Part 15

It is quite clear, that the benefits and blessings of our holy religion, that the knowledge of God’s word, the power of His Spirit, and the effects of His ordinances, must ever remain a secret to those, who have no intercourse with these things, and set their hearts against them. And whenever the Christian hears his conduct condemned, or his hopes undervalued, by such persons, he may treat them, not with proud disdain, but with a holy disregard: whatever their station in society may be, whatever their learning, whatever their reputation for judgment in worldly affairs, upon spiritual or scriptural matters their opinion is of no weight or worth.

“The secret of the Lord is with them that fear Him.” The fear of the Lord, in this passage, as in many others of Holy writ, denotes the sum and substance of religion; it implies a sincere faith and trust in God, an awful sense of His majesty, an humble and anxious enquiry after the knowledge of His will, with a holy determination of obedience. And, in addressing these words to a christian congregation, we may understand them as implying that fear and service of God, which proceed from a vital belief in the whole of His revealed law, in the gospel of His ever blessed Son, our supreme Lawgiver and King; as implying moreover an entire concurrence in all the measures ordained for our salvation. The fear of God, though common to all believers under every divine dispensation, will vary in its operation and extent, according to the nature and fulness of their dispensation; it will lead them to believe and love and obey, according to their knowledge, to their opportunities and means of grace, and therefore the believer in the gospel shews the working of this holy principle in the full bearing of evangelical fruit.

All who so believe and live, shall have the secret of the Lord abundantly revealed; “He that hath My commandments, and keepeth them, he it is that loveth Me; and he that loveth Me shall be loved of My Father; and I will love him and will manifest Myself unto him. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in My name, He shall teach you all things.” {338} The humble disciples of Christ are blest in all their researches after divine truth and knowledge: when they contemplate the perfections of the Godhead, their capacities are enlarged, their affections devoutly engaged, their hearts disposed to profit withal. A deep sense of the majesty and power of Jehovah leads them to reverence Him; a sense of His justice leads them to walk uprightly; of His omnipresence, to live holily; of His goodness, to serve Him with gratitude and love. Whilst the cold philosopher, whilst the worldly-minded and the sinner view these great subjects only with a theoretical eye, without any moral or religious improvement, the spiritual believer is powerfully moved and affected; and walks in the light of truth every day and hour.

In their devotional exercises, the faithful servants of the Lord are peculiarly blessed; are made sensible of His presence and His power. When they pour forth their prayers and praises at the throne of grace; when they thus hold a nearer communion with their reconciled God, a heavenly tranquillity and delight are spread over their souls; they know and feel their connexion with “the Father of spirits,” and they rise from their devotion with an humble confidence, that the tribute of their heart has been accepted; that their fervent supplications will be answered, in God’s appointed time and way, through the merits and intercession of a merciful Redeemer. To these inspiring hopes and persuasions the impenitent sinner is an utter stranger: if he prays at all, it is but the outward service of the lips; there can be nothing of the spiritual principle of devotion, and therefore nothing of its fruit.

Again: when the humble pious believer sits down to the study of the Bible, with a pure desire to discover and perform the holy will of God; to be nourished with the bread of life; and to draw, from the fountain of truth, the waters of eternal salvation; the grace of the Holy Spirit is with him, to remove the veil from his corrupt heart, and thus to open and enlarge his understanding: by this means he perceives “the wondrous things” of the divine law, and applies them for his own personal edification and comfort. The true import of the doctrines, there contained, is progressively unfolded to his view; and the full bearing, of every precept and rule of life, is pressed with increasing force and authority upon his heart. He admires and reverences the holy book; he loves all that it contains; his soul is rapt in the contemplation of the stupendous mystery of goodness and godliness; it elevates his prospects and affections above this lower world; he has “tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come;” {341} he beholds, with the eye of faith, his inheritance in the skies; and this his heavenly view brightens as he advances.

Every sincere Christian can bear witless, that his acquaintance with the word of life is continually improving; that in every page, and almost in every passage, he is perpetually discovering fresh truth and beauty, fresh obligations and delights. Of all this, the carnal-minded and the sinner are profoundly ignorant; to them the Bible is comparatively a dead letter: they see little of its harmony or its excellency; and where they do see, it has no lively or permanent effect upon their heart; no more, than any other book, of history, or morality, or amusement.

The righteous are not free from suffering and pain, from trials and afflictions; but then they enjoy, under every visitation, a source of comfort and satisfaction, which the thoughtless votaries of this world cannot possibly experience. There dwelleth, in their hearts and minds, the peace of God; and that must ever be the gift of God, which He will never bestow upon His enemies; the peace of God, which fills them with a holy calm, and reconciles them to every thing. In seasons of trouble, the triumphs of the gospel are especially manifested; and the “secret of the Lord” especially revealed. The soul is in a more impressible condition; more ready to learn of Him, who “was meek and lowly of heart;” and therefore more capable of the enjoyment of His promised rest. “Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted.” {342}

The sensual and the proud are disappointed and mortified and rebellious under the various troubles of life; the Christian receives them in a different spirit, as tokens of his heavenly Father’s love; and tokens of love he finds them to be. They, who “walk by sight,” are ever complaining of hardships and inequalities in the world; they who “walk by faith,” can perceive in them all the sovereign and gracious hand of the Almighty, who “doeth all things well.” They, who live upon the favour of the world, must always be rendered unhappy by its frowns; but the Christian lives above it, and cares little for any opposition or evil report: he is fortified and comforted by a secret power, and protected by an invisible arm: and this power shall continue with him, if he continue faithful, even unto the end. When his journey through the wilderness is about to terminate, when he has arrived at the borders of the flood, and is entering upon the shores of the heavenly Canaan, when nature sinks and the soul is departing, then does the Lord reveal himself, in a manner not to be seen and not to be told: there is a hidden energy, a light within, a sustaining spirit, a mysterious and merciful communion with the Lord of life and death. This indeed is an awful secret, and one which the guilty can never know; which none can know, who do not, with all their heart and soul, embrace the promises of salvation revealed to them in the gospel: the foretaste of heavenly rest, like the rest itself, remaineth only for the people of God. They who have so feared and loved the Lord, as to have served Him with a good conscience and with integrity; they who have so believed and trusted in their Saviour, as to have followed whithersoever He led, as to have sacrificed every unholy gratification and pursuit, for the love of His name and for the “one thing needful,” they shall find, in their latter moments, a peace known only to themselves, a joy with which no “stranger can intermeddle.” The Lord will effectually “shew them His covenant:” they were made by baptism “members of Christ and children of God,” and became thereby entitled, through the free mercy of God in Jesus Christ, to an “inheritance in the kingdom of heaven;” having abided in that covenant, and walked faithfully therein, they will never doubt, but God will assuredly perform His part; and He will give them a full insight into the blessings, which He has covenanted to bestow; they have all along entertained a lively apprehension of the nature and principles of this holy covenant, and of their own correspondent obligations; its holy promises and its gracious rewards have been through life the solace of their souls; and it continues, yea increases, to the last; not indeed enjoyed in perfection here below, but enjoyed as the earnest and pledge of the fulness of their eternal felicity.

In this manner, my brethren, “acquaint yourselves with God,” and come to the true knowledge of His perfections and His ways, and live in the animating ennobling hope of a brighter manifestation of His glory hereafter—in this manner, by a spirit of humble, faithful, entire dependence upon Him, through the mercy of Jesus Christ; by fervent importunate prayer for the illumination and aid of the Holy Ghost; by “seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness by loving Him with all the heart and soul,” and “walking in His fear all the day long.” Thus are we to be taught of God, thus only can we acquire a capability and disposition to be taught; thus growing in grace, we grow in wisdom, in holy experience, in happy communion with our Lord and Saviour.

Receive this instruction, “high and low, rich and poor, one with another;” it is equally necessary for all. Unless this spiritual lesson be learnt, the stores of human science, the treasures of human wisdom, are vain and worthless; they can impart no knowledge, no true and saving knowledge, of the ways and dealings of the Most High; they cannot bring the sinner to his Maker: on the contrary, they prevent and hinder him, by ministering a spirit of pride and self-sufficiency. If thou wouldest know God, fear Him, and be taught of His Spirit and His word; this is His own appointed means, and there is no other. And ye poor, unlearned as ye may be, seek the Lord in this way, and ye shall assuredly find Him: His secret shall be with you; and He will graciously teach you more, than you can attain from all the world besides; more than the wisest can learn in any other way.

“The way of the wicked is as darkness; they know not at what they stumble: but the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.” {347} The Lord revealeth Himself unto the righteous, day by day; they grow in wisdom, as in years: the nearer they approach to the completion of their hopes, to the end of their earthly pilgrimage, to their heavenly and eternal kingdom, the clearer will be their knowledge, and the more delightful their anticipations; even until that day, when the veil of the flesh shall be utterly removed, when they shall “see their God face to face, and know even as also they are known.” {348}

SERMON XIX. RESIST THE BEGINNINGS OF EVIL TEMPTATION.

PROVERBS iv. 14, 15.

_Enter not into the path of the wicked_, _and go not in the way of evil men_. _Avoid it_, _pass not by it_, _turn from it and pass away_.

THIS is one of those short, comprehensive, moral directions, with which the holy Scriptures abound, for our safe conduct in life; directions, that are seldom attended to with the earnestness, which their importance demands. Studied such words should be, with devout meditation and the spirit of prayer; imprinted on the memory, fixed in the heart. We are apt to trust too much to generalities in religion; we do not sufficiently concern ourselves with its individual precepts and practical admonitions. And I wish now to enlarge upon this point, before we enter into a consideration of the text; hoping that it may induce you, by God’s help, “to take heed how ye hear” such lessons of instruction.

For the attainment of a religious character, and the means of walking holily and uprightly in our course through life, doubtless the main thing is, to establish sound principles in the heart; and without such principles all the rules and helps in the world will prove of little avail; never to be depended upon in the hour of temptation and trial. Accordingly we find, in the word of God, these mainsprings of action continually insisted on, as of the highest necessity to be settled in the soul. A true, a right faith is inculcated, as the great foundation of all spiritual obedience; a vital faith in God, as our Creator, Redeemer, and Sanctifier; a faith in His revealed word, in all the great doctrines of life and salvation there propounded to fallen man; a faith in the necessity of obeying all the commandments therein delivered for the formation of our character and the regulation of our lives; a faith in the world to come, after the death of the body; a world depending, for happiness or misery, upon our choice and conduct here. The love of God and the fear of God are also laid down as most powerful principles of thought and action; as spreading an influence over the whole of our behaviour.

Still however, the establishment of these first principles is not of itself sufficient for the complete direction and government of our lives. So manifold and various are the temptations to which we are exposed; so numerous the trials we are called to bear, that particular instructions and commands are also needful for us, in order that we may be prepared to meet the different circumstances which are perpetually arising, in order that we may be taught how to reduce our principles to practice; and to apply the declaration of God’s will to our ordinary intercourse and experience with the world.

For this purpose, we find the old scriptures every where abounding with rules, for the performance of every duty, and the avoidance of every sin: for the immediate service and worship of God, for the discharge of every honest and honourable obligation we owe to our neighbour; for the correction of all those evil affections and passions, to which the corrupt heart of man is so lamentably prone. Nor in the new testament, where the foundation of faith is more clearly and broadly laid down, are such rules less frequent, or less urgently enforced. We might indeed expect, what actually is the case, that as a clearer and fuller revelation, that as a higher principle and view, would require a more holy and perfect observance, a greater purity and integrity and blamelessness of character, therefore the several duties demanded of us, in our walk with God, would be laid down and marked with the greater accuracy. Accordingly we do find, for this purpose, “line upon line and precept upon precept” repeated and urged with the greater fulness and particularity; that we may not, by any unholiness or deficiency in our conduct, disgrace that more glorious revelation, with which we have been favoured as believers in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Look at His own blessed discourses, especially His sermon on the mount; look at the epistles, which His servants, inspired by the Holy Ghost, have left for our guidance and government; and see what full instructions they contain, for our duty to God and our duty to man. It is wonderful, for how many cases they provide; for how many instances in our daily experience; how they teach us, on the one hand, the practice of every virtue, shew all the bearings of it and the steps that lead to it; how they caution us, on the other, against every besetting sin; how they point out the manner, in which it gains an influence over us, and cut it up by the root.

I have embraced the present opportunity of enlarging on this point, with a view of awakening your attention to, and inducing you to study and treasure up, the various scriptural rules for holy living: I have done this, because many suppose, that the fixing of a good principle—of faith, for instance,—is all that is requisite; if it were so, why should so many rules have been given in that holy book, in which there can be nothing unnecessary or superfluous? God, who knows the heart and all the ways of man, knew how wise and needful it was, to deliver express admonitions and exhortations to each individual duty; that our faith might not be vague and unprofitable, but abounding in fruit, in the fruit of holiness unto everlasting life.

But it is time now to turn to the text, which furnishes us with one of the most important cautions for our safe and christian government. It might be thought, that every true believer in that blessed Redeemer, who came “to cleanse him from all unrighteousness,” would have such a horror of sin, as effectually to secure him from its dominion; as to prevent us from the necessity of admonishing him against its fascination and its power; but such unhappily is far from being the case. Many, who make a considerable profession of the gospel, are betrayed into grievous inconsistencies; many, who set out with promising hopes and good resolutions, are led astray and overcome; many, for want of attending to the warning given in the text, for want of narrowly watching the beginnings of evil. Feeling a sincere and decided abhorrence of the grosser sins, they expose themselves without fear to slighter temptations; should they be, in some small matter, inveigled and led into the path of error, it is expected that they shall instantly perceive their danger; that they shall repent and be forgiven, and be more guarded and resolute for the time to come.

But they have not formed a proper estimate of the seducing nature of sin; they know not how the power of the tempter increases with every success: instead of their being alarmed and disgusted with the first commission, they become, from the corruption of their nature, the more captivated and seduced: it is easier for the enemy to draw them on to the second step, than it was to persuade them to the first; their conscience becomes more easily silenced and reconciled; they begin to think, that the strictness, for which they once contended, is not so requisite; they become accustomed to evil; make excuses for it; take delight in it; are flattered with the empty praises and congratulations of their new companions; and proceed by degrees to abandoned and ruinous lengths. The fact is, that they have been all the while provoking the Spirit of the Lord to desert them: He was grieved at their very first departure, from the path of innocence and integrity; it shewed a carelessness of the ways of God; it argued, that His fear and His love were declining in their heart: with every renewed commission of evil, the Spirit was more and more quenched, till at length He left them to themselves; weak, helpless, incapable of resistance; in the dominion of the enemy, slaves of sin.

What I am here describing, has been the miserable experience of thousands of unwatchful and irresolute Christians; who have fallen into the snare, yea at last into the ruinous abyss of evil, from which they have never afterwards escaped, because they were too “wise in their own conceits” and too confident in their own strength, to take a warning against the peril of yielding to the first temptation; because they ventured into the borders of forbidden ground, and were insensibly led on to the fatal lengths, which they once held in abomination.

How many a youth have we known, trained from his earliest infancy in the holy principles of the gospel, the hope and the promise of his anxious parents, the joy of his family and friends, yet, from incautiously listening, on some unsuspected occasion, to the advice of an evil counsellor, and induced to make experiment of some unhallowed pleasure, thereby shaken in his integrity and thrown off his bias; prevailed upon to repeat the pressing indulgence; thence to proceed to others; till, in the end, the character has been totally changed,—marred, corrupted, ruined. It seemed but a little matter that first courted his consent; what, though sinful pleasures did surround him in his new scene and his new company, he, poor innocent youth, had no intention of joining in them; was determined to stand aloof. For a while he did so; and maintained the pious and virtuous and christian habits, in which he had been trained; the habits of prayer, and holy reading, and holy meditation, and uprightness of conduct: but he began to give way, to “fall from the stedfastness of his faith in Christ;” {358} one religious observance after another was broken in upon; one scruple after another overcome; till at last he was stripped of every portion of the garment of righteousness, and left “miserable and poor and naked,” with nothing to hide his wretchedness and shame; the dishonour of his father, the grief of his mother’s heart; disowned by his family, disowned by his God: a misery to himself; dying the death of a sinner. And whence came all this load of misery upon him?—on account of his first unguarded yielding.

This representation has been but too frequently verified: yet not to the young only has such heedlessness proved a snare and destruction. We may see its consequences ravaging around us almost every day; in persons of every age and condition. How many a sabbath-breaker has contracted his dreadful habit from a very small beginning of neglect? At the first he was tempted very occasionally to absent himself from the House of his God; to indulge now and then, extremely seldom, in worldly pleasure; or to engage, in a thoughtless hour, in the dispatch of worldly business; but his affection and reverence for the holy day by degrees grow colder, and the temptations became stronger: the Lord’s House was, in a great measure, forsaken; the Lord’s day became his day of dissolute pleasure; or his day of business and accounts, as best suited his condition; and hence followed, as it must of necessity, the total decay of religious principle and religious character.

Thus it is also, in a remarkable degree, with the vice of intemperance; no man proceeds to its abominable and fatal extremities all at once: but no man, whatever his principles may have been, is secure from its horrible influence, if he is once tempted habitually to depart from the holy rules of sobriety; however seldom the habit may be at first indulged. It is indeed especially true of this awful vice, that if the enemy once gains a footing in the heart, he seldom leaves it, till the heart is his own.

Thus it is, once again, with evil company of every description; it is ensnaring beyond all suspicion, and beyond all calculation: wicked or worldly companions infuse their venom, into the mind and the bosom, gradually and insensibly: even if they have no intention so to do, as in truth they too often have, their very presence and conversation and habits are so corrupting, that it is impossible for any one, who is familiarly acquainted with them, to escape the contagion; in fact, whoever seeks, or whoever tolerates such company, has a lurking disposition to evil, though it may be unperceived and unsuspected by himself. Flee from every approach to this treacherous and dangerous ground, as you would “flee from the wrath to come.”