn things
with apathy: are we to admit the wild in-
ference that recklessness is peace, or that
because his impenitency does not impress
his moral feelings, therefore it does not
trouble him? What if it is said that there
is no fear of God before the sinner's eyes?
In the same discourse, and in immediate
connection, it is recorded: " Destruction
and misery are in their ways, and the way
of peace have they not known" Both these
statements are true, and there is no diffi-
culty in reconciling them. We have a
witness already on the stand, one that the
sinner has himself called up — his own ex-
perience. Pushing the examination of
that witness, we may find that there is a
false face to be torn from spiritual care-
lessness, and that the sentence of God —
no peace to the wicked — is an eternal in-

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 23

scription cut into the monument of living
humanity to record the death of holiness
in the human heart.

From that witness we wring out this
confession — reluctant, slow, but terrible —
the sinner purchases his carelessness at the
expense of his moral degradation. He must
forget his immortal nature and lose sight
of this noblest fact in his existence, that
he is a being of superior order, associated
by filiation with the nature of God. Every
moment of exemption from terror of the
Divine anger is a moment of practical
atheism — ''without God in the world." He
does not say, " I contemplate my relation
to the- character, law and government of
God, and then I am at peace." But he
parries remorse and fear by cultivating
obliviousness of his relation to his heav-
enly Sovereign. He looks abroad upon
earth for comfort because he dares not
look up to heaven. He pants in the chase
after groveling pleasures because the

24 UPWARD.

cessation of this pursuit leaves time for
solemn reflection, and reflection gives
conscience an opportunity to speak. Every
observation of the order of nature tells
him that he looks in the wrong direction
for good. Nature teaches that the foun-
tain is the place from whence to seek sup-
plies— that those who desire good should
come to tbe exhaustless treasure of good-
ness. The most simple principles of order
instruct him that an immortal soul will
yearn for immortal joys, and that the at-
tempt to satiate these cravings with the
trifles of an hour is only an effort to wipe
out from the soul the imprint of the Di-
vinity and shrivel it to the capacity of the
brute.

The intelligent sinner is not ignorant
of this; why, then, does he not follow the
suggestions of this plain order of things?
He wants pleasure; why does he not go
at once to the fountain of pleasure? He
longs for good ; why does he not seek it

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 25

direct from the exhaustless treasure?
The natural yearnings of the soul prompt
her to fly to some boundless field of en-
joyment ; why not bid her plume herself
for a flight to realms of glory and honor
and immortality in pursuit of the ever-
lasting life ? Why will he clip her soar-
ing pinions and force her to forget her
heavenly birth by fastening her as a
crawling worm to the dirt ? Why in his
search for delights. will he thus repudiate
his own judgment, browbeat his immor-
tality, and condemn his spiritual nature
to chafe in sensual fetters until its noble
aspirations are all dead ?

The same monotonous answer is ever
at hand. His soul is oppressed with a
consciousness of unreconciliation toward
God, and he is afraid to look heavenward
for a single blessing. He dares not at-
tempt the pursuit of any good when the
attempt involves an effort to approach
God. He remembers the wrong which

26 UPWARD.

lies between his soul and God; he must
seek an escape from the remorse which a
sense of that wrong awakens, and so he
flies to his carnal delights to become ob-
livious of all that he ought to remember.

Yet he finds, after all, that the sea of
worldly delights is not filled with the true
Lethean waters. Its power to produce ob-
livion is but temporary, existing only
during the moments of actual immersion.
Hence he must plunge again and again.
In other words, the frolic, revel, or more
refined social gayeties, the mirage of hu-
man ambition, the golden will-of-the-
wisp — some of these must be pursued in-
cessantly, for they form the only carnal
relief for the pain of solemn reflections
upon his relations to God. And then,
forsooth, the pleasures to which he is
driven and held by such terrors are cited
in proof that a life of impenitency is not a
life of pain !

Lord, deliver us from sin ! Deliver our

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 27

consciences from its burden and our
hearts from its pollution! And in special
mercy, 0 Lord! deliver our reason from
its logic !

The truth is, all forgetful ness of Grod
which is secured by such means, so far
from being a medicine for the sinner's
burning moral fever, is only a symptom of
its existence. The search for relief proves
the reality of the anguish. The fact of
this apathy toward religion must be con-
sidered in connection with its nature and
the manner in which it is produced. The
very recklessness of the sinner, when we
reflect how and why it is cultivated, is one
of the strongest confirmations of the word:
"Trouble and anguish shall make him
afraid."

There lies in every moral nature a sense
that the short and sure road to peace is
reconciliation with God who has been
disowned, and his government which has
been cast off.

II.

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD.

SECOND — THE ACCOMPLISHMENT.

*

tHE time has come for the unreconciled
sinner to turn from this wearisome
j strife and seek his peace with God by
the cross of Christ. "All things are of
God, who hath reconciled us to himself by
Jesus Christ."

But what is this cross of Christ? In
fact and efficacy it is this:

When sin had done its worst upon hu-
man character and condition, the Divine
arrangement for mercy was revealed. Its
execution began in " the blood of Christ,
who, through the Eternal Spirit, offered
himself without spot to God." Sin was
enthroned in a -.corrupt nature. This cor-

28 .

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 29

ruption, derived from the common source
of human generation, was universal, and it
pervaded the whole human nature. The
conscience must be purged from dead
works, and the whole man washed from
moral loathsomeness. So also the amen-
ability of the sinner to the highest claims
and extremest penalty of the holy law of
heaven must be met, honored and satisfied.
The greatness of the sacrifice was com-
mensurate with the great demand. The
Redeemer met the case as he found it.
His sacrifice was real, for he made his
soul an offering for sin. In this work
he stood in the sinner's place; for, all
sinless himself, God made him to be sin
for us. It is not in outward sufferings
alone that the final doom of the unforgiven
sinner consists. Its chief element is the
frown of God felt in the soul as a burden
of wrath. Let whoever doubts this, read
Revelation vi. 16, 17. This soul-felt wrath
of God was the cup which Jesus drank to

3*

30 UPWARD.

the dregs. From his cross we hear little
complaint of physical sufferings, terrible
as they were. The thorns in his brow
and the nails in his flesh awoke, so far as
we learn, no cry of anguish. That dying
expostulation, whose echoes will linger
for ever through the realm of redemption,
was pressed from the soul of this sinless
One by the weight of this great wrath — a
feeling of desertion, as if in anger forsaken
by God.

It is vain to ask how this could be felt
at the moment of his most intense obedi-
ence to the will of God, and when he must
have known that the Father was well-
pleased with it all. Redemption is the great
mystery of godliness. We do not study it as
cold philosophers, nor ask for scientific
solutions of its problems; for the sweetest
element in religion will be gone when
proud men have outridden all faith with
their philosophy. We stand in the shad-
ow of the cross, where the very ground is

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 31

tremulous under the quiverings of the suf-
ferer. We long for redemption from such
wrath as the soul feels when, deserted in
anger, it looks in vain for one smile of
God. We listen, and, lo! that shriek, with
which our voices should have rent the
prison of despair — uMy God! my God!
why hast thou forsaken me?"

There, for the moment, that was endured
which the law doomed us to endure for
ever. There the chastisement of our peace
was once upon Christ, and now his heav-
enly intercession preserves for that atone-
ment an ever-living efficacy. Thus wre
learn that, as our sin wrought his death,
so his righteousness can work our life —
that as he was made sin for us, so we are
made the righteousness of God in him.
This may be all dark to those who would
straiten the Divine ways to the scant
limits of human understanding, but it is
enough for us that we behold the beauty
of the scheme in the light of our wants.

32 UPWARD.

It is the provision that we need, and be-
fore we are moved from this faith, we must
hear some better answer to the great ques-
tion, " How should man be just with God?"
Still the way to reconciliation with God
through Christ is not fully disclosed until
we are told of the Holy Spirit following,
with his peculiar influences, the work of
Christ in the world. Every solemn emo-
tion in which the sinner is reminded of
his need of redeeming mercy is the whis-
per of that Spirit in his soul. Every
loud, open call, through providential dis-
pensations or the messages of grace, is the
same warning of God. When he turns
from his revolt, it is because the Spirit
works in him repentance and submission.
When he is justified, he feels the power
of the same Spirit imparting to him be-
lieving faith and applying to him the
pardon purchased in the atonement.
Under all the remaining experience of
religion this Spirit upholds him in the

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 33

hour of temptation, strengthens his heart
for duty, attends him with its support in
the furnace of affliction, sustains him in
the hour of death, and makes safe his
passage to glory.

This, then, is the cross of Christ. This
is the power, and these are the blessings
which well out from the atonement, their
spring.

Here, too, arises another and crowning-
view of sin. A wholesome estimate of
sin is ever the accompaniment of recon-
ciliation with God. The dreadfulness of
human rebellion must be measured by the
greatness of the sacrifice indispensable for
the change of the rebel to a loving subject
of the throne of heaven. The Lord Jesus
stooped no lower and endured no more
than wras demanded by the magnitude of
the guilt of man. The sight of our suffer-
ing Saviour also gives this darker aspect
to the soul's revolt — that it is pursued
after conditions of peace are opened and

34 UPWAKD.

the sinner's reconciliation is besought on
the gentlest terms. For now his revolt
carries all the appearance of a desperate
purpose on his part to try the issue — who
shall triumph, himself or God — whether
he shall dethrone his Maker or be crushed
by Omnipotence.

But, above all other aspects of sin, it
appears most shocking in view of the love
of the cross. There the Redeemer of
sinners meets his hour of agony without
even the consolation of his Father's smile.
Let us draw near to this great sight, that
we may know how God feels for men.
The sufferer seems to ask if there be any
sorrow like unto his sorrow. What a
mingling of horror of sin and tenderness
for the sinner in that appeal from his
cross, unspoken in words, but coming out
from the mute anguish in his eye : " The
cup of wrath! I drink it to save you from
drinking it for ever. My heart of love! be-
hold its choicest compassions lavished on

i

• RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 35

yourself: shall it not win the recompense of
your love?

Is it not enough that the rebel has re-
volted from his Maker, broken the right-
eous covenant and placed himself in the
way of the terrors of the Almighty ? Will
not love now subdue the heart which every
other excellence of God has failed to
move ? The matchless love of his injured
Sovereign, expressed in the unexampled
sorrow of Christ on the cross — can he
withstand that also?

Heaven and earth, hear and be aston-
ished! The proud rebel has not even the
grace to deplore his own part in loading
the Redeemer with this affliction. He
cares nothing for the share which his own
sins have borne in the deed. He bestows
perhaps one cold look upon the solemn
spectacle — perhaps turns his ear for one
callous hearing of the imploring entreaty
of Christ — then bids the tender Spirit of
grace begone, and exults that he is above

36 UPWAKD.

the subduing influence of the compassion
of Heaven. Who will now doubt the deep,
the radical depravity of the human heart?

Extend the view to that field of the holy
Spirit's operations which has been noticed,
and the madness of this rebellion takes
the suicidal type. In sinning against the
Holy Ghost the sinner sins against his
own soul. That Spirit is the last agent
ever to be employed in restoring rebels
to the favor of God. Hence the necessary
consequence of resisting its motions in
the heart is the self-exclusion of the sinner
from the hope of reconciliation. Only in
this light can we comprehend the import
of the woe which God denounces upon
those from whom he departs.

This, then, is sin in the light of the re-
deeming mercy — the sinner as seen from
the stand-point of Calvary. The unhappy
creature who shrinks from looking over
the smallest of his accounts with God can
yet do this. He can tread under foot the

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 37

Son of God, count the blood of the cove-
nant wherewith he was sanctified an un-
holy thing, and do despite to the Spirit of
grace. If he does not carry it to the irre-
vocable point where God finally gives him
over to himself, he will be led by this con-
victing power of the cross to yield himself
a captive to grace. Why did he not long-
since do it? The only answer is found
in the insanity of human rebellion against
God. The last battle is often the fiercest.
Sometimes the very malignancy of the
final struggle shows to the combatant
what a heart he possesses, and leads him,
under a Divine enabling, to the great re-
solve that such a heart cannot be endured,
and it shall submit. At the feet of Jesus,
"clothed and in his right mind," the peni-
tent and restored soul sings of the recon-
ciling grace —

" I heard the voice of Jesus say,
Come unto me and rest ;
Lay down, thou weary one, lay down
Thy head upon my breast.

4

38 UPWABD.

"I came to Jesus as I was,

Weary, and worn, and sad ;
I found in him a resting-place,
And he has made me glad."

Here is the first unterrified view of
God. The sinner has turned from the
strife in which he knew that he was wrong,
and surrendered himself without con-
dition to Christ as his peace with God.
He has awakened to life under the voice
of forgiving grace, and his heart glows
with the assurance that all is now right
between himself and his Sovereign. The
morning sun of his soul's Sabbath has
risen on his darkness, and is ascending
to the meridian of perfect day.

It is none too soon; he was haggard
and worn in the long war. His soul was
like the bird sent out by Noah. All the
world of sin was a shoreless watery waste.
With no nourishment and no resting rock,
her weary wings were about to fail. It is
time the ark was entered. It is time to
listen to the Messenger of the covenant's

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 39

voice to tired wanderers from Jesus, that
in him there is rest.

But the change ! the change ! God, who
was dreaded, is now loved. The Majesty
which inspired terror is now beheld with
open face. The load of unforgiven sin is
gone, and the lustings after sin are trans-
formed to aspirations for holiness. The
voice so lately feared is music to the souL
The law which condemned is reconciled in
Christ. The Divine government, so ter-
rible while its power was arrayed against
sin, is now a shield of defence accepted
with joy. The everlasting covenant has
become the pledge of safety. The renewed
man is made to feel himself committed to
Christ, under the Father's covenant pro-
mise, as the fruit of his sufferings on the
cross. Belonging to the Redeemer, as a
portion of the promised reward for the
offering of his soul for sin, he is not only
to shine henceforth in the glory of the
mediatorial throne, but to become himself

40 UPWAKD.

an integral part of that glory. Christ is
to be admired in him, and the Spirit is
now forming him into such an image as
will adorn his Redeemer. For this ex-
alted service he is washed, justified and
sanctified. Purchased and wrought for
such use, Christ already possesses too
precious an interest in him to allow the
work to stop incomplete. His Mediator
assumes the care of settling his relations
with heaven. The Advocate makes all
right between the returning sinner and
his God. The reconciliation is complete.
Oh, the change ! the change ! A new
world of gladness is opened. The atmos-
phere which he breathes is joy; peace in
believing is his repose. Ashes are ex-
changed for beauty ; mourning for the
oil of joy ; heaviness for the garment of
praise. He lives a new life, and "all that
life is love." The deathly darkness of the
night of sin has fled before the morning
of grace. No lengthening shadows are to

RECONCILIATION WITH GOD. 41

mark the decline of this opening day. Its
morning is for earth; its meridian, the
" sacred, high, eternal noon" of heaven.

u I heard the voice of Jesus say,

I am this dark world's light ;

Look unto me ; thy morn shall rise,

And all thy day be bright.

I looked to Jesus, and I found

In him my star, my sun,

And in that Light of Life I'll walk

Till all my journey's done."
4*

G^fefe^)^

III.

CONSCIENCE.
FIRST — AT WAR.

N all the moral experiences which
have been mentioned, Conscience
makes itself felt as a power for dis-
quiet or tranquillity. The reproaching
conscience agonizes — the approving con-
science gives peace.

The power of conscience as an enemy
militant, was well illustrated by an oc-
currence said to have taken place many
years ago in one of the western shires of
England. A miserable man had crowned
a career of wickedness by the commission
of a crime of the highest grade of atrocity.
He was brought before the assizes on trial
for his life. The evidence against him

42

CONSCIENCE. 43

was dark, the countenances of the jurors
were portentous and the court was un-
usually solemn. All appearances con-
spired to fill him with the worst appre-
hensions. But, unexpectedly to himself,
the skill of his counsel was successful.
The course of justice was perverted, and
he received a verdict of acquittal. He
was once more a free man.

Free — from what? From the court,
the bailiff, the iron-bound cell and the
executioner; but not from the officer of
God. He knew the unsettled wrong be-
tween himself and justice. He had the
conscience of crime, but not of expiation.
He uttered no shout of liberty, but went
silently home, threw himself upon his
bed, turned upon his face and groaned
aloud. A neighbor who came in sought
to quiet his distress by repeatedly re-
minding him that he was cleared. The
wretched man at length turned himself,
and with a stern, desperate look inquired,

44 UPWARD.

"Where will I find a court to clear me
from my own conscience?" The pangs of
his spirit increased from day to day. In
less than two weeks he died from no per-
ceptible cause but remorse. Conscience
killed him.

0 Conscience, what a witness art thou
for Grod in the human breast! Every-
thing else about the mind may be dis-
torted; everything holy lost; the bosom
where love should be enthroned given
over to the reign of hatred; the passions,
which ought to lie still, all in surging
strife; the judgment subverted by the
malign will, and the reason made ir-
rational on every moral subject; still,
amid the perverted and sin-ruined facul-
ties, it holds its integrity as the scorching
foe of wrong. It is among the depraved
qualities of the mind like Milton's seraph
Abdiel in the council of Satan :

" Faithful found
Among the faithless — faithful only he ;

CONSCIENCE. 45

Among innumerable false, unmoved,
Unshaken, unseduced, unterrified,
His loyalty lie kept."

It is not meant that the faculty of con-
science suffered none of the effects of the
apostasy in Paradise. Our moral ruin
was there complete. There is no attri-
bute in the unrenewed man to which
holiness can be ascribed. Conscience is
deeply implicated in the sad results of
sin. The influence of depravity over it
is felt in its often becoming remiss, stupe-
fied, or, in the language of Scripture,
" seared with a hot iron," so that sinners
frequently live for a season unterrified by
its reproaches. But the thing meant is,
that sooner or later it is sure to awake,
and that, when aroused, it takes the part
of Heaven against a sinner. As a natu-
ral faculty, it takes the side of God when-
ever it acts at all.

Neither is it meant that it is a teacher
of the will of God in general. Gross de-

46 UPWARD.

lusions and wild licentiousness have come
from assigning to it a power which it
never possessed. It has one great work
to do, and in that work it is mighty in-
deed. It is not its office to teach any
moral philosophy or inspired truth be-
yond this simple proposition — that right
ought always to be practiced, and wrong
ought always to be avoided. No fair con-
struction of Romans ii. 15 will represent
it as doing anything more than to rebuke
or accuse of wrong the people mentioned
for sinning against those teachings of na-
ture and reason which had just been re-
cited; and nowhere else in the word of
God is any other teaching-power ascribed
to it. When we would learn what is
right or wrong, God sends us to his re-
vealed word and to the coincident in-
structions of our reason. Conscience is
given to accuse or excuse; to enforce the
sense of wrong or justification; to fill the
sinner with remorse for known guilt, and

CONSCIENCE. 47

to cause the good man to feel the ap-
proval of God and become serene.*

The sinner's great war is against God.
He has entered the lists with Omnipo-
tence, and this alone will ensure his de-
feat and the utter prostration of his en-
ergies soon. But his strife with con-
science takes another direction, which
makes the war doubly disheartening.
This conscience is a part of his own
nature, so that in contending with it he
is fighting himself. Here he becomes his
own foe. If he triumphs — and he some-
times does for a time, so far as to still the
self-accusing voice — he only vanquishes
himself; and when he comes to be
crushed by remorse, he crushes himself.
This is the strange extremity to which he
is reduced. In relation to the Divine
law, God's views of sin, his dealings with

* The views offered in this paragraph are purposely short
of a proper metaphysical discussion, which is not called for
in these pages. Just so much is said as will advance the relig-
ious purposes of the work.

48 UPWARD.

those who are guilty of it, and his admin-
istration in general, the unholy heart is
against the Almighty, but the conscience
is for him. It is a striking disadvantage
on the sinner's side of the contest that
he must contend with Heaven and him-
self at the same time. On the highest
throne, one enemy sits; in his own
bosom, the other dwells.

If he will persist in such a contest, it
can have but one issue. He has made
foes to himself, which cannot and should
not give him peace or rest. When he
approaches the dark valley, deserted by
every moral support, remorseful memories
wring his heart. He has drawn upon his
dying hour the frown of both Grod above
and his conscience within. He is forsaken
by heaven and despised by himself.

Every appalling view of his case is
aggravated when our thoughts pursue
him to the world of spirits. There
memory reviews the past — the mercy

CONSCIENCE. 49

once offered from the cross, the resistance
to that mercy, the calls of the ministry of
reconciliation unheeded, the strivings of
the Holy Spirit resisted, Sabbaths spent
in sin, the work of life neglected through
the morning, noon and evening hours of
the day of grace, until its sun of hope
went down in the night of despair. Then
conscience will be felt as the power which
arms those recollections with the sting of
remorse. Worse than all besides will be
the anguish of that long, loud wail, rising-
distinct from among the moans of the
realms of mourning — "God was right, and
I was wrong!"

Thoughtless reader, does your heart
pant to pursue the contest with such a
foe? "Lay thine hand upon him; re-
member the battle; do no more."

5 D

IV.

CONSCIENCE.
SECOND — AT PEACE.

Q[ DYING- saint had just listened to the
l\ reading of the fourteenth chapter of
S) St. John's Gospel. "My son," said
he to the reader, " now bring to me the
catechism of our Church." The young
man brought the book.

" Now read the Benefits" The young-
man read: "The benefits which in this
life do accompany or flow from justifica-
tion, adoption and sanctification are as-
surance of God's love, peace of con-
science— "

"Stop!" said the dying man, "stop
there! let me think of that. Yes, that is
it — peace of conscience! Oh, what an

50

CONSCIENCE. 51

enemy conscience once was! What a
friend now! How gladly I would have
destroyed it then, but what could I now
do without its approval? Peace of con-
science— that is it! Peace through our
Lord Jesus Christ! Peace! Peace!"

And yet, viewed as a faculty, this was
the same conscience which pursued, even
to a despairing death, the guilty wretch
spoken of in the commencement of the
last chapter. The only difference is that,
in this case, it approved and -sustained ;
in the other it stung and crushed. In
each alike it was the same faithful witness
for God. Its operations vary with the
ever-varying states of our souls. The
presence or absence of regenerating grace
greatly affects its tones, vigilance and
power; but through all its different de-
grees of animation and variety of opera-
tions, whenever it does lift its voice, it
speaks out for God. The same conscience
which affrights the sinner cheers the peni-

52 UPWARD.

tent at the cross and blesses the path of
his pilgrimage with peace. The same
conscience which creates those frightful
spectres which haunt the dying chamber
of the unforgiven man, assures the de-
parting saint that all between God and
his soul is pleasant. The same conscience
which makes the undying worm of fu-
ture hopeless remorse, dwells delightfully
in the bosom of the ransomed saint in
glory.

The friend of God feels that his con-
science and himself are at peace. It is
not meant that his peace springs from a
consciousness of personal innocence. He
is but a redeemed sinner, whose conscience
is purged from dead works by "the blood
of Christ, who, through the eternal Spirit,
offered himself without spot to God." The
difference between himself and the sinner
out of Christ does not consist in their
respective amounts of personal guilt.
Out of Christ, both are loaded with sin.

CONSCIENCE. 53

But the one has found refuge from the
frown of God under the protection of the
cross. His conscience is at peace because
the Holy Spirit lays to his soul the as-
surance that, "if any man sin, we have
an advocate with the Father, Jesus
Christ the righteous." The other seeks
relief from the pangs of an accusing con-
science by hardening himself against the
reproof and forcing his attention away
from his guilt. The whole story was told
from the lips of the Christian on the brink
of the river, just as we have it from the
word of the Holy Spirit — " peace with God
through our Lord Jesus Christ." The
penitent, thus exalted above the fear
which has torment, is no longer afraid to
contemplate the past and the present —
what he was and what he is. He makes
no effort to stupefy his memory of sins,
for the recollection of them inspires fresh
love of his suffering Lord, upon whom they
were laid. The remembrance of his guilt

5 *

54 UPWARD.

brings him nearer to the cross, and there
he hears the voice of forgiveness and feels
the conforming power of the Holy Spirit.
This Divine work in his soul is what
brings himself and his conscience into
peace.

It is true there is a spurious trust,
which allows of sin that grace may
abound. It virtually says, The more sin
the better, because the all-forgiving grace
of Grod is then magnified. But tenderness,
or a quick sensibility to wrong, is one of
the special attributes of a good conscience.
It revolts from all wrong, feels the shock
of sin and rejoices in goodness. As a
stimulant to carefulness of life, to an
anxious watch against unholiness, and to
a prayerful diligence to do the whole will
of God, it stands side by side with the
Christian graces of faith and love, the
best of all guards against the world, the
flesh and the devil. The emphatic testi-
mony of the Holy Spirit, already quoted,

CONSCIENCE. 55

is that the blood of Christ purges the
conscience of the believer from dead
works to serve the living God. Lifting
from the soul the burden of guilt, the
peaceful conscience affords its possessor a
holy confidence to seek Grod in prayer, so
that he comes boldly to the throne of
grace. There, under the Divine bright-
ness, he beholds the beauty of holiness,
and longs to have it impressed upon his
own heart and exhibited in his whole
life. There the condemnation is re-
moved, and the heart thus disburdened
is most earnest in its obedience, because
its works of well-doing are un terrified
and cordial. There is felt that peculiar
security for holy living of which the be-
loved disciple wrote: "Beloved, if our
heart condemn us not, then have we con-
fidence toward Grod. And whatsoever we
ask, we receive of him, because we keep
his commandments, and do those things
that are pleasing in his sight. . . . And

56 UPWARD.

he that keepeth his commandments
dwelleth in him, and he in him. And
hereby we know that he abideth in us, by
the Spirit which he hath given us."

Peace — what beauty dwells in the very
word! Still it is not expressive of the
feelings now under contemplation without
a new and enlarged meaning. Such a
meaning it has received in the testament-
ary promise of Jesus : " Peace I leave
with you; my peace I give unto you; not
as the world giveth, give I unto you."

The mere absence of conflict makes the
peace of the world. Carnal views of its
blessedness seldom rise above the idea of
freedom from disturbing agencies. Ex-
emption from sorrows, fears and contests
is all that is essential to the existence of
such peace. But if this were all that is
implied in the serenity of the conscience
which Christ has pacified, what a void
there would be in Christian happiness!
Every positive element would be removed

CONSCIENCE. 57

from celestial peace ; the believer's joy
would be despoiled of its living essentials,
and heavenliness would depart from
heaven. Everlasting thanks to Him who,
in the school of happy experience, teaches
us those sublimer views of peace which
behold it as a sanctified quiet under the
wing of an approving conscience! We
find it not so much in what it removes as
in what it imparts.

"My peace I give unto you." The bless-
edness which springs up ever fresh in the
Saviour's own heart he shares with his
disciple. Once he laid his own soul under
the horror of God's frown, and through
that he learned, as a thing of personal ex-
perience, the joy of deliverance from
Divine wrath. Throughout his previous
conflicts with the living trials of human
life he had derived support and comfort
from his Father's smile and his own self-
approving conscience. Struggling with
the toils of his earthly pilgrimage, bearing

58 UPWAKD.

up against persecutions and the afflictions
which oppressed his mortal nature, the
peace which dwelt in his bosom filled him
with consolation. The same heavenly
inmate diffused its influence over his
seasons of communion with the Father,
such as we have an example of in the
seventeenth chapter of St. John's Gospel.
The freedom of intercourse with heaven
which he imparts is the same in which
his own Spirit delighted. "As thou,
Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they
also may be one in us." In the placid
happiness with which we are filled while
enjoying this nearness to the King of hea-
ven we participate in Christ's own bliss.
"We drink with him at the same fountain of
joy and sit in the same bower of delights. .
Thus the serenity which we obtain
through our Lord Jesus Christ becomes
more than a gift from the Father of lights.
It is literally "the peace of God, which
passeth all understanding."

V.

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH THE WORLD.

FIRST — THE RELIANCE.

»

JPACH inwrought spiritual gift has
4 ' some service for the spiritual man
/V which is peculiarly its own. Faith
is the grace for support, for assurance and
for victory. The leader of the Israelitish
exodus was an example of its sustaining
power. It is expressly ascribed to his
faith, that, through all those long years of
discouragement, which would have put
any mortal energy out of heart and hope,
"he endured as seeing Him who is invisi-
ble." When Paul spoke his assurance of
a house not made with hands, eternal in
the heavens, he gave as the ground of it
the inworking of Grod through which he

5<J

60 UPWARD.

walked by faith, not by sight. But in no
respect does faith become to the Christian
a higher endowment than when it is felt
as a triumphing grace. "This is the
victory that overcometh the world, even
our faith." First bringing the believer
into union with Christ, it works through
all its other influences up to that highest
triumph where he can say that in tribu-
lation, distress, persecution, famine, naked-
ness, peril or sword — in death, life, things
present or to come — in all these things he
is more than conqueror through Him that
loved him.

We reach heaven only through victory.
The triumphs of the redeemed soul, pres-
ent or final, are a victor's triumphs. The
crowns which are worn by glorified saints
are victors' crowns ; the palms which they
bear are victors' palms. uThey overcame
by the blood of the Lamb " Where there
is conquest, there has been conflict. Victory
is the turning-point in the fortunes of

THE VICTOR Y THAT OVERCOMETH. 61

war. It is the end of strife. It is ac-
counted great and glorious only when the
strife has been fierce and deadly.

Where there is strife there is a foe.
The believer is in life-and-death conflict
with principalities and powers — the rulers
of the darkness of this world ; and it is
through as well as in this world they rule.
He breasts the great army of worldly
influences, arrayed to cut off his march
toward heaven and crowd him down to
ruin. We are told of the world, the flesh
and the devil, as the three great enemies
standing in array between the soul and
heaven. But as the flesh is only a species
of the genus world, and as through worldly
seductions the devil gains the mastery,
the victory that overcomes the world be-
comes a victory over all, or the failure to
overcome the world is a failure of all. If,
as the issue of the conflict, an immortal
soul is lost and sinks to the everlasting
ruin, it is because the world is victor in

62 UPWARD.

the fight. If, on the other hand, that soul
escapes the ruin, and from the dying bed
soars away to the immortal life, it is the
victory that overcometh the world.

For this victory the enlisted Christian
soldier strikes out. But let him mark
well the whole ground of his hopes of
triumph — the force for reliance, the plan
of the campaign and the discipline of the
field. In common war the laying out of
campaigns upon impracticable theories,
the working of weapons which can do no
execution, or the occupation of lines from
which there is no possible road to victory,
are worse than a waste of strength. It
brings in the end a defeat more productive
of suffering than would have followed an
early surrender. In the soul's warfare
for the heavenly victory an analogous
folly would result only from a neglect to
study the force and means at command.
Grod has mapped out for those who will
adopt it a campaign which is incapable of

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 63

failure; he has arranged for those who
will make it their position, a line from
which no storm of battle can drive them ;
and he supplies the force in which from that
line they can bear down upon flying foes,
open the way to the land of conquest,
and from thence send back the shout of
finished victory.

Then what is this victory that over-
cometh the world ?

Faith, passing up through lesser mean-
ings, is complete only in this — a perfect
reliance on the sufficiency of Christ ; the
leaning of the believer on the atonement
and intercession of the Redeemer for him
and his grace in him. Mental belief in
the doctrine of the cross, obedient belief
and unquestioning belief, are all involved
in this. Sweet and submissive confidence
in the promises is also included — such as
the promise of present support and coming-
deliverance under all trials of flesh or
spirit where patience in suffering is called

64 UPWARD.

for. In Hebrews xi. we have the finest illus-
trations on record of the manifestations of
faith in obedient and unquestioning sub-
mission to the will of God, both in doing
and suffering. The definition given to it
in the first verse of the chapter speaks a
volume of power to work the Christian
life into its highest activities : " Faith is
the substance of things hoped for; the
evidence of things not seen." Here is a
higher principle of either activity or en-
durance than mere hope. The word earnest
comes nearer to it — a word implying fore-
taste as well as expectation — a specimen
of the promised good now in hand, as well
as an assurance of the whole to come.
But beyond even this there lies, in the
terms quoted, the idea of a true fore-
stalling of the possession, making a present
now of the glorious hereafter — in fact,
making the coming glory so powerfully
present to the feelings that the really
present toils and sufferings are felt as

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 65

things of the past. This, we are then
told, was the power which wrought those
wondrous acts of obedience, patience and
endurance in Noah, Abraham, Moses and
other ancient worthies, who, because they
believed God, came off victors in the bat-
tle with the world. They endured as
seeing Him who is invisible ; they had
respect unto the recompense of the reward.

But even this view of faith, as the sub-
stance of the things hoped for and the
evidence of things not seen, fails to account
for those high moral achievements, except
as it is regarded in its relation to the
cross. We must go back to the under-
lying import of the term before stated,
which lends reality and vitalizing energy
to its lesser meanings — reliance on Christ.
It puts on this fullness of meaning in the
first experience of every true Christian.

The first motion of the regenerate heart
is one of reliance on the sufficiency of
Christ as the Saviour of the soul. It is a

6 * E

66 UPWARD.

plain, intelligible feeling — one that can be
put into language as well as felt in the
heart. Parting from all vain notions of
self-justification, the believer accepts the
justifying grace of the atonement as a pro-
vision for himself. He does not believe
the story of the death of Jesus merely as
he believes the history of the wars of Ju-
lius Caesar. His heart is not affected by
the wrong done to the victim of the cross
in the way that it is softened by the dying-
scene of Socrates. Neither does his inter-
est in the atonement rest at the conclusion
that there is fullness in it for the redemp-
tion of some sinners. But, coming with
his own broken heart to the cross, and
feeling himself one of the sinners for whom
such expiation was needed, and one of
those for whom it was really made, his
believing and appropriating faith looks up
to the cross and says —

" There hung the man that died for me."

Here is the conquest of self, the first

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 67

triumph of faith and the grasping of the
true force for all succeeding triumphs.

We expect no victory for the soldier who
goes into the field of strife in worthless
armor, against overwhelming odds, and
relying upon imaginary reinforcements
never to appear. Such is all the sinner's
hope of overcoming the world without
Christ in him and for him. Influences
hostile to grace have control of his heart.
There is treason within, and through that
he is disarmed of all strength for the con-
flict with evil. His moral powers feel the
inspiration of no living hatred of sin; no
revolt from the slavery of worldly influ-
ences excites his efforts to break the chain.
If he feels the strife at all, every pleading
of his own nature is for the enemy. Even
stronger against him than the world with-
out are the corrupt forces which his own
bosom nourishes. The experience of mil-
lions corroborates the Divine testimony,
that before he can hope for victory over

68 UPWARD.

the world the conquest of himself must be
made. The forces within him must be so
thoroughly revolutionized in spirit that
they will take the side of his soul against
Satan.

But how is this first battle to be fought?
And who shall achieve this first victory —
the victory within and over himself?
The answer is short, satisfactory and
scriptural. The battle has been fought,
and the victory is to-day laid at the sin-
ner's feet, awaiting only reception byiiis
faith to become his victory. It is an old
point — one of the elementary principles
of the great atonement. We were helpless
in the strife against our own corrupt pro-
pensities. We had no power left to free
ourselves from the bondage, and no price
to purchase a ransom from it. There
Christ met us. In the blood of his cross
he paid the ransom. Alone he fought all
the power arrayed for our eternal slavery
to sin, and in his conquest over hell he

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 69

broke that power for all who, with appro-
priating faith, looking up to him as a
personal Redeemer, can say, " My Lord
and my God !" Coming to him for the
victory which he on Calvary wrought for
his people; approaching with hearts long-
ing to find in it triumph over sin as well
as deliverance from wrath ; yielding our
entire confidence to the reality and suffi-
ciency of this work of Christ; appro-
priating to ourselves the Lord Jesus as
our righteousness, — this is the faith which
makes the victory of Christ to become in-
ourselves our victory. It is the beginning
of the victory that overcometh the world.

VI.

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH THE WORLD.

SECOND — ENDURANCE.

[ITH Christ living in the heart bv a
relying faith, "greater is he that is in
you than he that is in the world."
Thus we become armed for the conflict to
come. Conflict to come? After what has been
said of Christ having alone fought the battle
for us against the powers of darkness, and of
his having achieved the victory and given
it over to us as our victory, is there still
conflict to come? Yes, enough of watch-
ing against spiritual foes, of wrestlings
with fightings without and fears within,
and of strife with worldly influences in
every form in which they can be arrayed
against the soul, to make felt the value of

70

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 71

faith as an armor in that part of the con-
flict which is now laid upon ourselves.
The faith through which the victory of
the cross first became our victory must
abide to the end ; and upheld by it, while
we wrestle and pray and endure, all must
be the working of the power of the atone-
ment in us. We are saved only as we
ourselves endure to the end; but when
that end comes, we can only say as one
dying Christian said, "I have not run —
Christ carried me; /have not worked —
Christ wrought in me; /have not con-
quered— Christ vanquished for me: Christ
has done all."

It is an important point, and vital to a
well-maintained Christian experience, that,
while in the redemption of the believer
from the bondage of corruption, Christ,
without him, and alone upon Calvary,
achieved the victory, in the conflict with
opposing powers which he is to carry on
to the end, Christ only works with him

72 UPWAKD.

and through him. In the war with the
world and sin " we must fight if we would
reign." We must win the crowns we
would wear ; we must suffer with Jesus
if we would be glorified with him. Our
Christian course in this world begins with
our Lord's victory ; our own lies at the
end. The crown of our redemption already
adorns the Redeemer's brow ; our own is
laid up, not to be bestowed upon any one
until he can say, " I have fought the good
fight" — not I am fighting it, but I have
fought it — " I have finished my course; I
have kept the faith."

In this life-long conflict of our own we
find the full value of that highest character
of Christian faith which makes it a reli-
ance upon the all-sufficiency of Christ.
Here it becomes to us incitement, support,
endurance and the substance of the victory
to come. The greatness and glory of its
achievements reveal the sublime greatness
of the grace itself. We see it in the ex-

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 73

amples already referred to, recorded in
Hebrews xi. — examples which are not to
be thrown out as irrelevant to Christian
faith because they were anterior to the
great Christian sacrifice, for all the power
of grace in our world before the actual
occurrence of Christ's earthly mission was
substantially the power of the cross.
True, it was darkly, and only in expecta-
tion such; but from the hour of the prom-
ise that the seed of the woman should
bruise the serpent's head, the power of
Christ resting in his people has been the
only effective antagonism to sin — the only
support of the patience of the saints. And
so, astonished at the magnitude of the
grace which can thus appropriate this
power, we read how faith girded men of
God to subdue kingdoms, work righteous-
ness, obtain promises, stop the mouths of
lions, quench the violence of fire, escape
the edge of the sword and to turn to flight
the, armies of the aliens. We read how

7

74 UPWAKD.

they were sustained by its strength, while,
not accepting deliverance, they were
stoned, were sawn asunder, were tempted,
were slain with the sword, or while,
driven from society and from employment
because of their fidelity to Grod, they wan-
dered about in sheepskins and goatskins,
being destitute, afflicted, tormented —
wandered in deserts and mountains and
dens and caves of the earth.

These are not to be passed off as the
characteristics of the earlier times of the
Church, or a type of consecration which
belonged only to the martyr ages. It is,'
in more or less measure, the one faith of
all the children of our King ; and such it
will remain until all who wear it as their
armor in the conflict have passed over to
the land of the conquerors. No genera-
tion passes without furnishing illustrious
examples of its power for support and
comfort, for faithful action on the field,

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 75

and for calm endurance and assured hope
in the floods.

We see one making an open profession
of the name of Christ. We know his
history, his social relations and his con-
stitutional temperament, and we know
the conflict of spirit which must grow out
of them. We see him rising above the
natural timidity of his shrinking nature,
and above the social influences which are
in active array against his resolved
consecration to Jesus. We see him walk
with unblenching brow abreast of oblo-
quy and reproach — in fact abreast of every
feeling within, and every influence with-
out, to which his nature was once accus-
tomed to yield. His resolution conquers
all ; he forsakes all to follow Christ.
What does it mean? It is the victory
that overcometh the world, even his
faith. We next watch the progression of
his Christian life. All the influences
around him — social, financial, political, or

76 UPWAKD.

any way affecting what are seemingly his
worldly interest — suggest a lax piety, and
invite to compromises with the world.
They seem to lie in the direction of the
friendship of the world, which is enmity
with God. They frown upon a religion
of open and earnest fidelity to Christ and
his truth, and propose in its place a re-
tiring and non-aggressive piety. But
we see him, out of his warm heart for
Jesus, breaking through every snare
spread across his pilgrim path, and in all
duty, in the sight of men, taking up his
cross of doing and enduring for Christ.
We see in him the spirit of constant com-
munion with God, the daily crucifixion
of inbred lusts, the living down of cor-
rupt desires and unholy affections, and
growing heavenly-mindedness and ripe-
ness for heaven. Again we inquire how
all this comes : we meet the same answer
— it is the victory of faith over the world.
We see another. He is a young man

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 77

— the son in a home where there is purity,
refinement and wealth. He is bound to
that home by the tenderest love. But he
turns thoughtfully and resolutely away
from its endearments, because from the
far-off homes of sin he has heard the
cry, "Come over and help us!" We
read his reply to the Missionary Board,
who have inquired what his wishes con-
cerning a location are : " When I gave
myself to Christ, I did it unconditionally.
In like manner I give myself to this
work. As regards my place of labor, I
have no wish but to obey the call of God.
If in the great world, which must all be
brought in for Christ, there are places of
peculiar unpleasantness and exposure, I
would not presumptuously seek them,
but if the providence of God point the
way thither, I would say, ' Speak, Lord ;
thy servant heareth.' Christ has done
more for me than I can ever do for him.
My prayer is, that I may, more and more,

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78 UPWARD.

make it my meat and drink to do his
will."

There is still another — a toiler in a
humbler field, but useful in inverse ratio
to its lowliness. We see her in the by-
ways of our cities, or among the wilds of
our country, with Bibles and tracts in her
hand and prayer in her heart, going from
house to house, inquiring for the welfare
of souls, bowing meekly under abuse,
bearing with the hardened, instructing
the anxious, and cheering the neglected
with thoughts of Christ here and heaven
in sight. She has voluntarily chosen a
path which leads away from public
honors. Hers is an unobserved work.
But where she walks the footsteps of the
Holy Spirit are seen. In many dark
corners of the land, she has been, and
when she had gone people thought of her
visits, and then thought of better things,
for they felt that Grod had been with them.

Subsequent articles will exhibit the

THE VICTORY THAT OVERCOMETH. 79

power of this victory which overcomes the
word, amid other fields of the Christian
conflict, especially in sorrow, suffering
and death ; and in all it will be found, as
the hiding of its power, that it bears the
character already ascribed to it — a reli-
ance on the all-sufficiency of Christ. In
every phase and every turning period
in this conflict, in all those strifes within
the heart known only to itself and God,
in bearing the cross of the holy activities
of religion, and in receiving the whole
baptism of sorrow which the heavenly
Father appoints, the truth is made good,
that " this is the victory that overcometh
the world, even our faith." From the
hour of spiritual conversion to that of the
final departure for glory, it is a faithful
and joyous truth — how joyous, can never
be told in the language of earth.

VII.

ASSURANCE.

FIRST — A LAWFUL EXPECTATION.

fHE fountain of joy which the Saviour
has opened for his friends is full and
j overflowing. Why, then, should they
stint themselves when they come to it for
supplies ? Why not believe the full
value of the boon, and honor the bene-
factor by accepting his generosity pre-
cisely as it is offered? The believer
remembers how it was with him on the
deserts of sin, with no cooling spring at
hand. He remembers the thirst which
nothing in those arid regions could as-
suage. He knew — for it was a felt ex-
perience— that his soul must drink or
die ; and what had all this world of sin to

80

ASSURANCE. 81

offer for the relief of such anguish ? That
which, in the distance, seemed a refresh-
ing water, was found, on a near approach,
to be a deceitful mirage; and what
could he do ?

A fountain was opened for sin and un-
cleanness. The voice of eternal Mercy
cried, " Ho, to the waters!" He listened;
he approached, knelt and bathed his
parched lips in the river of salvation.
Fresh from such an experience of the
pangs of sin, it ill behooves him to disdain
the relief from all its terrors which is
offered in the full assurance that his sins
are forgiven, and that, through the grace
which completes what it begins, he, en-
during to the end, shall be saved.

This ground is generally approached
with the most solemn caution by the
truest Christians. So it should be. Fools
only would "rush in" here. Concerning
the matter of personal salvation, the
loftiest hope to which some dare aspire

82 UPWARD.

consists in a sweet reconciliation to all
the judgments of God, and a willingness
to leave their souls at his disposal. With
the king of Israel they say, " Let us fall
now into the hands of the Lord, for his
mercies are great." The language of such
submission is substantially this : I am a
guilty sinner, hopeless except from the
mercy of God in Christ Jesus. Without
Christ for my Advocate and Saviour from
wrath, I cannot stand a moment in judg-
ment with God. Out of him, I am a
doomed victim of eternal justice. All
that I can do is to renounce sin with
loathing, yield myself to Christ as my
Mediator with God, and then strive to
walk in newness of life. As far as I
know my own heart, I give myself to the
Saviour upon his own terms, and, God
being my helper, I will consecrate my
ability for usefulness and myself to him.
I can do no more ; and in the daily doing
of this I am willing to leave all else with

ASSURANCE. 83

God. The Judge of all the earth will do
right. My care shall terminate in the
question, What am I to do? and God
shall then do what he pleases with me.

This experience reveals an evangelical
and pleasant state of mind. It speaks
sweet submission to the Divine govern-
ment, supreme consecration to the work
of God, and confidence that the mercy of
the atonement will be rightly exercised.
Happy are those who can expose such a
heart to the scrutiny of the heart-search-
ing Spirit ! But the question whether this
experience, submissive and trusting as it
is, comes up to the proper measure of a
Christian hope depends upon the answer
to this further inquiry, Is it all the attain-
ment which God now proposes to his
friends? When it is reached, is the
mission of the Comforter, as described in
the New Testament, fulfilled ? The soul,
escaping from the gloom and sorrow of
sin, should seek the choicest repose which

84 UPWARD.

the mercy of God provides. While seek-
ing our bliss from the comforts of the
Holy Ghost, nothing is enough, while the
way is open for the enjoyment of more.
Inferior attainments are vantage-grounds,
upon which we should stand and gird
ourselves to reach unto those things which
are before.

We certainly read of " the full assurance
of hope."

No attempted exposition has ever been
able to give to those words any other than
their most natural meaning — an entire
confidence of possessing a present and eter-
nal interest in the blessings of the atone-
ment. This assured hope is the offspring
of faith. That faith rests in the Promiser
as true, and then in the promises as ap-
plying specifically to the believer.

A man holds a bank-note. He first
inquires respecting the character of the
bank, and becomes satisfied that it may
be relied on for the redemption of its

ASSUKANCE. 85

paper. This resembles that first degree
of confidence in God, which regards his
provision for saving all who in true faith
receive Christ, as full and certain to be
carried out. In this confidence a man
may doubt whether he is himself a subject
of that provision, but he has no doubt that
every promise of God will be fulfilled.

The holder of the bank-note next in-
quires into the genuineness of the particu-
lar bill in his hand. If on examination
it does not prove a counterfeit, then he
feels assured that he holds the promise
of the bank to himself and he expects to
enjoy the personal benefit of that promise,
So the Christian's faith in the general
promises of redeeming mercy ripens to
the full assurance of hope when he en-
joys a sufficiency of evidence that these
promises apply specifically to his own case,
as one who comes properly within the
provisions of the covenant of redemption.
For then the promises of that covenant

86 UPWARD.

are to Jiim personally a pledge. of salva-
tion.*

Far be it from us to regard personal
safety from final wrath as the ultimate
object of Christian ambition. The sanc-
tified heart looks beyond all the benefits
of the cross to the creatures of God, and
rejoices with unspeakable joy while it be-
holds all these lesser results conspiring
to bring glory to Glod, through the service
and everlasting bliss of a redeemed peo-
ple. And that is a precious faith which
enables the Christian, while consecrating
himself to the whole work laid to his
hands, to resolve all desires for himself
into acquiescence in the Divine will.

* The illustration from the bank-note is suggested by Dr.
Thomas Scott, who, in his Commentary, adopts a present and
full assurance of a saving interest in Christ as the meaning
of the apostle in Hebrews vi. 11. He regards the "assur-
rance of faith" not "hope" mentioned in Hebrews x. 22, as
amounting only to the confidence of the bill-holder in the
responsibility of the bank. The question whether this is not
too close a limitation of that faith is not pertinent to the
present work.

ASSURANCE. 87

Still, the casting out of fear is essential to
the highest enjoyment of the hope of
heaven. Until we feel our views settled
respecting our own standing in Christ, it
is hardly possible to conceive of such a
submission as leaves no room for the
anxious inquiry, What will be the issue
of the Divine will in mv case? It would
seem as if such a question must agitate
even the saint in glory, notwithstanding-
all his confidence in the Divine rectitude,
if there were really any uncertainty about
his eternal continuance in that world.
It is true he might be quietly submissive
— perhaps in the main happily submis-
sive— but could he close his bosom against
fear? Yet fear must be expelled before
the soul will find perfect peace in Christ,
" because fear hath torment."

When God, for the quickening of our
piety, spreads before us the joyous things
of religion, he does not refer us to quiet
submission alone. He exhibits HOPE as

88 UPWARD.

an anchor fastening the soul to moorings
within the veil, and he tells of strong
consolation for those who have fled to the
refuge of this hope. The vessel anchored
in the stream is moved by the winds
and tides, but whichever way she is blown
or drifted, her prow turns always toward
the spot to which she is fastened. The
tempest which disturbs the waters where
she rides never turns her eyes from the
place where her anchor is fastened.

So we lie in the stream of time, await-
ing the appointed hour to spread our
sails for the ocean of eternity. God
means that, in the interval, our hope,
" as an anchor of the soul, both sure and
steadfast, and which entereth into that
within the veil," shall keep our attention
delightfully engaged on what awaits us
there. He has given the " hope of salva-
tion" to be the helmet of the Christian
warrior, that in all his conflicts with fear
within and fightings without, he may

ASSURANCE. 89

" rejoice in hope of the glory of God,"
and be refreshed and assured of final
victory. It will be sad for him, if he
allows the popular prejudice against the
" full assurance of hope" to score down
this grace to any lesser power for conso-
lation than that with which God has
clothed it.

But the question whether assurance is,
in the present life, a fairly attainable
grace, and therefore a lawful object of ex-
pectation, is best answered by referring
to what has actually occurred. When a
man of God said, " I know that my Re-
deemer liveth," and then added the ex-
plicit expression of his perfect confidence
that he should see him with joy in the
resurrection, he spoke words to which we
can attach but one meaning. He had
the "full assurance of hope." The lan-
guage of another Bible saint is also un-
equivocal : "I am persuaded that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor princi-

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90 UPWARD.

palities, nor powers, nor things present,
nor things to come, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to
separate us from the love of God, which
is in Christ Jesus our Lord." The beauty
of this assurance again glows from another
earnest testimony from the same Chris-
tian : "I am now ready to be offered, and
the time of my departure is at hand. I
have fought a good fight ; I have finished
my course ; I have kept the faith ; hence-
forth there is laid up for me a crown of
righteousness, which the Lord, the right-
eous Judge, shall give me at that day."

These experiences are of unmistakable
import, and they are examples of many
others recorded with evident approval by
the Spirit of inspiration. In relating
them, no care is used to guard the lan-
guage with any such qualifying terms as
might warn the reader against making
their meaning too positive. The relator
does not even suggest that his feelings

ASSURANCE. 91

are peculiar or rare, but he speaks of
what he enjoys as we now speak of com-
mon graces. So when the Apostle John
tells his brethren that, by loving in deed
and truth, they shall assure their hearts
before God, he passes on without pausing
to modify or explain his words. He does
not seem to think that he is wandering
so far from the common track of Chris-
tian experience that what he says will
be obscure or surprising. Peter offered
no apology for presuming to appeal to
the omniscience of his Lord for the cer-
tainty of his love. It is evident that,
when these things were spoken, the cold
warning to beware of expecting too much
had not gone abroad. With Christians,
the full assurance of hope unto the end
appears to have been a mark for attain-
ment too common and too well under-
stood to require explanation.

It is here worthy of notice that the
" glimmering" and half-established hope

92 UPWARD.

is nowhere in the Bible set up as the
mark of Christian lowliness of mind or
of the evangelical feeling of ill-desert.
The notion which associates them is a man-
begotten one, if not worse. It is a notion
which fails to take into account the blood
of Jesus as prevailing against all the un-
worthiness of the believer. The Holy
Scriptures often enjoin upon Christians
to cherish lowly views of themselves,
and we read much of this in the experi-
ence of New Testament saints ; but very
rarely do we read of one of them as
cherishing any doubt of his acceptance
with God. We now hear so much of
these doubts, as a thing to be expected in
our religious experience, that it would sur-
prise many readers to observe how rarefy
the Word of Grod makes any allusion to
them. True — and to this we shall soon
more distinctly refer — it enjoins earnest
self-examination ; it warns us earnestly
of the perils of presumption, and it

ASSURANCE. 93

reveals the fearful fact that many are ex-
pecting heaven who will never reach that
world. But the Holy Spirit has never
taught us to -infer from this awful truth
that the hope of assurance is a dangerous
object of ambition ; neither does our com-
mon sense require any such conclusion.
In the New Testament we read much of
false professors, but we read almost noth-
ing of doubting or gloomy Christians.
All its language betrays the expectation
that the sons of God will be the children
of peace and joy — that they wall know
their living Redeemer, and, looking upon
heaven as their own, will ever pursue
their pilgrim march thither under un-
clouded skies.

The doubt of acceptance obtains all its
show of modesty from that forced asso-
ciation with Christian lowliness of mind
which has been named. Removed from
this arbitrary association, it stands forth
as unamiable in itself, as it is unlike the

94 UPWARD.

sons of God. If it arises from a dis-
covery of past sin, it betrays imperfect
views of the nature and power of redemp-
tion. If it results from an unsettled
feeling respecting the question whether
we have come within the terms of mercy,
it exhibits the soul lingering over an in-
quiry which ought to be answered one
way or the other. It holds its victim to
a point from which he ought to remove
at once. If it arises from any appre-
hension respecting the security of the
eternal covenant of redemption, it is next
to infidelity. In any point of view, a
cherished doubt wrars against the Chris-
tian's peace and holiness, and thrusts itself
between the believer and his Saviour.

Two things have chilled the ambition
of many who should now be living in
one joy of assurance. One is the fear of
vain glory : the other, the disgust with
which they have looked upon some
miserable professions of this attainment.

ASSURANCE. 95

But it should be remembered that the
belief of possessing large measures of
Divine influence makes only hypocrites
proud. Such there always have been,
and will be for long years to come. It
pleases Grod to try his own children, by
allowing such persons to expose religion
to shame ; and the endurance of this re-
proach is a part of the patience of the
saints. Great sanctity and positive hopes,
with- no better evidence than " Thus I
feel" or, " Thus I was told in a vision with
a great flood of light" will be professed
by men who afford no rational proof of
one godly exercise. Such persons will be
proud, vain boasters, whose influence will
mortify Christians and subject the cause
of Christ to disaster.

But when the Redeemer's true friends
allow themselves to trifle with valuable
privileges because these empty boasts are
so loathsome, they give to bad men a
power over their own experience which

96 UPWARD.

properly belongs to the Holy Spirit alone.
They allow sinners to prescribe the meas-
ure of their own attainments. There is
nothing in grace to make its subject vain-
glorious. We scandalize the Spirit when
we shrink from accepting its highest com-
forts through fear that they will turn us
into silly braggarts. Standing in Christ,
where alone undeserving sinners enjoy
the hopes of the covenant, deeper hu-
mility results from each fresh discovery
of God's favor to us. As grace after
grace, poured without stint into the soul,
brings out the cry, " What peace! what
bliss!" it just as inevitably awakens the
reflection, " Upon how unworthy an object
is it bestowed!" No others are so sure of
God's eternal love as the already glori-
fied spirits : no others, with so profound
a disclaiming of personal worthiness, look-
ing up to the enthroned Redeemer,

" Spread their trophies at his feet,
And crown him Lord of all."

VIII.

ASSURANCE.
SECOND — THE WITNESS OF THE SPIRIT.

'V'O inspired writer's language bears
A more the appearance of well-con-
^J sidered meaning than that of Paul.
There is no reason for divesting the term
of its exact sense, when he says to the
Corinthian brethren (2d Epist. chap, v.),
" We know that if our earthly house of
this tabernacle were dissolved, Ave have a
building of God, a house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens." No other
insight which his epistles afford to his
experience will justify us in grading this
confidence as a merely comparative one,
or anything less than absolute.

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98 UPWARD.

And yet our knowledge of him and of
ourselves — of him as one of ourselves —
forbids the thought that this assurance
was the product of his own mind', or was
reached through his own ordinary reason-
ing faculties alone. The power is not in
us to come to so certain a conclusion con-
cerning our moral condition. Our self-
consciousness, our judgment and our
faculties throughout are too finite, too in-
firm and too often convicted of mistake
to render a confidence thus begotten any-
thing less than a daring presumption.
To be in any of us what it was in
Paul, it must be something of communi-
cation to our minds, something brought in,
something wrought into a certainty by
the Infallible Mind, and communicated
to ours with the Divine signature. We
need no more lucid description of this
wonderful revelation than that in Romans
viii. 16, written also by Paul : " The
Spirit itself beareth witness with our

ASSURANCE. 99

spirit, that we are the children of
God."

Turning again to the assurance ex-
pressed in the first quotation above, and
reading a little farther, we find the sup-
port to which this " we know" is fastened.
" Now he that hath wrought us for the
selfsame thing is God, who also hath given
unto us the earnest of the Spirit. There-
fore we are always confident." In the
earnest of a possession there are involved
the two elements of some present fore-
taste and an expectation of the future en-
joyment of the whole. Such was the
cluster of grapes brought by the spies
from Canaan to the anxious multitude in
the wilderness. It assured the people
that Canaan was no fiction ; that there
lay the land to which God was leading
them ; and it gave them a foretaste of its
fruits. So while the Comforter gives to
the believer's soul the expectation of
future glory, it brings down many ante-

100 UPWAKD.

pasts of the joy which there awaits him —
" celestial fruits on earthly ground."

But let us not, because of the commu-
nicative origin of the hope of assurance,
make it too exclusively miraculous, or re-
lease our reasoning powers from all duty
concerning it, and straiten it to an opera-
tion on the feelings alone. God meant
that the testimony of the Spirit should
join in with some co-operating power
within us for reaching conclusions. The
Spirit must bear witness with our spirit
— a conference of testimony — and thus the
conclusion be made satisfying to us. But
if satisfying, it must be something that
is explicit. We are not to become mere
imbeciles in the act of casting ourselves
with unbounded reliance upon hopes for
the eternal world; but what less are we
if we utterly discard the reflective facul-
ties, and venture all upon the impressions
of the moment? There are other spirits
besides that of God which have power

ASSUKANCE. 101

to impress the human feelings. It would
be a criminal folly to stake a hope of sal-
vation upon the bare fact that something
brought the word to our hearts that all
is well. In commanding us to "try the
spirits, whether they are of Grod," our
heavenly Father has not left us without
the means of subjecting the work of his
own Spirit to the scrutiny of the common
rules of evidence. He allows the opera-
tions of the Spirit to be examined in the
light of our understanding, at least so far
as to enable us, when satisfied that we
really enjoy its earnest, "to give an an-
swer to every man that asketh a reason
of the hope that is in us."

There is here no inconsistency with the
higher truth that there are transactions
between the Divine Spirit and the soul
which can never come under human
modes of explanation. The things of
Christ ^are showed to the divinely-illu-
minated heart with ineffable clearness

9*

102 UPWARD.

and by a process which cannot be de-
scribed. The Spirit's witness for the be-
liever that he is a child of God is im-
mediate with his own spirit. The earnest
of heaven which it affords consists in
the direct communication of celestial views
to his mind and the feelings of the glo-
rified to his heart.

Yet even this spiritual intercourse is not
through vague impressions, which admit
of no external proof of their genuineness.
The Spirit performs other offices which
the understanding can estimate ; and that
part of his work which is observable is
made an indispensable evidence that we
are under his power. He is the author of
the word of divine inspiration. In that
volume of revelation the Spirit describes
the way by which a sinner comes to Christ :
Did we come by that new and living way ?
There he convinces of sin : Have our
souls bowed in sorrow under the burden
of guilt ? He convinces of righteousness

ASSURANCE. 103

and of judgment : In the light of God's
holy government have we sought our
justification in Christ alone, and have we
fled to his atonement for refuge from final
wrath ? The Spirit exhibits a list of Chris-
tian characteristics which afford evidence
of his work in the heart : Are these fruits
found in our own character and lives ?
As men, are we honest, unselfish, self-
controlling, gentle, and faithful to the
calls of humanity? As Christians, are
we prayerful, humble, crucified to the
world, free to meet the calls upon our
Christian benevolence, self-denying in
our Saviour's service, in sympatic with
the institutions of the Church, in love
with the brethren and walking with
God? Is this frame of mind habitual,
and is it developed in our common in-
tercourse with the world ?

The list of rational evidences might be
extended much farther. They are tests
which the Spirit itself has furnished in

104 UPWARD.

its own book of truth and duty. It bears
its testimony for them, that they are true,
gracious traits. By spreading before us
so many comprehensible points for self-
examination, it affords such witness of
piety in the soul as the common judgment
can approve. When through the truth it
has borne such testimony toward sustain-
ing a hope of heaven, the way is prepared
to accept without distrust the higher wit-
ness which it bears with the heart. The
internal impression is then known as
true, because the Spirit has been tried,
and has been found to speak as God
speaks in his revealed word. The union
of the Spirit's outward rational evidence
and its inwrought witness with the be-
liever's spirit removes the last vestige of
condemning fear, and his confidence be-
comes implicit and imperishable.

An assurance gained and preserved
only upon such conditions can never
admit of carelessness respecting self-ex-

ASSURANCE. 105

amination. It is a mistake to suppose
that self-examination necessarily implies
the existence of doubt. There is no evi-
dence, either from the Scriptures in con-
nection or from any other source, that
Paul's confidence had faltered, when he
spoke of bringing his body into sub-
jection, " lest by any means, when I have
preached to others, I myself should be a
castaway." There is no absurdity in
imagining an angel often looking over
the tenure by which he holds his place
in Paradise, and deriving pleasure from
reviewing the ground on which he stands.
So the assured Christian will consider the
experience of his heart, and the whole
working of the justifying and sanctifying
grace within him, to be refreshed by the
Spirit's approbation of it all. The con-
templation of hopes thus sustained in-
volves the review of all the evidences
which sustain them. The assurance of
hope, viewed in this light, secures a con-

106 UPWARD.

stant heart-watch, and there is no dan-
ger that its enjoyment will render self-
examination a farce. The same view
removes the apprehension that it will
promote carelessness respecting active
duty. It is maintained in duty, and the
Spirit lifts up its accusing voice against
every sinful neglect. More than this,
joy and love are stronger incentives to
well-doing than fear. The more these
are shed abroad in the soul, so much
the more the Christian will watch and
pray, and so much the better he will
live.

Through such earnest and witness the
believer learns to recognize the whispers
of the Spirit in his soul, " Be of good
cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee;" "I
have called thee by name; thou art
mine." Persuaded that this unclouded
expectation of heaven is a real and at-
tainable grace, and that, when possessed,
it imparts more celestial joy than is ever

ASSURANCE. 107

experienced in its absence, we again ask
ourselves why we should abridge the
privilege which the covenant of grace
opens? Whatever heavenly good our
Lord sets before us, he wishes us to
enjoy and expects us to seek. He knows
best what comforts are most appropriate
for us this side of the veil, and all the
repose to which he invites us is safe.

It is a poor satisfaction to be told that
assurance may be an attainable grace, but
it is not to be expected in one case out of
a thousand. We have too long measured
our expectations by the spiritual experi-
ence current since the departure of the in-
tense consecration of primitive Chris-
tianity. We look back to the times of
Jesus on earth and of his apostles, and
we find it assumed in all their instruc-
tions that this strong consolation was to
be a prevalent solace in the Church.
Neither do we find comfort in being told
that the Christian may reach this assur-

108 UPWARD.

ance before he dies, but if so it is proba-
bly in store for a few of his last moments
on earth — the dying grace for a dying
hour. Such speculations do more than
chill us ; they seem to trifle with the fixed
arrangements and conditions of our ex-
istence. They make a third state of
being between the present and the eter-
nal, as if the last moments of life were
not subject to the same reason and laws
of evidence with those which preceded
them. It is true that God has peculiar
consolations for seasons of peculiar need ;
and this fact is often vividly realized
in the hour when heart and flesh are
failing. But nowhere this side of heaven
are we to expect a revelation of new
principles of judgment or new evidences
of piety, beyond those which are now
within our reach.

Then be it ours to find our highest
rest of soul where others have found it —
rest from all feeling of condemnation

ASSURANCE. 109

now, and all apprehension of it to come,

because we know that our Redeemer

liveth, and we expect to be satisfied when

we awake with his likeness.
10

IX.

LOVE.

FIRST THE CHIEF GRACE.

'HOULD we look no farther than its
power for joy unspeakable we should
still unhesitatingly adopt the apostle's
grading, which ranks love as the highest
in the triad of graces. What a new
world of holy tranquillity is revealed in
the experience which proves that " there
is no fear in love, but perfect love casteth
out fear, because fear hath torment!"

The influence of conscience in affording

serenity or anguish has been mentioned ;

but that does not bring us up to the mark

of the power of our affections for joy or

sorrow. Peace of conscience is indeed a

delightful attainment: joy to the recon-
110

LOVE. Ill

ciled offender who can lay his hand on
his breast and say, It is mine ! But we
must rise higher than that. For the pain
or pleasure which flows to us through the
working of the natural conscience is not
inherent in the faculty itself. Conscience
is simply an index pointing us to some-
thing outside of itself, as the occasion of
the distress or comfort which it gives.
It produces remorse or peace, not by draw-
ing upon its own nature, but by assuring
us that God is angry or complacent. But
the affections are, in themselves, full of
joy or grief — a well-spring of comfort or
a boiling sea of torment. Love, if it be
right and happily requited, imparts bliss
from its own nature. On the other hand,
it is in the very nature of improper affec-
tions to produce misery in the heart
which cherishes them.

Selfishness affords a striking example
of this. It closes the heart against the
noble sentiment of universal brotherhood

112 TJPWAED.

and excites bitter envy in view of the
happiness of others. By arraigning the
interest of its subject against that of the
rest of mankind, it keeps him on the
rack of apprehension, where he trembles
to trust any of his kind. Love, that
richest treasure of the heart, is exhausted
in self-interest ; and the inevitable conse-
quence of this misapplying of affection
is seen in coldness of heart and sourness
of temper, sometimes concealed under a
false affability, but often acted out in un-
disguised moroseness. Here is displeas-
ure in the happiness of others, a nervous
dread of mankind, a locking of the soul
against human sympathy and an asperity
of spirit, expressed by unamiable con-
duct or concealed under the fretting
mask of hypocrisy. If these do not con-
stitute a life of pain, then rest may be
enjoyed on a bed of thorns.

But it is not alone in the bad affections
that the power of love for sorrow as well

LOVE. 113

as joy is illustrated. Those human fond-
nesses which are lawful, and, in them-
selves, even virtuous and adapted to the
purest earthly joy, often become the very
steepings of the cup of anguish ; and
this fact suggests one of the most vivid
views of the superior excellence of that
love of Grod which the Spirit sheds abroad
in the sanctified heart — the perfect love
which casts out fear and has no torment.
Look at one who has expended all the
fondness of a true and trusting heart
upon some object which at last betrays
the adoring love which it has secured,
and requites a long and earnest attach-
ment with unfeeling scorn. The first
knowledge of this perfidy falls like a
thunderbolt on the heart, and it is often
followed by consuming grief which longs
to hide itself in the grave.

And even where love is well placed
and well requited we have seen mournful

exemplications of the same truth, that

10 * h

114 UPWARD.

the purest and happiest earthly affections
often become the source of unspeakable sor-
row. The dearest human delights which
the fall has left to our race are gathered
around the altars of home. They live in
the smiles, the tenderness and the thous-
and nameless endearments of the hearth-
stone. There the heart of care loves to
unburden itself and be at peace. Thither
stern manhood retires from the irritating
conflicts of life, and, for a little while,
exchanges the conflicts without for the
love within. There the child buries his
face in his mother's bosom, weeps his
little grief away and looks up all radiant
with happiness. There is the highest
illustration which the world affords of
the power of the natural affections for
producing human bliss.

And there, beyond all other places
else, exists the mournful proof that their
strength for sorrow is exactly commen-
surate with their strength for joy. The

LOVE. 115

mother, watching the expiring life of her
infant ; the child, standing by the dying
bed of his last earthly parent, and, when
all is over, shying away to a corner and,
under the first overwhelming shock of
orphanage, sobbing as if his little heart
would break ; the wife — a wife no more —
standing by the grave where they are
putting into darkness him for whose sake
she loved to live and be happy : these
can tell us too truly that the depth of
their love makes the depth of their grief.
Had they loved less they would sorrow
less.

Discovering in our own moral natures
the necessity for both the inflow and out-
flow of fond affection, and witnessing so
much sorrow in the train of human at-
tachments, how refreshing is the revela-
tion of a love which is ever joyous and
satisfying, because it is planted, nurtured,
shed abroad, by the Holy Spirit in the
heart ! We yield to this influence with-

116 UPWARD.

out fear of ill-requital, without dread of
losing the objects of our delight, and
without any apprehension that we are
preparing the way for trials by allowing
our affections to become too intense. The
bliss wThich it affords our spirits is in
proportion to the fullness of its in-
dwelling. When it becomes perfect it
will cast out all fear. To the serenity
of the pacified conscience we give the
name of peace. The pleasure which
divine love inspires is better expressed
by the term bliss. Wielding all the
power for happiness which the affection
of human love possesses, and then, by
linking itself to the Divine nature, ethe-
realizing both itself and its fruits, it is no
longer an earthly, but a heavenly princi-
ple ; no more a human, but an immortal
sentiment, ripening the soul for the ec-
stasy of heaven.

In its manifestations it has variety,
but in its substance, unity. In all its de-

LOVE. 117

velopments it is " one and the selfsame
Spirit" throughout. In the form of be-
nevolence it may be felt for those in
whom no delightful traits can be dis-
covered. This was the Master's love for
Jerusalem — sorrow for the sinner's guilt
and compassion for his doom. As broth-
erly love, it unites the believer to all who
have part with himself in the communion
of the saints with Gocl. Like the knit-
ting of souls between David and Jonathan,
Christian fellowship makes us one with
all who belong to Christ, whether the
militant on earth or the triumphant in
heaven.

But the term complacency expresses the
most exalted form of holy love. This
speaks delight in the contemplation of
what is truly lovely — delight in all the
holy, created or uncreated — delight in all
holiness and holy happiness. Even that
commiserating love justmentioned springs
from this delight, because it is pity for

118 UPWARD.

those who are strangers to such happi-
ness. From thence this heart for all that
is worthy of love passes on to become a
living sympathy with the happiness of
all who draw their joys from Christ — in
other words, it becomes love to the
brethren. These are but parts of the one
complacent affection with which renewed
souls gaze upon whatever is lovely, happy
and holy throughout the universe, and
which is consummated in love to Christ
— love to God.

We have our highest view of it when
we reflect upon its Source. It flows in
the heart of God. The Holy Scriptures
say of him, not merely that he is lovely
and deserving of love, or that he is the
Author and Dispenser of love, but they
make of this grace one of the vitalities
of his being: " God is Love. As when,
assuming the expressive name, " I am,"
he impersonated universal existence, so
when we hear him proclaimed as one who

LOVE. 119

is Love, we think of all existing loveli-
ness as part and essence of himself.
" He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth in
God, and God in him." Even those
awful attributes to which we ascribe his
dealings of wrath are the necessary re-
sult of his complacency in holy happi-
ness. If he had less delight in such
happiness, he might be less severe against
its hindering cause, sin.

In bringing us to become partakers of
this grace, God incorporates in our spirit-
ual natures an elementary portion, of
his own. He fills us with the fullness of
himself, and we feel the new man within
us to be a Divine effluence. To possess
the love of God is to be born of God.
The Holy Ghost sheds it abroad in our
hearts, and , then it affords us in our
capacity such delight as it gives to God
in his.

There is for the believer this pe-
culiar joy in his apprehension of the

120 UPWAED.

love of God, that he feels it individual-
izing himself. It appears before him, not
alone in the general aspect of a com-
placency in all that is good and happy,
but his faith beholds in it the sentiment
of his heavenly Father toward himself.
It has been mentioned that longings for
love are an instinct of the human heart,
and also that only requited love yields
pleasure. jSTo complacency in others
could answer the demand of our nature,
while we felt that toward ourselves all
were cold. The regenerate person carries
into the new field for his affections all
these desires to become the object of love.
Indeed, in that new field these desires
are intensified by his consciousness of the
purer nature of that love which he now
longs to receive.

And it is in this field that the yearn-
ings of his spirit are met and filled.
His view wanders delighted over the
boundless extent of worlds and beings on

LOVE. 121

which his heavenly Father smiles, but
the thrilling experience of his heart is
that of God's especial affection for him-
self. He is bowed in grateful humility
and in wonder that the Majesty of the
universe can draw so near to so mean a
thing, while he listens to the testimony
of the Spirit : " Since thou wast precious
in my sight, thou hast been honorable
and I have loved thee." It comes again
— what joy dwells in the sound ! — " I love
them that love me." The Spirit who
whispers this witness in his ear breathes
it into his heart. Then he is satisfied
with the reciprocity of affection between
himself and God ; and such love, meeting
with such a requital, answers the highest
demand of his new-born nature.

There is a point of still higher interest
in God's particular regard for the believer.
It belongs to the grand system which was
formed for the recovery of a lost world.

It comes in the death and intercession of
11

122 UPWARD.

the Redeemer, and through that death
and intercession it is bestowed upon an
unworthy but repentant sinner. Viewed
in this light, it becomes the love of Christ.
Before the cross all our thoughts of Di-
vine love are tender and subduing. The
atonement, through which the sinner
becomes justified, blesses him with the
first complacent smile of his Maker.
His Redeemer's mediation presents him
before the throne as an object of heav-
enly regard. The Holy Spirit's sanctify-
ing work in his soul clothes him with
those attributes of loveliness which win
the Divine heart. He beholds his Sa-
viour cheered amid his toils and trials,
and sustained under the endurance of
Divine wrath, by the consciousness that
he was performing the highest labor of
love : " Having loved his own which
were in the world, he loved them unto
the end." He listens, and all is made
right and happy for himself and in him-

LOVE. 123

self, while he hears the ever-living in-
tercession of Jesus for his friends — "that
they might have my joy fulfilled in them-
selves; that the love wherewith thou hast
loved me may be in them, and I in them."
This is God's own love. It is the well-
spring of those streams which, flowing
into the believer's soul, become his love,
good and glorious in accordance with the
goodness and glory of the Fountain which
issues it. Faith is tranquilizing, happy
and good. So is hope, and so is every grace.
But "the greatest of these is Love."

X.

LOVE.

SECOND — ITS SCOPE.

ijrlELDS for the range of holy affec-
jj tions are ever open. In no one of
j its manifestations can sanctified love
become languid for the want of interest-
ing objects upon which to bestow itself.
In this world the calls for our benevo-
lence are incessant. The whole creation
groans and travails in pain. High-handed
wrong usurps the place of justice, and
cruelty reigns where mercy should be en-
throned. For all this God feels, and he
will have us feel. Against this he directs
the whole course of his active providence,
and he expects us to labor as well as feel
with himself.

124

LOVE. 125

The general misery which sin brings
upon the world is made up of unnum-
bered instances of individual suffering.
Multitudes of these are brought to our
own door. The poor we have always
with us. Around us the helpless are
needing help, the desponding are asking
for cheer, and the mourners are looking
about for comfort. Pointing us to each
call upon our benevolence, God informs
us exactly how we may judge whether his
own feeling for the children of sorrow
dwells in our breasts. " Whoso hath
this world's good, and seeth his brother
have need, and shutteth up his bowels of
compassion from him, how dwelleth the
love of God in him!" The neglect of
the offices of humanity is given as one
decisive proof that the heart is a stranger
to God. And we are to be weighed in
the same balances at the final judgment.
Christ, there enthroned as the arbiter of

our eternal destinies, will exhibit the
11*

126 UPWARD.

hungry, th6 thirsty, the houseless wan-
derer, the naked, the sick and the im-
prisoned— all those in whose cases love
to himself should have been expressed—
and the dread accusation against such as
turned coldly from the sufferers will be,
u Ye did it not to me."

Think, too, of the call for our compas-
sion toward the enemies of God. The
Divine heart bleeds over their infatua-
tion. God's call to them is the mournful
pleading of a father with a wandering
son, wdiom he knows not how to abandon
to profligacy and ruin. We behold the
tears of the Redeemer for lost souls ; we
see, in the sorrows of his death, the
evidence that all which he spoke was felt
in his heart; and then we know how we
must feel, and what we must do, if we
share the spirit of Christ. We too must
mourn over sinners who are rushing upon
ruin. More than this, we must gird our-
selves for cheerful self-denials, for warm

LOVE. 127

personal effort and for a generous par-
ticipation in every enterprise which is
adapted to their recovery. And when
was ever an opportunity wanting for the
exercise of love to the brethren? This
fraternal affection is, in a peculiar sense,
vhe fruit of our Lord's dying love, and is
hence proclaimed as the new command-
ment of the gospel. The special attrac-
tion which draws believers, as such, to-
ward each other, seems to have been less
distinctly felt under the previous dispen-
sation, when the Jew loved his fellow
Jew more on account of their national
affinity than because they were heirs to
the same heaven. In the New Testa-
ment we find the clearer recognition of
brotherly love as created by our oneness
in God. There we listen to that wondrous
intercession of our Advocate, which dis-
closed some beauties of grace new to the
world — "That they all maybe one; as
thou Father art in me, and I in thee, that

128 UPWAKD.

they may be one in us ; that the world
may believe that thou hast sent me."

We often speak of " celestial fruits on
earthly ground" and of " heaven begun
below." In this experience of love to the
brethren such a foretaste is well identified.
Cold and sadly deficient in the best par-
ticipations of grace is the soul of him
who feels no thrill in the thought that

" The fellowship of kindred minds
Is like to that above."

In our daily walks we meet with those
who are fellow-pilgrims to the city of
God. Their hopes, their object of life,
and their love, are the same as our own.
We mourn the same sinfulness, we look
to the same atonement, we rejoice in the
same forgiveness, we burn with the same
purified ambitions, and we live the same
new life. These communings are the
refreshing arbors along the steep of Chris-
tian toil, where the pilgrim reposes for a

LOVE. 129

season and feels his brow fanned by the
gales of heaven.

The delights of this fraternal love need
not be so much marred, as we are apt to
think they must be, by the imperfections
of our fellow-Christians. Holy affection
exhibits its glory and strength in triumph-
ing over such causes of disturbance. Its
influence over our hearts is then more
observable, and more honorable to re-
ligion, than it probably would have been
had it shined in no such darkness. When
this celestial spirit is beheld walking into
the arena of religious controversies or
personal strifes, with their angry excite-
ments, and stilling the tempest with the
magic reflection, Ye are brethren! then
the wrorld beholds it armed with the
strength of God and glowing in the
beauty of heaven.

On this point the Church has not re-
ceived the fair award of justice. She
enjoys more of the happiness of brotherly

130 UPWARD.

love than her enemies credit her with —
more even than her friends have always
claimed for her. It is not denied that
she has been rent by discords and some-
times deeply agitated by contending pas-
sions. For these sad outbreaks of moral
obliquity much is due to men of no piety,
deceivers and self-deceived, who have en-
tered her visible organization and ob-
tained her confidence. Their zeal for
points or parties, even when furious, has
been mistaken by others, and perhaps by
themselves, for Christian attachment to
principle. These are spots in our feasts
of charity for which God will not, and
men ought not to judge us, any farther
than as we submit to their corrupt in-
fluence. Not a few who are, in the main,
friends of Christ, are also implicated in
these scenes of strife, and the reproach
which has followed their influence cannot
be denied.

But people forget that the discordant

LOVE. 131

aspects of the Christian family are always
the most obvious, and most likely to be
observed through a magnifying medium.
The report of the bitter speech of one
Christian against his fellow-disciple will
spread for leagues, while the sweet ex-
pression of fellowship is often not heard
beyond the room where it is spoken. The
controversies of the true Church are, like
the surgings of the sea, on the surface.
Beneath them is a silent and smooth
under-current, always of the same ele-
ment and flowing in the same direction.
The excitements of the first are occa-
sional, often impulsive and always con-
spicuous. The last is the quiet flood of
the river of God, less striking to the
superficial observer, but for ever enjoyed.
Every heart in which Divine love truly
dwells flows in that flow and joins in the
universal sentiment of the redeemed —
one hope, one labor, one spirit, one Head
and one home.

132 UPWAKD.

What anticipations are awakened by
our present faint experience of this fel-
lowship! Expecting the hour when the
redeemed shall sing with the voice to-
gether, because they see eye to eye, how
the earnest cry sometimes ascends, " Lord,
why are thy chariots so long in coming ?
Why tarry the wheels of thy chariots?7'

The crowning feature of this holy love
is, that its scope embraces both earth and
heaven. We have seen that it ranges
delighted among the lovely ones of earth,
whom we meet from day to day. But
faith brings us into the presence of beings
of infinitely superior worth, for there is
no blemish in them, and our delight in
them is unqualified. Communion with
God seems, for the time, to remove our
souls from earth to heaven. Among the
spirits who fill that world are the great
company of the redeemed, who were as
we are, and who are as we soon shall be.
There are some of our dearly beloved

LOVE. 133

ones, who could not abide our slow steps
and so hastened before us to glory. Hand
in hand we performed our pilgrimage
for a short season, and the remembrance
of those communings prompts our souls
to make frequent ascensions up the ladder
of vision to the land of the immortals.
We see their white robes ; they seem to
beckon us with their smile —

" Come away to the skies,
My beloved, arise ;"

we listen to the music of their harps of
gold; we behold their dwelling-place in
light unapproachable and full of glory ;
and then we feel that our holy affections
can never die for the want of something
good to love.

The same faith brings us into the pres-
ence of angels, cherubim and seraphim,
those morning stars which sang together,
and those sons of God who shouted for
joy when our world sprang into being.

12

134 UPWARD.

They have enjoyed an existence of unin-
terrupted holiness ; they have numbered
ages of service in ministering to the
honor of the throne of heaven ; and they
have found what is always to be found,
even on this earth, growing felicity in
each new hour of consecration.

There also we look upon that face
which is the brightness of the Father's
glory. The eye of faith, looking through
the veil of sense, beholds now enough of
Christ to excite strong yearnings for the
unclouded view of him, " whom having
not seen, we love ; in whom though we
see him not, yet believing we rejoice with
joy unspeakable and full of glory." And
there too is the self-existing Author of
this unspeakable bliss, enjoying love, im-
parting love and himself being love.
Surrounded by those throngs of the ran-
somed and those angelic " living ones,"
and having in himself all the glorious-
ness of the Father, the Jesus, Saviour,

LOVE. 135

and the Holy Spirit, Sanctifier, he is the
one everlasting object of contemplation
upon which we may feast for ever.

Thus, in those hours when the soul
shuts itself in from this world and looks
through the glass of faith into that which
is unseen and eternal, as the picture of
an entire heaven offering itself to our
love unrolls itself, presenting view after
view, rising in interest and delight, our
weak sight soon reaches the point beyond
which it cannot go until we see as we are
seen and know as we are known. But
the present span of our vision is wide
enough, and its aggregate of objects large
enough, to suffice for any longing this
side of heaven. Our spiritual arithmetic
gives the numbers — Mount Zion, the city
of the living God, the heavenly Jerusa-
lem, the innumerable company of angels,
the general assembly and churcli of the
first-born, God the Judge of all, the spirits
of just men made perfect, Jesus the Me-

136 UPWAKD.

diator of the new covenant, and the blood
of sprinkling. We add up the column
and the sum is Love.

Casting out all fear, filling our strongest
yearnings for affection, incorporating our
natures with the happy nature of God
himself, clinging to us with a hold which
neither death nor life nor any other crea-
ture of God can unloose, and enriching
all its other blessings by constantly draw-
ing us nearer to Calvary and Mount
Zion, what a sanctuary for the soul is
love ! What light and blessings it sheds
upon the hour when death shall loosen
the soul for its flight to the home of all
holy affection ! The believer, led by its
soft guidance, approaches the shore where
he can hear the voices of the songs from
beyond the river. They adore, they
sing, they shout ; but high above all, and
through the eternal age, they Love.

XL

THE SERVICE OF DOING.

FIRST INCITEMENTS.

fHAT is a false religion which is laid
hold of only for the sake of its hope
for the world to come. There can be
no greater mistake concerning the intent
of the death of Christ toward the re-
deemed than to suppose it meant only
for their deliverance from future misery.
The grace which brings salvation does
not subordinate God to us but us to him ;
and that is a selfish estimate of its mean-
ing which would make it read, Every-
thing for us : nothing from us. A lively
hope of heaven is a fair result of vital
religion — nothing more. The elementary

feature of such religion — that without
12 * 137

138 UPWAED.

which it has no reality of existence — is
consecration. Its possessor has made the
solemn consecration of himself to God,
and this consecration is for both worlds —
the life that now is as well as the life
to come. The moral condition of the
world gives to this consecration a definite
and tangible import. It brings it out
from the region of abstract sentiment
and places it in concrete relation to the
work of Grod in the world. In direct
terms it means work. Personal effort,
such as devising, toiling, praying, giving,
and all up to the point of such sacrifice of
selfish interests as will be felt, is implied.
Not merely first in time, but, all through
life, first in order of effort, the Christian
seeks the kingdom of heaven and its
righteousness.

It lies in the nature of a true Christian
consecration that this service should be a
cheerful one. The whole life, its anxieties,
ambitions, bent of activities and delight

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 139

in the results of living, lias taken its spirit
from the cross. In the feeling insepara-
ble from a true experience of grace from
the cross, that " for me to live is Christ,"
the service in which consecration is car-
ried out, rises from the character of a cold
duty to a delightful aspiration for fellow-
ship with Jesus. This view of it is pecu-
liarly vivid in the light of his example.
There is a motto for the Christian life in
his wrords, " I must work the works of
him that sent me while it is day; the
night cometh when no man can work."
He said this in his assumed human nature
— the " form of a servant" which he " took
upon himself" — a nature in which he
could be felt by us as an example. It
was a nature capable of toils ; capable of
feeling that they were toils ; susceptible
of their wearing influence upon manly
energy and susceptible of the oppression
of spirit wrhich they sometimes produce.
With him work was no less work than

140 UPWARD.

with us. Fatigue of body and faintness
of spirit were as real with him as with
us. With as full an experience of these
things of humanity as was ever felt in
this world, he expressed his sense of the
life-long service due to the Father, and
his purpose, as an appointed worker,
whose task, like the task of a hireling,
was set to work out his whole day, for
the night was coming on.

True, it is not for us to do the one great
work which was his more special mission
in the world — that of dying a sacrificial
death for the sins of men ; but we are to
work for the same great end — the salva-
tion of sinners through that atonement.
Our Lord has not called certain classes
only of his redeemed friends into the
activities of his service; he has left his
example for all, giving to all the grace to
do and spreading out work abundant for
all. It may be found in the pulpit, the
Sabbath-school, the parish, in supplying

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 141

and sending forth ambassadors of the
cross everywhere, among the neglected
and suffering, in all the highways and by-
ways of life, and in every appointed
means for reforming and blessing the
world. It is work which requires a sur-
render of carnal ease, toil, willing endu-
rance and sometimes exposure to re-
proach, but it is work which cannot be
put off without imperiling the hope of
heaven. There is no exception to our
Lord's everlasting law, " Whosoever doth
not bear his cross, and come after me,
cannot be my disciple." The toils and
exposures under which our consecration
to God lays us, are only sharing with
Jesus the burdens of the service. When
he spoke the words we have quoted, he
recognized for himself no more constancy
in duty than is binding on us, and men-
tioned no motive that does not apply,
in its full strength, to our case. Works
of as high and eternal interest as those

142 UPWARD.

which brought him to earth are set be-
fore us. To us also the night cometh —
the night when no man can work.

"We turn from the example of Jesus
living in the world, to the power of his
death in the believer. Reference has
already been made to the fact that it bears
just as explicitly upon a working, Chris-
tian life as upon the final blessedness of
heaven. Cursory views of the grace of
the cross generally pass over the first and
rest upon the last of these results of the
atonement in the believer. They look
only for the crown and never for the
cross. But a thoughtful view of our
Lord's death sweeps the wider scope of
its bearing and sees not only what it is
to do for the pardoned sinner, but also
what the love of Christ constrains that
sinner himself to do for his fellow-sin-
ners, and more especially for the Lord
who died for him.

With New Testament saints, this last

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 143

was much the most prominent part of the
theme of the cross. So Paul spoke his
own experience of its power when he
wrote of filling up, in his own flesh, that
which is behind of the afflictions of
Christ, for the sake of his body, which is
the Church. In other words, he looked
not upon Christ as the only sufferer in
this great work of winning a church out
of this apostate world to holiness and
to heaven. Though his was the only
true sacrificial work, still he left behind
afflictions which his people were to fill up
in their flesh — in some outward service of
doing or enduring — in carrying out the
purpose for which he died. They were
to watch and work as their Master
watched and worked, and sometimes also,
like their Master, to suffer and die for the
cause.

From men of that spirit, how noble
would have been the utterance of our
working song —

144 UPWARD.

" Must Jesus bear the cross alone,
And all the world go free?
No, there's a cross for every one,
And there's a cross for me !"

From the stand-point of Calvary the
writers of the New Testament were ac-
customed to look neither at earth with
its toils, nor at heaven with its rest, by
itself alone. " To this end Christ both
died and rose and revived, that he might
be Lord both of the dead and living.''
" We labor, that whether present or ab-
sent, we may be accepted of him." " For
me to live is Christ, and to die is gain."
Over and over again has the spirit of in-
spiration brought the warfare and the
victory into the same field of vision, and
in such terms as make the power of the
cross no less direct toward a faithful
Christian life than toward a triumphant
death. So goes on our hymn —

"The consecrated cross I'll bear,
Till death shall set me free;
And then go home my crown to wear,
For there's a crown for me."

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 145

The shortness of the time comes in as
a warning incentive, calling for earnest-
ness of service. True it is not the holiest,
and should not be the strongest spur to
Christian activity. It is of use only in
this inconstant world. In heaven, with-
out any warnings for haste from dying
chambers and funeral bells, they work
faster and better than any of us here.
The most prompt service is rendered
where the incentive is the unmixed one
of love. So, in his better moments, it is
felt by the Christian in this world. It is
not rare that the true lover of his unseen
Lord enters into the feelings of the three
disciples,. who, on the Mount of Transfigu-
ration, ravished by the sight of the ex-
cellent glory, spoke first of all their con-
secration to service. It is good to be
here, if we may build tabernacles for thee
and thine. It is good to dwell on the
mount of love, if we may do the works
of love.

13 K

146 UPWARD.

Still, in commending to us inducements
to service, God treats us as yet living in
a world where the best frames of spirit
are inconstant. It is earth yet, and so
Death must stand forth our ordained
preacher, filling all the ways of life with
his sepulchral oratory, moving us to do
with our might what our hands find to
do, for the solemn reason that there is no
work in the grave whither we go.

The best laborers in the Church might
live too long. It is a painful thought,
but with the records of human incon-
stancy before us, it cannot be suppressed.
Short as the day of the hireling now is,
we sometimes grow impatient of toil.
The work for to-day is often laid aside
until to-morrow; that which belongs to
the present year is postponed until the
next. This is done by those who know
it may be at the sacrifice of the last op-
portunity for performance. What then
might become of the industry of us all,

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 147

if, in our present habitudes of body and
mind, we were immortal? Is it not well
for the kingdom of Christ in the world,
that the great programme of labor
through which its eventual triumph is to
come passes from hand to hand? Is it
not well that death is made one of the in-
strumentalities through which efficient
service is perpetually secured? Each
laborer is thus brought to feel that he has
but a short time with his task before it
is handed over to some successor. If he
would do anything he must do it fast.
If he would not carry the one thriftless
talent in the napkin to the final judg-
ment he must make haste to use it.

Any worldly enterprise which requires
ages for its perfection feels the influence
of death as an element of efficiency.
The administration of an empire would
become indolent if any one sovereign,
even a Charlemagne, were immortal on
his throne. In this world, it is the

148 UPWARD.

recognized law for all long successful en-
terprise, that while time impairs efficiency,
freshness promotes the vigor of service.

The enterprise which Christ has left to
his Church is not exempt from this rule.
It is a work for ages. Long centuries of
toil and suffering must be worked and
suffered through, before reaching the
final achievements of the cross in this
world of sin. The vigor of service must
not relax to the end. And so death
passes the work along from hand to hand.
It takes it from those whose ambition for
toil is bowing under the burden, and
hands it down to others, who, in fresh
energy, are panting to play their glorious
part.

This arrangement, so good for the
Church, has no ungenerous aspect toward
the individual. The sentinel on his weary
watch listens without dread for the bell
which strikes the hour for another to
take his round. So with the servant of

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 149

Jesus, faithful at his post: why should
he recoil from the approaching hour for
exchanging the watch? Why should he
linger at nightfall, reluctant to leave his
work, when his good Redeemer would
have him look through the darkness to
the rewarding morning? All will go
well, whether with himself or with the
work he leaves. Men die, but the cause
of redemption lives, and shall never want
men to bear it on while one sinner re-
mains under the day of grace.

This view of the Divine wisdom in the
uses of death, speaks, oh how solemnly !
to the writer and reader, to the whole
company of the Church, to all who have
any thought of reaching heaven. Its
voice is, Work ! Work for Christ and
for human salvation ! Work while it is
day ! and remember that the day is not
done until the sun is fully set. What
can be better for the Christian veteran
than to march in his panoply up to the

13*

150 UPWAKD.

very gate of heaven ! What better than
to have it said of him when he is gone —

" Thou hast fallen in thine armor,
Thou servant of the Lord ;
Thy last breath crying, Onward !
Thy hand upon thy sword!"

There follows naturally the thought
of this further incitement to a faithful
service of doing — its intimate connec-
tion with the glory to come. No careful
reader of the Holy Scriptures can have
failed to notice how often they connect
the labor with the reward — the cross with
the crown. So our Lord strengthened
in his personal followers zeal for action
and faith for endurance: "Ye are they
which have continued with me in my
temptations ; and I appoint unto you a
kingdom, as my Father hath appointed
unto me." The voice from heaven to the
Revelator in Patmos, bade him write
concerning the blessed dead who die in
the Lord, that they "rest from their

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 151

labors, and their works do follow them."
Without here pausing over the theological
relation of the works to the reward, no
one can carefully read either of the pas-
sages just quoted without receiving from
them this plain impression — there must be
first toil for Christ on earth and then re-
pose with him in heaven. The hand that
has clung longest to the cross lays the
firmest grasp upon the crown. It is as true
in holy activities and rest as in our phys-
ical aptitudes, that "the sleep of the
laboring man is sweet." It was written
of those who amid great tribulation had
washed their robes in the blood of the
Lamb. " Therefore, [because of what
they did and experienced on earth,] are
they before the throne of God, and serve
him day and night in his temple. . . .
The Lamb which is in the midst of the
throne shall feed them, and shall lead them
unto living fountains of waters, and Grod
shall wipe away all tears from their eyes."

152 UPWARD.

See how the faithful and honored ser-
vants of Christ have, from the threshold
of glory, looked back upon their life-work
for Jesus ! Paul, when an old and war-
scarred soldier of Jesus, with his weary
feet almost on the immortal shore, wrote
in happy review of all he had done and
suffered for his Lord, and of the inti-
mate connection between his toils and en-
durances and the joyous triumph which
awaited him. " I am now ready to be
offered, and the time of my departure is
at hand. I have fought a good fight, I
have finished my course, I have kept the
faith : henceforth there is laid up for me
a crown of righteousness which the Lord,
the righteous Judge, shall give me at that
day."

Thus stretching his view over earth
behind and heaven before — a view which
embraced the whole bearing of the endur-
ance upon the triumph — he sent back
his voice to the young laborer, to whom

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 153

he thus wrote to work for Christ : " Thou
therefore endure hardness as a good sol-
dier of Christ."

The writer of these pages many years
ago visited an aged friend — one who had
done long service for Christ and who was
then suffering and sinking under mortal
disease and expecting soon to die. He
had reached the point where he felt that
his earthly service was closing, and his
longing gaze was turned intensely toward
heaven. From those beamings of glory
he looked back once more to earth and to
the Christian's work on the earth. " Oh,"
said he, " I have loved it, but I never
before had such views of the inexpress-
ible joy of laboring for God. I want to
say to you ; I want to say to all the min-
isters ; yes, I want to lift up a loud voice
and say to all the brethren, ministers or
laymen, Work for God ! work, work ! I
have no words to tell you how blessed it
is. Tell them that they will never know

154 UPWARD.

until they view it from where I now stand,
but they will know it all then."

The order of a gallant naval captain,
" Don't give up the ship !" wras immor-
talized because it was spoken in death.
So let the shout of the dying Christian
veteran be passed along the hosts, the
rallying cry for fresh encounters with sin
and Satan in this world of ours, Work
while it is day ! work for Grod !

XII.

THE SERVICE OF DOING.

SECOND — ENCOURAGEMENTS.

*

fHE most real trials of Christian effort
do not consist in their tax upon our
j means and strength. Discouragement
is the chief foe to heartsome labor. The
holding of that scowling fiend at bay is
always an indispensable condition of hap-
piness, and generally of usefulness, in our
work.

A sincere but too easily depressed
Christian writes to his friend: "God
knows that I have no greater desire than
to see that I am really doing good in his
cause. I would labor for it; for this I
would gladly spend and be spent; I do
not know that it would be too much to

155

156 UPWARD.

say that I would willingly die for it.
But my courage is almost broken and I
am sorely tempted to give up. It is not
that I crave rest. I am not tired of
work. I took the toil into account when
I gave myself to Christ. I was warned
to expect it, and I did so. I not only ex-
pected it, but I sought it. I have no dif-
ficulty with what some would call the
drudgery of the service. In truth that is
rather exhilarating than disheartening.
I have noticed the flush of exultation with
which a boy brings his first harvest-sheaves
to the pile which his father is gathering.
He pants under his work, but he is full
of joy because it is his own contribution
of effort in support of his father's interest.
I can comprehend his pleasure, and, if
other things were right, I would enjoy a
similar feeling in all my labors to gather
fruit unto life eternal. The exacting of
mere means and energies in this work
offers the least of all temptations to the

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 157

repining propensity. It is only the trial
which self-denial and fatigue give to pa-
tience; and that is with me the mildest
form of discipline for this virtue.

" 'Tired of work?' No indeed! But
these dark skies — what do they mean?
Will the sun never break through the
clouds in the moral heavens? In the
harness of mere toil I could work on to
old age, happy to live and to die, but I
sink under discouragement. When I see
that my hands are stretched forth all the
day long to a disobedient and gainsaying
people; when I see that, after all is done,
the moral changes are apparently against
the cause of Christ and iniquity is ac-
tually gaining ground, and that even the
tender ear of childhood is turned away
from the story of the love of Jesus, thus
making the prospect for the future worse
and worse, I find it almost impossible to
listen to the voice which says, ' Persevere
and hope on!' I know how wicked des-

14

158 UPWARD.

pondency is, but when it comes upon me
as an armed man, I have no strength left
for the battle. I sink in the deep waters :
God help me!"

The above complaint is an example of
many which go up from the field of
Christian toil. Men of really devoted
spirit are- not always courageous when
they see the world growing harder in the
very face of their labors, and especially
when long continued efforts still bring few
satisfactory results. They would keep
better watch against despondency if they
would more carefully observe its tendency
toward acrimony of spirit. They are
prone to indulge angry feelings toward
men for whose good they labor, but who
ungratefully resist every benign influence
which is employed in their behalf. They
are apt to lose patience with others who
profess to be devoted to the same noble
interest which fills their own hearts, but
who are never found at the post of duty

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 159

when their personal services are most
needed.

But worse than this, when the Chris-
tian laborer feels his hope of success
giving away, he sometimes carries his
displeasure against God himself. Before
he is aware he finds himself dissatisfied
— shall it be said angry? — because God
suffers men to remain unmoved and does
not openly honor his efforts to promote
the glory of Christ in the world. Like
the prophet under the juniper tree, first
discouraged and then vexed, he is ready
to cry, "It is enough; now, 0 Lord, take
away my life." Like the same prophet
in the cave, his heart adopts the petulant
expostulation that, while he has been
very jealous for the Lord God of hosts,
he has been ungenerously deserted of
heaven and left alone in his work.

This is the natural culminating point of
all discouragement under Christian labor.
And when this point is reached we can

160 UPWARD.

see what a vile as well as gloomy thing
such discouragement is. It is a quarrel
with heaven, and it must be given up.
It may cost long and hard struggle with
the morbid habit of spirit, but it must
be given up. Otherwise there is no cheer
for toil, perhaps no good in it, certainly
no heavenly peace for the life, and who
can be sure of any precious hope in
death?

Suppose then we look over this broad
field of the service of doing, first inquir-
ing what belongs to us and what to Grod.
Let us see whether what we so often call
the unfruitfulness of Christian labor may
not be a delusion of the outward sense,
and whether the despondency arising
from it is not often the self-will of a
mind which assumes to itself the prerog-
ative of shaping means and ends. It is
certain that no cloud of real gloom can
abide over any true service for Christ,
and there are standpoints of vision from

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 161

which we can see the mists passing off
and all such service glowing under the
promise, "Your labor is not in vain in
the Lord."

Here is one thought to lift the cloud :
Grod has nowhere promised to reward us
for the success of our efforts. He has
never spoken of their results as the thing
for which he bestows upon us his ap-
proval. The spirit and character of
these efforts is one thing: the effect
which they accomplish another. They
are entirely distinct, and each is to be
viewed by itself. One involves our per-
sonal responsibility, while God alone
takes care of the other. The assurance
that we shall be blessed in all our toils
and sufferings for the cause of Christ has
only these uniform and simple conditions,
that we are to do our best, and do it under
the incitement of love. This closes the
whole account of what concerns us.

Then wrhen our Lord looks smilingly

14 * L

162 UPWARD.

upon us, as he looked upon the loving
disciple of whom he said, " She hath done
what she could," we may be happy under
those smiles without waiting to learn
wrhat use he will make of the things done.
Whether the crop freshens in the showers
of spring and ripens under the harvest
sun, or whether it seems as if perished in
the frosts of winter or drought of sum-
mer, there remains a blessing for the
faithful sower of the seed, w7hich, to his
own soul at least, shall be a harvest re-
ward : " Glod is not unrighteous to forget
your wrork and labor of love which ye have
showed toward his name." However
men may speak of toiling to no purpose,
his word of encouragement is never with-
drawn. The Christian, whose trusting-
soul looks up to the crown of life as one
certain prize for those who are simply
faithful unto death, has no trembling
for the issue. Though now worn and
tempted to faint under watchings, appar-

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 163

ently almost in vain, for some present
tokens of usefulness, this refreshing
thought makes him once more happy in
his toil, — that if he is faithful for Christ's
sake, a few hours more of work will
bring the welcome change. A few hours
more, and

" There on a green and flowery mount
Our weary souls shall sit,
And with transporting joy recount
The labors of our feet"

He may well be " steadfast, unmovable,
always abounding in the work of the
Lord" whose strong faith is anchored to
the assurance, " forasmuch as ye know
that your labor is not in vain in the
Lord."

But it is not alone this anticipation of
the heavenly reward which makes our
present service cheerful and satisfying.
Irrespective of present success, all that
we do in faithful love brings present
recompense to our hearts. Christian

164 UPWARD.

work has always its reflex bearings upon
the worker, which become the heart's

"Celestial fruit on earthly ground" —

foretastes of the recompense to come.
The " doer of the work" is " blessed in his
dee&sT Good reason may exist why
God's open approbation of our service
should linger, but he hastens the visits
of his love to our souls. Indeed, on a care-
ful examination of his discipline of our
hearts, we shall sometimes be surprised to
find the best spiritual comforts arising
from the very things which are darkest
to our senses.

Look for example at the power of what
men call cross-providences and causes for
despondency to excite the confiding Chris-
tian's/^'^. This is a joyous grace — one
of the celestial three which are stars of
the first magnitude in the firmament of
Christian peace. It is evidence of par-
don ; it unites to Christ ; it is one me-

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 165

dium through which we look up and see
the Blessed One. Faith is eyes to the
believer, " for we walk by faith, not by
sight."

But without some sensual darkness
there can be no faith. The things of
which it is the evidence are not seen. The
good of which it is the substance is hoped
for — meaning, of course, not now possessed.
If we could now see everything take the
form in which our infirm policy would
have shaped it, what room would remain
for the refreshing sentiment of trust
which keeps us so near to Christ ? But
as it is, God's ways are so inscrutably
above human policies, and his paths in
such a deep sea, that much of our joy in
him grows out of that inwrought confi-
dence which tells us that all done by our
heavenly Father is well done. What-
ever awakens faith becomes tributary to
our delight.

Then it is not strange if our covenant

166 UPWAKD.

Lord leads us along dark paths that he
may teach our trembling hearts the bless-
ing of trust. Perhaps for this very
reason he purposely withholds from our
sight the reward which, for the present,
he wishes only the eye of faith to behold.
What we call the discouragement of ex-
pending our charities and efforts only to
see things grow worse and worse, may
then be a Divine culture of the grace
which draws the believer near to God, to
wait under the shadow of his throne for
the chosen hour when we shall be allowed
to see, as well as believe, that all went on
well. In this spirit Cowper wrote of the
" mysterious way" in which Grod moves,
"his wonders to perform:"

"Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,
But trust him for his grace;
Behind a frowning providence
He hides a smiling face.

"His purposes will ripen fast,
Unfolding every hour;
The bud may have a bitter taste,
But sweet will be the flower.

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 167

u Blind unbelief is sure to err,
And scan his works in vain ;
God is his own interpreter,
And he will make it plain."

Bat faith is not the only reflex comfort
of toiling under outward gloom with a
true and fond devotion to Christ. Ohedi-
ence is a source of joy. There is an inex-
pressible sweetness in the reflection that
we are striving to do the will of God.
This sentiment, when sincerely cherished,
is nothing less than the spirit of Christ
in the soul. We look up' to our Lord,
and we hear him proclaim the moving
cause of his own mission of toil and suf-
fering in the world — uLo! I come; in
the volume of the book it is written of
me, I delight to do thy will, 0 my God!"
Sustained by the happy consciousness
that he was faithful to an appointed work,
his courage did not give way in those
dark hours when even his own received
him not. He knew that his labors were

168 UPWARD.

accomplishing the Divine purpose, and he
was satisfied.

Like him we are sent into the world to
do the will of our Father in heaven. It
is a holy mission which we are to execute —
not to acquire a personal reputation for
effective talent, but for the glory of him
who sent us. Whatever amount of suc-
cess may now attend our labors, we shall
soon "give account with joy," if, with the
consciousness of honest purpose and after
faithful endurance, we can say to God, as
we ascend, "I have finished the work
which thou gavest me to do."

XIII.

THE SERVICE OF DOING.

THIRD — FRUIT.

fENTION has been made of the bless-
edness of Christian service, irrespec-
tive of the question of outward suc-
cess. Let it not however be inferred that
we may be careless respecting the visible
fruit of our labors or cherish anything
less than a deep solicitude concerning the
persons or things which are the objects
of them. When allowed to reap with
joy a quick harvest from what was sown
in tears, we are indeed blest with the pe-
culiar favor of our rewarding God. If
we are permitted to behold the waste
places of the earth robing themselves
with the glory of Lebanon and the ex-

15

169

170 UPWARD.

cellency of Carmel and Sharon, under
our cultivation, our hearts should con-
tribute their own happy strains to the
voice of joy and singing which rises from
the reclaimed desert.

On the other hand, the want of visible
tokens of success should always awaken
solemn inquiry why so little harvest
grows under so much culture. Every
class of laborers — ministers or laymen,
those who speak, write, pray, wrork or
contribute of their worldly wealth —
should each alike be faithful and resolute
to reach the truth in such a scrutiny. It
is always satisfying to reflect that we
have done what we could for Christ.
But this satisfaction would be a spurious
peace if it produced indifference respect-
ing the effect of our exertions.

The question, whether the impoverished
state of the ground which we are striving
to improve, may not be traced to our
thriftless husbandry, is natural and per-

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 171

tinent. Others will make such an in-
quiry respecting us, and we ought to
make it for ourselves. Have our efforts
been uniformly obedient to the motions
of the Holy Spirit in our hearts ? Have
we gone forth bearing precious seed, be-
cause we desired to reap a harvest, not
for ourselves, for a party or for any hu-
man interest, but for God? While be-
stowing our diligence, were our hearts
before the throne of grace in earnest
prayer that God would do his own work?
Have our plans been wise and our means
appropriate? Has our patience been
constant and our spirit affectionate? In
the amount as well as spirit of our in-
dustry, have we been faithful, remember-
ing the motive which so deeply affected
our Master, "I must work the works of
him that sent me while it is clay; the
night cometh when no man can work?"

Grave this on the memory as with the
point of a diamond, that every Christian

172 UPWARD.

comfort requires some definite and intelli-
gible evidence that we are proper subjects
of it. Questions like the above must
have a satisfactory answer in our con-
sciousness before we can review what
are called discouraging labors with per-
fect calmness. But when, looking over
all this ground, we can say to the honor
of Divine grace, that our hearts are clear
or our short-comings forgiven, then peace
will fly to our bosoms, however success
may linger. We have done our part,
and like our Divine Pattern, we find our
delight in performing the will of Grod.

But there are yet richer wrords of cheer
for the fainting toiler in the Christian
field. All along Grod does support him
with other promises besides the assurance
of being himself watered from the river
of heavenly love. All along there shines
before him the pledge of everlasting
truth, that faithful Christian effort shall
accomplish valuable results in other

THE SEEVICE OF DOING. 173

hearts and promote the interest of Christ
in the world. He has the assurance of
heaven that he is doing good. It is writ-
ten : " He that reapeth receiveth wages,
and gatliereth fruit unto life eternal, that
both he that soweth, and he that reapeth,
may rejoice together." " They that sow
in tears shall reap in joy. He that goeth
forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed,
shall doubtless come again rejoicing,
bringing his sheaves with him." Words
of loving kindness and inspiring hope!
And they are examples of a long array
of like precious promises, in the light of
which the shamefulness of such terms as
gloomy prospects and unrequited toil is
glaringly exposed. The care of heaven
will nourish every seed, and bring forth
in their best seasons, the blade, the ear,
and after that, the full corn. There is

NO DARK PROSPECT IN THE DISCHARGE OF
DUTY.

Our notions of success are apt to be

174 UPWARD.

earthly. We forget that there are other
worlds which form the theatre where
great events are accomplished. We
measure time by days and years, and
from thence we obtain our ideas of the
fast and the slow. When the wheels of
providence seem, in our impatient view,
to turn lazily, we forget that they are
moving in an eternal journey. They
will take their time, it is true, but they
will never stop. The comprehensiveness
of the government of God — what a re-
viving theme to the faithful workers for
Christ ! The path in which The Eter-
nal walks is the way everlasting. It
can never be sought out by malign coun-
ter-agencies. " The vulture's eye hath not
seen it; the lion's whelps have not trod-
den it, nor the fierce lion passed by it."
The same Omniscience which marks out
the means keeps a sleepless watch for
the end. Events which belong to each
other may long wander apart, each ful-

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 175

filling for a season some peculiar mission
of its own ; but their tracks will converge
at the proper time. Causes and effects
will meet whenever the great universal
arrangement will be promoted by making
their relation apparent. Then, but not
before, we shall know what good we have
done. The time may come soon or it
may delay for ages, but it will come.

As God has just the hour and place for-
our efforts, so he has just the result which
he expects and just the period which is
propitious for its accomplishment. It may
be our mission to ameliorate some special
cases of human suffering, to exert a holy
influence in the circle of home, to train
some instruments of future usefulness, to
promote some specific reformation, to lead
sinners around us to Christ, to promote
the general prosperity of the Redeemer's
kingdom, to lay foundations upon which
beneficent structures may rise in the
future, or to exemplify the general princi-

176 UPWARD.

pies of the Divine glory. On the uniform
condition of faithfulness, success is as-
sured to our peculiar mission, whatever
it is. But the nature of that success,
with the times and seasons, is in the
hands of Him for whom we work. Our
impatience cannot affect his far-reaching
appointments. But our faith in his par-
ticular and universal providence arms us
against despondency, and our long tasks
are lightened by the thought that the
achievement is sure.

We do not stop to perplex ourselves
with the questions, when? and where?
We hear from the voice of God all which
properly concerns us: "In the morning
sow thy seed, and in the evening with-
hold not thy hand." We then comfort
our souls with the reflection that "our
judgment is with the Lord and our work
with our God." We are satisfied with
the Divine approval. We feel a sweet
consciousness that we are spending and

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 177

being spent for Christ. Our consciences
are at peace and our souls are ennobled
by the thought that we are God's own
chosen instruments of good — polished
shafts in his quiver.

One* who had labored faithfully, and
with many prayers, as a lay exhorter, be-
held year after year pass with scarcely a
cheering ray of present success. His
field was one of the most forbidding
which exist in Christian lands. He was
derided in the streets, religion was
scorned and the name of Christ was
hourly blasphemed. Friends urged him
to give over. They told him he had
made a fair trial of the power of the

* For this narrative, the writer is indebted to the remote
memory of the reading of his boyhood, the period when the
impression of narratives is enduring. He believes it was
read from a London paper, but at this period he can give no
voucher for either its source or its truthfulness. In the
kingdom of grace it has too many parallels to be regarded as
incredible, and therefore serves the purpose of an illustra-
tion, whether the reader accept it as historical or as a para-
ble.

M

178 UPWARD.

gospel among those reprobates, and that
was enough.

But in his earnest communion with
Heaven he obtained some peculiar prom-
ise— an inwrought token from the Angel
of the covenant. For who will say that
God makes no special communications of
this kind to those who are placed by
himself where their support is peculiarly
needed? To every proposal that he
should abandon his field he replied that
he was more and more convinced that he
was doing work for God and he must not
leave it.

Death arrested these labors. He had
seen little outward appearance of good,
but he did not mourn over an hour of
his self-denying service as wasted labor.
The special token cheered his last heavenly
communion this side of the veil, and he
departed under the feeling, not only that
he had performed service which, for
Christ's sake, would be accepted, but that

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 179

he had clone a great work. Was this
peculiar assurance to which his faith an-
chored itself visionary? Was it all a
dream that "a cake of barley tumbled
into the host of Midian," smiting the
tents of the uncircumcised? or was it in-
deed "the sword of Gideon, the son of
Joash, a man of Israel," into whose hand
God had delivered those armies?

A young man wrho applied for ecclesi-
astical authoritv to o-o forth as an or-
dained minister of Christ was required
to relate his religious experience. In so
doing, he traced his conversion to the
instrumentality of that lay exhorter.
During the life of that faithful servant
of Christ this youth had been one of the
scorners who afflicted his soul. His
death awakened him to solemn reflec-
tions. He reviewed his self-denying con-
secration, his tears of compassion and
labors of love; he thought of his prayers
that God would forgive those who de-

180 UPWARD.

spitefully used him — thought of all, until
the remembrance of that example of
Christian tenderness was too much to
bear. He was brought to the cross,
qualified for the ministry and sent forth
to preach the everlasting gospel.

Not a moment was wasted in seeking
an eligible post of labor. There was but
one place for Mm. Who so well as him-
self could tell his late companions in
wickedness how they had together sinned
against the love of God, in sinning
against the love of the self-denying ser-
vant of Grod? They listened with gradu-
ally improving decency, and at length
with earnest attention. Some hearts bled
under the same self-reproach which had
broken his own. There were soon enough
for a concert of prayer. Then, though
the earlier day of grace had been de-
spised, they asked of the Lord rain in the
time of the latter rain, and he made
bright clouds and gave them showers of

THE SERVICE OF DOING. 181

rain. The dens of blasphemy were ex-
changed for places of prayer, and men
whose garments had been clotted with
each other's blood, in street brawls, sat
together as exemplary rulers in the con-
gregation of the saints.

After a few years of such service that
young pastor followed the lay exhorter to
glory. The reaper had received the
wages, and gathered the eternal fruit.
But oh the joy unspeakable and full of
glory with which he that sowed and he
that reaped rejoiced together!

16

XIV.

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING.
FIRST — THE CONSECRATION AND THE COVENANT.

d CHRISTIAN minister, in the sev-
l\ enty -seventh year of his age, was
^ laid for several months upon a bed
of suffering, and, as it proved in -the end,
the bed of death. He was a faithful and
holy man, remarkable for an industrious
discharge of the numerous duties which
his somewhat peculiar position placed
in his way. He had been wonderfully
favored in relation to bodily health. One
man out of a thousand could not be found
who had enjoyed a freedom so uniform
from sickness or other physical infirmities.
He had often said that he hardly knew
what pain was. It came however in

182

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 183

those last .months of his life, and wrought
upon him with a terrible severity, as if
it was resolved to balance his account
with human suffering before he should
be relieved for ever.

During that long season of distress
his soul lay submissively in the Ever-
lasting Arms. He spoke of God's deal-
ings with quiet satisfaction, and of the
Divine government with exceeding joy.
" When," said he, " I consecrated myself
to God. I bound myself to service. Since
then I have attached great importance to
doing the will of God. Times occurred
when it seemed hard, but it was part of
the service, and I said to myself, Do it.
But somehow it never until now struck
my mind with much force that there is
just as much service in suffering as in
doing the will of God. I find it harder
to suffer than to clo his will; but I am
just as truly in his work, and I believe
that, for Christ's sake, he will accept the

184 UPWAED.

service of suffering as well as that of
doing."

What a beautiful frame of mind for
the Christian, pressed clown with anguish
of body and expecting no relief except
in death! What an all -supporting sen-
timent in the hour of trial! What sub-
limer thought could be summoned to aid
the soul struggling, to bear itself above
the angry waters !

The sufferer turned his thoughts back
to the self-consecrating engagements of
long past years. He remembered that
many weary hours of toil had been
lightened by the reflection that they
were a part of the contract between his
soul and Christ. He had experienced
great joy in the belief that they would be
accepted as acts of faithfulness to his en-
gagement. It was not because he ex-
pected God to look upon him as righteous
for these things, or because he trusted to
anything short of the mediation of the

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 185

Redeemer for mercy and acceptance.
Still, like Paul, he had labored that he
might be accepted of him, and the hope
of that acceptance had inspired his am-
bition to spend and be spent. Now he is
brought into another department of duty
still more trying, and, lo! these same
covenant engagements come to his aid,
armed with new strength to cheer and
support. What a wTeapon of defence for
holding distress at bay! He had bound
himself to service, and it was his delight
to fill out the engagement. He had served
in the field, and now he was serving in
the fire. It was service still, and the ser-
vice of suffering would be no less accept-
able than that of doing.

How strangely some of the most com-
mon truths float through the mind —
known indeed to be real, but perceived
only as shadows — until some event brings
them into action as articles of experience!
Then how we are astonished that things

16 *

186 UPWAKD.

so old are yet so new — that though we
seemed to have known them so long we
did not know them at all! The new
thought of the aged minister did not prob-
ably embrace any addition to his theo-
retical knowledge of the Christian life.
But there was a point which had lain in
the mind as a dim, shadowy, abstract
thing, until the providence of God called
him to take it up as emphatically the
point for the present emergency. Then
it burst upon his faith with all the fresh-
ness of a new revelation from heaven.
Hitherto he had remembered how it was
meat and drink to the Saviour to do the
will of him that sent him ; and he had
made it the highest aspiration of his
own renewed soul to do the will of
God. But he had laid an emphasis on
the word do which prevented him from
seeing: the comprehensiveness of the duty
required. The true meaning of the word,
as he afterward found, was to yield obe-

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 187

dience ; and as Christ's obedience was
rendered alike in preaching, healing and
in suffering on the cross, so he could ful-
fill his covenant of service and perform
the Divine will as really in the endu-
rance of his bodily pains as in active
labors for God. He could not be happy
without serving God. He discovered
that in suffering he could serve him as
devotedly as ever, and he was happy.

This view of the Christian's endurance
of suffering of whatever kind as a cov-
enant service becomes more vivid as we
reflect upon the condition on which he
first gave himself to Christ. It was an
act of consecration. The surrender was
without limit. It embraced himself, body
and soul, but it embraced more. All the
circumstances which are to affect his
condition, all future personal allotments,
with whatever joys or sorrows await
them, were included in the cheerful dedi-
cation of all to Christ.

188 UPWAED.

Still more to the purpose is this con-
sideration : not only did he, on his part,
commit all his circumstances, with him-
self, to Christ, but in the covenant under
which he was redeemed, those circum-
stances were placed by the Father under
the special control of the Mediator of the
covenant.

It is not enough to say of Christ
that he is the mediatorial King of the
Church which he bought with his own
blood. In this office, he must needs
have power so to adjust the events of the
world that they shall promote the peace
of his friends and lead to their sanctifi-
cation, and to the final triumph which is
mutually theirs and his own. This is one
glory of the arrangement by which God
" hath put all things under his feet, and
given him to be head over all things to
the Church^ — for the Church's sake.

In this connection it should also be re-
membered that it is a prominent object

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 189

of our Redeemer's mediatorial adminis-
tration to afford his friends every desira-
ble security from present evils, and to
confer the greatest happiness which they
are prepared to enjo}^. Immeasurably
blessed himself in the work which he
finished upon the cross, he delights to
impart the full benefit of that work to
those for whose sake he sanctified him-
self. Under the Covenant, he rules in
providence as wrell as grace. Thus he is
enabled to compel all things to " work to-
g ether for good to them that love God."
Here there is protection from present
evils and support under present sorrows,
as well as a future heme where tears
are wiped from all faces. Stretching its
shadow over the whole path of Christian
experience, from the hour of our espousals
to the unending future, how truly this
covenant makes of Christ

" Our refuge from the stormy blast,
And our eternal home !"

190 UPWARD.

Once more, and with peculiar attention,
be it remembered that if our peace under
this covenant depends upon Christ's
ability to overrule every event for our
benefit, we could not withhold any one of
the all things of ours from his control
without destroying his power to make
them work together for our good. If we
would have the peace which the covenant
promise secures to the submissive heart,
we must cheerfully commit our circum-
stances to covenant control. The afflicted
Christian, tempted out of the anguish of
hisspirit to become rebellious, and to say
in relation to anything, " I cannot submit
myself to the disposal of Grod, but I
must have my own wray," would rob
Christ of the power of securing his hap-
piness from every providential allotment.

But in the sweet consciousness that we
are yielding all to the care of him who
governs the world for the happiness of
his people, we are prepared to rejoice in

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 191

all our tribulations. Perfect consecration
teaches the consoling power of the truth
that " all things are for your sakes."
Then our souls sit in the sanctuary of
The Comforter, and our sorrows are
turned into a joy which no man taketh
from us.

Such views of the dominion of our me-
diatorial King clear the darkened skies.
It is true afflictions are afflictions still,
but they are no longer the food for gloomy
thoughts. They afford some of the best
illustrations of the tenderness of God's
heart and the sustaining power of his
grace. There are indeed many mysteri-
ous dispensations which are never ex-
plained in this world. But they are jus-
tified in the eye of that faith which sup-
ports the Christian, when all other ground
sinks beneath his feet. There is always
a light in which they can be viewed, not
merely without gloom, but with real sat-
isfaction. There is always some explicit

192 UPWAKD.

reason for rejoicing that God has not ar-
ranged matters as we should probably
have ordered them, but has, in covenant
goodness, ordained for us those light af-
flictions of a moment which work an ex-
ceeding and eternal weight of glory.

XV.

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING.
SECOND — THE SUBMISSION OF FAITH.

N this world the outward condition
is not the test of character. God has
not marked the distinction between
his friends and his enemies by a palpa-
ble contrast in their earthly comforts.
The seventy-third Psalm records how one
good but distressed man almost lost his
faith, when he saw the righteous suffer
while the wicked seemed only to prosper,
and how nobly he recovered himself.

Affliction is the common lot. It is a
war in which, like that with death, there
is no discharge. The good and the bad
are alike subject to the vicissitudes of
wealth and poverty, honor and detrac-

17 N 193

194 UPWARD.

tion, case and pain, life and death. The
best friends of God may sit at scant
tables, with no provision for another re-
past except the unfailing promise that
they shall be fed. They may be herded
in uncomfortable abodes. They may see
their children reach and pass the years
when they need opportunities for im-
provement, from which poverty debars
them. They may be mortified by the in-
constancy of friendships professed in bet-
ter days, and may receive inhumanity
and wrong from men who do not fear to
oppress them because they are too weak
to resist.

In the abode of prayer, where every
chamber is hallowed bv delightful com-
m union with heaven, a diseased sufferer
pines away the long years. For her the
morning sun rises and the evening shad-
ows gather almost in vain. Freshening
springs and golden autumns have no joy,

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 195

because they bring no change to the weary
monotony of pain.

In another domestic group, whose
course has been marked with peculiar
devotion to Christ, death has appeared,
and, so far as regards this world, the
purest light of earthly bliss is quenched
for ever. True, in all sanctified sorrow,
the wounds of earthly bereavement are
healed by the Great Physician, but the
mourner often remains scarred for life.
Who has not known what it is to behold
some of the precious affections of life
hidden in sepulchral darkness? Past
whose lips has the cup gone untasted?

" There is no flock, however well attended,
But one dead lamb is there ;
There is no household, howsoe'er defended,
But has one vacant chair."

There is one theological truth which
comes kindly to the aid of the sufferer
who stands appalled before such pictures
of human experience. It is not a deep

196 UPWARD.

thesis for the Reviews, but a peace-work-
ing doctrine for the plain Christian who,
in his hour of anguish, is tempted to cry.
What is my unpardonable sin that I am
thus singled out for the judgment of God?
The point is that of the distinction be-
tween sorrows that are simply providential
occurrences in God's government, and those
which are retributive. This distinction
separates the natural evils to which sin
exposes the human race at large, from
those peculiar displays of the Divine
wrath which are the proper penalty of sin,
and which are measured out with strict
regard to personal character. The truth
is clear to calm thought, but in the hour
of inward tumult it is sometimes forgot-
ten, and when forgotten the refuge of
trust fails.

It is not meant that sin does not bring
our troubles upon us. On the contrary,
let it never be overlooked that affliction
is the fruit ;f sin — the consequence of

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 197

living in a world of guilt, of which our
own sin forms a part. Hence it is always
a call to repentance. Forgetting this
fact, we should fail to receive one of the
solemn impressions of the atrociousness
of rebellion against God. We do well to
study the enormity of sin in every lesson
by which God teaches the awful truth.
But these terrestrial troubles are not
Wis prescribed penalty of transgression as
written down in the law. Though they
are the fruit, they are not the punishment
of crime. For the believer is already
justified by the work of his Redeemer.
Wo part of a legal judgment or sentence
of condemning wrath can be executed on
those who are in him. "There is there-
fore now no condemnation to them which
are in Christ Jesus." The justified per-
son may partake largely of the trials of
life as the general effect of sin, but of
that which is appropriately the cup of

penal wrrath he can drink no more for

17 *

198 UPWAKD.

ever. From the lips of the believer the
dying Saviour snatched this chalice, and
pressed it to his own. Th^n, while we
must feel that sin is the instrument of all
our human woes, we may nevertheless
welcome the thought to our hearts that
God may sometimes grieve us most
while he loves us with his warmest love.
Beyond the hiding of his face for a mo-
ment in a little wrath, we may look to
the everlasting kindness with which the
Lord our Redeemer will have mercy on
us.

But beyond their share of natural evils,
as partners in the common humanity, the
servants of God sometimes experience
other tribulations, more severe to human
view, which grow directly out of their
faithfulness to Christ. This was the form
of discipline to which our Lord summoned
the sons of Zebedee, and some measure
of it is meted out to all his friends : " Ye
shall drink indeed of my cup, and be

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 199

baptized with the baptism that I am bap-
tized with." The cruel mockings and
scourgings and terrible martyrdoms of
the ancient worthies were not the ordi-
nary sufferings of humanity, but the pe-
culiar dispensation of Heaven toward its
own inheritors. Such forms of discipline
vary with the ever-varying state of hu-
man affairs. But some peculiar trials for
our Master's sake are provided for every
age, and they must be accepted by all
who will accept Christ himself.

It must not, however, be inferred that
the griefs of the friends of Christ are
heavier than those which the w7icked en-
dure. Sinners also have sorrows of their
own, besides their participation of the
calamities which are common to all. If
Elijah, as a man of God, had in that
character some special afflictions, what
were they beside the peculiar troubles of
Ahab as the enemy of heaven? The
sorrows of Paul at the block, or Ignatius

200 UPWARD.

in the amphitheatre, were as a feather
compared with the leaden woes concealed
under the imperial robes of Nero or Tra-
jan. The riot of the wicked passions is
often the immediate cause of the most
awful outward judgments which are felt
this side of the infernal world. Remorse,
the undying worm, gnaws the poor sin-
ner's conscience, and his spirit is wearied
out in the warfare with an angry Grod.

But here is the chief point of contrast.
While there are sorrows common to all,
and also peculiar tribulations for each
class of men, the one receives a peculiar
support, while the other has no refuge
from the storm. The sinner battles with
his troubles helpless and alone, and must
be crushed by them in the end. But in
the furnace the spirit of the friend of
Christ is sustained by the faith that, in
his case, God is refining the gold — that he
is not pouring out his fury upon an enemy,
but he is chastening whom he loves.

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 201

While the ploughers make long their fur-
rows upon his back, a voice which was
never whispered in the ear of an ungodly
sufferer breathes like the melody of sera-
phim in his soul : " Ye now therefore have
sorrow, but I wrill see you again, and your
heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man
taketh from you." " 0 thou afflicted,
tossed with tempest, and not comforted !
. . . the mountains shall depart and
the hills be removed, but my kindness
shall not depart from thee, neither shall
the covenant of my peace be removed.
. . . This is the heritage of the servants
of the Lord." Appropriating to ourselves
this comfort from the lips of our Lord,
sorrow ceases to disturb our peace.

How incomparably superior to the
highest human consolation is this heav-
enly comfort! The resignation of the
man of the world to his troubles is the
submission of philosophy. It is self-
taught and self-sustained. Its avail-

202 UPWARD.

ability depends wholly upon his mental
fortitude. This submission claims to
accomplish nothing more than a still
patience under suffering. It never con-
templates a happy reconciliation. The
language of such a submission is, " Evils
which cannot be avoided should be quietly
borne. Outcries do not alleviate suffering.
The noble nature of man ought to be
strong to endure. None but cowards
faint in the day of trouble. Since that
which is laid upon us is an inevitable
destiny, let us dignify ourselves by scorn-
ing to repine/' In homelier phrase, such
philosophical resignation is just this, all
told: " What can't be cured must be en-
dured.''

To one who is strengthening his nerves
for this submission to fate we say", Take
your philosophy : wre choose to fall back
on the sublime principle of faith in God.
The language of implicit trust in the aid
of heaven is the tongue in which we will

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 203

speak our triumph over trial, and tell of
the clear shining before which the showers
flee. In our troubles we cannot stop at
the cold maxim that we ^ must endure
what cannot be helped, for under the
teaching of Christ we have better learned
why we are afflicted and what mercy
dwells in every woe. Philosophy, draw-
ing its sinews into tension and biting its
lips, counts it a feat to bear trouble with-
out a groan. But Faith, placing beneath
us the arms of Everlasting Love, teaches
us to cry out from the depths, " Thou
hast been a strength to the poor, a strength
to the needy in his distress, a refuge from
the storm, a shadow from the heat, when
the blast of the terrible ones is as a storm
against the wall."

Taught in the school of faith, we learn
that no affliction befalls us without good
reason on God's part and designs of bles-
sedness toward ourselves. Every sorrow
is an essential part of the course of disci-

204 IJPWAKD.

pline by which our present peace is en-
larged and our future bliss perfected.
The vivacity thus afforded to patience,
faith and hope, together with the love of
abiding the whole will of God, affords a
rich experience of comfort in Christ — a
calmer and sweeter repose than we could
expect to obtain from a life of uniform
outward prosperity.

XVI.

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING.

THIRD CHRIST SUSTAINING AND FOREARMING.

c

tN"E of the peculiar glories of religion
is nobly illustrated in this : it is a
j present help when its supports are
most needed. Hours of distressing need
are before us all, and who can tell but the
days of darkness will be many? This
side of the veil no view of Jesus is more
precious than when he comes walking on
the sea in the night of our anguish.
How thrills the voice which is then heard
above the roar of the tempest, "Be ye of
good cheer; it is I; be not afraid!" How
sweet the calm when, after having taken
us by the band, before the waters over-
whelmed us, he comes with us into the

18 205

206 TJPWAKD.

ship! There is a good worldly maxim
which says, " A friend in need is a friend
indeed." But blessed above all human
power to bless is union to Christ through
all the present life — life as it is and will
be in all human experience. On all that
experience the fearful truth is deeply en-
graved, that

" Grief is rooted in our souls,
And man grows up to mourn."

It does not. follow that the Christian
should become a sad contemplator of the
world, who sees in it nothing but gloom,
and whose heart is ever strung for mourn-
ful melodies. The earth, even in its
moral wreck, is still a bright and beauti-
ful world, redolent of sweets for those
who understand their enjoyment. Still,
who can hope to escape a life of trouble?
Who that lives only for the comforts of
earth can look upon, his loveliest enjoy-
ments without a dread feeling of insecu-
rity for the next hour? Whose feet are

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 207

not, even now, bleeding from the thorns
which grow in his path?

Looking soberly at what has befallen
us, and what must befall us still, we feel
this fullness of value in the support of
Christ, that he is a near helper* in the
hour of need — nearest when the necessity
of his friend is deepest. There is one
glaring view of the worthlessness of the
world as a helper, which the wild eye of
sin fails to catch, viz. : Worldly supports
fail most cruelly when their need is most
direfully felt. When the spirit of the
sinner is most nearly famished, then the
cup is most sure to be dashed from his
lips. Let the unhappy votary of the
world meet a change of fortune, let pros-
perity forsake him and troubles throng
him, and he will learn that human reli-
ances are most inhumanly false at the
exact time when their falseness is most
keenly felt. The discarded favorite of
Henry VIII. experienced only what

208 UPWARD.

thousands before him had felt, and thous-
ands to come will feel, wrhen he exclaimed
(or rather is made to say) ,

" Oh, Cromwell ! Cromwell !
Had I but served my God with half the zeal
I served my king, he would not, in my age,
Have left me naked to my enemies."

But the hour of extremity is our
Saviour's chosen time for bringing forth
his best comforts. The richest offices of
his grace are reserved for exigencies when,
without its aid, the spirit would be crushed.
When every other stream of comfort is
dry, the river from this fountain over-
flows its banks. The Comforter comes
to those whom the world has cast out and
trodden down, with loaded hands and
words of cheer. To the mourner who
dares not look around, for all is drear, he
says, "Look up!" and lo! the transport
of the celestial vision makes a morning
of joy after a night of weeping.

Affliction becomes a means of sanctified

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 209

happiness when it is attended by an ex-
quisite perception of the sympathy of
Christ. "In all our afflictions he was af-
flicted." The most delightful experiences
of grace are those which afford the live-
liest apprehension of nearness to the
Saviour. Communion with our unseen
Lord is felt in almost sensual reality
when he speaks to our stricken hearts of
his own fellow-feeling in our grief. We
are sometimes almost in wonder whether
it is not a real vision to the eye of sense:.
we involuntarily look around, as if ex-
pecting to behold the actual "form of the
fourth, like the Son of God," walking by
our side in .the furnace of fire, when the
voice is so near and comes in such a still-
ing whisper: "When thou passest through
the waters, I will be with thee, and through
the rivers, they shall not overflow thee;
when thou walkest through the fire, thou
shalt not be burned, neither shall the
flame kindle upon thee."

18 * 0

210 UPWARD.

During the persecution of Christians
under the Emperor Julian, one Theodorus
was laid upon the rack. His executioners
loosened the instrument before the fatal
extreme, and gave him a brief respite, in
hope that the dread of further torture
would move him to renounce Christ.
But he exhibited a patience so surprising
that he was asked how it was possible for
him to endure so much with so little de-
monstration of anguish. " At first," said
he, "I felt pain, but afterward there ap-
peared to stand by me a young man, who
wiped the sweat from my face and fre-
quently refreshed me with cold water,
which so delighted me that I almost re-
gretted being taken from the rack."
Shall we call this vision the delusion of a
fancy bewildered by the condition of the
body? Not if we believe the spirit and
power of the promise, "Lo! I am with
you."

The bare thought of the presence of

the service of suffering. 211

Christ with us in our sorrows falls far
short of what is implied in his fellow-
feeling. We have no sufficient view of
his supporting love until we think of
him as taking part in our sufferings. He
who draws near to sorrowing humanity
with words of kindness and hope was
himself the " man of sorrows." Cast off
by those for whose good he came to labor
and die; poorer in worldly wealth than
the foxes and birds ; at one time shunning
a murderous mob ; at another weeping
tears of affliction at the grave of a dear
friend, and again shrinking with human
dread from the prospect of coming woes, —
his catalogue of griefs seemed to embrace
almost the entire sweep of mortal expo-
sures.

His atoning death is not here brought
into the account. Those were the sorrows
of his life. That was the experience
which arms his sympathy with such sus-
taining strength for us. Through his

212 UPWARD.

own knowledge of the conflict he is able
to succor the tempted. Our griefs are
written with the pen of experience upon
his heart. This is the companionship of
the Angel of his Presence, walking hand
in hand with us through every dark way
in our pilgrimage, himself plucking the
thorns from our flesh, and cheering us
when ready to faint by telling how he
overcame and sat down with the Father
in his throne, and how we shall share in
the same regal triumph when we over-
come.

The sorrows of life bring yet another
consolation to those who are "exercised
thereby." They deaden our unlawful
ambitions, subdue our perversities and
teach us to live more for heaven than
for the world. They bring us face to face
with those subjects of thought which en-
large our admiration of the government
of Grod, and thus they increase our holi-
ness and exalt our joys. Under the ad-

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 213

ministration of that government all par-
ticular dispensations are woven into one
comprehensive system of good and glory.
Faith beholds in each of our trials a con-
tribution toward the great purpose which
must be consummated. By fastening our
attention to these views, God leads our
wills kindly along to submission to his
general purpose. Self is lost in God.

Self lost in God ! When this result is
reached, his glory and our peace are in-
separable. The last occasion for revolt
from personal distress is removed. Our
happiness is loosened from its anchorage
to the selfish ground of personal pros-
perity, and finds its moorings in the will
of God. Holding fast there, we are
above trouble. All our wishes concern-
ing providential events come around to
the one desire that God should reign.
He will reign for ever ; and embarking
our whole happiness in that truth, we
shall be serene for ever. We may be for-

214 UPWARD.

saken, maligned, poor, disappointed in
our personal ambition, broken in health,
or robbed by unfeeling death of our
dearest friends ; but what then ? These
are the acts of the Divine administration,
which we love better than we loved any
lost good. It is " our Father at the
helm," amid the fury of the winds and
the surges of the ocean. God reigns,
and what more do we wrant ?

Many of our allotments may be so dark
that faith itself shrinks from the inquiry
why these things are so. But even then,
commensurate with the mystery of the
dispensation will be the peacefulness of
trusting our Saviour's word, " What I do
thou knowest not now, but thou shalt know
hereafter." As a schooling for the endow-
ments of heaven, trust is often better than
knowledge. We are often better and hap-
pier for the necessity which resolves our
carnal anxiety to know all into this sen-
timent of unbounded confidence : " Even

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 215

so, Father, for so it seemed good in thy
sight."

In holy trust there is one feature of
sterling value which distinguishes the
genuine from the false. The true is,
throughout all the Christian's experience,
an ever-living sentiment — the prevalent
tone of his feelings toward the govern-
ment of God. It is not a temporary ex-
ercise, produced to meet some particular
trial, enduring as long as the memory of
the occasion lasts, and then laid to sleep
until some new affliction summons it to
reawaken. True submission surveys the
whole field of God's dispensation toward
ourselves; it looks at his past dealings
which are known, and then at the un-
known future; it contemplates the vicis-
situdes to which we are yet exposed, as
well as those which have been experi-
enced, and acquiescing alike in all, it be-
comes an abiding happy confidence that
our heavenly Father not only hath done,

216 . UPWARD.

but will yet do, all things well. No re-
conciliation of any narrower scope has
power to bring forth pure peace. This
alone is the art of deriving happiness
from suffering the will of God.

Submission to afflictions only at the
times when they are felt is seldom any-
thing better than the sullen patience of
the philosopher, who says that since the
calamity has occurred, and is beyond
remedy, it may as well be peaceably en-
dured. But a holy acquiescence in any
past dealing of God leads to a similar
trust in all which he is }^et to do with us.
We then contemplate the most precious
earthly comfort which still abides with
us; we think of all the happiness which
it has afforded, and of what we are still
expecting from the enjoyment of it; and
then, without one rebellious emotion, we
submit that living comfort to the dispen-
sation of Heaven, to be left or taken —
"Not as I will, but as thou wilt." Thus

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 217

accepting all dispensations to come in
the same unrepining spirit which we feel
toward past heavenly chastisements, we
gain satisfying assurance that our resig-
nation is the fruit of cordial attachment
to the government of God.

The power of the Divine Spirit must
be invoked to work in the heart this
abiding satisfaction with the whole will
of God. But when it is once wrought,
we are armed in advance for any possible
trouble. Things to come as well as
things present, "all are yours." We
are alike supported now and girded for
all future fights with affliction. When
the. hour of calamity comes, the great
battle with our wilful tempers is not to
be fought. The question of pleasant sub-
mission is already settled, and by that
early settlement of matters between our-
selves and the Divine administration we
have deprived tribulation of its power
over our peace.

19

218 UPWARD.

In such a frame we are sure of the sup-
port of Heaven in all our trials. Our
hearts are open to the whole consolation
which Christ brings to those who drink
his cup and receive his baptism of sor-
row. As the attractions of earth are loos-
ened, those of heaven fasten themselves
more firmly upon us. The " exceeding
and eternal weight of glory" is a more
beatific contemplation when it is placed
in contrast with uour light affliction,
which is but for a moment." Looking
up from the vales of gloom, faith gains
its best view of the light and glory which
settles around the everlasting hills.
Turning disappointed from the waters
of Marah, which only mocked our thirst,
how sweet to drink from the river of
God!

Exemption from the sorrows of life we
no longer expect until we reach the im-
mortal shore. The enjoyment of undis-
turbed worldly bliss was no part of the

THE SERVICE OF SUFFERING. 219

terms under which we were admitted to
discipleship. In the deed of the surren-
der of ourselves to Christ wre left those
lines which should describe our earthly
portion a blank for him to fill, and we ex-
pected that many words of sorrow would
be traced there. It is enough for us to
know that all our corrections are with
judgment, and not in anger, and that
they are appointed by that Infinite Love
who knows our frame and remembers
that we are dust. The promise of sup-
port is confirmed by all our experience
of the past and by the history of the
friends of God in every age. From the
darkest of his ways the brightest illus-
trations of his love have always shone.
In all his dealings with his friends, bring-
ing power to the faint, courage to the
trembling and joy to the sorrowing, he
affords us the assurance of the same
grace in the same hour of need. The
unbroken line of godly experience has

220 UPWARD.

strengthened the promise of ages gone,
that "when the poor and needy seek
water, and there is none, and their tongue
faileth for thirst, I the Lord will hear
them; I the God of Israel will not for-
sake them."

W^^:

XVII.

THE BORDER LAND.

FIRST — REASSURANCE.

v

If N" the peace which Jesus sheds upon
I the living pilgrim's path we have seen
his u beauty why we should desire
him." We have found in his consolations
this wondrous adaptation, distinguishing
them from all helps which this world
offers, that they are nearest at hand
when other supports are most treacherous.
Thus we have learned to characterize
them as " grace to help in time of need."
Then can we so enthrone faith as to trust
our Redeemer to the last? An event is ap-
proaching which to us is untried — a scene
whose terrors for the human nature are un-
precedented in all our past experience of
19 * 221

222 UPWARD.

the glooms of life. Will it not contain too
many elements of dismay to allow us to
maintain our serenity, even at the com-
mand of the Prince of Peace? These are
becoming inquiries for the thoughtful soul,
conscious of drawing near the line which
divides this from the world of spirits.
Will the grace which has sustained us in
the trials of life be an adequate support
in the darker hour of death ? If we have
sometimes been wearied in the race with
the footmen, how will we contend with
the horses? If frequently appalled in
the land of peace, how will we do in the
swellings of Jordan ?

Let the past speak. Has God ever
failed to honor the faith of his friends?
In every earthly vicissitude has not the
experience of his grace been such as to
inspire unbounded trust for the untried
future? The supports which have thus
far sustained our rugged pilgrimage,
have they not so illustrated the Divine

THE BORDER LAND. 223

method of strength for the day that we
involuntarily expect something better
than all the past to close up our earthly
experience of the comforts of Christ?
The manner in which he has drawn most
near when without him we should have
been most desolate, does it not arm us
with confidence that, in the final conflict,
the everlasting supports will be firm and
gentle beyond all we have hitherto felt?

The soul listens for what God wTill him-
self speak. Inspired by the experience
of the past, it expects to hear the best
words of love for the darkest hour of
nature. It turns to the recorded prom-
ises, and lo! it is all written, just as
might have been expected, for the friend
of Jesus trembling on the shore of mor-
tality: " Yea, though I walk through the
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear
no evil, for thou art with me ; thy rod and
thy staff, they comfort me;" "We know
that if our earthly house of this taber-

224 UPWARD.

nacle were dissolved, we have a building
of God, an house not made with hands,
eternal in the heavens ;" " My flesh and
my heart faileth, but God is the strength
of my heart, and my portion for ever."

We note the experience of those who
have tested the sustaining power of grace
to the end, and there again it is told as we
should expect. " How now about that
trust in the Lord, of which we have so
often spoken?" was once inquired of an
aged disciple on her dying bed. " Eighty
years long," she replied, "my heavenly
Father has borne me through every trial,
and I am not afraid to trust him now."
In the same community an old man rose in
a public religious assembly, and said that
for almost fifty years he had been striving
to serve his Redeemer, and the comforts
of the service had grown better and bet-
ter all the time. The next week he was
unexpectedly prostrated by disease, and
informed that he must die. He was re-

THE BORDER LAND. 225

minded of his words just quoted, and
asked what he thought of those comforts
now. " Still better and better," he re-
plied ; " Christ is all my support, but he
is enough. I can truly say my cup run-
neth over." Numerous examples of this
highest power of sustaining grace in the
utmost extremity confirm the trembling
believer's faith. If we can but yield our
souls to its influence, the bitterness of
death is already past. We lose our
dread of contemplating

"The scene where Christians die —
Where holy souls retire to rest."

"The "trembling" and "lingering"
notes drop out from the song, while the
" hoping," " flying," and " bliss of dying,"
swell more joyous from the valley, the
bank and the midst of the river, until
they are absorbed in the celestial harmo-
nies which sweep from the harps of gold.

We do not however look for unifor-

226 UPWARD.

mity in the manifestations of this one
spirit of overcoming faith. The t}^pe of
Christian emotion varies in different
minds during life ; and there is no magic
in a dying bed to reduce all constitu-
tional tempers to one cast. Different
minds will experience differing operations
of the faith which Jesus reserves for the
dying hour of his friends, ranging from
tranquillity to ecstasy, and there will be a
similar variety in the outward expression
of this faith.

One is triumphant in death. The con-
queror's sword is in his hand, and the vic-
tor's shout on his lips. Leaning on Christ,
he defies the powers of darkness. He is
on the wing, and his spirit is already as
tuneful as a seraph's. He is straitened
for words to publish his joy, and he
would gladly summon the universe to
come and hear what God is doing for
him.

Another carries a feeling of self-abase-

THE BOEDER LAND. 227

ment to the last. The thought that he is
just about to be for ever saved by grace
arrays all his personal unworthiness once
more before his view, and he only dares
to say that, as an undeserving sinner, he
dies trusting in Christ.

The feelings of another are placid and
his expressions are calm. His soul melts
under a view of the great mercy of God.
He has long been accustomed to obtain
from the quiet visits of his Saviour's love
more comfort than he has told of, and the
present aspects of his experience are deep
and gentle peace. There is little that is
apparent to distinguish this hour from
other seasons of life. He served God
while living, and built his hope gradually
but firmly on the cross of Christ. The
great change through which he is passing
is an event long familiar to his medita-
tions. His work is done, and what re-
mains for him in this world but to
die?

228 UPWARD.

These are the " diversities of operations"
of "the same Spirit," and "it is the same
God which worketh all in all." Under
all these exhibitions of confidence, wher-
ever we see evidence of their genuineness,
we recognize the repose of the soul under
the shadow of dying faith. Christ is the
rod and staff, comforting them all along
their march through the valley of the
shadow of death. The one voice which
they all speak is, "What time I am
afraid, I will trust in thee."

The range from within which thoughts
tributary to this peace may be gathered
up is wride. The glory to be revealed
breaks upon the eye on which the world
is darkening in a rich variety of lights.
There are exemptions and acquisitions,
excellent losses and no less excellent
gains, beauties of character and beati-
tudes of state, all embraced in that which
is the best and the pledge of them all — the
covenant of everlasting love. These are

THE BORDER LAND. 229

the things which are hung like lamps of
heaven all around the valley of the
shadow of death.

Among the elements of this peace, de-
liverance from the anguish of the sinner's
last hours holds no mean place. There is
no light in the dying chamber where par-
don has not been spoken and hope does
not come. Death, viewed simply as an
event in the course of nature, is fearful
enough to all. But with the soul whose
departure is hopeless of mercy all its
natural solemnness is absorbed in the
frightful expectation of meeting the
Judge and hearing the final doom. Then
thoughts of unforgiven sin crowd upon
the conscience, and the frowns of an
angry God come in vision before the
dying sinner's eye. It would seem suffi-
ciently dreadful to be forced to a sullen,
reluctant and eternal parting from a world
where all his affections are treasured, and
beyond which he has not a single object

20

230 UPWARD.

of love. But even the thought of what
he is leaving is often forgotten in the
wilder thought of whither he is going.
The helpless debtor who has allowed an
account to roll up against himself until
he is afraid even to think how large it
must be, looks appalled upon the sum-
mons to a reckoning. So with the poor
soul out of Christ and on the last inch
of time; he has nothing but liabilities on
the book of heaven, and now the day of
settlement has come. The long disagree-
ment between himself and Grod is hence-
forth past reconciliation. For him the
door of mercy, which is now closing, will
open no more.

But sad as this contemplation is, what
glory it lends to the contrast! Justified
in the atonement and secured by the in-
tercession of the Redeemer, the believer
dies under his Lord's reconciling grace.
He is removed from the world in love,
not in wrath. He knows that his Re-

THE BORDER LAND. 231

deemer liveth, and he expects to stand
under the shelter of his advocacy when
he appears before God. Sins, from the
curse of which he has already obtained
redemption, are not allowed to flit around
his pillow and frighten him with dismal
apprehensions. Death has not come to
change him from one state of sinfulness
to a lower depth of depravity, nor to re-
move him from a world of hope to a
realm of despair. All through his past
pilgrim days the voice which first told
him to be of good cheer, for his sins were
forgiven, has remained in his soul like
the lingering vibrations of some song of
the skies. Now its echoes are filling, and
they more than renew the transports
which they first awoke. Where has
language any terms for expressing the
beauty of such a thought as this — he dies
justified, adopted and sanctified, in peace
with God! He is sustained by that which
is even better than hope, for his Lord is

232 UPWARD.

there. It is the voice of the Messenger
of the Covenant which says, "I am with
you." He listens and knows The Pres-
ence in his soul.

XVIII.

THE BORDER LAND.
SECOND — THE GLOOM AND THE LIGHT.

fHE awfulness of death, viewed only
as a natural occurrence, has been
J mentioned. Let us retouch those
sombre shades, that they may give vivid-
ness to the contrast when the covenant
of Christ is exhibited as a sanctuary from
the carnal dread of dying.

Independent of all moral considera-
tions, gloom gathers around the subject
of death. It is regarded as the crowning
calamity of human existence — -that which
men take most care to avoid and expect
with most dread. " All that a man hath
will he give for his life." As a figure,
death is often employed to afford the

20 • 233

234 UPWARD.

most terrible impression of objects. When
we say of any allotment, that it is bitter
as death, or of any human passion, that
it is cruel as the grave, we mean to make
the darkest representation of it which
words will afford.

These gloomy viewTs of death approach
every mind. The friends of Christ are
often slow in rising above them. They
are not strictly afraid to die ; that is,
they have no tormenting dread of the
event. They expect their Redeemer to
be with them, and they look for peace
from his presence. But the involuntary
recoil of nature often lingers, like the
muscular tremblings of a healed patient,
not as the sign of present disease, but the
token of its past severity. We " start at
death's alarms," and we should probably
be agitated by the unexpected intelligence
that we have not another day to live.

Among these natural glooms of death
faith does its reassuring work as truly as

THE BORDER LAND. 235

when dealing with its moral terrors.
Trust in the covenant is the sanctuary
whose portals shut the Christian in and
the dreads without.

One of the dark aspects of death, when
viewed from the stand-point of human
nature, is the separation of the dying
from all that is dear to them on earth.
Things and friends who have been objects
of familiarity and fondness are now to
be lost in the darkness of earth. We
leave them all ; mere earthly love is no
more. The parting scene is solemn and
affecting. It is an hour when the nat-
ural affections are awakened to the most
excessive tenderness of which they are
susceptible ; and the one who is passing
away often shares their intensity with
those wrho are weeping around his bed.
The sorrow of sundering natural ties is
inseparable from natural love, and there
is nothing derogatory to the character of
piety in a falling tear and parting pang,

236 UPWARD.

which betray that something is sacrificed
for the final gain of everything. God
never intended that holy affections should
make us cold to the natural attachments
of life. Our Lord and Master, Jesus
himself, wept true human tears at the
grave of his friend. Far from us be that
religion which would turn our humanity
into stone !

But the past experiences of grace have
all along prepared the dying Christian
for these painful separations. The objects
of his holy affections have gradually mul-
tiplied, and he has been inspired with a
growing love for the employments, the
company, the Saviour and the King of
heaven, until it has become with him a
settled state of feeling that, good as it
'might seem to remain for the comfort of
friends, it will be infinitely better to de-
part and be with Christ. God has wrought
within him the habit of keeping a loose
hold of present delights, and taught him

THE BORDER LAND. 237

to live more upon such abiding joys as
he can carry with him, than upon the
pleasures which can go no farther than
earth. In such ways he has forearmed
his friends against any overwhelming
sorrow, when the hour of parting comes.
They lose only what they expected to
leave when the soul should stretch her
wings for her passage to the skies. What
was really unworthy of their love they
have learned to disregard. What was
wrorthy of their attachment, but was
only adapted to their comfort as pass-
ing travelers, is easily exchanged for
the superior delights of their abiding
home.

The friend of God, feeling that his eyes
are about to close upon the world for ever,
may ask to be carried to the window of
his chamber. There he may look out for
the last time upon the rising sun, the
glowing sky, the green wood and sprightly
brook where he has had so many pleasant

238 UPWARD.

rambles, and the arbor around which his
own hands taught the vine to entwine
itself in so tasteful beauty. What if a
shadow does cross his brow, at the thought
that he is to look upon these delightful
things of God no more? It is but a
shadow, and that for a moment only, for
the eternal sun is rising, and faith even
now is gazing upon skies which are never
darkened. He forsakes the strolls of
earth to walk along the river clear as
crystal, shaded by the tree of life. There
can be no disturbing sorrowr in the
change, when the same breath which bids
the world farewell welcomes heaven.

So much of the affection between the
dying believer and the friends from whom
he parts as has been sanctified by their
mutual love of Christ, will remain un-
broken. Love which has been refined by
grace is immortal. There is no reason
to suppose that death ever suspends the .
attachment of the glorified spirit for the

THE BORDER LAND. 239

pious friends whom he has left in the
world.

The Christian reader can now fix his
thoughts upon some former companions
of his pilgrimage who have outstripped
him in the heavenly race, and are at
home with Christ. They wTere dear —
God only knows how dear! — while you
walked together below. Their love for
you was never warmer and purer than at
the moment when they rejoiced to leave
your immediate society for that of heaven.
You know their departure has not changed
your affection for them, and can you sup-
pose it has weaned them from you? Sub-
ordinate to the place which God occupies,
the bereaved Christian has in his heart
a little altar where his glorified friend is
enshrined; and the fire of that altar is
fanned by the breath of many prayers
for a blessed reunion where those who
meet part no more. And why should we
suppose that any holy fondness has been

240 UPWARD.

extinguished in the hearts of those who
are now among the spirits of the just,
because they have exchanged this chilly
abode for that world where,

"Kept by a Father's hand,
Love cannot die?"

God's word makes it certain that heaven
is a scene of the holiest and happiest
social attachments. All the fondness
which on earth was really worthy of nour-
ishment is there preserved and purified;
and there the range of affections is en-
larged by the soul's coming into inti-
macy with new and nobler objects of re-
gard.

With such visions opening, the part-
ing trials at death lose their power over
the peace of the dying Christian. The
view of faith brightens in proportion as
the film gathers over the outward eye.
We shall see less and less of what we
are leaving, while we have enlarging
views of the compensating gains. What

THE BORDER LAND. 241

were the losses of earth to the Christian
martyrs who, "full of the Holy Ghost,
looked up steadfastly into heaven, and
saw the glory of God and Jesus standing
on the right hand of God." "Farewell,"
said a noble Roman of the Imperial age,
departing from the world — "farewell, oh
farewell, all earthly things! and welcome
heaven! From this time let none speak
of earthly things to me!" For one who
in this spirit is plumed for the upward
flight, what are the pangs of departing
farewells?

While the Christian is in the border
land, faith comes to his aid against
another of the natural glooms of death —
the dread of the unknown beyond.

Into this darkness Divine grace alone
can shine. Philosophy has no light to
penetrate it. The wisdom of man has
neither explored that mysterious thing
which we call death, nor looked with any
rational views upon its probable issues

21 Q

242 UPWARD.

beyond our present sight. To one who
rejects the knowledge which God has im-
parted on the subject, it always appears
as it did to the unbeliever, Hobbes, who
in his last moments said, with horror, "I
am taking a fearful leap in the dark!"

In the mind of Columbus and his in-
trepid fellow-mariners, embarking for the
search of a western world, there must have
been a solemn excitement in the thought
that they were spreading their sails for
unknown seas, from whence no voyager
had returned with tidings. Still, in their
case, the excitement of hope prevailed
over that of dread. They hoped, at some
distant day, to revisit the land and friends
from whom they parted, and to astound
Europe with tidings from a hitherto un-
discovered realm of the globe.

But no gallant ship returns to the shores
of Time. Millions have sailed away,
millions more are now casting off from
their earthly moorings ; but not one has

THE BORDER LAND. 243

returned. No human gaze follows their
track, to see what seas they ride or be-
neath what billows they sink — what
worlds they reach or what eternal wan-
derings they pursue. The gloom of con-
templating this voyage is oppressive.

The mystery of death is itself terrible.
That thing death — what does it mean?
What is it to die ? What makes the dis-
tinction between the living and the life-
less state ? What is that peculiar sensa-
tion which men call the pang of parting-
life ? There are none to tell us ; the lips
from which alone we could learn are all
mute.

But there is a still deeper dread of the
unexplored^ mysteries beyond. Those
who reject the lights and supports of the
gospel of Christ often feel their souls
tossed widely by the alternations of de-
sire and repulsion — a strange conflict be-
tween longing to know and shrinking from
learning. In a quiet country cemetery

244 UPWARD.

in one of ojur old States, lie the remains
of two men, neighbors in life, and both
of them professed disbelievers in Divine
revelation. While they were both alive
they entered into the strange covenant
that the one who first left the world
should, if he found any future state of
being, return if possible and inform the
other respecting it. One died and was
buried. The survivor, as long as he
lived, avoided passing that graveyard in
the dark. To his dying day he shrank
affrighted at the thought of the bargained
visit from the world of spirits. Well,
those men know it all now. But on this
side of the boundary all to human sense
is as dark as ever.

While, under the other mortal terrors,
the love of Christ is the all-sufficient sup-
port, this gloom is effectually dispersed
by the Light of God. Faith sits down in
the school of Divine inspiration. There,
under the teachings of Heaven, that which

X

THE BORDER LAND. 245

was mystery becomes the best of all
knowledge — revealed truth. Ignorance
of the nature of death, or of the destiny
which it opens, then ceases to be an ele-
ment of the dread of dying. Faith in-
spires the believer with such assurance
of the word of God that he adopts what-
ever the Holy Spirit teaches as known
truth. Enlightened by this " evidence of
things not seen," he rests from his dread
of the unknown, for with this light in his
soul what unknown is there to dread?
He asks, What is it to die ? and the an-
swer is brought by that " earnest of the
Spirit" by which Paul was taught, when
he described it as simply the dissolving
of this earthly house of our tabernacle.
We do not die. That which has been
well termed the mud-walled cottage in
which we live, goes to ruin under the law
of nature which assigns to all physical
structures the periods of growth, matu-
rity and decline. We are immortal.

21 *

246 UPWARD.

The Christian again asks respecting
what lies beyond. The same " earnest of
the Spirit" speaks to him of the home
provided for himself when the earthly
tabernacle is dissolved — "We have a
building of God, an house not made with
hands, eternal in the heavens." He is
not to be " unclothed, but clothed upon,
that mortality might be swallowed up of
life." From the lips of Christ a like
view of what awaits his dying friends is
conveyed under the same pleasant figure
of a house — an immortal home: " In my
Father's house are many mansions ; if it
were not so, I would have told vou : I 20
to prepare a place for you. And if I go
to prepare a place for you, I will come
again and receive you unto myself, that
wThere I am there ye may be also."

For the soul thus illuminated no pain-
ful obscurity clouds the subject of death.
The satisfied heart looks across all the in-
tervening space to the " building of God,"

THE BORDER LAND. 247

the house and home where Christ is and
we shall be also ; and with so much in
view that is clear, it is willing to rest
from further explorings until called to
pursue them in worlds of light.

Much reason, it is true, remains for say-
ing, "It doth not yet appear what we
shall be ;" still the departing saint feels all
his solicitude calmed while he does " know
that when He shall appear, we shall be
like him, for we shall see him as he is." He
knows enough to assure him that he will
enjoy unspeakable gain in the change from
the mortal to the immortal state. He
knows also that this transition is an object
of the complacency of his heavenly Father,
for again the Spirit says, " Precious in the
sight of the Lord is the death of his
saints." Thus fleeing to the sanctuary
of Christian faith, he finds sweet repose
from the fearful thought of launching out
on unknown seas or wandering in " un-
discovered bourns."

XIX.

THE BORDER LAND.
THIRD THE COVENANT SLUMBER.

fHERE remains for notice one more
of the natural terrors of death — the
j gloom of the grave.
It is a cold, dark abode, where corrup-
tion is our father and the worm our
mother and sister. There is a universal
shrinking of human nature from this
destiny. Here we rejoice in the light
and warmth of heaven, but there all is cold
night upon which our sun never rises.
We delight in the social communings of
earth, but there we shall lie alone. JNTo
cheering word of friendship enters the
" dull, cold ear of death." The most en-
deared earthly friends may be buried in

248

THE BORDER LAND. 249

the same coffin, still the dead are all
alone. The sepulchre can never become
social.

" Silence and solitude and gloom
In those forgetful realms appear."

Physical systems which are now rich in
the strength and activity of life must
there lie in long paralysis. Forms which
are now beautiful will become a sightless
mass of corruption, which the grave in
mercy hides from the eye of the living.

Is Christian faith an overmatch for
the dread which the carnal sense feels at
the approach of such a doom ? Yes, and
more : it brings out from this very doom
the highest personal triumph which the
cross gives to the believer. Here, per-
haps more than anywhere else, religion is
true to its own nature — that is, most avail-
able at the time of greatest need. The
gospel writes its richest words upon the
walls of the tomb. Its crowning conquest
is victory over the grave.

250 UPWARD.

The heart of the thoughtful friend of
Christ has often lingered lovingly over
the phrase, sleeping in Jesus — " Them
also which sleep in Jesus will Grod bring
with him." In this figure there is some-
thing which speaks the practical sympa-
thy of Christ in the darkest of our allot-
ments. Let this be marked well : it is a
sympathy which is felt not alone in the
cold passage over the river, but one that
still abides with the flesh which the life has
deserted. In the language of our creed,
" He was crucified, dead and buried." In
taking his part in all our trials, he

"Passed through the grave, and blessed the bed."

But even this does not reach the true
idea of sleeping in Jesus. Nothing short
of an evangelical view of the provisions
of the eternal covenant of redemption will
disclose the blessedness which dwells in
those touchingly simple words. Christ
with his own blood purchased his redeemed

THE BORDER LAND. 251

ones. The Father, under covenant prom-
ise, gave them to him as the reward of his
expiatory death. Their perfect redemption
from all the dominion of sin is to become
the highest power of his cross and the
basis of his greatest mediatorial glory,
Nothing of the redeemed man, nothing of
the Redeemer's purchased possession, must
remain an eternal monument of the power
of sin and death.

Here the glorious truth of the Resur-
bectiox bursts upon the vision of faith.
The voice of promise and summons to
the Church is heard from the Lord of
the purchased bodies and souls of his
people: " Thy dead men shall live; to-
gether with my dead body shall they
arise : awake and sing, ye that dwell in
dust ! for thy dew is as the dew of herbs,
and the earth shall cast out the dead."

Here the Redeemer's interest in the
dying body is found to be the same as in
the undying soul. They are alike parts of

252 UPWARD.

his covenant property. He received no
fractional part of the believer's nature,
but that believer is given to him as a
whole man, and in that whole Jesus is
to be admired in the final triumphal glory
of liis cross. He has then the same cause
for a jealous care of the body as for the
soul. To himself, as well as to the un-
worthy subject of his grace, the protec-
tion and final glorifying of the whole
man is an object of inexpressible interest. *
The same omniscient love which, during
the intermediate state, guards the disem-
bodied spirit, will keep its post of vigil
where the flesh is reposing beyond the
reach of weariness and sin. In the grave,
or down in the coral chambers of the
ocean, or unburied on some desert wild,
this flesh may moulder until every vestige
of human form shall disappear : still it
remains an essential covenant possession
of Christ, which he has perfect power
and perfect purpose to keep. It sleeps

THE BOEDER LAND. 253

in the covenant, and that is sleeping in
Jesus.

What mournings the corruption of the
outward nature is ever bringing upon the
children of God! What wrestlings of
spirit with these bodies, the mediums
of depraved inclination and instru-
ments of sin ! How the Christian has
longed for the wings of a dove, that he
might fly away and be at rest ! Brought
forth from the grave, all this will be to
him " the former things which are passed
away." Then the Redeemer is to present
his people unblemished — " a glorious
Church, not having spot or wrinkle, or any
such thing." The grave is to be made to
the body the instrument of purification,
removing its grossness and preparing it
for the reunion with the spirit — a restored
being with angelic attainments.

Expecting this refining process through

death and the grave, should we any longer

shrink from abandoning this flesh to cor-
22

254 UPWARD.

ruption ? At present we trace many of
our sins and sorrows to its wTants and its
yearnings for evil. God forbid that we
should ever carry such earthly wants and
corrupt tendencies to heaven ! The grave
will hide them for ever, while the
" Watcher and Holy One" brings forth,
in his own time, the pure form like his
own risen body. How sublime the de-
scription from the pen of the writer to
the Corinthians — from corruption to in-
corruption, from dishonor to glory, from
weakness to power, from an animal to a
spiritual body ! Spirit of God ! inspire
us also with the assured hope of such a
resurrection, and we will cease to -look
into the grave as a dark dungeon where
the tyrant Sin holds his sullen ward.
With Paul we will stand over the tomb
and extol the triumph of grace: "0
Death ! where is thy sting ? 0 Grave !
where is thy victory?"

In the heart of one who has been the

THE BORDER LAND. 255

subject of an earnest Christian experience
this hope is too well inwrought to be dis-
turbed by the cavils of human wisdom.
The comforts of the doctrine of the res-
urrection were not first suggested by the
science of this world, and they are not to
be darkened by the philosophy of men.
The truth belongs entirely to another de-
partment of knowledge — the revealed
wisdom of God. Vain sophists may
array their physiological theories against
our hopes ; they may talk about the same
atoms changing from body to body ; they
may palter about the question whether
the preservation of the particles of mat-
ter in the human system is essential to
the identity of the body itself; they may
go farther and commit blasphemy by
denying the power of God to reproduce
forms after the utter ruin of organic
structure, so that the thing formed shall
be, not another being, but the same man
who once before lived : it is enough for us

256 UPWARD.

that, as we first accepted these hopes from
God, we rely upon his truth and power to
accomplish what he has said.

More than this, we throw into the face
of skeptical philosophy its own voidness
of reason when it perpetrates the absur-
dity of bringing mere human science to
sit in judgment upon truths which belong
only to the Infinite Mind. It is blind to
one of the most obvious distinctions in
sound reasoning, when it can see no dif-
ference between contrary to reason and
above reason, and so sets down everything
w7hich is beyond its own grasp as un-
philosophical.

When we do see that with the same
ashy dust, acted upon alike by the second
causes of moisture, warmth, and light,
God disposes some particles into the form
and tint of the rose, others into the modest
violet or gorgeous magnolia, and still
others into the golden fruits of summer,
giving to each of these such a body as

THE BORDER LAND. 257

pleases himself, we find no difficulty in
believing his power to wTork his own
pleasure with the mouldered remains of
the human form. In neither case do we
understand the process. But in one
instance we witness the result, and
the result is all that concerns us in
the other. The truth of his covenant
is the point that is settled in our hearts,
and reposing in the trust that we shall
awake in the likeness of Christ, the grave
is gloomy no longer.

11 On the cold cheek of death smiles and roses are blending,
And beauty immortal awakes from the tomb."

In our fiesli we shall see God. Our eyes,
and not those of another shall behold
him.

These, together with those suggested in
preceding articles, are the supports under
which the friend of Christ dies. The
moral terrors of death are overcome by
forgiving grace and justifying faith. Its
natural glooms have undergone the al-

22 * R

258 UPWARD.

chemy of the cross, transmuting each
thing of clreacl into an element of tri-
umph. All is then clear. The Chris-
tian's departure is not alone an occasion
for pious submission: it should be an
event of real joy.

So it has been felt by men of God, in-
spired and uninspired. Look at Paul:
"To me, to live is Christ, and to die is
gain;" "Death is swallowed up in vic-
tory;" "Willing rather to be absent
from the body, and to be present with
the Lord." Such experiences of holy
men abound on the records of the Divine
Word. The Psalmist of Israel has be-
fore been quoted: "Though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of
death, I will fear no evil, for thou art
with me; thy rod and thy staff, they
comfort me." Many of that day went
up in spirit, as Elijah did visibly, amid
the parting skies, in a chariot of fire.
And so they have done since, and will

THE BORDER LAND. 259

continue to do, until "thy people pass
over, 0 Lord! till the people pass over
which thou hast purchased."

From the ranks of the learned and the
unlearned, the lowly and the illustrious,
examples almost without limit come forth
to strengthen our trust. Here is the poor
mutilated English sailor, of whom Dr.
Griffin, of Portsea, wrote. "Come in,"
said he, as his minister entered the room,
"come in, thou man of God! I have
been longing to tell you the happy state
of my mind. I shall soon die, but death
has now no terrors. I am going to heaven.
Oh what has Jesus clone for me, one of
the vilest of the human race! The joy
I feel from the sense of the love of God
to sinners, and the thought of being with
the Saviour, are more than I can express.
Hallelujah! hallelujah!"

We go to the dying bed of Dr. Finley,
former President of the College of STew
Jersey. "I know not," said he, "in what

260 UPWARD.

language to speak of my own un worthi-
ness. I have been undutiful. ... I can
truly say that I have loved the service of
God. I have honestly endeavored to act
for God, but with much weakness and
corruption. ... Oh that each of you
may experience what, blessed be God, I
do, when you come to die ! . . . Eternal
rest is at hand; the Lord hath given me
victory; I exult! I triumph!"

Most of the readers of Christian biog-
raphy are familiar with the dying ex-
perience of that young servant of Christ,
James Brainerd Taylor. "Heaven," he
said, " never appeared more desirable. I
have longed to see the King in his beauty.
Never did I gain so near an access to
God. Dying seems like going to my
Father's house. ... I have longed,
longed, to enter heaven. . . . My active
spirit, which now clings to Jesus, will be
adoring, active, and wondering among
the spirits of the just made perfect. . . .

THE BORDER LAND. 261

It is but a little way from this to yonder
mansion.^. . . How sweet the earnest!
Only a little while, and we shall be there.''
Room for examples fails. From such
dying chambers visions of glory blaze.
As we gaze on them, we seem to go up
"from the plains of Moab unto the moun-
tain of Nebo, to the top of Pisgah," and
look out upon the scene beyond. We
cannot more appropriately close our con-
templations of this side of the river than
here in sight of Canaan.

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XX.

HEAVEN.

FIRST — THINGS WHICH EYE HATH NOT SEEN NOR
EAR HEARD.

fHE astronomer, attempting to explore
remote worlds, is obliged to take his
j standpoint of observation on this
earth. He cannot carry his instruments
into the field of discovery, and there
measure celestial magnitudes or bring to
light the wonders of those distant crea-
tions. What he observes by looking
across the long interval must suffice, for
he can learn no more.

Thus, for a little while, we are circum-
scribed in our views of heaven. It is a
distant land, which the foot of none liv-

262

HEAVEN. 263

ing on earth has trodden. Its scenes are
without the range of sense, and its glory
surpasses the power of human compre-
hension. Here we can neither survey it
with the eyes of glorified spirits nor
speak of it in the language of the skies.
One who enjoyed a supernatural view of
that world gave only this shorn account
of his beatific vision, that there he "heard
unspeakable words which it is not lawful
[possible] for a man to utter." We are
indebted to our faith for so much account
as God has sent across from thence to this
dim-sighted world, for all our heavenly
discoveries this side of death.

And these discoveries are sufficient
now. Even through this dark glass men
have seen what has filled them with as
much rapture as a mortal man knows
how to bear. The last words of John
Welch, one of the champions of Scotch
Protestantism, uttered under overpower-
ing manifestations of the Divine glory,

264 UPWARD.

were,- "It is enough, 0 Lord — it is now
enough! Hold thy hand! Thy servant
is a clay vessel, and can hold no more."
As much of peace and joy as our present
natures can receive from the contempla-
tion of that world is now within our
reach. Like the group sketched by the
sanctified fancy of Bunyan, we may now
stand on the Delectable Mountains, and
through the glass of faith look over to the
Celestial City for which we are girded
pilgrims, and where our pilgrimage will
soon end. It does not impair the bliss
of our anticipations to reflect that "it
doth not yet appear what we shall be,"
for we shall know all when our souls are
great enough to enjoy all.

In what lovely imagery the Divine
revelation has clothed heavenly realities,
so as to bring them as near as possible to
our weak senses ! The things which God
hath prepared for them that love him,
have never found a human language in

HEAVEN. 265

which their living majesty can be written.
This may be the reason why the Holy
Spirit, in describing them, has so often
used those pictured terms which, through
our quick sense of external beauties, find
their way to our hearts.

Thus the holy city, the New Jerusalem,
is represented " coming down from God
out of heaven, prepared as a bride
adorned for her husband." The original
paradise of our first parents fills all our
ideas of outward pleasantness and ex-
quisite natural enjoyments. The Spirit
seizes upon this glowing ideal when it
represents .heaven as the " Paradise of
God." It is also the " Tabernacle of God
with men." There is "the Fountain of
the Water of Life," and the feast which
is there spread is "the Marriage Supper
of the Lamb." In those regions there
are no alternations of day and night, no
rising and setting sun or feebler lights
of evening. "The glory of God did

23

266 UPWARD.

lighten it, and the Lamb is the light
thereof." Exhibited under the figure of
a city walled with jasper, built sof pure
gold like unto glass, its foundations gar-
nished with all manner of precious stones,
the view of heaven fills all our concep-
tions of gorgeousness and outward loveli-
ness. It seems as though the Spirit of
inspiration had exhausted the splendors
of the natural world in searching out
emblems of the glory of the "city which
hath foundations, whose Builder and
Maker is God."

But the Holy Scriptures have plain
writings, as well as charming pictures,
of the scenes of everlasting rest. The
Divine word affords many more descrip-
tions of the glory to be revealed, and we
repose upon promises which we believe
will have a literal fulfillment. If we
dwell in the golden city or walk the bank
of the crystal river only in a figure, we shall
literally be with Christ where he is. If

HEAVEN. 267

we are not strictly arrayed in white robes,
we shall truly possess the purity of which
they are the emblems. Shining figures
of speech can here promote no extrav-
agant views. There is enough literal de-
scription to show that they are as far
short of the reality as terrestrial things
are beneath the celestial.

To the believer every thought of the
world of bliss is delightful. In every
condition this side of heaven the comforts
of religion seem to fight their way to
our souls against counteracting glooms.
Earthly dispensations all have a dark as
well as bright side, and the reflections
which support our courage and console
our hearts reach us only as, in the mili-
tary sense of the word, they overcome the
gloomy views which our condition sug-
gests. But looking beyond the sins, toils
and sorrows of life, we are out of the
reach of all dark thoughts. We can
never indulge one unpleasant view of

268 UPWARD.

heaven, or feel one shrinking revolt from
the approach of its bliss. Every condition
of life from which suffering is expected
is left behind when Ave step within the
veil. All that can inspire gloomy for-
bodings belongs to the former things
which are passed away. Distant as our
present point of observation is, we can
nevertheless see that no clouds float in
those skies and the sun of that everlast-
ing day is never obscured.

God has* not only prepared these things
for those that love him, but he has also
prepared them for this bliss. When we
find ourselves capable of deriving happi-
ness from such prospects, we recognize
the forming work of the Divine Spirit on
our hearts, and we know that God has
wrought us for this selfsame thing.
Throughout the whole range of heavenly
enjoyments there is nothing to excite one
yearning of the carnal mind. In the
possessor of such a mind the wish to

HEAVEN. 269

ascend to heaven when he dies is
prompted only by the unwelcome cer-
tainty that he must leave this world, and
his dread of a worse doom, beyond the
grave. Earth would be his supreme
good if he might retain it. He has no
heart for the songs of angels, the commu-
nion of the redeemed and the smile of
God. Compared with present delights,
the themes of that world are insipid, its
associations dull and its employments
irksome. This shows how much is im-
plied when we speak of want of prepara-
tion for heaven.

But the believer's earnest delight in the
prospect of the heaven which God de-
scribes, magnifies the inworking power
of Divine grace. God has taken in hand
the work of revolutionizing his heart, im-
parting to him such susceptibilities and
aspirations as fit him not merely to reach
that world, but to enjoy it. Turning
wearily from a world of sin, he can sym-

. 23 *

270 UPWARD.

pathize in the sentiment which forms the
last record in the diary of Henry Martyn
— " Oh when shall time give place to eter-
nity? When shall appear that new
heaven and new earth wherein dwelleth
righteousness ? There, there shall in no
wise enter in anything that defileth. None
of that wickedness which has made men
worse than wild beasts, none of those
corruptions which add still more to the
miseries of mortality, shall be seen or
heard of any more." Before the soul in
which the Holy Spirit has wrought such
views of what is wearisome on the one
hand or refreshing on the other, heaven
glows as the object of sweet thoughts and
burning hopes. Weary and heavy laden,
it approaches that world for rest.

Yes, for rest. " There remaineth there-
fore a rest to the people of God." The
calamities of life are past. Not only is "a
world of joy reached, but a world of sor-
row is forsaken. For that region of end-

HEAVEN. 271

less life the pilgrim has exchanged a
realm of death. Here we ride an ocean,
always stormy and often lashed by the
tempest into fury : there, we are told,
there is no more sea. Here, we struggle
with poverty, waste under diseases and
" mourn departed friends." Common
consent has named our present abode a
vale of tears. The weak are oppressed,
the unfortunate are forsaken, the ambit-
ious are disappointed, and " the whole
creation groaneth and travaileth in pain
together until now." There, "they shall
hunger no more, neither thirst any more,
neither shall the sun light on them, nor
any heat. For the Lamb which is in the
midst of the throne shall feed them, and
shall lead them unto the living fountains
of waters, and God shall wipe away all
tears from their eyes." Sorrow, crying,
pain and death are among " the former
things which are passed away." None
of their inhabitants sav, "lam sick;"

272 UPWAED.

no gloomy funeral processions pass along
the streets, for the days of their mourn-
ing are ended. "Neither can they die
any more, for they are equal unto the
angels, and are the children of God,
being the children of the resurrection."

But these are only exemptions from
natural evils. There is a better repose
than even this for the weary wrestler
with depravity. A world of sin is ex-
changed for a world of holiness. Here
there is strife against inbred corruption
and against wickedness all around. We
are weary with the sight of human vile-
ness on every hand, and we long also to
possess for ourselves the perfect holiness
of heaven. What a new world of enjoy-
ment will be opened when we cease to
witness the rage of human passions, to
look on the oppressor trampling the poor
in the dust, to hear the language of pro-
fanity, to see the ordinances of Grod
treated with derision, and to behold men

HEAVEN. 273

proud of their impiousness, glorying in
their shame! What a new life when our
own hearts are exalted above every selfish
emotion, cleansed from all impure affec-
tions, and secured in the undisturbed pos-
session of the love of God!

Heaven without trouble, sickness and
death, would be a spiritual emptiness,
were it not heaven without sin. It will
be a thousand-fold reward for all the
pains of death, if we may escape the
presence of that which fills the world
with dying groans. This terrible foe
never invades the heavenly rest. " There
shall in no wise enter into it anything
that defileth, neither whatsoever worketh
abomination or maketh a lie." "When
He shall appear, wre shall be like him,
for we shall see him as he is." The
moral character of every one around us
will be conformed to the holiness of God.
We shall be like them, and, with them,
like Jesus, and pure as God is pure.

274 UPWARD.

The thought is at once triumphant and
humbling. Who are we, and what is
our' race, that such victory and award
should await us? What an example of
grace abounding over the deserts of sin!
From the dust we raise our eyes to that
glory. We feel that our nothingness is
deep, according to the loftiness of our
hope.

But let no carnal notions of rest gather
around the truth of the everlasting sab-
batism that remains to the people of God.
We connect with it no thought of cessa-
tion of holv activities. We look also for
such earnest and delightful mental em-
ployments as give to the soul loftier con-
ceptions of the great glory of God. We
know not the range of subjects of inquiry,
but we expect no deadening of the ambi-
tion for knowledge and no slackening of
the race of science.

In the present world every new intel-
lectual attainment imparts pleasure. Our

HEAVEN. 275

minds are formed for investigation. It
lies in their nature to derive satisfaction
from the discovery of truth in an endless
variety of subjects. We wish to lay the
universe under contribution to this pro-
pensity, and are impatient under any re-
striction of the field of inquiry. We
wish to learn from the earth, the sea, the
stars, the records of history, the labyrinths
of lines and numbers, the wilds of meta-
physics, the laws of moral government, and
the principles of the throne of heaven. In
short, wherever truth may be traced, we
delight to search her footsteps and we
triumph in every new discovery.

This thirst for knowledge is not a car-
nal propensity belonging to the earthly
nature, and along with that nature to be
shaken off in death. It is one of the
signatures of the immortal nature — a
divine instinct, imperishable as the
soul's existence. Then who can doubt
but these aspirations will be intensified

276 UPWABD.

when our sensual thraldom is all shaken
off, and we are brought under circum-
stances which at once incite and reward
the search for truth? Wo expectation is
more rational than that this will be our
condition in heaven. The wonders of
boundless worlds will probably be open
to our view. And who can tell but
sciences so exalted that their faintest
light never dawned upon earth may
then spread themselves before the mind
that is enlarged to know infinite things?
And what will become of our present dis-
tinction of the mental from the moral
when there is no philosophy of which
God is not the heart — when he is felt in
all and filling all? And will there be
any partial application of the term " exact
sciences" when all becomes more than
mathematical certainty, every discovery'
clear and every demonstration infallible?
Under this flood of illumination the
government of God will be vindicated

HEAVEN. 277

from the charge of disorder. Reasons
will be apparent why everything should
exist as it does; why the sparrow should
fall or kingdoms hasten to their dissolu-
tion; why the world should be cursed
with sin or the Redeemer die to restore
it from its revolt from God ; why Chris-
tian lands should be enlightened, and the
heathen left in darkness; why the re-
deemed should be glorified and the re-
probate left in eternal woe. Every event
will be seen to have its exact place in a
perfect system. We shall rest from the
weariness of human disputes, the impa-
tience of pursuing truth under so many
disadvantages, and the trial of under-
standing so little of the ways of God.
That " Hereafter," when we are to know
what Christ does, though we know not
now, is then come. We look no more
through the dark glass: we see face to
face. We are done with this knowing in
part: we know even as we are known.

24

XXI.

H EA VEN.
SECOND — THE EVERLASTING SABBATH.

fE have ruled out from the Sabbath
rest of heaven the sensual idea
of inactivity. Whatever secures
against weariness fulfills the import of
the term. Gracious exercises are doubt-
less one in substance on earth and in
heaven. Here they find their healthiness
and their joy in living and doing fpr Christ.
How can we but suppose that a mere pas-
sive reception of Divine comforts would
be more felt as unnatural to the heavenly
life in proportion as the soul's absorption
in Grod is there more perfect?

Every description which we have of

278

HEAVEN. 279

the condition of the celestial company
involves the idea of activity. And there
is no reason to suppose this activity is
restricted to a few forms of exercise. The
glass through which we now look into
that world is too dark to enable us to de-
scribe the routine of duty through which
we are to pass, but such leading views of
the subject as we are able to take indicate
the opening of a vast and varied field of
holy effort. God has around him there a
countless throng of agents to do his will.
The number of them is "ten thousand
times ten thousand, and thousands of
thousands." The use of the instrumen-
tality of created agents is, so far as wTe
know, his chosen method of prosecuting
his designs. His field of operation is a
universe without limit. Over the whole
of this field events in endless variety are
to be carried forward through eternal
duration. With these facts before us, we
naturally expect to see him assigning to

280 UPWARD.

his servants a vast extent of duties, vari-
ous in kind and noble in character. In
this boundless field for the improvement
of every talent and the employment of
every power, we look for opportunity for
the exercise of the energies of all. The
subject is captivating, but it approaches
too near the unsafe ground of human
speculation to render it proper to theo-
rize minutely. We may, however, rely
upon one conclusion : if we are Christ's,
we shall soon enter upon angelic employ-
ments, and derive from our duties such
joy as fills the heart of a seraph.

Only a faint uncertainty clouds the idea
that the glorified spirits of the departed
are now ministering to the friends of
Christ on earth. This delightful work is
unquestionably performed by messengers
sent from the realms of bliss. God has
explicitly promised that his angels shall
have charge over those who make him
their refuge, to keep them in all their

HEAVEN. 281

ways. It was an angel that shut the
mouths of the lions among whom his ser-
vant Daniel was thrown. Angels carried
Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham ; and
the " little ones," whom we are warned
not to despise, have angels who always
-behold the face of God in heaven. In
short, they are " all ministering spirits,
sent forth to minister to them who shall
be heirs of salvation."

It is also beyond the reach of doubt
that glorified spirits from this earth pos-
sess angelic properties. Some of those
who have departed have certainly re-
visited the world, as angels are said to
hold intercourse with earth.* Still, we
have not sufficient light respecting the
intermediate state between death and the
resurrection to justify many positive con-
clusions respecting the present employ-
ment of the departed saints. The best of
our knowledge concerning them, previous

* See among the other examples, Matt. xvii. 3.

24*

282 upward.

to the restoration of their bodies, is that
they are present with the Lord, and in
that presence there is fullness of joy.

But their final employment in minis-
tering to the glory of Grod is a point on
which the Divine testimony is explicit.
Whatever stations they may hold under
the government of heaven, upon what-
ever embassies they may be sent, or what-
ever mutual offices of love may pass be-
tween them, it is certain they will always
have something to do which will give
them the happy assurance that they are
glorifying their Lord and Redeemer.
They will for ever rejoice in the conscious-
ness that they are making practical re-
turns of gratitude for the mercy which
they have received. Their voices are
among those of many angels round about
the throne, and the living ones, and the
elders, whose number was ten thousand
times ten thousand and thousands of
thousands, and wrhose song heard in the

HEAVEN. 283

apocalyptic vision was, " Worthy is the
Lamb that was slain to receive power
and riches and wisdom and strength and
honor and glory and blessing!" Their
public presence in the final judgment will
yield its revenue of honor to Christ, for
he is then to be admired in all them that
believe; and they will be for ever "a
crown of glory in the hand of the Lord,
and a royal diadem in the hand of God."
Even in this world, life without some
great worthy end is a scene of discontent,
a bubble, a farce. Existence which is
not expended on some sufficient object
drags wearily along. So it would doubt-
less be in heaven, and as much more so
as the powers of activity are more quick-
ened in the atmosphere of the world of
life. Living and doing for God here en-
nobles and intensifies life. Then how it
exalts our anticipations of that world,
which is all life, to think of it as still
living and doing for God!

284 UPWARD.

Lifting our thoughts to another reach
of celestial meditations, we find ourselves
amid the associations of heaven. It is
the everlasting Sabbath: let us look in
upon the assembly to which we expect to
join ourselves in the sanctuary of the
Church universal.

There Ave are communicants with all
who, like ourselves, have been redeemed
from the earth. While we loved Grod
whom we had not seen we learned to
love our brethren whom we had seen.
The holy intimacies of life will there be
renewed. Hearts which burned while
fellow-believers talked along the way of
their crucified Saviour, will experience
rekindled ardor in together looking upon
his exalted state. JNTo distrust will there
enter to cool the affection of the brother-
hood. No suspicions of doctrinal un-
soundness and no carnal ambitions will
divide the general assembly of the tri-
umphant Church into rival sections.

HEAVEN. 285

There will be no separate communions,
and no contention for forms and modes.
The partition- walls will be broken down,
and hearts will blend in the burning of
such love as angels feel.

The cord of caste will be broken, and
national antipathies will be forgotten.
The Barbarian and Scythian, the bond
and free, the Hottentot and the child of
civilization will together adore the won-
ders of the mercy which raised them
from the spiritual degradation where they
alike lay, and will mingle their voices in
one choral exaltation of Him who is,
without respect of persons, the Father
and Redeemer of them all. The watch-
men will lift up the voice together, and
the intercession of Christ that we may be
one, as he and the Father are one, will re-
ceive its fruition. The great and good
of past ages, whose memory in the
Church is like ointment poured forth, are
all there. We shall sit down with Abra-

286 UPWARD.

ham, Isaac and Jacob, and the elders who
obtained a good report — with saints of the
New Testament, and glorious martyrs
who have gone up in chariots of fire. All
the Church, gone, living, and yet to live,
will gather as one flock around the one
Shepherd and Bishop of souls.

Angels will also be our associates there.
The lowliest Christian will be the com-
panion of those sons of God whose joyous
shouts heralded the morning hour of
earth. Those who have ascended from
the unnoticed corners of the world, ne-
glected and scorned by men, will stand
by the side of Gabriel in the palace of the
Great King. What a scene for Christian
anticipation — to unite in angelic worship
— to come into eternal intimacy with the
noblest and holiest beings below God!

With the noblest and holiest beings
below God — is that all? Nay, wondrous,
wondrous grace! hope is taught to vault
up to an infinity beyond this. We ex-

HEAVEN. 287

pect an eternal intimacy with the noblest
and holiest of all — the Triune Father,
Son and Holy Ghost. We shall sit down
with Christ in his throne, and we shall be
ever with the Lord. "They are before
the throne of God, and serve him day
and night in his temple, and he that
sitteth on the throne shall dwell among
them;" "The tabernacle of God is with
men, and he will dwell with them, and
they shall be his people, and God him-
self shall be with them, and be their
God."

It seems too much, but the intercession
of our Advocate makes it sure: "Father,
/ will that they also whom thou hast
given me be with me where I am, that
they may behold my glory which thou
hast given me." In this world our richest
foretastes of heaven are the approaches,
distant though they be, which we make
toward God. This is the comfort of
warm-hearted prayer — the drawing near

288 UPWARD.

to him in whose presence there is fullness
of joy. Whatever brings the soul near
to God purifies its character and exalts
its happiness. What will it then be to
stand before his throne or to sit down
with Christ, no more a stranger, but in
the household home of his family?

" Think then," says Mr. Baxter, in his
Dying Thoughts — " think, 0 my soul, what
life thou shalt live for ever, in the pres-
ence and bosom of infinite and eternal
Love ! He now shineth on me by the sun,
and on my soul by the Sun of Righteous-
ness, but it is as through the crevices of
my darksome habitation ; but then he
will shine on me and in me openly, and
with the fullest streams and beams of
love. Study this heavenly work of love,
0 my soul ! It is only love that can un-
derstand it. Here the will has its taste.
What can poor carnal worldlings know
of glorious love who studv it without
love?"

HEAVEN. 289

These are the gatherings of heaven;
this is the general assembly in the pres-
ence of its Head. Forgiven sinners are
brought with songs to Zion, and there
they worship with the innumerable com-
pany of angels. Jehovah is there, and
there his glory is seen and felt as it shines
in the face of Jesus. The joy of God is
the joy of all, and the love which God is
glows in every breast around. We have
no human language for speaking of such
fellowship, and no earthly things by
which to illustrate it. This world is too
poor to produce them. If the writer and
reader may hereafter stand on the moun-
tain of Zion, and together

" Kange the sweet plains on the banks of the river,
And sing of salvation for ever and ever,"

we shall discourse of our celestial associa-
tions in terms befitting the theme.

Finally — heaven is eternal. What
Christian, in his transient and uncertain

26 T

290 UPWARD.

hours of devotion, has not clung fondly
to the thought that

" There the assembly ne'er breaks up,
The Sabbath ne'er shall end?"

Our Sabbaths on earth come and depart.
Their holy quiet is followed by a week of
worldly turmoil. We would fain be still
with God, but the demands of the world
upon our care are imperative. From the
solemn sanctuary we must pass to the
noisy street; from our altars of heavenly
communion we must turn to intercourse
with the vain world ; from the mount of
privilege we must descend to the cheerless
deserts where few of the healing waters
flow. We love the hours when we are
allowed to put the world aside and dwell
in undisturbed nearness to God, and we
would gladly lay hold of the wheels of
time and check the speed with wrhich
they are borne away ; but they will go.

To the soul, feeling that a day with
God is better than a thousand with the

HEAVEN. 291

world, what bliss attends the reflection
that the worship of the upper sanctuary
is everlasting ! Rob the saints in glory
of that prospect, and every song of heaven
would be changed into a wail of anguish.
Give them to understand that at some
period — no matter though it be millions
of years remote — their bliss will ter-
minate and their existence end, and every
mansion and bower of paradise would be
hung with funeral drapery. But no such
fear will ever disturb a heart there.
Everything in heaven is immortal. Its
exemptions, its employments, its society,
its Redeemer and King are all eternal.
Our inheritance is incorruptible, and
never fades away : " They shall reign for
ever and ever."

What thoughts cluster around the
word Eternity ! Under the present dark-
ness of our minds the conception is almost
oppressive. We measure duration by
days and years, and even in imagination

292 UPWARD.

we can follow it no farther than our arith-
metic will number its periods. Still away
onward, far beyond the stretch of our com-
putation or thought, eternity rolls on.
Worlds faint in the race and expire.
Planetary systems are worn out by the
friction of ages of revolving, and are lost in
the regions of space. Still away onward,
Time, fresh as in the morning of creation,
is girding himself for a race without a
goal.

Under such conceptions who can speak
to creatures like ourselves, yet on earth,
of eternal love, eternal holiness, eternal
heaven ? When we reflect that so much
peace, joy and glory is to become an
eternal reward, it seems like pouring into
a cup which is already running over.
Description is soon exhausted, but our
musings linger on the thought that we
shall be ever with the Lord. Ever, ever
with the Lord !

Child of the skies ! let thy spirit hasten

HEAVEN. 293

homeward. Tempests are gathering, and
the nights of earth are dark and fearful.
There " thy sun shall no more go down,
neither shall thy moon withdraw itself;
for the Lord shall be thine everlasting
light, and the days of thy mourning sh^all
be ended."

25*

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