Page images
PDF
EPUB

therefore to be careful not to let it happen in our own case, than to rest in any fond notions that God's word has pronounced it to be impossible, while our evil lives and low and selfish affections declare aloud that it is not only possible, but has actually befallen us.

The sum of the latter part of the eighth chapter is in short no other than this: that God's love to us in Christ must produce such an answering love of Him in our minds, that nothing will be strong enough to overpower it. In all things, he concludes, we are more than conquerors through Him that loved us: and then at last he expresses his assurance that no dangers, or sufferings, or labours, how great soever, will ever be able to shake his deep-rooted love and devotion to God, which had been excited by the mercies displayed in his redemption. It is very true that where this love has once taken root in the heart, it is almost impossible to shake it ; but our misfortune is, that with too many of us it has never taken root in us at all. And therefore that rejoicing and triumphant tone which finishes the chapter is to many of us altogether inapplicable: it speaks of a state of mind to which we are utterly strangers. Now, then, let us inquire why this is so? Why is it, that having received the glorious message of salvation, it seems to affect us so slightly? Why are so many of us now proposing to turn their backs in a few minutes on the table of the Lord, and thus declaring that they do not wish to be Christians in earnest, that they cannot make up their minds to count the cost, whether they have sufficient to build and finish their tower or no?

The first and chief cause is doubtless their unbelief; their unbelief at least in the Scripture sense of the term; although in another sense they may be said to

possess belief. But Christ's words are here exceedingly to be remembered: "If you had faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye might say to this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and it should obey you." If you had faith, the temptations which surround you would be removed and cast down, and should not be able to overpower you. We do not believe enough in our own badness, nor in God's goodness; and therefore we cannot feel towards Him as we should do, if we believed in each of these things aright. Why, when Christ was dining in the Pharisee's house, did the Pharisee who entertained Him sit at the table unmoved, and even neglect to show some of the ordinary courtesies of hospitality to his guest, while the woman who had come in, fell down at His feet, and washed them with her tears, and wiped them with the hairs of her head? Because she believed that she herself was very unworthy, and that God was very merciful to her, and therefore she loved God much; while the Pharisee, on the contrary, did not believe either the one or the other, and therefore he loved God little. It is all very easy to say the Creed, and to believe as a matter of history that "Christ suffered under Pontius Pilate; was crucified, dead, and buried;" but this is very different from what the Scripture calls faith; that is, a strong sense of our own faults and unworthiness, and of God's infinite holiness and mercy. Now it is very evident that too many persons, while they talk very much of God's mercy, seem to take it as a thing of course, and therefore as something which does not excite in them much gratitude. They say that God is merciful to the infirmities of His frail creatures; but instead of feeling that, because there is mercy with Him,

therefore He is to be feared and loved; they seem to think that because He is merciful, He may safely be disregarded: they literally go on in sin, because they. think that grace abounds. How different is this view of God's mercy from that which God Himself holds out to us in the redemption by Christ Jesus! This view neither makes men fear God nor love Him, nor suspect and watch over their ownselves; it leads merely to carelessness, a temper of mind which is favourable to no good affection, and to no good work, but which is the merest selfishness in the world, both in principle and practice. And this carelessness arises from men's not believing the representation of Himself and of them which God has given in the Scriptures, but from their making out to themselves a notion of both which is at once equally false and mischievous.

Nor, again, do we believe aright concerning that state of everlasting glory which God has promised us through Christ Jesus. It is astonishing how very much of heathenism is mixed up with the notions of many about the life to come. People seem to think that eternal glory is a sort of natural end of their existence here, unless they are guilty of some remarkable wickedness; that the passage from the grave to heaven is as sure and easy as that from life to the grave. If you were to ask any one, indeed, whether he did think so, he would probably be startled, and say no; but if you look at his life, and hear his language upon the death of any friend or relation, it is plain that he does think so in his heart. It is the common language used after the death of friends, that they are now happy, and that they are in heaven. This is not all mere affectionate partiality; we do not think our friends handsome or clever when

they are not so, because we better know what beauty and what cleverness are, than we understand any thing about holiness. But men judge of themselves and of their friends by the same rule; what they say has been a good life in their friend they evidently are satisfied with in their own case, for they are not trying to mend it; and the fact is, that they really have no notion of what the real state of the matter is, with regard to our prospects of eternal life. We, with our low notions of God's perfection, and our careless notions about our own faults, think that heaven is easily won, and talk of it as a matter of course, that such a place is prepared for the good. But God tells us, that to dwell with Him for ever in a happiness like His own, is a thing which none could expect, and none could attain unto; but that it is the greatest and most extraordinary gift of His love, to be purchased only by the blood of Christ, to be enjoyed only by those whom His Holy Spirit has now made to fit them for it. What men's fitness for heaven is, may be well learned from their common language; they talk of the blessing of being again with those friends whom they have loved on earth, but they do not talk of the blessing of being with God, because it is one which they do not greatly desire, as they do not love Him. So then we hope to enter into the kingdom of God, with as little wish to be with God, as we have now while living on earth. What is it then, "flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, neither doth corruption inherit incorruption?" But as well could this decaying flesh, with all its weaknesses and diseases, as well could the most corrupted body that ever died of pestilence, enter into that everlasting and incorruptible dwelling, as they who carried with them to their

graves the thoughts and desires of the flesh unmortified, who are full of a worse corruption of heart than any that can befall our mere mortal body. We must, indeed, all be changed; once, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump; and once also before that, not in a moment, but during the threescore and ten years of our pilgrimage, not in the twinkling of an eye, but through a long period of prayer and watchfulness, labouring slowly and with difficulty to get rid of our original evil nature. But one of these changes is as necessary as the other; we must be born again on earth, or we shall never be born again in heaven. This is what we do not believe, and therefore not feeling how vast is the mercy and love of God in taking us to dwell with Himself for ever, nor how much we must be changed in order to fit us for such a state, or before we could even at all enjoy it, the prospect of the life to come is not so powerful in enabling us to overcome the temptations of the world and the flesh, as St. Paul supposed that it must be.

But now, if these motives, the most powerful that can be applied to the mind of man, have been applied in vain; if that which St. Paul describes as sure to give us the victory over our sins, is found to be as powerless as the motives given to the Heathen or to the Jews; if that love of Christ from which the Apostle felt that nothing could drive him, is with us too weak to overcome any temptation, what remains for us, and what must be our end when our time of trial is over? Of the fate of the heathen, we know nothing; of the fate of those who lived before the coming of Christ, we know nothing; but of the fate of those who having had every means of grace offered to them are improved by

« PreviousContinue »