Chapter 2
Guard, on the other hand, against that spirit of continual fretting and moping over fancied ills; that temptation to exaggerate the real or supposed disadvantages of our condition, magnifying the trifling inconveniences of every-day life into enormous evils. Think, rather, how much we have to be thankful for. The world in which we live, in spite of all the scars of sin and suffering upon it, is a happy world. It is not, as many would morbidly paint it, flooded with tears and strewn with wrecks, plaintive with a perpetual dirge of sorrow. True, the "Everlasting Hills" are in glory, but there are numberless eminences of grace, and love, and mercy below; many green spots in the lower valley, _many more than we deserve_!
God will reward a thankful spirit. Just as on earth, when a man receives with gratitude what is given, we are more disposed to give again, so also, "the _Lord_ loveth" a cheerful "receiver," as well as a cheerful "giver."
Let ours, moreover, be a _Gospel_ thankfulness. Let the incense of a grateful spirit rise not only to the Great Giver of all good, but to our Covenant God in Christ. Let it be the spirit of the child exulting in the bounty and beneficence of his _Father's_ house and home! "Giving _thanks_ always for all things unto God and _the Father_, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ!"
While the sweet melody of gratitude vibrates through every successive moment of our daily being, let love to our adorable Redeemer show for _whom_ and for _what_ it is we reserve our notes of loftiest and most fervent praise. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable gift!
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Seventh Day.
UNSELFISHNESS.
"For even Christ pleased not Himself."--Rom. xv. 8.
Too legibly are the characters written on the fallen heart and a fallen world--"All seek their own!" Selfishness is the great law of our degenerated nature. When the love of God was dethroned from the soul, self vaulted into the vacant seat, and there, in some one of its Proteus shapes, continues to reign.
Jesus stands out for our imitation a grand solitary exception in the midst of a world of selfishness. His entire life was one abnegation of self; a beautiful living embodiment of that charity which "seeketh not her own." He who for others turned water into wine, and provided a miraculous supply for the fainting thousands in the wilderness, exerted no such miraculous power for His own necessities. During His forty days' temptation, no table did He spread for Himself, no booth did He rear for his unpillowed head. Twice do we read of Him shedding tears--on neither occasion were they for Himself. The approach of His cross and passion, instead of absorbing Him in His own approaching suffering, seemed only to elicit new and more gracious promises to His people. When His enemies came to apprehend Him, His only stipulation was for His disciples' release--"Let these go their way." In the very act of departure, with all the boundless glories of eternity in sight, _they_ were still all His care.
Ah, how different is the spirit of the world! With how many is day after day only a new oblation to that idol which never darkened with its shadow His Holy heart; pampering their own wishes; "envying and grieving at the good of a neighbor;" unable to brook the praise of a rival; establishing their own reputation on the ruins of another; thus engendering jealousy, discontent, peevishness, and every kindred unholy passion.
"But ye have not so learned Christ!" Reader! have you been sitting at the feet of Him who "pleased not Himself"? Are you "dying daily;"--dying to self as well as to sin? Are you animated with _this_ as the high end and aim of existence--to lay out your time, and talents, and opportunities, for God's glory, and the good of your fellow-men; not seeking your own interests, but rather ceding these, if, by doing so, another will be made happier, and your Saviour honored? You may not have it in your power to manifest this "mind of Jesus" on a great scale, by enduring great sacrifices; nor is this required. His denial of self had about it no repulsive austerity; but you can evince its holy influence and sway by innumerable little offices of kindness and good-will; taking a generous interest in the welfare and pursuits of others, or engaging and cooperating in schemes for the mitigation of human misery.
Avoid _ostentation_--another repulsive form of self. Be willing to be in the shade; sound no trumpet before you. The evangelist Matthew made a great feast, which was graced by the presence of Jesus; in his Gospel he says not one word about it!
Seek to live more constantly and habitually under the constraining influence of the love of Jesus. Selfishness withers and dies beneath Calvary.
Ah, believer! if Christ had "pleased Himself," where wouldst _thou_ have _been_ this day?
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Eighth Day.
SUBMISSION TO GOD'S WORD.
"Jesus said unto him, It is written."--Matt. iv. 7.
We can not fail to be struck, in the course of the Saviour's public teaching, with His constant appeal to the word of God. While, at times, He utters, in His own name, the authoritative behest, "Verily, verily, I say unto you," He as often thus introduces some mighty work, or gives intimation of some impending event in His own momentous life, "These things must come to pass, that _the Scriptures be fulfilled, which saith_." He commands His people to "search the Scriptures;" but He sets the example by searching and submitting to them Himself. Whether he drives the money-changers from their sacrilegious traffic in the temple, or foils his great adversary on the mount of temptation, he does so with the same weapon, "_It is written._" When He rises from the grave, the theme of His first discourse is one impressive tribute to the value and authority of the same sacred oracles. The disciples on the road to Emmaus listen to nothing but a _Bible lesson_. "He expounded unto them in all _the Scriptures_ the things concerning Himself."
How momentous the instruction herein conveyed! The necessity of the absolute subjection of the mind to God's written Word--making churches, creeds, ministers, books, religious opinion, all subordinate and subservient to this--"How readest thou?" rebuking the philosophy, falsely so called, that would distort the plain statements of Revelation, and bring them to the bar of proud Reason.
If an infallible Redeemer, "a law to Himself," was submissive in all respects to the "_written_ law," shall fallible man refuse to sit with the teachableness of a little child, and listen to the Divine message? There may be, there _is_, in the Bible, what reason staggers at: "we have nothing to draw with, and the well is deep." But, "_Thus saith the Lord_," is enough. Faith does not first ask what the bread is made of, but _eats_ it. It does not analyse the components of the living stream, but with joy draws the water from "the wells of salvation."
Reader! take that Word as "the lamp to thy feet, and the light to thy path." In days when false lights are hung out, there is the more need of keeping the eye steadily fixed on the unerring beacon. Make the Bible the arbiter in all difficulties--the ultimate court of appeal. Like Mary, "sit at the feet of Jesus," willing only to learn of Him. How many perplexities it would save you! how many fatal steps in life it would prevent--how many tears! "It is a great matter," says the noblest of modern Christian philosophers, "when the mind dwells on any passage of Scripture, just to think _how true it is_." (_Chalmers' Life_).
In every dubious question, when the foot is trembling on debatable ground, knowing not whether to advance or recede, make this the final criterion, "What saith the Scripture?" The world may remonstrate--erring friends may disapprove--Satan may tempt--ingenious arguments may explain away; but, with our finger on the revealed page, let the words of our Great Example be ever a Divine formula for our guidance:--"_This_ commandment have I received of my Father!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Ninth Day.
PRAYERFULNESS.
"He continued all night in prayer to God."--Luke, vi. 12.
We speak of _this_ Christian and _that_ Christian as "a man of prayer." Jesus was emphatically so. The Spirit was "poured upon Him without measure," yet--_He prayed_! He was incarnate wisdom, "needing not that any should teach Him." He was infinite in His power, and boundless in His resources, yet--_He prayed_! How deeply sacred the prayerful memories that hover around the solitudes of Olivet and the shores of Tiberias! He seemed often to turn night into day to redeem moments for prayer, rather than lose the blessed privilege.
We are rarely, indeed, admitted into the solemnities of His inner life. The veil of night is generally between us and the Great High Priest, when He entered "the holiest of all;" but we have enough to reveal the depth and fervor, the tenderness and confidingness of this blissful intercommunion with His heavenly Father. No morning dawns without His fetching fresh manna from the mercy-seat. "He wakeneth morning by morning; He wakeneth mine ear to hear as the learned." (Isa. l. 4). Beautiful description!--a praying Redeemer, wakening, as if at early dawn, the ear of His Father, to get fresh supplies for the duties and the trials of the day! All His public acts were consecrated by prayer,--His baptism, His transfiguration, His miracles, His agony, His death. He breathed away His spirit in prayer. "His last breath," says Philip Henry, "was praying breath."
How sweet to think, in holding communion with God--_Jesus_ drank of this very brook! He consecrated the bended knee and the silent chamber. He refreshed His fainting spirit at the same great Fountain-head from which it is life for us to draw and death to forsake.
Reader! do you complain of your languid spirit, your drooping faith, your fitful affections, your lukewarm love? May you not trace much of what you deplore to an unfrequented chamber? The treasures are locked up from you, because you have suffered the key to rust; the hands hang down because they have ceased to be uplifted in prayer. Without prayer!--It is the pilgrim without a staff--the seaman without a compass--the soldier going unarmed and unharnessed to battle.
Beware of encouraging what indisposes to prayer--going to the audience chamber with soiled garments, the din of the world following you, its distracting thoughts hovering unforbidden over your spirit. Can you wonder that the living water refuses to flow through obstructed channels, or the heavenly light to pierce murky vapors!
On earth, fellowship with a lofty order of minds imparts a certain nobility to the character; so, in a far higher sense, by communion with God you will be transformed into His image, and get assimilated to His likeness. Make every event in life a reason for fresh going to Him. If difficulted in duty, bring it to the test of prayer. If bowed down with anticipated trial,--"fearing to enter the cloud,"--remember Christ's preparation, "Sit ye here while I go and _pray_ yonder."
Let prayer consecrate every thing--your time, talents, pursuits, engagements, joys, sorrows, crosses, losses. By it, rough paths will be made smooth, trials disarmed of their bitterness, enjoyments hallowed and refined, the bread of the world turned into angels' food. "It is in the closet," says Payson, "the battle is lost or won!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Tenth Day.
LOVE TO THE BRETHREN.
"And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us."--Eph. v. 2.
"Jesus," says a writer, "came from heaven on the wings of love." It was the element in which he moved and walked. He sought to baptize the world afresh with it. When we find Him teaching us by love to vanquish an _enemy_, we need not wonder at the tenderness of His appeals to the _brethren_ to "love one another." Like a fond father impressing his children, how the Divine Teacher lingers over the lesson, "This is _My_ commandment!"
If selfishness had guided His actions, we might have expected him to demand all His people's love for himself. But He claims no such monopoly. He not only encourages mutual affection, but He makes it the badge of discipleship! He gives them at once its measure and motive. "Love one another, as I have loved you!" What a love was that!--it reached to the lowliest and humblest,--"Inasmuch as ye did it to the _least_ of these, ye did it unto _Me_."
Ah! if such was the Elder Brother's love to His younger brethren, what should the love of these younger brothers be for one another! How humbling that there should be so much that is sadly and strangely unlike the spirit which our blessed Master sought to inculcate alike by precept and example! Individual Christians, why these bitter estrangements, these censorious words, these harsh judgments, this want of kind consideration of the feelings and failings of those who may differ from you? Why are your friendships so often like the summer brook, soon dried? You hope, ere long, to meet in glory. Doubtless when you enter on that "sabbath of love," many a greeting will be this, "Alas! my brother, that on earth I did not love thee more!"
Do you see the image of God in a professing believer? It is your duty to love him for the sake of that image. No church, no outward livery, no denominational creed, should prevent your owning and claiming him as a fellow-pilgrim and fellow-heir. It has been said of a portrait, however poor the painting, however unfinished the style, however faulty the touches, however coarse and unseemly the frame, yet if the _likeness_ be faithful, we overlook many subordinate defects. So it is with the Christian: however plain the exterior, however rough the setting, or even manifold the blemishes still found cleaving to a partially-sanctified nature, yet if the Redeemer's _likeness_ be feebly and faintly traced there, we should love the copy for the sake of the Divine Original. There may be other bonds of association and intercourse linking spirit with spirit; family ties, mental congenialities, intellectual tastes, philanthropic pursuits; but that which ought to take the precedence of all, is the love of God's image in the brethren. What will heaven be but this love perfected--loving Christ, and beloved by those who love Him?
Reader! seek to love _Him_ more, and you will love His people more. John had more love than the other disciples. Why? He drank deepest of the love within that Bosom on which he delighted to lean, every beat of which was love. "Walk," then, "in love!" Let it be the very foot-road you tread; let your way to heaven be paved with it. Soon shall we come to look within the portal. Then shall every jarring and dissonant note be merged into the sublime harmonies of "the new heavens and the new earth," and we shall all "see eye to eye!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Eleventh Day.
SYMPATHY.
"Jesus wept."--John, xi. 35.
It is an affecting thing to see a Great man in tears! "_Jesus wept!_" It was ever His delight to tread in the footsteps of sorrow--to heal the broken-hearted--turning aside from His own path of suffering to "weep with those that weep."
_Bethany!_ That scene, that _word_, is a condensed volume of consolation for yearning and desolate hearts. What a majesty in those tears! He had just been discoursing on Himself as the Resurrection and the Life--the next moment He is a Weeping Man by a human grave, melted in anguished sorrow at a bereaved one's side! Think of the funeral at the gate of Nain, reading its lesson to dejected myriads--"Let thy widows trust in me!" Think of the farewell discourse to His disciples, when, muffling all His own foreseen and anticipated sorrows, He thought only of soothing and mitigating theirs! Think of the affecting pause in that silent procession to Calvary, when He turns round and stills the sobs of those who are tracking His steps with their weeping! Think of that wondrous epitome of human tenderness, just ere His eyes closed in their sleep of agony--in the mightiest crisis of all time--when filial love looked down on an anguished mother, and provided her a son and a home!
Ah, was there ever sympathy like this! Son! Brother! Kinsman! Saviour! all in one! The majesty of Godhead almost lost in the tenderness of a Friend. But so it _was_, and so it is. The heart of the now enthroned King beats responsive to the humblest of His sorrow-stricken people. "I am poor and needy, yet the Lord _carries me on His heart_!" (margin.)
Let us "go and do likewise." Let us be ready, like our Lord, to follow the beck of misery,--"to deliver the needy when he crieth, the poor also, and him that hath no helper." Sympathy costs but little. Its recompense and return are great, in the priceless consolation it imparts. Few there are who undervalue it. Look at Paul--the weary, jaded prisoner,--chained to a soldier--recently wrecked, about to stand before Caesar. He reaches Appii Forum and the Three Taverns, dejected and depressed. Brethren come from Rome, a distance of sixty miles, to offer their _sympathy_. The aged man is cheered! His spirit, like Jacob's, "revived!" "He thanked God, and took courage!"
Reader! let "this mind," this holy, Christ-like _habit_ be in you, which was also in your adorable Master. Delight, when opportunity occurs, to frequent the house of mourning--to bind up the widow's heart, and to dry the orphan's tears. If you can do nothing else, you can whisper into the ear of disconsolate sorrow those majestic solaces, which, rising first in the graveyard of Bethany, have sent their undying echoes through the world, and stirred the depths of ten thousand hearts. "Exercise your souls," says Butler, "in a loving sympathy with sorrow in every form. Soothe it, minister to it, succor it, revere it. It is the relic of Christ in the world, an image of the Great Sufferer, a shadow of the cross. It is a holy and venerable thing."
Jesus Himself "_looked_ for some to take _pity_, but there was _none_; and for comforters, but He found _none_!" It shows how even _He_ valued sympathy, and that, too, in its commonest form of "_pity_," though an ungrateful World denied it.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twelfth Day.
FIDELITY IN REBUKE.
"The Lord turned and looked upon Peter."--Luke, xxii. 61.
Jesus never spake one unnecessarily harsh or severe word. He had a Divine sympathy for the frailties and infirmities of a tried, and suffering, and tempted nature in others. He was forbearing to the ignorant, encouraging to the weak, tender to the penitent, loving to all,--yet how faithful was He as "the Reprover of sin!" Silent under His own wrongs, with what burning invectives did He lay bare the Pharisees' masked corruption and hypocrisy! When His Father's name and temple were profaned, how did He sweep, with an avenging hand, the mammon-crowd away, replacing the superscription, "Holiness to the Lord," over the defiled altars!
Nor was it different with His own disciples. With what fidelity, when rebuke was needed, did He administer it: the withering reprimand conveyed sometimes by an impressive _word_ (Matt. xvi. 23); sometimes by a silent _look_ (Luke, xxii. 61). "Faithful always were the wounds of _this_ Friend."
Reader! art thou equally faithful with thy Lord in rebuking evil; not with "the wrath of man, which worketh not the righteousness of God," but with a holy jealousy of His glory, feeling, with the sensitive honor of "the good soldier of Jesus Christ," that an affront offered to Him is offered to thyself? The giving of a wise reproof requires much Christian prudence and delicate discretion. It is not by a rash and inconsiderate exposure of failings that we must attempt to reclaim an erring brother. But neither, for the sake of a false peace, must we compromise fidelity; even friendship is too dearly purchased by winking at sin. Perhaps, when Peter was led to call the Apostle who honestly reproved him, "Our beloved brother Paul," in nothing did he love his rebuker more, than for the honest boldness of his Christian reproof. If Paul had, in that crisis of the Church, with a timidity unworthy of him, evaded the ungracious task, what, humanly speaking, might have been the result?
How often does a seasonable reprimand, a faithful caution, save a lifetime of sin and sorrow! How many a death-bed has made the disclosure, "That kind warning of my friend put an arrest on my career of guilt; it altered my whole being; it brought me to the cross, touched my heart, and, by God's grace, saved my soul!" On the other hand, how many have felt, when death has put his impressive seal on some close earthly intimacy, "This friend, or that friend,--I might have spoken a solemn word to him; but now he is no more; the opportunity is lost, never to be recalled!"
Reader! see that you act not the spiritual coward. When tempted to sit silent when the name of God is slighted or dishonored, think, _would Jesus have done so_?--would _He_ have allowed the oath to go unrebuked--the lie to be uttered unchallenged--the Sabbath with impunity to be profaned? Where there is a natural diffidence which makes you shrink from a more bold and open reproof, remember much may be done to discountenance sin, by the silent holiness of demeanor which refuses to smile at the unholy allusion or ribald jest. "A word spoken in due season, how good is it!" "Speak gently," yet speak faithfully: "be pitiful--be courteous:" yet "quit you like men; be strong!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Thirteenth Day.
GENTLENESS IN REBUKE.
"Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?"--John, xxi. 15.
No word here of the erring disciple's past faithlessness;--his guilty cowardice--_unmentioned_;--his base denial--his oaths--and curses, and treacherous desertion--all _unmentioned_! The memory of a threefold denial is _suggested_, and no more, by the threefold question of unutterable tenderness, "Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me?" When Jesus finds His disciples sleeping at the gate of Gethsemane, He rebukes them; but how is the rebuke disarmed of its poignancy by the merciful apology which is added--"The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak!" How different from _their_ unkind insinuation regarding _Him_, when, in the vessel on Tiberias, "He was asleep"--"Master carest thou not that we perish!" The woman of Samaria is full of earthliness, carnality, sectarianism, guilt. Yet how gently the Saviour speaks to her--how forbearingly, yet faithfully. He directs the arrow of conviction to that seared and hardened conscience, till He lays it bleeding at His feet! Truly, "He will not break the bruised reed--He will not quench the smoking flax." By "the _goodness_ of God," He would lead to repentance. When others are speaking of merciless violence, He can dismiss the most guilty of profligates with the words, "Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more."
How many have an unholy pleasure in finding a brother in the wrong--blazing abroad his failings; administering rebuke, not in gentle forbearance and kindly expostulation, but with harsh and impatient severity! How beautifully did Jesus unite intense sensibility to sin, along with tenderest compassion for the sinner, showing in this that "He knoweth our frame!" Many a scholar needs gentleness in chastisement. The reverse would crush a sensitive spirit, or drive it to despair. Jesus tenderly "considers" the case of those He disciplines, "tempering the wind to the shorn lamb." In the picture of the good shepherd bearing home the wandering sheep, He illustrated by parable what He had often and again taught by His own example. No word of needless harshness or upbraiding uttered to the erring wanderer! Ingratitude is too deeply felt to need rebuke! In silent love, "He lays it on His shoulders rejoicing."