The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mind of Jesus, by John R. Macduff
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Title: The Mind of Jesus
Author: John R. Macduff
Release Date: April 5, 2009 [EBook #28507]
Language: English
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Transcriber's Note
Minor punctuation inconsistencies have been silently corrected.
Title page: "MEMORIES OF OF GENNESARET" changed to "MEMORIES OF GENNESARET"
p9: Verse number "2." added to "Mark, viii." for consistency
p23: "brethern" changed to "brethren"
p106: "vail" changed to "veil"
p124: duplicate word "one" removed
p126: "the its great fountain" changed to "its great fountain"
p128: "frowed" changed to "frowned"
THE
MIND OF JESUS.
BY
JOHN R. MACDUFF, D.D.
AUTHOR OF "MORNING AND NIGHT WATCHES,"
"THE WORDS OF JESUS," "FAMILY PRAYER,"
"FOOTSTEPS OF ST. PAUL," "MEMORIES OF
GENNESARET," "BOW IN THE CLOUD," "STORY
OF BETHLEHEM," ETC.
NEW YORK
ROBERT CARTER & BROTHERS,
No. 530 BROADWAY.
1860.
The Mind of Jesus.
THE MIND OF JESUS! What a study is this! To attain a dim reflection of
it, is the ambition of angels--higher they can not soar. "To be
conformed to the image of His Son!"--it is the end of God in the
predestination of His Church from all eternity. "We shall be like
Him!"--it is the Bible picture of _heaven_!
In a former little volume, we pondered some of the gracious _Words_
which proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus. In the present, we have a few
faint lineaments of that holy _Character_ which constituted the living
exposition and embodiment of His precepts.
But how lofty such a standard! How all creature-perfection shrinks
abashed and confounded before a Divine portraiture like this! He is the
true "Angel standing in the sun," who alone projects no shadow; so
bathed in the glories of Deity that likeness to Him becomes like the
light in which He is shrouded--"no man can approach unto it." May we
not, however, seek at least to approximate, though we can not adequately
resemble? It is impossible on earth to associate with a fellow-being
without getting, in some degree, assimilated to him. So, the more we
study "the Mind of Christ," the more we are in His company--holding
converse with Him as our best and dearest friend--catching up his holy
looks and holy deeds--the more shall we be "transformed into the same
image."
"Consider," says the Great Apostle (literally '_gaze_ on') "Christ
Jesus" (Heb. iii. 1). Study feature by feature, lineament by lineament,
of that Peerless Exemplar. "_Gaze_" on the Sun of Righteousness, till,
like gazing long on the natural sun, you carry away with you, on your
spiritual vision, dazzling images of His brightness and glory. Though He
be the Archetype of all goodness, remember He is no shadowy
model--though the Infinite Jehovah, He was "the _Man_ Christ Jesus."
We must never, indeed, forget that it is not the _mind_, but the _work_
of Immanuel, which lies at the foundation of a sinner's hope. He must be
known as a _Saviour_, before He is studied as an _Example_. His doing
and dying is the center jewel, of which all the virtues of His holy life
are merely the setting. But neither must we overlook the Scripture
obligation to walk in His footsteps and imbibe His Spirit, for "if any
man have not the _Spirit of Christ_, he is _none of His_!"
Oh, that each individual Christian were more Saviour-like! that, in the
manifestation of a holy character and heavenly demeanor, it might be
said in some feeble measure of the faint and imperfect reflection--"Such
was _Jesus_!"
How far short we are of such a criterion, mournful experience can
testify. But it is at least comforting to know that there is a day
coming, when, in the full vision and fruition of the Glorious Original,
the exhortation of our motto-verse will be needed no more; when we shall
be able to say, in the words of an inspired apostle,
"We _have_ the MIND OF CHRIST!"
Contents.
PAGE
The Mind of Jesus 3
Compassion 9
Resignation in Trial 13
Devotedness to God 17
Forgiveness of Injuries 21
Meekness 25
Thankfulness 29
Unselfishness 33
Submission to God's Word 37
Prayerfulness 41
Love to the Brethren 45
Sympathy 49
Fidelity in Rebuke 53
Gentleness in Rebuke 57
Endurance of Contradiction 61
Pleasing God 65
Grief at Sin 69
Humility 73
Patience 77
Subjection 81
Not Retaliating 85
Bearing the Cross 89
Holy Zeal 93
Benevolence 97
Firmness in Temptation 101
Receiving Sinners 105
Guilelessness 109
Activity in Duty 113
Committing our Way to God 117
Love of Unity 121
Not of the World 125
Calmness in Death 129
Let
THIS MIND
Be in you,
Which was also in
Christ Jesus.
First Day.
COMPASSION.
"I have compassion on the multitude."--Mark, viii. 2.
What a pattern to His people, the tender _compassion_ of Jesus! He found
the world He came to save a moral Bethesda. The wail of suffering
humanity was every where borne to His ear. It was His delight to walk
its porches, to pity, relieve, comfort, save! The faintest cry of misery
arrested His footsteps--stirred a ripple in this fountain of Infinite
Love. Was it a _leper_,--that dreaded name which entailed a life-long
exile from friendly looks and kindly words? There was _One_, at least,
who had tones and deeds of tenderness for the outcast. "_Jesus_, being
moved with compassion, put forth His hand, and _touched_ him." Was it
some blind beggars on the Jericho highway, groping in darkness, pleading
for help? "_Jesus_ stood still, and had compassion on them, and touched
their eyes!" Was it the speechless pleadings of a widow's tears at the
gate of Nain, when she followed her earthly pride and prop to the grave?
"When the _Lord_ saw her, He had compassion on her, and said, Weep not!"
Even when He rebukes, the bow of compassion is seen in the cloud, or
rather, that cloud, as it passes, dissolves in a rain-shower of mercy.
He pronounces Jerusalem "_desolate_," but the doom is uttered amid a
flood of anguished sorrow!
Reader! do the compassionate words and deeds of a tender Saviour find
any feeble echo and transcript in yours? As you traverse in thought the
wastes of human wretchedness, does the spectacle give rise, not to the
mere emotional feeling which weeps itself away in sentimental tears, but
to an earnest desire to _do something_ to mitigate the sufferings of
woe-worn humanity? How vast and world-wide the claims on your
compassion!--now near, now at a distance--the unmet and unanswered cry
of perishing millions abroad--the heathendom which lies unsuccored at
your own door--the public charity languishing--the mission staff dwarfed
and crippled from lack of needful funds--a suffering district--a
starving family--a poor neighbor--a helpless orphan--it may be, some
crowded hovel, where misery and vice run riot--or some lonely sick
chamber, where the dim lamp has been wasting for dreary nights--or some
desolate home which death has entered, where "Joseph is not, and Simeon
is not," and where some sobbing heart, under the tattered garb of
poverty, mourns, unsolaced and unpitied, its "loved and lost." Are there
none such within your reach, to whom a trifling pittance would be as an
angel of mercy? How it would hallow and enhance all you possess, were
you to seek to live as almoner of Jehovah's bounties! If He has given
you of this world's substance, remember it is bestowed, not to be
greedily hoarded or lavishly squandered. Property and wealth are
talents to be traded on and laid out for the good of others--sacred
trusts, not selfishly to be _enjoyed_, but generously to be _employed_.
"The poor are the representatives of Jesus, their wants He considers as
His own," and He will recompense accordingly. The feeblest expression of
Christian pity and love, though it be but the widow's mite, or the cup
of cold water, or the kindly look and word when there is neither mite
nor cup to give, yet, if done in _His_ name, it is entered in the "book
of life" as a "loan to the Lord;" and in that day when "the books are
opened," the loan will be paid back with usury.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Second Day.
RESIGNATION IN TRIAL.
"Not my will, but Thine be done!"--Luke, xxii. 42.
Where was there ever resignation like this! The life of Jesus was one
long martyrdom. From Bethlehem's manger to Calvary's cross, there was
scarce one break in the clouds; these gathered more darkly and ominously
around Him till they burst over His devoted head as He uttered His
expiring cry. Yet throughout this pilgrimage of sorrow no murmuring
accent escaped His lips. The most suffering of all suffering lives was
one of uncomplaining submission.
"Not _my_ will, but _Thy_ will," was the motto of this wondrous Being!
When He came into the world He thus announced His advent, "Lo, I come, I
delight to do _Thy will_, O my God!" When He left it, we listen to the
same prayer of blended agony and acquiescence, "O my Father, if it be
possible let this cup pass from me! _Nevertheless_ not as _I will_, but
as _Thou wilt_."
Reader! is this mind also in _you_? Ah, what are your trials compared to
His! What the ripples in your tide of woe, compared to the waves and
billows which swept over him! If He, the spotless Lamb of God, "murmured
not," how can _you_ murmur? _His_ were the sufferings of a bosom never
once darkened with the passing shadow of guilt or sin. _Your_ severest
sufferings are deserved, yea, infinitely less _than_ deserved! Are you
tempted to indulge in hard suspicions, as to God's faithfulness and
love, in appointing some peculiar trial? Ask yourself, Would Jesus have
done _this_? Should _I_ seek to pry into "the deep things of God," when
_He_, in the spirit of a weaned child, was satisfied with the solution,
"_Even so, Father, for so it seems good in Thy sight_"?
"Even so, _Father_!" Afflicted one! "tossed with tempest, and not
comforted," take that _word_ on which thy Lord pillowed His suffering
head, and make it, as He did, the secret of thy resignation.
The sick child will take the bitterest draught from a _father's_ hand.
"This cup which Thou, O God, givest me to drink, shall I not drink it?"
Be it mine to lie passive in the arms of Thy chastening love, exulting
in the assurance that all Thy appointments, though sovereign, are never
arbitrary, but that there is a gracious "need be" in them all. "My
Father!" my Covenant God! the God who _spared not Jesus_! It may well
hush every repining word.
Drinking deep of his sweet spirit of submission, you will be able thus
to meet, yea, even to welcome, your sorest cross, saying, "Yes, Lord,
all _is_ well, just because it is Thy blessed will. Take me, use me,
chasten me, as seemeth good in Thy sight. My will is resolved into
Thine. This trial is dark; I can not see the 'why and the wherefore' of
it--but 'not my will, but Thy will!' The gourd is withered; I can not
see the reason of so speedy a dissolution of the loved earthly shelter;
sense and sight ask in vain why these leaves of earthly refreshment have
been doomed so soon to droop in sadness and sorrow. But it is enough.
'The Lord prepared the worm;' 'not _my_ will, but _Thy_ will!'"
Oh, how does the stricken soul honor God by thus being _dumb_ in the
midst of dark and perplexing dealings, recognizing in these, part of the
needed discipline and training for a sorrowless, sinless, deathless
world; regarding every trial as a link in the chain which draws it to
heaven, where the whitest robes will be found to be those here baptized
with suffering, and bathed in tears!
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Third Day.
DEVOTEDNESS TO GOD.
"Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?"--
Luke, ii. 49.
"My meat and my drink are to do the will of Him that sent me, and to
finish His work." That _one_ object brought Jesus from heaven--that
_one_ object he pursued with unflinching, undeviating constancy, until
He could say, "It is finished."
However short man comes of _his_ "chief end," "Glory to God in the
highest" was the motive, the rule, and exponent of every act of that
wondrous life. With us, the magnet of the soul, even when truest, is
ever subject to partial oscillations and depressions, trembling at times
away from its great attraction-point. _His_ never knew one tremulous
wavering from its all-glorious center. With Him there were no ebbs and
flows, no fits and starts. He could say, in the words of that prophetic
psalm which speaks so preëminently of Himself, "I have set the Lord
_always_ before me!"
Reader! do you feel that in some feeble measure this lofty life-motto of
the sinless Son of God is written on your home and heart, regulating
your actions, chastening your joys, quickening your hopes, giving energy
and direction to your whole being, subordinating all the affections of
your nature to their high destiny? With pure and unalloyed motives, with
a single eye, and a single aim, can you say, somewhat in the spirit of
His brightest follower, "This _one_ thing I do"? Are you ready to regard
all you have--rank, name, talents, riches, influence,
distinctions--valuable, only so far as they contribute to promote the
glory of Him who is "first and last, and all in all"? Seek to feel that
your heavenly Father's is not only _a_ business; but _the_ business of
life. "Whose I am, and whom I serve,"--let this be the superscription
written on your thoughts and deeds, your employments and enjoyments,
your sleeping and waking. Be not, as the fixed stars, cold and distant;
but be ever bathing in the sunshine of conscious nearness to Him who is
the sun and center of all happiness and joy.
Each has some appointed work to perform, some little niche in the
spiritual temple to occupy. Yours may be no splendid services, no
flaming or brilliant actions to blaze and dazzle in the eye of man. It
may be the quiet, unobtrusive inner work, the secret prayer, the
mortified sin, the forgiven injury, the trifling act of self-sacrifice
for God's glory and the good of others, of which no eye but the Eye
which seeth in secret is cognizant. It matters not how _small_.
Remember, with Him, motive dignifies action. It is not _what_ we do, but
_how_ we do it. He can be glorified in _little_ things as well as
_great_ things, and by nothing more than the daily walk, the daily
life.
Beware of any thing that would interfere with a surrender of heart and
soul to His service--worldly entanglements, indulged sin, an uneven
walk, a divided heart, nestling in creature comforts, shrinking from the
cross. How many hazard, if they do not make shipwreck, of their eternal
hopes by becoming _idlers_ in the vineyard; lingerers, like Lot;
world-lovers, like Demas; "do-nothing Christians," like the inhabitants
of Meroz! The command is, "Go, work!" _Words_ tell what you _should_ be;
_deeds_ tell what you _are_. Let those around you see there is a reality
in walking _with_ God, and working _for_ God!
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Fourth Day.
FORGIVENESS OF INJURIES.
"Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do."--Luke, xxiii. 34.
Many a death-struggle has been made to save a friend. A dying Saviour
gathers up His expiring breath to plead for His foes! At the climax of
His own woe, and of human ingratitude--man-forsaken, and
God-deserted--His faltering voice mingles with the shout of His
murderers,--"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do!" Had
the faithless Peter been there, could he have wondered at the reply to a
former question,--"Lord, how often shall my brother sin against me, and
I forgive him,--till seven times?" Jesus said unto him, "I say not unto
thee, Until seven times; but, Until seventy times seven." (Matt. xviii.
21.)
Superiority to insult and ignominy, with some, proceeds from a callous
and indifferent temperament,--a cold, phlegmatic, stoical insensibility,
alike to kindness or unkindness. It was not so with Jesus. The tender
sensibilities of His holy nature rendered Him keenly sensible to
ingratitude and injury, whether this was manifested in the malice of
undisguised enmity, or the treachery of trusted friendship. Perhaps to a
noble nature the latter of these is the more deeply wounding. Many are
inclined to forgive an open and unmasked antagonist, who are not so
willing to forget or forgive heartless faithfulness, or unrequited love.
But see, too, in this respect, the conduct of the blessed Redeemer! Mark
how He deals with His own disciples who had basely forsaken him and
fled, and that, too, in the hour He most needed their sympathy. No
sooner does He rise from the dead than He hastens to disarm their fears
and to assure them of an unaltered and unalterable affection. "Go tell
_my brethren_," is the first message He sends; "_Peace be unto you_," is
the salutation at the first meeting; "_Children!_" is the word with
which He first greets them on the shores of Tiberias. Even Joseph, (the
Old Testament type and pattern of generous forgiveness,) when he makes
himself known to his brethren, recalls the bitter thought, "Whom ye sold
into Egypt." The true Joseph, when _He_ reveals Himself to His
disciples, buries in oblivion the memory of by-gone faithlessness. He
_meets_ them with a benediction. He _leaves_ them at His ascension with
the same--"He lifted up His hands and blessed them!"
Reader! follow in all this the spirit of your Lord and Master. In rising
from the study of His holy example, seek to feel that with you there
shall be no such name, no such word, as _enemy_! Harbor no resentful
thought, indulge in no bitter recrimination. Surrender yourself to no
sullen fretfulness. Let "the law of kindness" be in your heart. Put the
best construction on the failings of others Make no injurious comments
on their frailties; no uncharitable insinuations. "Consider thyself,
lest thou also be tempted." When disposed at any time to cherish an
unforgiving spirit towards a brother, think, if thy God had retained His
anger for ever, where wouldst thou have been? If _He_, the Infinite One,
who might have spurned thee for ever from His presence, hath had
patience with thee, and forgiven thee _all_, wilt _thou_, on account of
some petty grievance which thy calmer moments would pronounce unworthy
of a thought, indulge in the look of cold estrangement, the unrelenting
word, or unforgiving deed? "If any man have a quarrel against any, even
as Christ forgave you, so also do ye."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Fifth Day.
MEEKNESS.
"I am meek and lowly in heart."--Matt. xi. 29.
There is often a beautiful blending of majesty and humility, magnanimity
and lowliness, in great minds. The mightiest and holiest of all Beings
that ever trod our world was the meekest of all. The Ancient of Days was
as the "infant of days." He who had listened to nothing but
angel-melodies from all eternity, found, while on earth, melody in the
lispings of an infant's voice, or in an outcast's tears! No wonder an
innocent _lamb_ was His emblem, or that the annointing Spirit came down
upon Him in the form of the gentle _dove_. He had the wealth of worlds
at His feet. The hosts of heaven had only to be summoned as His
retinue. But all the pageantry of the world, all its dreams of carnal
glory, had, for Him, no fascination. The Tempter, from a
mountain-summit, showed Him a wide scene of "splendid misery;" but He
spurned alike the thought and the adversary away! John and James would
call down fire from heaven on a Samaritan village; He rebukes the
vengeful suggestion! Peter, on the night of the betrayal, cuts off the
ear of an assassin; the intended Victim, again, only challenges His
disciple, and heals His enemy!
Arraigned before Pilate's judgment-seat, how meekly He bears nameless
wrongs and indignities! Suspended on the cross--the execrations of the
multitude are rising around, but He hears as though He heard them not;
they extract no angry look, no bitter word--"Behold the _Lamb_ of God!"
Need we wonder that "meekness" and "poverty of spirit" should stand
foremost in His own cluster of beatitudes; that He should select _this_
among all His other qualities for the peculiar study and imitation of
His disciples, "Learn of Me, _for_ I am _meek_;" or that an apostle
should exhort "by the _meekness_ and _gentleness_ of Christ!"
How different the world's maxims, and His! The _world's_--"Resent the
affront, vindicate honor!" _His_--"Overcome evil with good!" _The
world's_--"Only let it be when for your _faults_ ye are buffeted that ye
take it patiently." _His_--"When ye do _well_ and suffer for it, ye take
it patiently, _this_ is acceptable with God." (1 Pet. ii. 20.)
Reader! strive to obtain, like your adorable Lord, this "ornament of a
meek and quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great price."
Be "clothed" with gentleness and humility. Follow not the world's
fleeting shadows that mock you as you grasp them. If always
aspiring--ever soaring on the wing--you are likely to become
discontented, proud, selfish, time-serving. In whatever position of life
God has placed you, be satisfied. What! ambitious to be on a pinnacle of
the temple--a higher place in the Church, or in the world?--Satan might
hurl you down! "Be not high-minded, but fear." And with respect to
others, honor their gifts, contemplate their excellences only to imitate
them. Speak kindly, act gently, "condescend to men of low estate."
Be assured, no happiness is equal to that enjoyed by the "_meek
Christian_." He has within him a perpetual inner sunshine, a perennial
well-spring of peace. Never ruffled and fretted by real or imagined
injuries, he puts the best construction on motives and actions, and by a
gentle answer to unmerited reproach often disarms wrath.
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Sixth Day.
THANKFULNESS.
"I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth."--Matt. xi. 25.
A thankful spirit pervaded the entire life of Jesus, and surrounded with
a heavenly halo His otherwise darkened path. In moments we least expect
to find it, this beauteous ray breaks through the gloom. In instituting
the memorial of His _death_, He "_gave thanks_!" Even in crossing the
Kedron to Gethsemane, "He sang an hymn!"
We know in seasons of deep sorrow and trial that every thing wears a
gloomy aspect. Dumb Nature herself to the burdened spirit seems as if
she partook in the hues of sadness. The life of Jesus was one
continuous experience of privation and woe--a "Valley of Baca," from
first to last; yet, amid accents of plaintive sorrow, there are ever
heard subdued undertones of _thankfulness_ and joy!
Ah, if He, the suffering "Man of sorrows," could, during a life of
unparalleled woe, lift up His heart in grateful acknowledgment to His
Father in heaven, how ought the lives of those to be one perpetual "hymn
of thankfulness," who are from day to day and hour to hour (for all they
have, both temporally and spiritually) pensioners on God's bounty and
love!
Reader! cultivate this thankful spirit; it will be to thee a perpetual
feast. There is, or ought to be, with us no such thing as _small_
mercies; all are _great_, because the least are undeserved. Indeed, a
really thankful heart will extract motive for gratitude from every
thing, making the most even of scanty blessings. St. Paul, when in his
dungeon at Rome, a prisoner in chains, is heard to say, "I have _all_,
and abound!"
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 coöperating 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
Cæsar. 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."
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 preëminence;" "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."
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!"
Did it never strike you, notwithstanding the _dignity_ of Christ, and
the _activity_ of Christ, how little success comparatively He met with
in His public work? We read of no _numerous_ conversions; no Pentecostal
revivals in the course of His ministry. May not this well encourage in
the absence of great outward results? He sets up no higher standard than
this--"She hath done what she could." An artist may be _great_ in
painting a peasant as well as a king--_it is the way he does it_. Yes,
and if laid aside from the _activities_ of the Christian life, we can
equally glorify God by _passive endurance_. "Who am I," said Luther,
when he witnessed the patience of a great sufferer; "who am I? a wordy
preacher in comparison with this great doer."
Reader! forget not the motive of our motto verse, "_The night cometh!_"
Soon our tale shall be told; our little day is flitting fast, the
shadows of night are falling. "Our span length of time," as Rutherford
says, "will come to an inch." What if the eleventh hour should strike
after having been "all the day _idle_"? A long lifetime of opportunities
suffered to pass unemployed and unimproved, and absolutely _nothing_
done for God! A judgment-day come--our golden moments squandered--our
talents untraded on--our work undone--met at the bar of Heaven with the
withering repulse, "Inasmuch as ye did it _not_." "The time we have
lost," says Richard Baxter, "can not be recalled; should we not then
redeem and improve the little that remains? If a traveler sleep or
trifle most of the day, he must travel so much the faster in the
evening, or fall short of his journey's end."
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-eighth Day.
COMMITTING OUR WAY TO GOD.
"But committed himself to Him that judgeth righteously."--
1 Peter, ii. 23.
With what perfect and entire confidingness did Jesus commit Himself to
his Heavenly Father's guidance! He loved to call Him, "My Father!" There
was music in that name, which enabled Him to face the most trying hour,
and to drink the most bitter cup. The scoffing taunt arose at the scene
of crucifixion: "He trusted in God that He would deliver Him, let Him
deliver Him!" It failed to shake, for one moment, His unswerving
confidence, even when the sensible tokens of the Divine presence were
withdrawn; the realized consciousness of God's abiding love sustained
Him still: "My God! my God!"
How many a perplexity should we save ourselves by thus implicitly
"committing ourselves," as He did, to God! In seasons of darkness and
trouble--when our way is shut up with thorns, to lift the confiding eye
of faith to Him, and say, "I am oppressed, undertake for me!" How
blessed to feel that He directs all that befalls us; that no
contingencies can frustrate His plans; that the way he leads us is not
only _a_ "right way," but, with all its briers and thorns--_its_ tears
and trials--it is _the_ right way!
The result of such an habitual staying ourselves on the Lord will be a
deep, abiding _peace_; any ripple will only be on the surface--no more.
It is the _bosom_ of the ocean alone which the storm ruffles; all
beneath is a serene, settled calm. So "Thou wilt keep him, oh God, in
perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on _Thee_!"
"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want." I shall be content alike
with what He appoints or withholds. I _can not_ wrong that love with
one shadow of suspicion! I have His own plighted promise of unchanging
faithfulness, that "all things work together for good to them that love
Him!" Often there are earthly sorrows hard to bear;--the unkind
accusation, when it was least merited or expected; the estrangement of
tried and trusted friends, the failure of cherished hopes, favorite
schemes broken up, plans of usefulness demolished, the gourd breeding
its own worm and withering. "Commit thy cause and thy way to God!" We
little know what tenderness there is in the blast of the rough wind;
what "needs be" are folded under the wings of the storm! "All is well,"
because _all_ is from _Him_. "Events are God's," says Rutherford; "let
Him sit at His own helm, that moderateth all."
Christian! look back on your checkered path. How wondrously has He
threaded you through the mazy way--disappointing your fears, realizing
your hopes! Are evils looming through the mists of the future? Do not
anticipate the trials of to-morrow, to aggravate those of to-day. Leave
the morrow with Him, who has promised, by "casting all your care on Him,
to care for you." No affliction will be sent greater than you can bear.
His voice will be heard stealing from the bosom of the threatening
cloud, "Be still, and know that I am God!"
"_My Father!_" With such a word, you can stretch out your neck for any
yoke; as with Israel of old, He will make those very waves that may now
be so threatening, a fenced wall on every side! "Rest in the Lord, and
wait patiently for Him." "In _all_ thy ways acknowledge Him, and He
shall direct thy paths!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Twenty-ninth Day.
LOVE OF UNITY.
"That they all may be one."--John, xvii. 21.
Surely there is nothing for which Christian churches have such cause to
hang their harps on the willows, as the extent to which the Shibboleth
of party is heard in the camp of the faithful--sectarianism rearing its
"untempered walls" within the Temple gates!
How different "the mind of Jesus!" Sent "to the lost sheep of the house
of Israel," He was never found disowning "_other_ sheep not of that
fold." "Them also will I bring," was an assertion continually
illustrated by His deeds. Take one example: The woman of Samaria
revealed what, alas! is too common in the world--a total absence of all
real religion, along with an ardent zeal for her sect. She was living
in open sin; yet she was all alive to the nice distinction between a Jew
and a Samaritan--between Mount Gerizim and Mount Zion: "How is it that
thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria?" Did
Jesus sanction or reciprocate her sectarianism?--did He leave her
bigotry unrebuked? Hear His reply--"If thou knewest the gift of God, and
who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldst have asked
of _Him_, and _He_ would have given thee!" _He_ would have allowed no
such narrow-minded exclusiveness to have interfered with the interchange
of kindly civilities with a stranger. Nay, He would have given thee,
better than all, the "living water" which "springeth up to everlasting
life!"
How sad, that when the enemy is "coming in like a flood"--the ranks of
Popery and infidelity linked in fatal and formidable confederacy--that
the soldiers of Christ are forced to meet the assault with standards
soiled and mutilated by internal feuds! "Uniformity" there _may_ not
be, but "unity," in the true sense of the word, there _ought_ to be. We
may be clad in different livery, but let us stand side by side, and rank
by rank, fighting the battles of our Lord. We may be different branches
of the seven golden candlesticks, varying and diversified in outward
form and workmanship; but let us combine in "showing forth the praises
of Him" who recognizes, as the one true "churchmanship," fidelity in
shining for His glory "as lights in the world." How can we read the 13th
chapter of 1st Corinthians, and then think of our divisions? "How
miserable," says Edward Bickersteth, "would an hospital be, if each
patient were to be so offended with his neighbor's disease, as to differ
with him on account of it, instead of trying to alleviate it!"
Ah! if we had more real communion with our Saviour, should we not have
more real communion with one another? If Christians would dip their
arrows more in "the balm of Gilead," would there not be fewer wounds in
the body of Christ? "How that word '_toleration_' is used amongst us,"
said one who drank deeper than most, of his Master's spirit--"how we
_tolerate_ one another--Dissenters _tolerate_ Churchmen, and Churchmen
_tolerate_ Dissenters! Oh! hateful word! TOLERATE one for whom _Jesus_
died! _Tolerate_ one whom He bears upon His heart! _Tolerate_ a temple
of the living God! Oh! there ought to be _that_ in the word which should
make us feel _ashamed_ before God!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Thirtieth Day.
NOT OF THE WORLD.
"I am not of the world."--John, xvii. 14.
In one sense it was _not_ so. Jesus did not seek to maintain His
holiness intact and unspotted by avoiding contact with the world. He
mingled familiarly in its busy crowds. He frowned on none of its
innocent enjoyments; He fostered, by His example, no love of seclusion;
He gave no warrant or encouragement to mortified pride, or disappointed
hopes, to rush from its duties; yet, with all this, what a halo of
heavenliness encircled His pathway through it! "I am from above," was
breathed in His every look, and word, and action, from the time when He
lay in the slumbers of guileless infancy in His Bethlehem cradle, until
He said, "I leave the world, and go to my Father!" He had moved
uncontaminated through its varied scenes, like the sunbeam, which,
whatever it touches, remains as unsullied, as when it issues from its
great fountain.
But though Himself in His sinless nature "unconquerable" by
temptation--immutably secure from the world's malignant influences, it
is all worthy of note, as an example to us, that He never unnecessarily
braved these. He knew the seducing spell that same world would exercise
on His people, of whom, with touching sympathy, He says, "_These_ are in
the world!" He knew the _many_ who would be involved and ensnared in its
subtle worship, who, "minding earthly things, would seek to slake their
thirst at polluted streams!"
Reader! the great problem you have to solve, Jesus has solved for
you--to be "_in_ the world, and yet not _of_ it." To abandon it, would
be a dereliction of duty. It would be servants deserting their work;
soldiers flying from the battle-field. _Live_ in it, that while you
live, the world, may feel the better for you. _Die_, that _when_ you
die, the world, the _Church_, may feel your loss, and cherish your
example! On its cares and duties, its trusts and responsibilities, its
employments and enjoyments, inscribe the motto, "The world passeth
away!" Beware of every thing in it that would tend to deaden
spirituality of heart; unfitting the mind for serious thought, lowering
the standard of Christian duty, and inducing a perilous conformity to
its false manners, habits, tastes, and principles. As the best antidote
to the love of the world, let the inner _vacuum_ of the heart be filled
with the love of God. Seek to feel the nobility of your regenerated
nature; that you have a nobler heritage to care for than the transitory
glories which encircle "an indivisible point, a fugitive atom." How can
I mix with the potsherds of the earth? Once, "I lay among the pots;"
now, I am "like a dove, whose wings are covered with silver, and her
feathers with yellow gold!" "Stranger--pilgrim--sojourner" "my
_citizenship_ is in heaven!" Why covet tinsel honors and glories? Why be
solicitous about the smiles of that which knew not (nay, which frowned
on) its Lord? "Paul calls it," says an old writer, "_schema_ (a
mathematical figure), which is a mere _notion_, and nothing in
substance."--(_Thomas Brooks._)
Live above its corroding cares and anxieties; remembering the
description Jesus gives of His own true people; "They are not of the
world, even as I am not of the world!"
"ARM YOURSELVES LIKEWISE WITH THE SAME MIND."
Thirty-first Day.
CALMNESS IN DEATH.
"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit."--Luke, xxiii. 46.
In the death of Jesus, there were elements of fearfulness, which the
believer can know nothing of. It was with Him the execution of a penal
sentence. The sins of an elect world were bearing him down! The very
voice of His God was giving the tremendous summons, "Awake, O sword,
against my shepherd!" Yet His was a death of _peace_, nay, of _triumph_!
Ere He closed His eyes, light broke through the curtains of thick
darkness. In the calm composure of filial confidence He breathed away
His soul--"Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit!" What was the
secret of such tranquillity? This is His own key to it--"I have
glorified Thee on the earth; I have finished the work which Thou gavest
me to do."
Reader! will it be so with _you_ at a dying hour? will _your_ "work" be
done? Have you already fled to Jesus? Are you reposing in Him as your
only Saviour, and following Him as your only pattern? Then--let death
overtake you when it may--you will have nothing to do _but to die_! The
grave will be irradiated with His presence and smile. He will be
standing there as He did by His own tomb of old, pointing to yours,
tenanted with angel forms, nay, Himself as the "Precursor," showing you
"_the path of life!_" There can be no true peace till the fear of death
be conquered by the sense of sin forgiven, through "the blood of the
Cross." "Not till then," as one has it, "will you be able to be a quiet
spectator of the open grave at the bottom of the hill which you are soon
to descend." "The sting of death is _sin_, but thanks be to God who
giveth us the victory through the Lord Jesus Christ!"
Seek now to live in the enjoyment of greater filial nearness to your
covenant God; and thus, when the hour of departure _does_ come, you will
be able, without irreverence, to take the very words of your dying Lord,
and make them your own--"FATHER! into Thy hands I commend my spirit."
FATHER! It is going HOME! the heart of the child leaping at the thought
of the paternal roof, and the paternal welcome! "Son, thou art ever with
me, and all that I have is thine!"
It is said of Archbishop Leighton, that he "was always happiest when,
from the shaking of the prison-doors, he was led to hope that some of
those brisk blasts would throw them open, and give him the release he
coveted." Christian! can you dread _that_ which your Saviour has already
vanquished? _Death!_ It is as the angel to Peter, breaking the
dungeon-doors, and leading to open day; it is going to the world of your
birthright, and leaving the one of your exile; "it is the soldier at
night-fall, lying down in his tent in peace, waiting the morning to
receive his laurels." Oh! to be ever living in a state of holy
preparation! the mental eye gazing on the vista-view of an opening
Heaven! feeling that _every moment_ is bringing us nearer and nearer
that happy _Home_! soon to be within reach of the Heavenly threshold, in
sight of the Throne! soon to be bending in adoring rapture with the
Church triumphant--bathing in floods of infinite glory--"LIKE
HIM,"--"seeing HIM _as He is_," and that _for Ever and Ever_!
"AND EVERY MAN THAT HATH THIS HOPE IN HIM PURIFIETH HIMSELF,
EVEN AS HE IS PURE!"
Leaving us
AN EXAMPLE
that we should follow
HIS STEPS.
1 Peter, ii. 21.
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