Chapter 3

Reader! seek to mingle gentleness in all your rebukes; bear with the infirmities of others; make allowance for constitutional frailties; never say harsh things, if kind things will do as well; do not unnecessarily lacerate with recalling former delinquencies. In reproving another, let us rather feel how much we need reproof ourselves. "Consider thyself," is a searching Scripture motto for dealing with an erring brother. Remember thy Lord's method of silencing fierce accusation--"Let him that is without sin cast the first stone." Moreover, anger and severity are not the successful means of reclaiming the backslider, or of melting the obdurate. Like the _smooth_ stones with which David smote Goliath, _gentle_ rebukes are generally the most powerful. The old fable of the traveller and his cloak has a moral here as in other things. The genial sunshine will effect its removal sooner than the rough tempest. It was said of Leighton, that "he rebuked faults so mildly, that they were never repeated, not because the admonished were afraid, but ashamed to do so."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Fourteenth Day.

ENDURANCE IN CONTRADICTION.

"Who endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself."-- Heb. xii. 3.

What endurance was this! Perfect truth in the midst of error; perfect love in the midst of ingratitude and coldness; perfect rectitude in the midst of perjury, violence, fraud; perfect constancy in the midst of contumely and desertion; perfect innocence, confronting every debased form of depravity and guilt; perfect patience, encountering every species of gross provocation--"oppressed and afflicted, He opened not His mouth!" "For my love" (in return for my love), "they are mine adversaries; _but_" (see His endurance!--the only species of revenge of which His sinless nature was capable) "_I give myself unto prayer!_" (Ps. cix. 4.)

Reader! "let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus!" The greatest test of an earthly soldier's courage is _patient endurance_! The noblest trait of the spiritual soldier is the same. "Having done all _to stand_," "He _endured_, as seeing Him who is invisible!" Beware of the angry recrimination, the hasty ebullition of temper. Amid unkind insinuations--when motives are misrepresented, and reputation assailed; when good deeds are ridiculed, kind intentions coldly thwarted and repulsed, chilling reserve manifested where you expected nothing but friendship--what a triumph over natural impulse to manifest a spirit of meek endurance!--like a rainbow, radiant with the hues of heaven, resting peacefully amid the storms of derision and "the floods of ungodly men." What an opportunity of magnifying the "sustaining grace of God!" "It is a small thing for me to be judged of you, or of man's judgment; He that judgeth me is the Lord." "The Lord is on my side; I will not fear what man can do unto me." "Blessed is the man that _endureth_." "He that _endureth_ to the end, the same shall be saved."

If faithful to our God, we must expect to encounter contradiction in the same form which Jesus did--"the contradiction of _sinners_." It has been well said, "There is no cross of nails and wood erected now for the Christian, but there is one of words and looks which is never taken down." If believers are set as lights in the earth, lamps in the "city of destruction," we know that "he that doeth evil _hateth_ the light." "Marvel not, my brethren, if the world hate you!"

Weary and faint ones, exposed to the shafts of calumny and scorn because of your fidelity to your God; encountering, it may be, the coldness and estrangement of those dear to you, who can not, perhaps, sympathize in the holiness of your walk and the loftiness of your aims, "consider _Him_ that endured such contradiction of sinners against Himself, _lest_ ye be weary and faint in your minds!" What is _your_ "contradiction" to _His_? Soon your cross, whatever it be, will have an end. "The seat of the scorner" has no place in yonder glorious heaven, where all will be peace--no jarring note to disturb its blissful harmonies! Look forward to the great coronation-day of the Church triumphant,--the day of your divine Lord's appearing, when motives and aims, now misunderstood, will be vindicated, wrongs redressed, calumnies and aspersions wiped away. Meanwhile, "rejoice that you are counted worthy to suffer shame for His name."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Fifteenth Day.

PLEASING GOD.

"I do always those things that please Him."--John, viii. 29.

What a glorious motto for a man--"_I live for God!_" It is religion's truest definition. It is the essence of angelic bliss--the motive-principle of angelic action; "Ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure." The Lord of angels knew no higher, no _other_ motive. It was, during His incarnation, the regulator and directory of His daily being. It supported Him amid the depressing sorrows of His woe-worn path. It upheld him in their awful termination in the garden and on the cross. For a moment, sinking human nature faltered under the load His Godhead sustained; but the thought of "pleasing God" nerved and revived Him. "Not my will, but _Thine_ be done."

It is only when the love of God is shed abroad in the heart, that this animating desire to "please Him" can exist. In the holy bosom of Jesus, that love reigned paramount, admitting no rival--no competing affection. Though infinitely inferior in degree, it is the same impelling principle which leads His people still to link enjoyment with His service, and which makes consecration to Him of heart and life its own best recompense and reward. "There is a gravitation," says one whose life was the holy echo of his words, "in the moral as in the physical world. When love to God is habitually in the ascendant, or occupying the place of will, it gathers round it all the other desires of the soul as satellites, and whirls them along with it in its orbit round the center of attraction." (_Hewitson's Life._) Till the heart, then, be changed, the believer can not have "this testimony that he _pleases God_." The world, self, sin--these be the gods of the unregenerate soul. And even _when_ changed, alas that there should be so many ebbings and flowings in our tide of devotedness! Jesus could say, "I do _always_ those things that please the Father." Glory to God burned within His bosom like a living fire. "Many waters could not quench it." His were no fitful and inconsistent frames and feelings, but the persistent habit of a holy life, which had the one end in view, from which it never diverged or deviated.

Let it be so, in some lowly measure with us. Let God's service not be the mere livery of high days,--of set times and seasons; but, like the alabaster box of ointment, let us ever be giving forth the fragrant perfume of holiness. Even when the shadows of trial are falling around us, let us "pass through the cloud" with the sustaining motive--"All my wish, O God, is to please and glorify Thee! By giving or taking--by smiting or healing--by the sweet cup or the bitter--'Father, glorify thy name!'" "I don't want to be weary of God's dealing with me," said Bickersteth, on his death-bed; "I want to glorify Jesus in them, and to find Him more precious." Do I shrink from trials--duties--crosses--because involving hardships and self-denial, or because frowned on by the world? Let the thought of God's approving countenance be enough. Let me dread no censure, if conscious of acting in accordance with _His_ will. Let the Apostle's monitory word determine many a perplexing path--"If I please men, I am not the servant of Christ."

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Sixteenth Day.

GRIEF AT SIN.

"Being grieved for the hardness of their hearts."--Mark, iii. 5.

On this one occasion only is the expression used with reference to Jesus--(what intensity of emotion does it denote, spoken of a sinless nature!)--"He looked round on them _with anger_!" Never did He grieve for Himself. His intensest sorrows were reserved for those who were tampering with their own souls, and dishonoring His God. The continual spectacle of moral evil, thrust on the gaze of spotless purity, made His earthly history one consecutive history of grief, one perpetual "cross and passion."

In the tears shed at the grave of Bethany, sympathy, doubtless, for the world's myriad mourners, had its own share (the bereaved could not part with so precious a tribute in their hours of sadness), but a far more impressive cause was one undiscerned by the weeping sisters and sorrowing crowd; His knowledge of the deep and obdurate impenitence of those who were about to gaze on the mightiest of miracles, only to "despise, and wonder, and perish." "_Jesus wept!_"--but His profoundest anguish was over resisted grace, abused privileges, scorned mercy. It was the Divine Artificer mourning over His shattered handiwork; the Almighty Creator weeping over His ruined world; God, the God-man, "grieving" over the Temple of the soul, a humiliating wreck of what once was made "after His own image!"

Can we sympathize in any respect with such exalted tears? Do we mourn for sin, our _own_ sin--the deep insult which it inflicts on God--the ruinous consequences it entails on ourselves? Do we grieve at sin in _others_? Do we know any thing of "vexing our souls," like righteous Lot, "from day to day," with the world's "unlawful deeds," the stupid hardness and obduracy of the depraved heart, which resists alike the appliances of wrath and love, judgment and mercy? Ah! it is easy, in general terms, to condemn vice, and to utter harsh, severe, and cutting denunciations on the guilty: it is easy to pass uncharitable comments on the inconsistencies or follies of others: but to "_grieve_" as our Lord did, is a different thing; to mourn over the hardness of heart, and yet to have the burning desire to teach it better things; to hate, as He did, the sin, but, like Him also, to love the _sinner_!

Reader! look specially to your own spirit. In one respect, the example of Jesus falls short of your case. He had no sin of His own to mourn over. He could only commiserate others. _Your_ intensest grief must begin with _yourself_. Like the watchful Levite of old, be a guardian at the temple-gates of your own soul. Whatever be your besetting iniquity, your constitutional bias to sin, seek to guard it with wakeful vigilance. Grieve at the thought of incurring one passing shadow of displeasure from so kind and compassionate a Saviour. Let this be a holy preservative in your every hour of temptation, "How can I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?"

Grieve for a perishing world--a groaning creation fettered and chained in unwilling "subjection to vanity." Do what you can, by effort, by prayer, to hasten on the hour of jubilee, when its ashy robes of sin and sorrow shall be laid aside, and, attired in the "beauties of holiness," it shall exult in "the glorious liberty of the sons of God!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Seventeenth Day.

HUMILITY.

"He riseth from supper, and laid aside His garments; and took a towel and girded Himself. After that He poureth water into a basin, and began to wash the disciples' feet."--John, xiii. 4, 5.

What a matchless picture of humility! At the very moment when His throne was in view; angel-anthems floating in His ear; the hour come "when He was to depart out of this world;" possessing a lofty consciousness of His peerless dignity, that "He came _from_ God and went _to_ God;" THEN "Jesus took a towel, and girded Himself, and began to wash the disciples' feet!" All heaven was ready at that moment to cast their combined crowns at His feet. But the High and the Lofty One, inhabiting eternity, is on earth "as one that serveth!" "That _infinite stoop_! it sinks all creature humiliation to nothing, and renders it impossible for a creature to _humble_ himself."--(_Evans_).

Humility follows Him, from His unhonored birthplace to His borrowed grave. It throws a subdued splendor over all He did. "The poor in spirit,"--the "mourner,"--the "meek,"--claim His first beatitudes. He was severe only to one class--those who looked down upon others. However He is employed; whether performing His works of miraculous power, or receiving angel-visitants, or taking little children in His arms, He stands forth "clothed with humility." Nay, this humility becomes more conspicuous as He draws nearer glory. Before His death, He calls His disciples "_Friends_;" subsequently, it is "_Brethren_," "_Children_." How sad the contrast between the Master and His disciples! Two hours had not elapsed after He washed their feet, when "there was a strife among them which should be the greatest!"

Let the mental image of that lowly Redeemer be ever bending over us. His example may well speak in silent impressiveness, bringing us down from our pedestal of pride. There surely can be no labor of love too humiliating when _He_ stooped so low. Let us be content to take the humblest place; not envious of the success or exaltation of another; not, "like Diotrephes, loving preeminence;" "but willing to be thought little of;" saying with the Baptist, with our eye on our Lord, "He must increase, but I must decrease!"

How much we have cause to be humble for! the constant cleaving of defilement to our souls; and even what is partially good in us, how mixed with imperfection, self-seeking, arrogance, vain-glory! A proud Christian is a contradiction in terms. The Seraphim of old (type of the Christian Church, and of believers) had six wings--_two_ were for errands of love, but "with _four_ he _covered_ himself!" It has been beautifully said, "You lie nearest the River of Life when you _bend_ to it; you can not drink, but as you _stoop_." The corn of the field, as it ripens, bows its head; so the Christian, as he ripens in the Divine life, bends in this lowly grace. Christ speaks of His people as "lilies"--they are "lilies of _the valley_," they can only grow in the shade!

"Humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God." "Go" with what Rutherford calls "a low sail." It is the livery of your blessed Master; the family badge--the family likeness. "With this man will I dwell, even with him that is _humble_." Yes! the humble, sanctified heart is God's _second Heaven_!

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Eighteenth Day.

PATIENCE.

"He was brought as a lamb to the slaughter."--Isa. liii, 7.

How great was the _patience_ of Jesus! Even among His own disciples, how forbearingly He endured their blindness, their misconceptions and hardness of heart! Philip had been for three years with Him, yet he had "not known Him!"--all that time he had remained in strange and culpable ignorance of his Lord's dignity and glory. See how tenderly Jesus bears with him; giving him nothing in reply for his confession of ignorance but unparalleled promises of grace! Peter, the honored and trusted, becomes a renegade and a coward. Justly might his dishonored Lord, stung with such unrequited love, have cut the unworthy cumberer down. But He spares him, bears with him, gently rebukes him, and loves him more than ever! See the Divine Sufferer in the terminating scenes of His own ignominy and woe. How patient!--"As a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." In these awful moments, outraged Omnipotence might have summoned twelve legions of angels and put into the hand of each a vial of wrath. But He submits in meek, majestic silence. Verily, in _Him_ "patience had her _perfect_ work!"

Think of this same patience with His Church and people since He ascended to glory. The years upon years He has borne with their perverse resistance of His grace, their treacherous ingratitude, their wayward wanderings, their hardness of heart and contempt of His holy word. Yet, behold the forbearing love of this Saviour of God! His hand of mercy is "stretched out still!"

Child of God! art thou now undergoing some bitter trial? The way of thy God, it may be, all mystery; no footprints of love traceable in the checkered path; no light, in the clouds above; no ray in the dark future. _Be patient!_ "The Lord is good to them that _wait_ for Him." "They that _wait_ on the Lord shall renew their strength!" Or hast thou been long tossed on some bed of sickness--days of pain and nights of weariness appointed thee? _Be patient!_ "I trust this groaning," said a suffering saint, "is not murmuring." God, by this very affliction, is nurturing within thee this beauteous grace which shone so conspicuously in the character of thy dear Lord. With Him it was a lovely _habit_ of the soul. With thee, the "tribulation" which worketh "patience" is needful discipline. It is _good_ for a man that he should both hope and quietly _wait_ for the salvation of God. Art thou suffering some unmerited wrong or unkindness, exposed to harsh and wounding accusations, hard for flesh and blood to bear? _Be patient!_ Beware of hastiness of speech or temper; remember how much evil may be done by a few inconsiderate words "spoken unadvisedly with the lip." Think of Jesus standing before a human tribunal, in the silent submissiveness of conscious innocence and integrity. Leave thy cause with God. Let this be the only form of thy complaint, "O God, I am oppressed; undertake Thou for me!"

"In patience," then, "possess ye your souls." Let it not be a grace for peculiar seasons, called forth on peculiar exigences; but an habitual frame manifested in the calm serenity of a daily walk;--placidity amid the little fretting annoyances of every-day life--a fixed purpose of the heart to wait upon God, and cast its every burden upon Him.

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Nineteenth Day.

SUBJECTION.

"As the Father gave me commandment, even so I do."--John, xiv. 31.

Jesus as God-man had omnipotence slumbering in His arm. He had the hoarded treasures of eternity in His grasp. He had only to "speak, and it was done." But, as an example to His people, His whole life on earth was one impressive act of subordination and dependence. At Nazareth He was "subject to His parents." There He remained in studied obscurity, occupying for thirty years a lowly hut, willing to continue in a state of seclusion, till the Father's summons called Him to His appointed work.

At His baptism, sinless Himself, He gives this reason for receiving a sinner's rite at a sinner's hands--"Suffer it to be so now, for thus it becometh Me to fulfill all righteousness." The same beautiful spirit of filial _subjection_ shines conspicuous amid His acts of stupendous power. "Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, Father, I thank Thee that Thou hast heard Me; and I know that Thou hearest Me always; but because of the people which stand by, I said it, that they may believe that Thou has sent Me." Even among His own disciples His language is, "I am among you as He that serveth." With an act of submission He closed His pilgrimage and work of love. "Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."

What an example to us, in all this, is our beloved Lord! Surely, if _He_, "God only wise"--the Self-existent One, to whom "all power was committed;"--the Sinless One, never liable to err, on whom "the Spirit was poured without measure"--if _He_ manifested such habitual dependence on His heavenly Father, how earnestly ought _we_, weak, erring, fallible creatures, to seek to live every hour--every moment--as pensioners on God's grace and love, following in all things His directing hand! As the servant has his eyes on his master, or the child on its parent, "so should our eyes be on the Lord our God." Howsoever He speaks, be it ours with all docility to follow the voice, indorsing every utterance of providence, and every precept of Scripture, with our Lord's own words, "_This is the Father's will!_"

Beware of self-dependence. The first step in spiritual declension is this: "Let him that _thinketh he standeth_!" The secret of real strength is this: "_Kept_ by the _power of God_!"

How it sweetens all our blessings, and alleviates all our sorrows, to regard both as emanations from a loving Father's hand. Even if we should be, like the disciples of old, "_constrained_" to go into the ship; if all should be darkness and tempest, frowning providences--"the wind contrary;" how blessed to feel that in embarking on the unquiet element, "the Lord has bidden us!" Paul could not speak even of taking an earthly journey, without the parenthesis ("if the Lord will"). How many trials, and sorrows, and _sins_, would it save us, if the same were the habitual regulator of our daily life! It would lead to calm contentment with our lot, hushing every disquieting suggestion with the thought that that lot, with all that is apparently adverse in it, was _ordained_ for us. It would teach us not to be aspiring after _great_ things, but humbly to wait the will and purposes of a wise Provider; not to go _before_ our Heavenly Guide, but to _follow_ Him, saying, in meek subjection, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty, neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for for me ... my soul is even as a weaned child!"

"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."

Twentieth Day.

NOT RETALIATING.

"Who, when He was reviled, reviled not again."--1 Peter, ii. 23.

What a common dictate of the fallen and regenerate heart to resent and recriminate! How alien to natural feeling to answer cutting taunts, and meet unmerited wrong with the Divine method the Gospel prescribes--"Overcome evil with good!" It was in the closing scenes of the Saviour's humiliation, when, silent and unresenting, He stood "dumb before His shearers," that this beautiful feature in His character was most wondrously manifested; but it beams forth, also, for our imitation in the ordinary and less prominent incidents of His pilgrimage.

When He met Nathanael of Cana in Galilee, He found him clinging to an unreasonable prejudice--"Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" The severe remark is allowed to pass unnoticed. Overlooking the unkind insinuation, the Saviour fixes on the favorable feature of his character, "Behold an Israelite indeed, in whom is no guile!" After His resurrection, He appears to His disciples. They were cowering in shame, half afraid to confront the glance of injured goodness. He breathes on them, and says, "Peace be unto you!" Peter was the one of all the rest who had most reason to dread estranged looks and upbraiding words; but a special message is sent to reassure that trembling spirit that there was no alienation in the unresentful Heart he had so deeply wounded; "Go and tell the disciples ... and _Peter_!" Even when Judas first revealed himself to his Lord as the betrayer, we believe it was not in bitter irony or rebuke, but in the fullness of pitying tenderness, that Jesus addressed him, "Friend, wherefore art thou come?" Tears and prayers were His only revenge on the city and scene of His murder. "Beginning at Jerusalem," was the closing illustration of a spirit "not of this world"--a significant parting testimony that in the bosom that uttered it retaliation had no place.

More than one of the disciples seem to have imbibed much of this "mind" of their Lord. "We owe St. Paul," says Augustine, "to the death of Stephen;" "they stoned Stephen ... and he kneeled down and cried with a loud voice, Lord! lay not this sin to their charge."