Does not this charge hold true of every sensualist? Could any man become the victim of degrading passions, could he consent to sacrifice the mental and moral part of his nature—the man to the animal—if he considered what was due to himself, to society, and to God?
Does not the charge hold true of the pleasure hunter? As a condiment, as a relaxation, pleasure seeking, if of the right sort, is not only allowable but commendable. He who gave life intended it to be a joy. To be always seeking after pleasure, however, exercises a dissipating and debilitating influence on the mind, and prevents the acquirement of true nobleness and worth of character. And would a creature, which is the highest workmanship of Infinite Excellence with which we are acquainted, yield himself to this, if given to the consideration of the fact the Almighty here states respecting himself?
To mention but one other class of character, does not the charge hold true of the fraudulent? Would a man rob his soul to enrich his pocket, would he narrow his heart to expand his purse, would he build up a character that is to endure for ever with such ill-tempered mortar as falsehood; would he be willing to encounter all the piercing looks and accusing words with which those he wronged will one day assail him, if he had taken his relationship to God, and man, and eternity, into consideration?
What incalculable mischief and misery this neglect of consideration has wrought in our world! Had our first parents considered the sad consequences that would ensue to themselves and their posterity, would they have plucked the forbidden fruit? Through what a long and mournful list of events that have happened from that day to this might I easily go, all of which would have been avoided if right consideration had been given! Every day during those six thousand years a multitude of such events have happened. Is there one of you but can recal deeds respecting which you say with bitterness of heart, I wish I had given it consideration—I wish I had considered it more fully?
My young friends permit me to urge consideration upon you. Your welfare for both worlds is largely in your own keeping. You can secure it or destroy it. But to secure it, consideration is essential. If you don’t addict yourselves to reflection you will be largely at the mercy of impulse, be enticed probably by evil companions, and get wrong perhaps in a thousand ways. Reluctant as you may feel at first to engage in it—uninteresting as you may deem it, do not, as rational creatures, prefer the pleasing to the right and good. The young man of reflection is more respected, more valuable, and unspeakably more happy, than the frivolous and vain. If you forget all else I say, do not forget this—it is the declaration of your loving Father in heaven, who wishes to welcome you there, but can welcome those only who yield to Him a filial love—“I remember all their wickedness.”
THE FRIEND WHOSE YEARS DO NOT FAIL.
REV. W. ARTHUR, M.A.
“And thy years shall not fail.”—Hebrews i. 12.
You know that these words are taken from the hundred and second Psalm. There, they are addressed to God the Creator; here, to Christ the Redeemer. In both cases they express the same truths. Man finds himself here, looks out to what he can see around him, and then in thought passes on to what he cannot see. He knows that a very little while ago he was not here, he was not anywhere. He has an instinct within which tells him that though it is so short a time since he was not the time will never come when he will not be—an instinct that cries for a permanent foundation. He is not such foundation himself—he feels that. He stands upon the foundation of the earth: he did not lay it; it did not lay itself. Those layers of rock were not their own framers. But the foundation was laid. “Thou, Lord, in the beginning didst lay the foundation of the earth.”
He is under a covering as well as on a foundation. He did not pitch that canopy, nor fix those lights, nor hang those curtains by whose silent closing and withdrawing the light is heightened or dimmed. “The heavens are the work of thy hand.” But will these last? Will this earth that I stand upon last? No; I see on it the marks of age and decay as on myself. Like me it will perish. And those heavens that are over me, they shall perish—will all things perish? Will everything that is go out of being? “Thou remainest.” They shall wax old, it is true, but that is only as if a garment waxed old; “As a vesture shalt thou fold them up and they shall be changed.” All this that the eye can see above, below, around, is to the great King but as the robe upon the Sovereign to his person, and dominion, and when he folds up that vesture and lays it aside he will command another wherewith to show his glory to his subjects. “They shall perish; but thou remainest; and they all shall wax old as doth a garment; and as a vesture shalt thou fold them up, and they shall be changed: but thou art the same, and thy years shall not fail!”
We have here a preacher, a listener, a subject: changeful nature, mortal man, immutable Godhead.
Changeful nature is a perpetual preacher, evermore proclaiming to us the twofold lesson, our own mortality and God’s immutable glory and power. “Thy years shall not fail.” What strange language applied to the Divine Being—perfectly natural as applied to us—“years!” Our life is finite, our life is measured, our life is dealt out to us in parcels. For us to speak of our “years” is natural, but when we look up to Him that is unmeasured, infinite, eternal, then this word “years” becomes but the representative of our small transient life when trying to contrast itself with his broad and Infinite Being. We are constantly speaking of two things wherewith we find ourselves related—space and time: and what are they? We hardly know. We know but something like this: space is a measured distance in infinity; time a measured duration in eternity.
We are launched in the midst of a sea of eternity, and all the time that comes to us comes by solemn public measurement, measurement conducted in the most formal and stately manner by the hand of the Creator. He made that heaven from which we can never shut our regard—we must see it; and in it He set those lights “for signs and for seasons and for days and for years.” He might easily have given us a being that would have flowed on evenly from its beginning to its close without anything to mark it off into stages. We may almost watch a sunbeam starting from the sun and racing all the way to our world, passing over it, far on beyond it, till our eye and even our thought cannot follow it, and never anything to check or register its progress.
But not so the career that God has appointed to us. Everything is dealt to us under an economy of measure, of trust and of account. “For signs”—He set those things above us for signs. Cannot earth be a sign to herself? Cannot man be his own directory? Cannot the seas and the mountains and the rivers and trees and houses be their own tokens? Try this. Let that ship at sea, on which the fog has settled, ask the waves to say where is north, south, east or west; and when the gale springs up and the clouds cover the heavens let her ask the winds to tell how far from port. No, if the heavens give no signs she has none, she cannot tell where she is or whither she is going.
Suppose you find yourself within a mile of the house in which you were born: you know, as you think, every step of the way as well as you know your own bedroom; but there is neither sun nor moon nor star, the heavens are completely shut off and you are left to earth alone. Will the trees tell you the way? Will the houses show themselves? Will the road be its own exhibitor? No, if heaven fails you you cannot even see your own hand. You are under the perpetual preaching of the sky, that all your hours and all your movements are dependent upon heaven!
“For seasons” as well as for signs. The Lord might easily have established our lifetime under a different economy; might have given us one perpetual summer, or a perpetual spring, or a uniform co-existence of all the seasons, the fruits being sown, ripening and reaped simultaneously. But not so. He has settled two things so clearly that none, even the most sordid worm that ever wriggled under the clay, showing himself above it as little as possible, can help seeing them. First a fixed order that nothing can change and that proclaims one Lord, one will, one dominion, one plan. The seasons come in regular succession. Every man living knows when the summer is gone that winter is coming. That will not and cannot be changed. Were the whole world to conspire in one effort that spring should come next it would be unavailing. The winter is coming. But with this fixed order is established perpetual change, variety, mutability, so that although we know the season that is coming we know not what kind of a season it shall be, and all our temporal interests hang upon that question. When the merchant has got his stock, when the man of pleasure has fixed for his party, when the General has planned his campaign, when the Admiral has laid down the arrangements for the battle, when the grand politician has perfected the plot for a new crisis of the world, what must they do? Not look to what the earth but what the heaven will do. Everything depends upon that. They cannot decide the market price even of hard sovereigns, they cannot foretell the value of their wheat, they cannot determine the life and health of their soldiers or the hours and effect of movements independent of that one consideration, what will the heavens do? Three days rain will change a whole campaign or a harvest. By the arrangement of the seasons we are constantly kept at the door of Divine mercy, begging “Give us this day our daily bread.” That eternal voice preaching through all our temporal interests is to us the solemn, never-ceasing protest against worldliness, earthliness, vanity, living for time, living for the body; and, above all, against every impure or ungodly method of attempting to secure our temporal aims.
“For days” as well as for seasons. The season passes slowly, but the day—oh what a solemn appointment is that! When the Lord made the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night it would have been very easy for Him to make two suns so that we should bask in perpetual daylight. But no, it was his will that our life should be cut into very short lengths and that by a mark so deep, broad, black, that the dullest man could not escape its impression. The dark gulf that lies between the dead day and the day unborn is the ever recurring remembrancer—Thy days are numbered; thy life is held under law; thy time is a measured current of golden sands. Every particle as it comes may easily slip away, if unwatched will slip, and once past thy hand it will be borne off by the rushing river and thou shalt never see it again, but if caught, held and brought to the mint of the great King it will there be turned into precious coin to serve in perpetuity the double purpose of enriching man and recording the majesty of God. Seize upon thy days as they pass! The heavens tell thee to do it; the dark and mantled earth tells thee; thy drowsy faculties tell thee; thy weary limbs tell thee; all are saying “numbered, numbered, numbered.” Life is running away fast.
Not only for days but “for years.” The days, as I have said, are short; they pass rapidly, and we calculate that the days of our years are threescore years and ten. And when you come to multiply 70 by 365 it makes a very large number, and if we have lost a few handfuls of days, well, cannot we make them up? Have we not been young, and are we not in this pleasant watering place, where one must see life and have a little pleasure, and if we do throw away a few days, why, cannot we recover them? Can we say that of the years? Are the years so very plentiful—such a large number assured to you that you can afford to squander a few, to turn them not only to useless purposes but to bad ones. Can you?—the years!—oh is not it wonderful, the way in which thy Lord and my Lord, thy Creator and my Creator, marks out before our eye the progress of the years?
Perhaps you may remember in childhood watching the day as it grew and spread itself out, making conquests from the night and winning moments, minutes, hours, till you began to think the day was going to do away the night. You saw it stretching over the hours that once were dark till it seemed as if the tips of the sunset touched the tips of the sunrise, and still the light was gaining so that in a little time the darkness would be all driven away and it would be day the twenty-four hours round. But just then the night began to come back and the day grew shorter, dimmer, colder, and the darkness spread itself over the light till it seemed as if in its turn the day was going to be quenched and darkness to wrap up the whole twenty-four hours. But then the day returned.
Was it an accident this first time? Would it ever occur again? You watched it: just the same process and at the same time, and you began to feel—it is a wheel! with its regulated, measured appointed movement; steady, by rule it rises to a certain point, and then comes down to a certain point, then turns again and comes up. It is a perfectly balanced wheel, making its revolution steadily, steadily. I did not fix those revolutions: the great Architect did! He knows how many the wheel itself can perform; He knows what each revolution marks off and what it accomplishes, and He knows too how many shall measure off my thread of life. I do not know the number, you do not know; but this we do know, it is marked upon the dial, and we are tolerably sure it is not more than threescore and ten. Suppose you saw the dial of life before your eye as plain as that dial is and the hand pointing twenty, thirty, forty, fifty of the divisions gone—gone never to return! Suppose you felt that that hand was pressing forward and would point and point to successive lines till at last, without a moment’s warning, the hour will strike and it is over, no recall! Man of twenty, proud of thy youth! man of fifty, proud of thy maturity! man of seventy, proud of thy years! are you prepared to meet your God? Has your time been spent with a view to eternity? Has the measure of your days been taken? Has the course of your years been run in holiness? If not, by the deep voice of the heavens above thee; that voice which evermore is speaking; by the night and the day, and the season and the year, I charge thee prepare to meet thy God. For thy time is passing and eternity at hand.
“Thy years shall not fail.” The thought of man never feels that it can say this to nature. He sees the stones themselves have marks of age and decay—the very mountains, the very seas tell of change and limit. And in the skies too far off for us to trace decay we trace something else—measure. Everything is measured. The moon goes by measure and the sun by measure, and the way of the stars is all measured. There are clear tokens that not one of them is its own master or gives its own law. One government moulds them all. They say “We serve.” I take up the blade of grass and at once feel He that made that grass made the light of day, the dew of the morning, the beast that feeds upon it. One law pervades them all. I take up the corn. He that made that made the sun that ripens it and the soil that fattens it, and my blood that is my life. Everywhere is one mind, one plan, one hand, one sceptre, and all nature says “I serve, I serve. There is a force external to myself. I am measured. I move by rule.” “I revolve,” says every wheel in the heaven, “I roll round by regular law.” “Measure” always means “beginning.” That which is measured must have begun. Beginning always suggests the possibility of end. That which once was not hereafter may not be. Nature fails to fill the mind of man in any one of the three directions—the past, the future, the outward and the infinite. It cannot fill up this thought of ours that claims an eternity before, an eternity coming, an infinity on every side; and we feel nature is like ourselves—a servant, a creature, a machine, an organ, and every part of it proclaims a mind that lived before it.
Then will all things fail? all decay? No—“Thy years shall not fail.” We turn to Him that made the law whereby the blade of grass grows, that whereby the sun statedly comes to it, that whereby the animal feeds upon it, that whereby the man lives upon the animal, and that whereby the human mind reigns over the animal, cultivates the grass and makes use of the light. We come to that great Being whom all these things indicate and proclaim. In Him we find no external law or force compelling Him. At his footstool all say “We serve,” and to all He says either “Be” or “Do” or “Do not.” We find in Him no internal decay. Years come, ages come, worlds arise and worlds pass away, but “Thou art the same”—the same in strength, the same in youth, the same in beauty, the same in glory, the same in wisdom. Never old, only “ancient of days.” “Over all, God blessed for ever. Amen.”
The years of his divine existence shall never fail, the years of his redeeming reign shall never fail. As I said, this Scripture is quoted from the hundred and second Psalm. If you turn to it you will find in it a contrast between man’s perishing life and the eternal lifetime of the Lord; and especially the glorious lifetime of his Messiah and Messiah’s kingdom. “My days are like a shadow that declineth, I am withered like grass.” The Bible makes everything preach—it makes the sparrow preach and the bush preach, and the grass and the lily. It makes even the very shadows preach—“My days are like a shadow that declineth.” Perhaps sometime in the morning you have stood and seen the great tree lying on the east of the hill, throwing its shadow broad and thick over the hill-side as if it really was a substance. But as the sun went up in the sky that shadow gradually shrank down until it totally disappeared under the leaves of the tree. My days are like that shadow—perhaps not like that only. You may have seen in the very bright moonlight shadows lying across the street till they looked solid as if they were something, so much so that the young colt started from them. But a cloud passed over the moon and where was the shadow? My days are like that. “But thou, O Lord, shalt endure for ever; and thy remembrance unto all generations.” The remembrance of man is calling to mind those who are no more; the remembrance of God is calling to mind Him that is unseen. “Thy remembrance shall endure unto all generations. Thou shalt arise and have mercy upon Zion: for the time to favour her, yea, the set time is come. For thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof. So the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord, and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” Not only will his days endure but his kingdom will endure; not only will it endure but it will go forward with a perpetual progress. “Thou shall arise and have mercy upon Zion.” The Lord is building a city in the world, a city that hath foundations, a city that is compacted together, a city that has its families and houses and companies, its solemnities and social joys; a city that is all one brotherhood though composed of every nation and kindred and people. The Lord will arise in his strength to build this city and one of the signs for his time to favour her is when her children take pleasure in her stones and favour the dust thereof. We have that sign in our day. God’s children are taking pleasure in the stones of Zion and favouring the dust thereof. Let us then, looking at the sign, lift up our eye for the fulfilment of the promise, “When the Lord shall build up Zion, He shall appear in his glory.” We are trying to build Zion and the Lord is pleased to see it; but let us call upon Him—“Appear in thy glory! Do thou come and build! Give us the living stones, bring them to us by thy power out of the rocks, out of the heights and depths we cannot reach unto wilt thou not bring living stones to thy temple?” Call and He will come and He will build, and “the heathen shall fear the name of the Lord.”
You will say, “They have not heard it yet”—but they shall. You say many that have heard it do not fear it, but they shall, they shall fear the name of the Lord—“and all the kings of the earth thy glory.” The kings fear his glory! They think of ancestral glory, courtly glory, military glory, political glory; they do not think about Christ and his glory. But they shall, they shall fear his glory. The proudest kings in the earth shall feel that the glory of Jesus Christ of Nazareth is to them much as the sun is to that shadow I have spoken of upon the hill. Their glory must pale and pass away. It is but a little time ago, only nineteen centuries ago, since Christ had no kingdom in the earth, no follower, no temple, no power. Now is there a monarch in the world will come out and say, “I shall sweep the name, the law, the love, the power of Christ out of the earth?” No, of all powers now acknowledged there is none so deep, wide and mighty.
Every day adds to that power; every year opens to it new spheres, new languages, new adherents, and on will it go and on till the whole earth is subdued under the power of the Lord and his Christ. What is the instrument of its progress? “He will regard the prayer of the destitute and not despise their prayer.” Not despise prayer! Why, do not the wise men of the world despise prayer? Do not many talkers tell us that prayer is a thing not to be looked upon as a force in the light of elevated reason? You may despise it if you please and try to rear a kingdom over human souls on a system that does. God will not despise it, Christ will not despise it. There is a kingdom to be invoked by prayer, with its throne and its crown and its sceptre. All the powers of that kingdom are moved with the cry of a destitute heart. It is so, and you cannot alter it. “This shall be written for the generation to come,” how you go and write down that prayer is of no effect, and we will write “He will not despise their prayer,” and let the “generation to come” judge. Your predecessors, eighteen hundred years ago, wrote what you say—ours wrote these words, and see the kingdom of Christ to-day! “This shall be written for the generation to come: and the people.” What people “shall praise the Lord?” The people that are in Jerusalem? No. In Rome? in Athens? No. What people? The people that are not anywhere; the people that are neither in heaven nor in earth; “the people that shall be created.” “That shall be created”—existences now not existing, beings now not being, offspring of God and members of the family of immortals not yet born—they shall praise the Lord. Coming up out of the dark of that great future they shall rise to obey the King we worship and to praise the Saviour we love. “For He hath looked down from the height of his sanctuary: from heaven did the Lord behold the earth.” Ay, from that holy place, that sanctuary—from that high place, that heaven—He looked to behold this earth, this vile place, this base place. Yet it was not to curse it—He looked “to hear the groaning of the prisoner; and to loose those that are appointed to death.” Here in every corner of the world you will see a man who is appointed to death, accused, guilty, a lawbreaker, with witness heard and evidence taken and judgment recorded—the sentence is against him. Oh, if we had an eye such as looks from above how many might we see in this fair congregation who are condemned to death. You know it; you are breakers of eternal law; just judgment is against you; you are appointed to death, and unless you are delivered from that condemnation die you shall, die by a public execution before all worlds in the great day. But He comes to deliver them “that are appointed to death”—to bring you pardon, to bring yon salvation, to bring you mercy, to make you a child of God, to blot out all the sin that you have committed. Christ died that you might be delivered; reigns that you may be delivered, and this day He is speaking to thy heart that thou mayest turn from thy sin, seek mercy and follow Him in the way of life.
So the Psalmist goes on ever anticipating the growth and stability of this kingdom. “He weakened my strength in the way; He shortened my days.” God does not make his Church and work to depend upon the length of any man’s days. “I said, O my God take me not away in the midst of my days: thy years are throughout all generations. Of old hast thou laid the foundation of the earth: and the heavens are the work of thy hands. They shall perish, but thou shalt endure? yea, all of them shall wax old like a garment; as a vesture shall thou change them, and they shall be changed; but thou art the same, and thy years shall have no end.” Ay, and there is something else that has no end. The heavens shall perish, the earth shall perish. God will endure. And will nothing else endure. Yes, “The children of thy servants shall continue, and their seed shall be established before thee.” The servants, the children of God, those that are born again by the Spirit’s grace, those that come to Christ, the Messiah, and through Him recover, by adoption, the place in the family of God that was lost by sin, they shall continue, they shall be established. What! when the earth flees away? Yes, when the earth flees away. What! when the heaven falls? Yes, when the heaven falls; they shall be established with the same immortality as their Father in heaven. “Thy years shall not fail.” God will not fail; Christ will not fail; the Rock of Ages will not fail; and all and every one that through Christ is in God will never fail. The world will pass away, the word of God will not pass away, and the child of God will not pass away.
Take then this word to thy heart and say “Thy years shall not fail.” It will give you a worthy fear. Man is always rightly or wrongly fearing something. One is afraid of a man that has him in his power. He says, “If I offended him I should lose my bread; it would be as much as my living is worth; I must take care not to offend him;” and rather than offend that man he will stain his conscience and offend his God. Come back in twenty years and ask where that man is, and they will take you to his grave, and that was what you were afraid of! Another fears this bright, witty, active young man, whose word either cuts or flatters with amazing power. He feels as if he could not face him; as if he could not bear that he should look him in the face and call him a saint or tell him he had been praying to God or been commending his soul for mercy to Christ. If he said these things to him it would actually appear as if it was something against him, something he ought to be ashamed of! Come back in twenty years and enquire for him—perhaps you will find him in a mad-house, perhaps in a gambling-house, perhaps in chains among convicts. Perhaps you will find a broken-hearted mother in black, wishing that he had never been born, and that is what you are afraid of! Another is afraid of the fashion. Every one does it, and if he did not do it he would be remarked. Every one says there is no harm in it, and if he scrupled they would make fun of him, and on this account he will do a thing that he knows ought not to be done. Come back in two generations and enquire from the grandchildren of these people about this fashion and you will find they are all laughing at the folly of their grandfathers and grandmothers. And that is what you are afraid of! Set the Lord alway before you. Say, “Thy years shall not fail. Thou art worthy to be feared. I will fear thee. Thou hast power—power over my breath, over my body, over my day, over my night—power to destroy both body and soul in hell; power to kill, power to make alive; power to condemn, power to save; power to cast me down, power to lift me up to heaven—I will fear thee, O God in Christ, and be thou my only fear.”
Set the Lord alway before you and there you will find a sure refuge. Nature is changing and decaying, and we are changed faster than nature. We are all passengers in a ship that is floating in an ocean and has fire in her hold. This air around us has an ocean in it, an ocean of real water, and did God will it a little change in the weight of the air would bring a universal deluge. This earth has fire in it, stores of fire, and did God will a very little change in the chemistry of the air it would be a universal blaze. We are passengers, I say, in a ship sailing in an ocean with fire in the hold, and we know that the fire is to break out and that the moment will come when the ship will be burnt up. You and I are pacing this deck with the fire beneath, and the day, the hour, the moment, that the signal will be given no man living can tell. Are we prepared to meet our God? Can we look forth from this frail world unto that infinite bosom of eternal rest and say, “Thou art mine and I am thine to all eternity?” You may look to other refuges but they are not secure, to other coverts but they are not safe. Here is the Rock of Ages and that rock is cleft for you. God manifest in the flesh. Behold Christ crucified and flee to Him, flee for refuge, flee to-day; once in Christ you will know that you are safe. Let the storm come, let the winds blow, let the floods beat, let the fires break out, safe! safe! safe! Nothing can move Him and nothing can touch thee. Thou shalt “dwell under the shadow of the Most High.”
Set the Lord alway before thee and you will have an unfailing stay, an unfailing resource. Many things you may think will not fail. Here is the old man, and his friends tell him he does not fail, and how he likes to hear it! “Thy years do not weigh thee down.” He goes on and it seems as if to him the years come as the snow falls on the mountains, not to enfeeble but to embellish. He does not fail. Ay, but he will fail and be bowed down to the dust. And the wiry woman that has gone through enough to kill many and yet hath more spirit and energy than the young. Ay, she shall fail too; you will see her smitten and trodden under the grass. “Well I know I must fail,” one says, “I am failing, but then there is my boy, I shall never want some one to lean upon, I can trust him.” Ah! he may fail; you may stand by the grave where they are saying, “Dust to dust,” or you may with your hands over your eyes look upon a sadder grave where his character lies corrupting. Another says, “Well, I know I am failing, but there is my daughter so good and sweet and true—I shall never want a comforter for my old age.” Ah, you do not know, she may fail, you may have to weep over her coffin or to blush over her faults. And another says, “Well, I have never depended upon anything but my own honest industry. I have something to rely upon. Mine is not speculation, it is good steady business—I can trust it.” Can you? can you? God may permit you by one mistake to undo the doing of a life. “But I am not depending upon the chances of business—my position is secure—settled property. I shall not fail.” Are you sure? You know not the ways by which earthly things can make themselves wings and flee away; or if they do not flee you may depart from them. Another says, “Well, I have never trusted to anything but my right hand and I shall not want—wherever I go I can take care of myself.” Ay, but suppose the right hand should fail? As long as the strong arm and the strong will work together it is well, but suppose a day should come when an invisible knife should pass between the arm and the will: and the will said, “Stretch forth!” but the arm hung idle by the side. It may fail. “Well, but my heart never fails me; whatever goes wrong I can make the best of it.” But suppose your heart should fail and that you became one of those to whom the grasshopper was a burden, one that made the worst of everything, that could look no difficulty in the face. Your heart may fail, your flesh may fail, your money may fail, your employ may fail, your friends may fail, everything upon earth may fail. If you have Christ for your friend you will never fail, if you have God for your Father you have a shelter, a home, a comfort that will never fail. If you have not you have nothing that you can count upon. Then come this day, come and say to all the shadows, “I trample over you, I clasp the substance. Holy God, my Eternal Father, let me be reconciled to thee! Be thou my God! Make me thy child! Give me a part and a lot in the family of the holy! For the sake of Jesus, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever, write my name in thy book of life and cover me from the storm that is coming, so that amid the change of life and the ruin of death, the awe of the judgment-day, my spirit may abide under an everlasting shelter! may look forward to the eternity that is to be and say to it, ‘Welcome—open all thy scenes—uncover thy deepest secrets—world of the unknown, bring out all that thou hast hidden, for all things are mine, for I am Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’” Amen and Amen.
GOD’S CONTROVERSY WITH MAN.
REV. CHARLES PREST.
“Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel; and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel.”—Amos iv. 12.
This chapter refers to the condition of Israel at the time of this prophecy, and to the expostulation and threatened procedure of God concerning the nation. God’s people had revolted from Him; they had sunk into idolatry; they had been often reproved, but had hardened their necks, and therefore the Lord, after recapitulating the calamities which had befallen them, and which all came in the way of fatherly chastisements for their recovery to righteousness, and indicating that his anger was not turned away, says, “and because I will do this unto thee”—and because having done this repentance does not appear, then prepare to meet me. That is, meet me in battle. If you will not submit, then let the battle be fought; if you will not bow down to these kind modes of discipline—kindly intentioned, however terrible in execution, then prepare to meet me. This expostulation proceeds upon a very intelligible principle—a principle, however, which we sometimes sadly forget, and which we are too much in the habit of neglecting—on the principle that man is an accountable creature; and secondly, that God will call him to account for his conduct.
God has a controversy with man, with us—a controversy with us because of our sin, our sin being an outrage against the divine love; a controversy with us because He is right and we are wrong; because He designs the welfare of all, and the sin that we love is productive of universal destruction; a controversy with sinners that can only be terminated in one of two ways—a controversy with every unconverted person here to-day. Do not deceive yourselves: if you are strangers to the life of God, you are in opposition to Him, and with you as sinners there is a controversy only to be terminated—first, by your submission, your repentance—and, thank God, He has prepared a perfect and suitable method for our submission, and for our repentance. If He has a controversy with us, He wills it to be terminated in such a mode as shall secure the original purpose of his great love, which our sin has outraged. Christ has appeared in our behalf, and for this purpose has offered a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction for our sins. For this purpose the Divine Spirit waits in all our assemblies, and now in this place, that any of you who are now enemies to Him by wicked works, being pricked in your hearts on account of your sins, and groaning under your condemnation, may fly for refuge to the hope set before you in Christ Jesus our Lord. So God would have this controversy terminated. So He invites you in his great mercy to terminate it. And for this purpose we are ministers of reconciliation, and “we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God.”
There is but one other way of terminating this controversy, and that is by our destruction. If we will abide in our controversy, if we will wage the battle to the end, this destruction must ensue, here is no method else—no escape any where between the one extreme and the other; it is submission and life, it is battle and death—death eternal. O that death eternal! What is it? Not the annihilation of your souls. What is the death of a soul? The loss of the life of God—the loss of communion with God. The soul is made for such a communion: this is its true life; it has no satisfaction apart from this enjoyment. There cannot be communion without love; that is the soul of communion; and if you renounce the reign of love, and come under the dominion of enmity, you cut yourselves off from the life of God, you die, and must endure the bitter pains of eternal death. I pray God that you may terminate this controversy, and thank God that you may do so, by the submission of your hearts to his merciful provision of salvation, that so you may live in hallowed Christian blessedness here, and inherit perfect fellowship and communion with God hereafter.
We should humble ourselves in the presence of that great calamity which has fallen upon our flocks and upon our herds. I think it is well in times of public calamity that public attention should be called to these things; and our attention has been called thereto—not, it is true, by the governing authorities of the country. No matter for that. It is right that we should listen to the admonition that we have received in our own denomination, and do all we can rightly to humble ourselves, and above all, earnestly to pray to God that He would take away the evil from us, and that, in taking away the evil, He would render us the less liable to promote the dire necessity of future visitation. Let me then call your attention to some general principles connected with God’s dealings with the nations.
There is a national as well as an individual providence. In the ancient government of God over the nations of the earth, in his dealings with his own people and with the heathen peoples about them, his hand was clearly discerned on many occasions, and his arm sometimes made bare. There were the predictions of certain events to come, and there was the recognised accomplishment of those predictions sometime afterwards. Then, again, you find miraculous interpositions of correction, of punishment, or of deliverance. If you turn your attention to the history of God’s Church, you find all these things manifest; you find Israel in Egypt; then the command that they should be allowed to pass away from their bondage; you find Egypt resisting the command, and God sent among the people of Egypt signs and wonders, and plagues by the hand of Moses, but they submitted not. He called them to obedience, but they rebelled. By and bye, He slew their firstborn, the chief of all their strength, and then the people came out with silver and with gold. Nations are not simply chastised in this world, they are also punished. Every one of us shall give an account of himself to God at the last great day, and strictly speaking, the punishment of separate individuals will not begin in this life; but nations cannot be judged collectively hereafter; they are dealt with here; and God’s dealings with the nations stand out in his palpable acts with these Egyptians. They saw the hand of God for a time, but they fell back into their ancient rebellion and pursued the Israelites to the Red Sea, and God made that sea a way for his ransomed and destroyed the pursuing host. Go through the entire history of God’s ancient people. You find the Assyrians round about Jerusalem, you see the angel of God going forth, and that mighty host is destroyed. Go through all the dealings of God with heathen nations, and you find these physical manifestations of God’s power. In our day there are no such manifestations as these. In modern times the events of the divine government are not so authoritatively predicted, and the exceedingly foolish attempts of some people to interpret prophecy and to apply it arbitrarily to passing events cannot be too severely condemned. They tend greatly to prejudice the proper interpretation of Scriptural prophecy before the world, and deserve severe reprehension, and should be altogether discountenanced by all men of sound mind. In our day we have not these authoritative predictions of events. But amid all this there is a tendency to ignore the action of God in the government of the world altogether. Instead of recognising his presence or acknowledging his power, the varied events—political, social, and otherwise—events like the one to which I have just referred, affecting the nation, are denied their true character; and the view that I have ventured to place before you in many places would be treated with ridicule. Men say, when they look at political events, that they are to be traced to the conclusions of well-directed political economy, or to the failure of the application of sound principles of government. I know very well that if the pestilence comes there are men who trace it to no higher than physical causes. I know very well that if great calamities happen in storm or tempest the physical cause is alone recognised. And with reference to the scourge of our cattle clever men look, as they ought, after the physical causes. They look, as I think they are bound, to the development of the evil influences leading to such a result. But if men now-a-days are Christian enough to recognise God in the parliament of this country there is no great response, unless it be a response of ill-concealed scorn; and even among people who profess more of Christianity there is a danger of leaving the stern, enlightened, and faithful recognition of God which distinguished our fathers, and of looking, in some fancied superiority of our intellect—which is but a fancy; for there were wise men before us—for explanation in something, in anything oft-times, rather than the recognition of God’s power.
Remember this, however, brethren, that the principles of God’s government in our day are the same which have inhered in that government in all ages—that, however human circumstances may differ, however the nations of this world may alter, however the powers of men may vary time after time, God’s government is an immutable thing; it changes not. The perfect idea of a human government is this—I do not say it is realised—to have certain fixed principles that are to abide, and then in the application of those principles to find an elasticity which shall meet every conceivable alteration of circumstances about us. That is the idea of a perfect human government; but human governments do not attain to it. The government of God, however, is perfect. The great principle is love—“God is love;” its great end, the welfare of man; the purpose of that government, the spread of Christianity for the welfare of mankind.
There is no expediency in this government, as men understand it. The governments of this world are too much founded upon expediency—the government of this country for the last sixty or seventy years lamentably founded upon it. There was a time when there was less of it here, but the disciples of expediency increase, and it is now rather “What is convenient?” than “What is right?” There is an expediency taught in the Bible, but it is nothing more than the best way of doing the right thing. It never truckles. The government of God knows nothing of our human expedients; it knows a great deal of Divine arrangements, and God as truly governs as though in his government of the nations He should work signs and wonders and divers miracles daily.
God has spoken in the history of our own country. Look at some of the startling events of the last two hundred years. You look at the act of our noble, intelligent, never-to-be-sufficiently-admired, firm old English ancestors, in driving James the Second from his throne, and working out the glorious Revolution of 1688. Well, if you look at all this politically, you speak of their wisdom, their fortitude, and their indomitable spirit; you speak too of storm and tempest all working in their favour. Aye, aye, but the hand of God was there, as much in sending away that unworthy King as God’s hand was in sending Nebuchadnezzar to feed among the oxen. God’s hand may not appear in our modern times as in former days, but faith sees that hand in the common affairs of mankind. But because we do not see the operation, because the operation is not palpable to men’s senses, the agency of God is forgotten. Depend upon it, it is a great mistake to imagine that if we could see, now and then, some great miracle wrought, we should get into the habit of recognising the power and wisdom of God. The Israelites were fed in the desert by miracle, and rebelled against God whilst they ate the food miraculously given to them. The wonder—the perfection of the Divine operation is this, that without disturbing in our little individual history any of the common affairs which arise in every-day life, without working any miracle at all, and whilst to the eyes of men all things continue as they were from the beginning, whilst there is nothing observable in the method, He works all things together for the good of them that love Him, combining opposing forces and blending together the elements of life and of death in one grand atmosphere of benediction for the welfare of the righteous, and all this without disturbing the ordinary course of cause and effect. The power of God impresses itself not merely through the lower links of the chain of providence—cause and effect, but upon the higher part of that chain which sends down its influence, its intelligence, its all-wise benevolence, to work out the welfare of those that are the objects of his love.
So it is with nations. You will see public events rising up in connection with ordinary causes, but we ought to acknowledge the great First-cause. The principles of divine government which operated in the old time are now as surely in operation as they were then. They are not antiquated: they are not at all supplanted; they operate in the same way, to the same ends; they operate to national and personal benefit, to national and personal reproof, or, in the neglect of such admonition, to national and personal punishment, showing us that God’s government is now the government which it was in the ancient days, and that though we see no miracles in our day God is as much in the midst of unthinking multitudes as when men were startled by the visible interposition of his Almighty power.
Let us look, then, at the state of things about us now. Is there not sufficient cause in this land to lead us to humble ourselves, to improve the admonition of our God; that we should prepare to meet Him, in the only way in which we can meet Him to our profit, by our personal submission to a greater extent; and if we love our country, that we should put ourselves into a position to bring the nation out of any state of rebellion against God, to lead it back to a more perfect reconciliation with Him? What evils have we now to deplore? Why, a great number. It is a blessed land after all; and there is more of Christianity found in it than in any other in the world. There is doubtless more of the direct influence of Christianity in our population than you will find elsewhere, and certainly more of the indirect influence upon the constitution of the nation, upon our legislation, upon our national—aye, and upon our domestic habits. There is a large amount of the indirect influence of Christianity in our midst, for which we have cause to be thankful. But then, on the other hand, how much is there of evil? There is great evil in our midst. There is first, what really our fathers had not so much to do with—there is the presence and power of a subtle, of a most ably-wrought and powerfully-patronised Popery, about which we have been asleep for too long a time, Popery, which is inimical to the welfare of any nation, and inconsistent with the political happiness, prosperity and security of any people. You have not far to go for the proof of this. You have only to go to the present miserable condition of Ireland to prove it. It is all very well for disclaimers to arise from the men who created the disloyal element of this mischief, but they must esteem the Protestants of this country more credulous than I hope they will prove if they expect them to believe their present protestations. What else have you? You have the presence of this Popery also where Protestantism alone ought to be known. You have it dishonestly intruded into the temples of Christian truth; and you have the pernicious nonsense of miserable and disgraceful antics obtruded into what men call divine worship, utterly beneath the dignity of sensible men. You have another thing. You have infidelity, and in the pulpit too—the pulpit in high places—infidelity in its worst form. You have all this, and no power, and very little inclination exists to correct it. You have all this, and multitudes love to have it so. That is one form of evil, leading to many other forms, and causing all thoughtful men to deplore the condition of churches cursed with a schism like this, with a false doctrine and heresy so utterly opposed to the truth and to the salvation of men. Well, then, look, at the profanity of the people around us. Look at the ungodliness of decent people. I am not here to-day to call your attention simply, as people sometimes do, to the lowest classes of society. They are bad enough. They are a festering mass at the foundation of all the greatness of the nation; they are a mass which, if not corrected in their tendencies, may at any time be quickened into an activity that will utterly wreck the entire superstructure of all that as Christians and as Englishmen we hold dear. But higher up, where there is no profaneness or criminality, or gross and disgusting visible intemperance, what other evils are there? There is decency, but there is an absence of the recognition of God. God is not in men’s thoughts. And there is a fearful and fatal indifference as to the claims of religion that has come over the nations. Multitudes neglect public worship. I apprehend the least evidence that anybody can give of religious impression, or of recognition of the claims of religion, is that they should attend the public worship of Almighty God. You find, however, hundreds of thousands in this nation who never attend divine service. If our churches and chapels in London were to be attended next Sunday by the usual number of persons, and those besides who ought to attend were disposed to try to gain admission at any one time during the day, we have not half churches and chapels enough to hold them; whilst, as it is, the room provided is not occupied. This indifference is a fearful thing. Paul yearned over his countrymen, but in some respects our countrymen are worse than Paul’s. “I could wish,” said that glorious, patriotic man—that grand old man, that most blessed and chief of all the Apostles, with heaven in his view, his career well-nigh ended, his work done, and Churches rising up around him of which he was the father—not churches built upon other men’s foundations—“I could wish myself accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh.” Yet “I bear them record, that they have a zeal of God, but not according to knowledge.” In England, at this day, there are multitudes of whom it may be said, “God is not in all their thoughts.” And the heathenism spread about us is as bad in its developments as in any other part of the world, and more aggravated in its character because of its immediate proximity with the light and truth of our blessed Christianity. There is in this land, too, an absorbing of men in worldliness: this, perhaps, comes nearer to us. In my time I have seen worldliness not only enthralling obviously and professedly worldly men. I have seen worldliness come into the Church—aye, among Methodists. How many young men have I seen, earnest, zealous, devoted, doing just that work for God which must be done by young men if the population of this land is to be won to Christ—they enter into business-life, by-and-bye God prospers their industry, and they begin to thrive in the world; and what then? Oh, then this fervour abates—they get immersed in earthly things. We lose their activities in the Church; the ungodly part of the world lose the influence of a blessed example and of their Christian teaching. They are too busy to attend to the service of God at all on the week days, they say to their ministers: “We will find the money if you will send men to do the work among these poor people.” Find money to do it! So they ought: but do they think they place the Church under obligation by doing that? Not a whit. They ought to be thankful to the Church, and to the God of the Church, that He will have their money, that God permits them gratefully to recognise in this way their stewardship; but I say to every such person, if you think you can purchase exemption from personal devotion to God, and from such devotion as shall lead you to spread the truth by your personal labour, to the utmost extent of your ability, you are greatly mistaken. We can have no such compositions of God’s claim; you must not dream of them. There is a feebleness, therefore, of the Church; oft-times arising from this cause, a feebleness we must seek to cure, as it only can be cured, by an increase of our own personal godliness.
But how do we stand just now? God has sometimes admonished this nation for its ungodliness. I do not speak of the nation now as profane or criminal. Take the best view of it. And I remember that a great theologian has said, the true view of man’s depravity is not that every man is profane or intemperate or mischievous—the great proof of the universal depravity of man is found in man’s ungodliness—in his not recognising the claims of God, and not bowing to his love. We have had admonition after admonition, within our own lives, most of us. Not long since God sent a pestilence into our midst—on two remarkable occasions. Well do I remember the state of the people where I was labouring in one of the large towns of this country, with between three and four hundred deaths, from cholera, occurring every week. The people were alarmed. There was a national day of humiliation and prayer; our places of worship were crowded. The people were alarmed, but they were not permanently impressed. God heard prayer; yes, he delights to hear prayer. God answered it; he delights to answer it. The evil passed away; the concern passed with it; and I shall never forget the contrast between the congregations on the day of humiliation, and when they were summoned to thank God for the removal of the scourge. “Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?”
It is only four years ago that another check came upon the nation—that one of our great branches of national industry became suddenly paralysed; and what mercy was there in that! There was the good hand of God in the administration of that chastisement, in the conduct of the people under such calamities, and in the absence of mischievous, designing men from among them. I have known the time when that population would have been inflamed by a calamity of far less consequence to acts of the greatest violence. God’s hand was there. He chastised the nation; but He guided the chastisement. And now again, another evil has come upon us—a greater evil, perhaps, than people imagined at first—this plague among our herds. There will be great loss to individuals, and no doubt there will be great loss to all; for it is impossible for so much wealth or money’s worth to be destroyed in any nation without all the people in the nation feeling it more or less. I think it right, therefore, that we have been called to recognise the hand of God therein—to look through all external causes to his hand. It is a very dangerous thing, a thing I have never done in my life, and never would do, to talk about the providence of God in its punitive power, to talk about retribution in the application of God’s providence in individual cases. It is very unwise to do that, and sometimes it may be most uncharitable. It is different, however, in God’s dealings with a nation. We are admonished, or punished, by a great national calamity that has stirred all classes of men each in their own way, and has raised all their activities in order to see if evils of this kind may not be checked in their operation. This evil is present with us. And then, as to other evils that may arise. If you look abroad into the world, to the relations of this country to other nations, you have peace just now; but he would be a bold man who should predict the continuation of this peace for any length of time. No, your statesmen cannot keep the peace of nations; and the folly of our boasting about the peace-working power of our commercial relations has already be seen. We cannot give peace to the world. Who can tell how soon the calamity of war may afflict this country? Not I trust on its shores; but what is this land that it has any right to expect a perpetual immunity from the horrors of war in her midst? Do not say these things will pass away. Do not say these things are remote. They may quickly overtake us, and we should be careful that we do not provoke our God to hasten any of his judgments or to aggravate present ones. If you are delivered from calamity—if this great national calamity, for such it is, has not touched you, or at least not so touched you as to inconvenience you at all, remember to give sympathy to those that are suffering from it; and let thankfulness for your present mercies manifest itself in that godly amendment of life which shall prove your best contribution to the future safety and the prosperity of the nation. If we neglect this we place ourselves in opposition to God’s government, and are in danger, by our opposition, of being told to prepare to meet God in conflict. Individual sinners do so who refuse repentance; nations do so that will not submit to God. You that are living without God, pray what prospect have you, what prospect of victory? The potsherd of the earth may strive with the potsherd, but woe to the man that strives with his Maker. The God whom you are called upon to meet is the “God that formeth the mountains, that createth the wind, that declareth unto man what is his thought, that maketh the morning darkness, and treadeth upon the high places of the earth, the Lord, the God of hosts, is his name.”
Let the ungodliness of this land increase—and it will increase if we neglect the manifestation of godliness in opposition to it—and what then? There will be the culmination of national sin, and there will be the enactments of Parliament against the law of God, as on a former memorable occasion in France; let it come to that, and let a crisis arise; and though your statesmen should be the most sagacious, and have all the ability which has ever distinguished the foremost men of the Government of this land; let your Parliament be intelligent and patriotic; let your sons be as brave on flood or field as their fathers; let your commerce be ever so flourishing, your arts ever so perfect, your literature ever so exalted—none of these things would save the nation—none of these things would be an effectual shield against calamity; and upon the wreck of this grand old realm—wrecked by its ungodliness, made rotten at its base by sin—upon the wreck of this nation which, had it been godly, would have borne the shock of all the earth, and dashed it back like foam—on the wreck of Britain shall be written, “The nation, the kingdom, that will not serve thee shall perish.” That inscription has been often written upon empires as magnificent, as powerful, and as illustrious as this.
What, then, is our duty? What have we to do with this? We who are gathered together in this chapel may say, can we arrest the course of the nation? Can we turn back the floods of ungodliness? Can we go out and produce an influence that may avert these calamities? I do not say that you alone can do this; but I do say, that you are bound to contribute your utmost to the check of these evils, with as perfect a heart, and with as earnest a purpose, and as free a will, as though your hand could dash back the evil and rescue the nation from its danger.
Our immediate duty is repentance. That is the duty of the nation. But the word nation is a comprehensive one; we lose ourselves in it. We may do as we are in danger of doing with the word Church, lose sight of our own individual responsibility in confused ideas of what the Church collectively is to do. God cannot yield in this conflict; his righteousness forbids this. The nation must yield and become obedient, or the result indicated must follow. If then the nation is to repent, where is that repentance to begin? Why in this place to-day, so far as we are concerned. In whose hearts must this repentance commence? Why in the hearts of every one of you unconverted persons, that are rather contributing to the ungodliness of the country than to the increase of its spiritual power. You may not be drunkards, you may not be profligate; but if you are living without the recognition of God’s love and the enjoyment of his favour, you are ungodly; and your first duty is to repent. There is no salvation without this repentance, let some modern preachers say what they will. The Master of all preachers sent the Apostles forth, and they preached everywhere that men should repent. There is a fashionable preaching, I am told, that has no repentance in it. So much the worse for the people that listen to such error. There is no merit in repentance; the only meritorious cause of your salvation is the blood-shedding and the present and perfect atonement of Christ. But “the law is our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.” The old Puritans were right who said, that the soundest conversions were those with which the law had most to do. Mount Sinai exhibited proofs of God’s love, and Christ, who died for us on Calvary, is the author and enforcer of the whole law. There must be the bowing down of your souls to the claims of the law, the struggle for amendment, the renunciation of sin, the recognition of your own hopelessness, and the cry, “What must I do to be saved?” “Who shall deliver me from the body of this death?” Then comes Christ, and peace, and joy; a participation in the divine nature; and a power to contribute practically to the repentance of the nation. This is your duty.
You Christian people, too, are called upon to repent. Depend upon it as we go through life an act of repentance, once for all, will not do: we shall need repentance daily. When a man is admitted to the favour of God it is that his mouth should be stopped, it is that he should entertain penitential feeling as long as he lives—not the penitence of guilt, but the penitence of gratitude. The recollection, I am a sinner, will inspire and maintain such penitence; and a blessed end that man will make, who in the full meaning of the words, pours out the prayer at the last, “God be merciful to me a sinner.” We need repentance—we all need it. Let us turn our attention to ourselves, and ascertain how much we have contributed to the existing evils of the nation. How much have we contributed to the present state of things which in the judgment of sober Christian concern may be held to have provoked the anger of God? We may have contributed to these evils, and I dare say we have, in two ways: first, by neglect of duty. There are sinners about you, you need not go far to find them—perhaps there are some ungodly people in your own houses. What have you ever done to make them godly? What effort have you made, what kind of an example have you set them in your words, in your tempers, in your spiritual aspirations? Now tell yourselves honestly. You have been living with them up to this day, living with them during this day. What have you said to them? Do your conduct and your words condemn their sin, and invite them to reconciliation with God? What does conscience say to this? What does the recollection of the past few hours say to this? There are wicked people about you: some of you have leisure; what have you done for your ungodly neighbours? What poor man’s house have you visited? What wretched sinner have you talked to? You have passed along the streets, and have seen sin abounding; have you ever tried to check it? Have you ever thought it worth while to follow some half dozen people deeply immersed in sin, and by patient, earnest, godly admonitions, counsels, and entreaties, have you sought the salvation of their souls? Have you done this? “Oh!” you busy men say, “we have not time.” I know better; you must not tell practical men that; they know that all of us waste a great deal more time than we want for such a purpose. It is not a question of time at all, but a question of inclination. Have we done so? Are evils abating by our instrumentality? Do not say, “I could do very little.” Do what you can! “If I could move a multitude I would do it.” No, that will not do. You good women, are you doing all the good you can in your families? Do you mothers give yourselves to the right training of your children? Fathers, are you practically anxious for the spiritual good of your families? Do you help your wives to bring up a godly family, which shall prove a blessing to the nation; and not such an one as Dr. Paley says, as shall turn out wild beasts upon society. You have little ability; well, if you have not ten talents, do not bury the one talent. Paul did one thing, and that was the secret of all his greatness—he did his duty. Do you do yours? There was a simplicity of purpose about him, an earnestness of endeavour, a thoroughness in the doing of it that made him what he was, the greatest of all apostles and the greatest man that the Christian Church has known. Take that simple rule, you young people; strive to spread the influence of a godly example among all about you: do what you can, in a way consistent with your position in life, and in a way consistent altogether with modesty, humility, and a deep devotion to God, and you will not labour in vain. We are guilty of sins of omission, and we need repentance.
But how have we contributed to the evils of the nation by our activities? Some of you were converted, perhaps, when you had lived to be twenty years of age, some of you thirty or forty, some perhaps were older; what kind of lives had you led before that time? How many of your former companions did you injure by a godless example? perhaps by foolish words, perhaps by ungodly actions. God has rescued you; where are they? What has become of the seed you then planted in their minds? If God drew out the roots of vice by his grace from your hearts, the influence of this evil remains elsewhere. What mischief is often done by men prior to their conversion in their families! When you see there is so much wickedness in the land, then say, “What have I done to increase it?” And I think we shall all find great need to repent; great need to set an example of repentance to all about us.
The first thing, then, is this deep humiliation of heart that shall bring us all to bow before God, and cause us to join in the prayer, “Enter not into judgment with thy servants, O God, for in thy sight shall no man living be justified.” But, then, you Christian professors must bestir yourselves. This repentance must not be a passing emotion, not a temporary influence, however powerful; but there must be a correspondent continued effort to promote it amongst your families and neighbours, and to the utmost extent of your power in the world; engaging meanwhile in earnest prayer; and then consecrating yourselves more fully to this work under the influence of two things, a deep sense of personal responsibility and of the constraint of divine love. Submit, then, to this will of God. Know the rod, and Him that hath appointed it. If the multitudes about you do not know it you know it. If God be not recognised, let it be yours to recognise Him amid the surrounding worldliness, and depend upon it your purity of heart shall increase, and you will see God in all things, in all calamities, and in all joys. It is a strange thing that nations and individuals see God more readily in trouble than they do in their joys. Amid the immunities from ill which Christian people often enjoy how little they think of God. Trouble comes, calamity comes, and we owe the quickening of our religious feelings, strangely enough, more to our fears than we to our gratitude. And it will be well if we are so quickened by present calamity.
Thus let us prepare ourselves to promote that condition of feeling in the nation which shall lead us to meet God not in conflict but in the way of his judgments, to bow to his rule, to abate our ungodliness, and to become as a nation wise and understanding.
One remark as to the popular interpretation of the text. You will have to meet God speedily in your death. You should prepare to meet Him, for you cannot resist; you cannot flee from Him. Let us prepare to meet Him by embracing the mercy which He offers, receiving the love which He communicates to us, and devoting the rest of our lives to his service and glory. You are called upon, then, and I think for these reasons properly called upon, to contribute to and to promote the humiliation of the nation. Whatever other people do, humble yourselves before God. And let not the impression be a temporary one, but in the future seek that practical love which constitutes the repentance necessary to the nation, and necessary to you that you may prompt the repentance and reformation of those about you, and which can alone save the land of our fathers from calamity and make her more fully what she ought to be, “a praise in the earth.” Amen!