Chapter 4
Take another example: The great Apostle of the Gentiles felt himself under a painful necessity faithfully to rebuke Peter in presence of the whole Church. He had _recorded_ that rebuke, too, in one of his epistles. It was thus to be handed down to every age as a permanent and humiliating evidence of the wavering inconstancy of his fellow-laborer. Peter, doubtless, must have felt acutely the severity of the chastisement. Does he resent it? He, too, puts on record, long after, in one of his own epistles a sentence regarding his Rebuker, but it is this--"Our _beloved brother_ Paul!"
Reader! when tempted to utter the harsh word, or give the cutting or hasty answer, seek to check yourself with the question, "Is this the reply my Saviour would have given?" If your fellow-men should prove unkind, inconsiderate, ungrateful, be it yours to refer the cause to God. Speak of the faults of others only in prayer; manifesting more sorrow for the sin of the censorious and unkind, than for the evil inflicted on yourselves. _Retaliate!_ No such word should have a place in the Christian's vocabulary. _Retaliate!_ If I cherish such a spirit towards my brother, how can I meet that brother in heaven?--"But ye have not so learned in Christ."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-first Day.
BEARING THE CROSS.
"And He bearing His cross."--John, xix. 17.
When did Jesus bear the cross? Not that moment alone, surely, when the bitter tree was placed on His shoulders, on the way to Golgotha. Its vision may be said to have risen before Him in His infant dreams in Bethlehem's cradle; there, rather, its reality began; and He ceased not to carry it, till His work was finished, and the victory won! A _cloud_, of old, hovered over the mercy-seat in the tabernacle and temple. So it was with the Great Antitype--the living Mercy-Seat--He had ever a cloud of woe hanging over him. "He _carried_ our sorrows."
Reader! dwell much and often under the shadow of your Lord's cross, and it will lead you to think lightly of your own! If _He_ gave utterance to not one murmuring word, canst _thou_ complain? "If we were deeper students of his bitter anguish, we should think less of the ripplings of our waves, amidst His horrible tempest."--(_Evans._) The saint's cross assumes many and diverse shapes. Sometimes it is the bitter trial, the crushing pang of bereavement--desolate households, and aching hearts. Sometimes it is the crucifixion of sin, the determined battle with "lusts which war against the soul." Sometimes it is the resistance of evil maxims and practices of a lying world; vindicating the honor of Christ, in the midst, it may be, of taunt, and obloquy, and shame. And as there are different crosses, so there are different ways of bearing them. To some, God says, "put your shoulder to the burden; lift it up, and bear it on; work, and toil, and labor!" To others, He says, "Be still, bear it, and _suffer_!"
Believer! thy cross may be hard to endure; it may involve deep struggles--tears by day, watchings by night; bear it meekly, patiently, justifying God's wisdom in laying it on. Rejoice in the assurance that He gives not one atom more of earthly trial than He sees to be really needful; not one redundant thorn pierces your feet. In the very bearing of the cross for _His_ sake, there are mighty compensations. What new views of your Saviour's love! His truth, His promises, His sustaining grace, His sufferings, His glory! What new filial nearness; increased delight in prayer; an inner sunshine when it is darkest without! The waves cover you, but underneath them all, are "the everlasting arms!"
Do not look out for a situation _without_ crosses. Be not over anxious about "smooth paths;"--leaving your God, as Orpah did Naomi, just when the cross requires to be carried. Immoderate earthly enjoyments--unbroken earthly prosperity--write upon these, "_Beware!_" You may live to see them become your greatest trials!
Remember the old saying, "No cross, no crown." The sun of the saint's life generally struggles through "weeping clouds." One of the loveliest passages of Scripture is that in which, the portals of heaven being opened, we overhear this dialogue between two ransomed ones--"And one of the elders answered saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, _These are they which came out of great tribulation!_"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-second Day.
HOLY ZEAL.
"The zeal of Thine house hath eaten me up."--John, ii. 17.
"Zeal, is a principle; enthusiasm is a feeling. The one is a spark of a sanguine temperament and overheated imagination. The other, a sacred flame kindled at God's altar, and burning in God's shrine."--(_Vaughan._) Such was the holy, heavenly zeal of our Great Exemplar! His were no transient outbursts of ardor, which time cooled and difficulties impeded. His life was one indignant protest against sin;--one ceaseless current of undying love for souls, which all the malignity of foes, and unkindness of friends, could not for one moment divert from its course. Even when He rises from the dead, and we imagine His work at an end, His zeal only meditates fresh deeds of love. "Still His heart and His care," says Godwin, "is upon doing more. Having now dispatched that great work on earth, He sends His disciples word that He is hastening to heaven as fast as He can, to do another." (John, xx. 17).
Reader! do you know any thing of this zeal, which "many waters could not quench"? See that, like your Lord's, it be steady, sober, consistent, undeviating. How many are, like the children of Ephraim, "carrying bows"--all zealous when zeal demands no sacrifice, but "turning their backs in the day of battle!" Others "running well" for a time, but gradually "hindered," through the benumbing influences of worldliness, selfishness, and sin. Two disciples, apparently equally devoted and zealous, send through Paul, in one of his epistles, a conjoint Christian salutation--"Luke and Demas greet you." A few years afterward, thus he writes from his Roman dungeon--"Only _Luke_ is with me," "_Demas_ hath _forsaken_ me, having loved this present world!"
While zeal is commendable, remember the Apostle's qualification, "It is good to be zealously affected always in a _good_ thing." There is in these days much base coin current, _called_ "zeal," which bears not the image and superscription of Jesus. There is zeal for church-membership and party; zeal for creeds and dogmas; zeal for figments and non-essentials. "From such turn aside." Your Lord stamped with His example and approval no such counterfeits. _His_ zeal was ever brought to bear on two objects, and two objects alone--_the glory of God_ and _the good of man_. Be it so with _you_. Enter, first of all (as He did the earthly temple), the sanctuary of _your own heart_, with "the scourge of small cords." Drive out every unhallowed intruder there. Do not suffer yourself to be deceived. Others may call such jealous searchings of spirit "sanctimoniousness" and "enthusiasm." But remember, to be _almost saved_, is to be _altogether lost_!--to be zealous about every thing but "the one thing needful," is an insult to God and your everlasting interests!
Have a zeal for _others_. Dying myriads are around you. As a member of the Christian priesthood, it becomes you to rush in with your censer and incense between the living and the dead, "that the plague may be stayed!"
Be it yours to say, "Blessed Jesus! I am _Thine_!--Thine only!--Thine wholly!--Thine for ever! I am willing to follow Thee, and (if need be) to _suffer_ for Thee. I am ready at Thy bidding to leave the homestead in the valley, and to face the cutting blasts of the mountain. Take me--use me for Thy glory. 'Lord! what wilt Thou have me to do?'"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-third Day.
BENEVOLENCE.
"Who went about doing good."--Acts, x. 38.
"Christ's great end," says Richard Baxter, "was to save men from their _sins_; but He delighted to save them from their _sorrows_." His heart bled for human misery. Benevolence brought Him from heaven; benevolence followed His steps wherever He went on earth. The journeys of the Divine Philanthropist were marked by tears of thankfulness, and breathings of grateful love. The helpless, the blind, the lame, the desolate, rejoiced at the sound of His footfall. Truly might it be said of Him, "When the ear heard me, then it blessed me; and when the eye saw me, it gave witness to me." (Job, xxix. 11.) All suffering hearts were a magnet to Jesus. It was not more His prerogative than His happiness to turn tears into smiles. One of the few pleasures which on earth gladdened the spirit of the "Man of sorrows" was the pleasure of _doing good_--soothing grief, and alleviating misery. Next to the joy of the widow of Nain when her son was restored, was the joy in the bosom of the Divine Restorer! He often went out of His way to be kind. A journey was not grudged, even if _one_ aching spirit were to be soothed. (Mark, v. 1; John, iv. 4, 5.) Nor were his kindnesses dispensed through the intervention of others. They were all personal acts. His own hand healed. His own voice spake. His own footsteps lingered on the threshold of bereavement, or at the precincts of the tomb. Ah! had the princes of this world known the loving-tenderness and unselfishness of _that_ heart, "they would not have crucified the Lord of Glory"!
Reader! do you know any thing of such active benevolence? Have you never felt the _luxury_ of doing good? Have you never felt, that in making _others_ happy, you make _your self_ so? that, by a great law of your being, enunciated by the Divine Patron and Pattern of Benevolence, "it is more blessed to give than to receive"? Has God enriched you with this world's goods? Seek to view yourself as a consecrated medium for dispensing them to others. Beware alike of penurious hoarding and selfish extravagance. How sad the case of those whose lot God has made thus to abound with temporal mercies, who have gone to the grave unconscious of diminishing one drop of human misery, or making one of the world's myriad aching hearts happier! How the example of _Jesus_ rebukes the cold and calculating kindnesses--the mite-like offerings of many even of His own people! "whose libation is not like His, from the brim of an overflowing cup, but from the bottom--from the _dregs_!"
You may have little to give. Your sphere and means may be alike limited. But remember God can be as much glorified by the trifle saved from the earnings of poverty, as by the splendid benefaction from the lap of plenty "The Lord loveth a _cheerful_ giver."
The nobler part of Christian benevolence is not vast largesses, munificent pecuniary sacrifices. "_He went about_ doing good." The merciful visit--the friendly word--the look of sympathy--the cup of cold water, the little unostentatious service--the giving without thought or hope of recompense--the kindly "considering of the poor"--anticipating their wants--studying their comforts; these are what God values and loves. They are "loans" to Himself--tributary streams to "the river of _His_ pleasure;" they will be acknowledged at last as such--"Ye did it unto _Me_."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-fourth Day.
FIRMNESS IN TEMPTATION.
"Jesus saith unto him, Get thee hence, Satan."--Matt. iv. 10.
There is an awful intensity of meaning in the words, as applied to Jesus, "He _suffered_, being tempted!" Though incapable of sin, there was, in the refined sensibilities of His holy nature, that which made temptation unspeakably fearful. What must it have been to confront the Arch-traitor?--to stand face to face with the foe of His throne, and His universe? But the "prince of this world" came, and found "nothing in Him." Billow after billow of Satanic violence spent their fury, in vain, on the Living Rock!
Reader! you have still the same malignant enemy to contend with; assailing you in a thousand insidious forms; marvelously adapting his assaults to your circumstances, your temperament, your mental bias, your master-passion! There is no place where "Satan's seat" is not; "the whole world lieth in the Wicked one." (1 John, v. 19.) He has his whispers for the ear of childhood; hoary age is not inaccessible to his wiles. "_All this will I give thee_"--is still his bribe to deny Jesus and to "mind earthly things." He will meet you in the crowd; he will follow you to the solitude; his is a sleepless vigilance!
Are you bold in repelling him as your Master was? Are you ready with the retort to every foul suggestion, "Get thee hence, Satan"? Cultivate a tender sensitiveness about sin. The finest barometers are the most sensitive. Whatever be your besetting frailty--whatever bitter or baleful passion you are conscious aspires to the mastery--watch it, crucify it, "nail it to your Lord's cross." _You_ may despise "the day of small things"--the Great Adversary does _not_. He knows the power of _littles_; that little by little consumes and eats out the vigor of the soul. And once the retrograde movement in the spiritual life begins, who can predict where it may end? the going on "from weakness to weakness," instead of "from strength to strength." Make no compromises; never join in the ungodly amusement, or venture on the questionable path, with the plea, "It does me no harm." The Israelites, on entering Canaan, instead of obeying the Divine injunction of extirpating their enemies, made a hollow truce with them. What was the result? Years upon years of tedious warfare. "They were scourges in their sides, and thorns in their eyes!" It is quaintly but truthfully said by an old writer, "The candle will never burn clear, while there is a _thief_ in it. Sin indulged, in the conscience, is like Jonah in the ship, which causeth such a tempest, that the conscience is like a troubled sea, whose waters cannot rest."--(_Thomas Brooks_.)
"Keep," then, "thy heart with all diligence," or, (as it is in the forcible original Hebrew,) "keep thy heart _above all keeping_," "for out of it are the issues of life." (Prov. iv. 23.) Let this ever be your preservative against temptation, "How would _Jesus_ have acted here? would _He_ not have recoiled, like the sensitive plant, from the remotest contact with sin? Can _I_ think of dishonoring Him by tampering with His enemy; incurring from His own lips the bitter reflection of injured love, 'I am wounded in the house of my friends'?"
He tells us the secret of our preservation and safety, "Simon! Simon! Satan hath desired to have thee, that he might sift thee as wheat; _but I_ have prayed for thee that thy faith fail not!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-fifth Day.
RECEIVING SINNERS.
"This man receiveth sinners."--Luke, xv. 2.
The ironical taunt of proud and censorious Pharisees formed the glory of Him who came, "not to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance." Publicans and outcasts; those covered with a deeper than any bodily leprosy--laid bare their wounds to the "Great Physician;" and as conscious guilt and timid penitence crept abashed and imploring to His feet, they found nothing but a forgiving and a gracious welcome!
"His ways" were not as "man's ways!" The "watchmen," in the Canticles, "smote" the disconsolate one seeking her lost Lord; they tore off her veil, mocking with chilling unkindness her anguished tears. Not so "the Chief Shepherd and Bishop of souls." "_This_ man _receiveth_ sinners"! See Nicodemus, stealing under the shadows of night to elude observation--type of the thousand thousand who in every age have gone trembling in their night of sin and sorrow to this Heavenly Friend! Does Jesus punish his timidity by shutting His door against him, spurning him from His presence? "He will not break the bruised reed, He will not quench the smoking flax!"
And He is still the same! He who arrested a persecutor in his blasphemies, and tuned the lips of an expiring felon with faith and love, is at this hour standing, with all the garnered treasures of Redemption in His hand, proclaiming, "Him that cometh unto Me, I will in no wise cast out"!
Are we from this to think lightly of sin? or, by example and conduct, to palliate and overlook its enormity? Not so; sin, _as_ sin, can never be sufficiently stamped with the brand of reprobation. But we must seek carefully to distinguish between the offence and the offender. Nothing should be done on our part, by word or deed, to mock the penitential sighings of a guilty spirit, or send the trembling outcast away, with the despairing feeling of "_No hope_." "This man receiveth sinners," and shall not _we_? Does _He_ suffer the veriest dregs of human depravity to crouch unbidden at His feet, and to gaze on His forgiving countenance with the uplifted eye of hope, and shall _we_ dare to deal out harsh, and severe, and crushing verdicts on an offending (it may be a _deeply_ offending) brother? Shall we pronounce "crimson" and "scarlet" sins and sinners beyond the pale of mercy, when _Jesus_ does not? Nay, rather, when wretchedness, and depravity, and backsliding cross our path, let it not be with the bitter taunt or the ironical retort that we bid them away. Let us bear, endure, remonstrate, deal tenderly. Jesus _did_ so, Jesus _does_ so! Ah! If we had within us His unconquerable love of souls; His yearning desire for the everlasting happiness of sinners, we should be more frequently in earnest expostulation and affectionate appeal with those who have hitherto got no other than harsh thoughts and repulsive words. If this "mind" really were in us, "which was also in Him," we should more frequently ask ourselves, "Have I done all I _might_ have done to pluck this brand from the burning! Have I remembered what grace _has_ wrought, what grace _can_ do?"
"Brethren, if any of you do err from the truth, and one convert him, let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-sixth Day.
GUILELESSNESS.
"Neither was guile found in His mouth."--1 Pet. ii. 22.
How rare, and all the more beautiful because of its rarity, is a purely _guileless_ spirit! A crystalline medium through which the transparent light of Heaven comes and goes; open, candid, just, honorable, sincere; scorning every unfair dealing, every hollow pretension, every narrow prejudice. Wherever such characters exist, they are like "apples of gold in pictures of silver."
Such, in all the loveliness of sinless perfection, was the Son of God! His guilelessness shining the more conspicuously amid the artful and malignant subtlety alike of men and devils. Passing by manifold instances in the course of His ministry, look at its manifestation as the hour of His death approached. When, on the night of his apprehension, He confronts the assassin band, in meek majesty He puts the question, "Whom seek ye?" They say to Him, "Jesus of Nazareth." In guileless innocence, He replies, "I am He!" "Art thou the King of the Jews?" asks Pilate, a few hours after. An evasive answer might again have purchased immunity from suffering and indignity, but once more the lips which scorned the semblance of evasion reply, "Thou sayest!"
How He loved the same spirit in His people! "Behold," said He, of Nathanael, "an Israelite indeed, in whom is _no guile_!" That upright man had, we may suppose, been day after day kneeling in prayer under his fig-tree, with an open and candid spirit--
"Musing on the law he taught, And waiting for the Lord he loved."
See how the Saviour honored him; setting His own Divine seal on the loveliness of this same spirit! Take one other example, when the startling, saddening announcement is made to the disciples, "One of you shall betray me;" they do not accuse one another; they attempt to throw no suspicion on Judas; each in trembling apprehension suspects only his own treacherous heart, "Lord, is it I?"
How much of a different "mind" is there abroad! In the school of the world (this "_painted_ world"), how much is there of what is called "policy," double-dealing!--accomplishing its ends by tortuous means; outward, artificial polish, often only a cloak for baseness and selfishness!--in the daily interchange of business, one seeking to over-reach the other by wily arts; sacrificing principle for temporal advantage. There is nothing so derogatory to religion as aught allied to such a spirit among Christ's people--any such blot on the "living epistles." "Ye are the light of the world." That world is a quick observer. It is sharp to detect inconsistencies--slow to forget them. The true Christian has been likened to an _anagram_--you ought to be able to read him up and down, every way!
Be all reality, no counterfeit. Do not pass for current coin what is base alloy. Let transparent honor and sincerity regulate all your dealings; despise all meanness; avoid the sinister motive, the underhand dealing; aim at that unswerving love of truth that would scorn to stoop to base compliances and unworthy equivocations; live more under the power of the purifying and ennobling influences of the gospel. Take its golden rule as the matchless directory for the daily transactions of life--"Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-seventh Day.
ACTIVITY IN DUTY.
"I must work the works of Him that sent me, while it is day; the night cometh, when no man can work."--John, ix. 4.
How constant and unremitting was Jesus in the service of His Heavenly Father! "He rose a great while before day;" and, when His secret communion was over, His public work began. It mattered not to Him where He was: whether on the bosom of the deep, or a mountain slope--in the desert, or at a well-side--the "gracious words" ever "proceeded out of His mouth." We find, on one touching occasion, exhausted nature sinking, after a day of unremitting duty; in crossing, in a vessel, the Lake of Tiberias--"_He fell asleep_"! (Matt. viii.) He redeemed every precious moment. His words to the Pharisee seem a _formula_ for all, "Simon, I have somewhat to say unto _thee_"!
Oh, how our most unceasing activities pale into nothing before such an example as this! Would that we could remember that each of us has some great mission to perform for God, that religion is not a thing of dreamy sentimentalism, but of energetic practical action; moreover, that no trade, no profession, no position, however high or however humble in the scale of society, can disqualify for this life of Christian activity and usefulness! Who were the writers in the Bible? We have among them a King--a Lawgiver--a Herdsman--a Publican--a Physician! Nor is it to high spheres, or to great services only, that God looks. The widow's mite and Mary's "alabaster box of ointment" are recorded as examples for imitation by the Holy Ghost, while many more munificent deeds are passed by unrecorded. We believe that God says, regarding the attempt of many a humble Christian to serve Him by active duty, "I saw that effort, that _feeble_ effort to serve and glorify Me; it was the very _feebleness_ of it I loved!"